At least I did, and in a purely mathematical sense I agree. Perhaps I should have put "in practice" or something like that in front. I still think it is e.g. impossible (for a human at least) to master go perfectly.

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This pretty much exactly. Of course programming is "easier" when it's just one person sitting at a computer coding away. Turn it into a competition between two people, and it becomes completely different.

For everyone that seems to have said or implied that Go is more difficult than programing, how easy do you think it'd be to make it to the finals of Google Code Jam, or to protect your server against a focused attack (excluding social engineering and physical exploits, to keep it completely within the domain of your own programming), or maybe a speed competition; who can write an application to a certain set of specifications the fastest (or in the fewest lines of code, or some other goal) in a given language using only core libraries?

In my case, Go is mainly a competition against myself, revealing my own limits...

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Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216

I feel confident saying that making it to the finals of Code Jam would be easier than passing any Go professional qualification.

Well, your confidence doesn't make you right.

I had a lot of trouble finding numbers for how many have competed in AGA's professional qualifying tournaments; the closest I could find was an E-Journal entry from the inaugural year mentioning 100+ who had already signed up the day before the final deadline. That year, 2 people passed the AGA's pro qualification (or about 1 in 50+ of those who participated).

That same year, 20,000+ participated in Google Code Jam, of whom 25 made it to the final round (along with the previous year's champion). So, about 1 in 800. And only 1 of those 20,000+ was named the champion (although records indicate the top 3 contestants).