Didn't the ancient Chinese have a system of rating players from 1 (complete beginner) to 9 (master) I always thought that system would go well with any kind of belt system.

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While I was teaching the game to a friend of mine, my mother from the other room:
"Cutting? Killing? Poking out eyes? What the hell are you playing?"

Yea. Thats called 'dan'.

You will usually see 上級、中級、下級.

Perhaps, but this does not take away from the fact that 高級 is still a word that can provide us insight into whether "high kyu" means strong or weak. I do not think you can get that much closer to "high kyu" (the expression that we are discussing in this thread) than 高 and 級.

By the way, when I said, "same word", I mean the word using the same Chinese characters - not necessarily a word that has identical frequency in Japanese as it does in Korean.

I would consider 上級 to be more like "upper kyu", which is close to what we are discussing - But IMO 高級 is closer to "high kyu".

In either case, "high kyu" should suggest a player that is stronger than a "low kyu".

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be immersed