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North american pros?
http://www.lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=609		 Page 1 of 3
Author:  POGO [ Sun May 23, 2010 9:04 pm ]
Post subject:  North american pros?
Now this has probably been disscussed before.
but what would it take to get a pro system in north america?

now gets cut that down a bit.
Finacially what would it cost.

if it happened how would you determan who can be a pro?

and finally misc needs (would the nihon need to approve?)
Author:  kokomi [ Sun May 23, 2010 9:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pro's?
POGO wrote:
Now this has probably been disscussed before.
but what would it take to get a pro system in north america?

now gets cut that down a bit.
Finacially what would it cost.

if it happened how would you determan who can be a pro?

and finally misc needs (would the nihon need to approve?)


I think pro means those who make living with go by playing games.
What can a pro do in north american? Teaching go? :twisted:
Author:  Magicwand [ Sun May 23, 2010 9:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pro's?
kokomi wrote:
POGO wrote:
Now this has probably been disscussed before.
but what would it take to get a pro system in north america?

now gets cut that down a bit.
Finacially what would it cost.

if it happened how would you determan who can be a pro?

and finally misc needs (would the nihon need to approve?)


I think pro means those who make living with go by playing games.
What can a pro do in north american? Teaching go? :twisted:


i dont think asian pro system will be adapted to north america.
first to be a professional you must have skills to win.
it is not likely that anyone from North America will have skills to win against top pros for long long time.
Author:  Joaz Banbeck [ Sun May 23, 2010 9:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pro's?
We certainly wouldn't need the consent of a Japanese organization ( I'm sure that the Koreans and Chinese don't ask for their consent. )

There is nothing that keeps the AGA from declaring that it has the authority to baptize pros. I think that they should just up and do it: call Andy Liu and Jie Li and Jang Bi each a 1P - even though they are all several ranks stronger than that. The oriental pro organizations might be a bit disdainful, but I'm sure that each of the three could back it up in international play.

I say 1P to ensure that there is no rank inflation. The easiest way for an American pro rank to be ridiculed internationally would be if they became inflated. I'd recommend keeping them deliberately underranked for the first few decades while the reputation is solidified.
Author:  POGO [ Sun May 23, 2010 9:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pro's?
well from what i understand there is a finacial aspect of it.

as pros get paid to play every game inside and out of the nihon.

and if there was a way of making a living off of pro go playing it would intice more to play.
Author:  TMark [ Sun May 23, 2010 11:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pro's?
POGO, I would like to suggest that the next time you start a topic where you are going to use the plural, you first of all disable the ' key. Every time, every time!

Best wishes.
Author:  POGO [ Sun May 23, 2010 11:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pro's?
TMark wrote:
POGO, I would like to suggest that the next time you start a topic where you are going to use the plural, you first of all disable the ' key. Every time, every time!

Best wishes.


Edited:
Yeah sorry about that :/
Author:  wessanenoctupus [ Mon May 24, 2010 12:35 am ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pros?
jang bi lives in korea, he teaches elementry school kids go, he was only in the states for about a year.
Author:  Phelan [ Mon May 24, 2010 2:03 am ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pros?
I think this has been talked about before, and it seemed to be the lack of an audience and sponsors that makes it a non-viable idea for the moment.
So, if there was a sponsor, it wouldn't matter if there was an audience, and if there was an audience, a sponsor would come.
As far as I know, the AGA is hard at work building the audience part, so I expect eventually you'll have AGA pros.

I also like Joaz's post about there being players that could be pro right now.
Author:  HKA [ Mon May 24, 2010 7:01 am ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pro's?
Joaz Banbeck wrote:
We certainly wouldn't need the consent of a Japanese organization ( I'm sure that the Koreans and Chinese don't ask for their consent. )

There is nothing that keeps the AGA from declaring that it has the authority to baptize pros. I think that they should just up and do it: call Andy Liu and Jie Li and Jang Bi each a 1P - even though they are all several ranks stronger than that. The oriental pro organizations might be a bit distainful, but I'm sure that each of the three could back it up in international play.

I say 1P to ensure that there is no rank inflation. The easiest way for an American pro rank to be ridiculed internationally would be if they became inflated. I'd recommend keeping them deliberately underranked for the first few decades while the reputation is solidified.


I have several problems with this.

First though, it is substantially true that the AGA can do this if it wants to. I just think it would be absurd to do it.

The AGA has around 2000 members who pay $30 a year to join. The reality is many are kids, so it is not really $30 each. That is a budget (generously) of $60,000 to support ALL AGA activities. How do we support 3 pros? Even if every member were willing to kick in an additional $100, that could not support a truly professional system.

Joaz picks three worthy gentleman in terms of strength, but the cost of administering such a system, and defending the monopolistic and exclusionairy model of professional go in the everyone has a right to everything world that is America, will be costly, and I mean lawyer costly. Perhaps newly graduated counselor Jie Li will donate some time pro bono.

Good for Jie Li, by the way, because, fundamentally, the motto of any home grown pro association in the US for the forseeable future will have to be "Keep your day job".

Yes, the "oriental" go associations will find it distasteful, disdainful and perhaps "distainful", and more so than Asian Americans who are not fond of the use of "oriental" to describe anything other than rugs. The Asian associations have invested and built a system that they do not want to be diluted.

There is great confusion, in my view, about what it means to be a pro. The sole focus of Joaz's post is strength, but that is not what being a professional is about. It is about an attitude and commitment to the game, respecting and devoting one's life to it. There are pros who are "weak" and certainly pros who are strong, but they are all part of a tradition and go becomes a way of life, not a job.

Perhaps I will be criticized for mystically worshipping these people, I do not. Respect is not worship, and while I respect strength too, I respect professional players for more than simply strength, but for the leap they make, to "play" this game for their lives - and the strength of that commitment has built our Go World. They understand that without us, they could not be who they are, and so, the respect becomes mutual in a wonderful way which I have felt from so many of the pros I have known well - Nakayama, Jujo, Janice, James, Michael, Maeda, Feng Yun and Mr. Yang. They respect love for the game, whether from a declining 5 dan or a struggling kyu player.

Many strong amatuers make the mistake Joaz makes here, and respect only strength.
Author:  oren [ Mon May 24, 2010 8:38 am ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pros?
I think a pro system in America would likely follow the poker system rather than the Asian system. Prize money will be put up, and people will pay for the winnings. People who don't get enough from winning, will teach. I don't see at this point in time why the US would adapt the pro system you see in Asia.
Author:  tj86430 [ Mon May 24, 2010 8:53 am ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pros?
oren wrote:
I think a pro system in America would likely follow the poker system rather than the Asian system. Prize money will be put up, and people will pay for the winnings. People who don't get enough from winning, will teach. I don't see at this point in time why the US would adapt the pro system you see in Asia.

In the poker scene most of the money pros make is made on cash games, not tournaments. Of course the big televised tournaments add the visibility and that way increase the number of players in cash games.

The success of poker tournaments is due to the fact that anyone can win even big tournaments (even if it's unlikely), and that many amateurs win their seats from different satellites. That way you can organize tournaments like WSOP main event with a total prize money of several tens of millions.

I can not really see this happening in Go.
Author:  oren [ Mon May 24, 2010 8:56 am ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pros?
tj86430 wrote:
In the poker scene most of the money pros make is made on cash games, not tournaments. Of course the big televised tournaments add the visibility and that way increase the number of players in cash games.


This is also true of Go in many places. :)
Author:  Joaz Banbeck [ Mon May 24, 2010 10:25 am ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pro's?
HKA wrote:
...There is great confusion, in my view, about what it means to be a pro.


No, there is no confusion. I am not confused, and, judging from the clarity of your post, you are not confused either.
There is, perhaps, a great difference of opinion.

HKA wrote:
The sole focus of Joaz's post is strength, but that is not what being a professional is about.


That IS what being a pro is about - in my view, - in this country. We don't have tradition, we don't have sponsors, we don't have a huge fan base. We do have a few strong players. I say that we should work with what we have got.
And, yes, the majority of American pros would, as suggested, have to 'keep their day jobs'. Very few would be able to make it a full-time job.

Strong players are the one element that can be used to boot-strap the whole process. Tradition, sponsors, and fan base will follow eventually. Look at the other sport/games that benefited from the presence of strength: US chess boomed in the late 60s and 70s when Bobby Fisher came along; College basketball grew with the Magic/Bird rivalry in the late 70s; Pro basketball grew with Micheal Jordan in the 90s; and in the last decade Lance armstrong became a household name. Strength came first, then fans, then sponsors, and lastly - if ever - tradition.

Of course I am focussing on strength. That is where it must start.

Oh, and, yes, you are being mystical. :D
Author:  Violence [ Mon May 24, 2010 10:33 am ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pros?
Also... Jie Li and Andy Liu are two of our strongest amateurs, but saying that we can call them 1p... that makes me a bit uncomfortable. 1p in the CJKT world is pretty hardcore, I'm not all that sure these two players can make it through the exam in any of those four countries. It's ridiculously hard.

And yeah, the fact has to be acknowledged that the AGA simply doesn't have the funds necessary to support homegrown professionals. What I'm not in a hurry to do is jump up and down and shout that we have our own professionals, only to have them slaughtered in the first round of any professional competition they're invited to. Not to mention that Canada and Europe might get uppity about us getting ahead of ourselves.

In short, I think the AGA as a whole really lacks a lot of things when it comes to the idea of making our own pros. I don't believe we have players whom we can call 1p, I don't think we have a decent method of selecting for people like that yet, and I don't think we have the funds to support them when we find them.
Author:  HKA [ Mon May 24, 2010 10:48 am ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pro's?
Joaz Banbeck wrote:
Strong players are the one element that can be used to boot-strap the whole process. Tradition, sponsors, and fan base will follow eventually. Look at the other sport/games that benefited from the presence of strength: US chess boomed in the late 60s and 70s when Bobby Fisher came along; College basketball grew with the Magic/Bird rivalry in the late 70s; Pro basketball grew with Micheal Jordan in the 90s; and in the last decade Lance armstrong became a household name. Strength came first, then fans, then sponsors, and lastly - if ever - tradition.

Of course I am focussing on strength. That is where it must start.


Joaz, thanks for the response. While we disagree on what it means to be a pro, you do have a point saying that, absent a tradition, strength can be our only guide. I certainly think being a pro means more than that, but what other criteria can we have?

Still since you acknowledge that we cannot actually fully support these pros at this time, I would still claim that we are trying to have the cart pull the horse.

Here I think we disagree again, you seem to belong to the "create heroes and the fans will come" school of thought. This is a very common belief - and here I disagree too, but with far less confidence. I believe we should focus on building players, and the heroes will emerge, but this is only a belief.

Nevertheless I would argue that these heroes - Jie Li, Andy, Eric, Michael have emerged and they do have fans, without our designating what at this point are small as well as limited resources on funding and designing a pro system that cannot do what you want it do - help these guys be as strong as they can be, and certainly cannot be what I would want it to be - guys who support our community as we support them.
Author:  Dusk Eagle [ Mon May 24, 2010 1:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pros?
What is the purpose of having pros? I would say that there is no purpose if we do not have pro tournaments. However, a "pro tournament" between only three players or so seems a bit silly, but the AGA cannot just add a bunch more people to their pro ranks, as there are simply not enough people who are strong enough to deserve this title. So, even if Andy Liu and Jie Li are strong enough to be "AGA 1p", I do not think the AGA should develop a pro system until there are a few more players strong enough to qualify. Of course, we'd also have to set up a system for determining who will be the "Pro pioneers" and have a system for adding new pros to their ranks, and we'd have to ensure that people like Andy Liu and Jie Li would even want to become AGA professionals.
Author:  gowan [ Mon May 24, 2010 1:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pros?
Various sports have been mentioned as examples of development of a strong North American pro culture. Lance Armstrong was mentioned but he only came along after there was already a strong American pro cycling culture. Probably Greg Lemond is a better example of a hero leading the development of American pro cycling. Before Lemond there wasn't even strong amateur cycling on an international scale. I remember when there was great excitement in the cycling community when George Mount placed 6th in the Olympic road race. IMO a better example to study for Go is professional soccer. In Europe and South America pro soccer is incredibly popular. In the USA children's soccer has been widely played for decades. There is a professional soccer league and Beckham came to the US in a failed(?) attempt to jump-start American popularity for pro soccer. As far as I can see pro soccer just isn't making it in the USA despite having good players, sponsorship, and a large base of child enthusiasts. And, by the way, US Go has had a hero in Michael Redmond. Redmond qualified for 1p in Japan through the standard insei process, rose fairly quickly through the ranks and reachd 9p through the oteai. Since then Catalin Taranu and Hans Pietsch reached mid-level pro ranks in Japan but no Westerner before or since has achieved anything comparable to Redmond in any of the three big Go countires. And Redmond has defeated top Japanese 9-dans in tournament games, though he hasn't won a big title or entered a league. Redmond did not return to the US (except for visits) and I don't blame him. He is a serious player whose "day job" is go. The US has little to offer him. It is well known that to retain or improve your strength at go you have to play people at your own level or stronger. There simply aren't enough opportunities now for pros to compete as pros.

Bobby Fischer's chess boom came because he defeated the Russians (our great enemy at the time) If we were on the verge of military conflict with China and an American (not of Chinese descent :lol: ) were to defeat their best weiqi players we might be able to make something out of that. To gain credibility we need to have a home-grown training system, send good players to top open amateur tournaments (Europe and Asia) and have them win consistently. If we could do that then I think a claim to professional strength might be respected.
Author:  daniel_the_smith [ Mon May 24, 2010 2:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pros?
There are a couple of really strong Koreans in the Chicago area that could probably give anyone in the country stiff competition (maybe not Myungwan (spelling?) Kim). But it would probably take $$$ prize money to motivate them to go out of state for a tournament. I'm sure there are others in other cities.

If some serious money were put together for a tournament, I bet there would be more strong players there than you would expect. I'm not sure how much would be enough.
Author:  kokomi [ Mon May 24, 2010 2:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: North american pro's?
Joaz Banbeck wrote:
HKA wrote:
...There is great confusion, in my view, about what it means to be a pro.


No, there is no confusion. I am not confused, and, judging from the clarity of your post, you are not confused either.
There is, perhaps, a great difference of opinion.

HKA wrote:
The sole focus of Joaz's post is strength, but that is not what being a professional is about.


That IS what being a pro is about - in my view, - in this country. We don't have tradition, we don't have sponsors, we don't have a huge fan base. We do have a few strong players. I say that we should work with what we have got.
And, yes, the majority of American pros would, as suggested, have to 'keep their day jobs'. Very few would be able to make it a full-time job.

Strong players are the one element that can be used to boot-strap the whole process. Tradition, sponsors, and fan base will follow eventually. Look at the other sport/games that benefited from the presence of strength: US chess boomed in the late 60s and 70s when Bobby Fisher came along; College basketball grew with the Magic/Bird rivalry in the late 70s; Pro basketball grew with Micheal Jordan in the 90s; and in the last decade Lance armstrong became a household name. Strength came first, then fans, then sponsors, and lastly - if ever - tradition.

Of course I am focussing on strength. That is where it must start.

Oh, and, yes, you are being mystical. :D


Someone keeps his daily jobs is not a pro. You do not call someone who plays football during weekend a professional football player.So why Go?
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