I was reading some of the comments in the world ranking thread and got to wondering who are the most active players internationally from Japan. I used mamumamu's domestic list and "world-wide" list. Each shows the number of wins and losses for the last 12 months. I subtracted "domestic" from "world-wide" to calculate the net international activity. The list below shows the 37 players that I calculated played 4 or more international games in the last 12 months (December '15 through November '16). I was surprised at the number of games played by Ichiriki in particular. He entered Waseda University last April and I expected that would mean he would have trouble balancing his studies with just his domestic games. Seems that was not the case!

_________________
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Do you have a breakdown of how many of these international games were played against Taiwanese players? I ask because a) Japanese and Taiwanese pros play against each other surprisingly often, and b) Taiwanese pros are generally weaker than Japanese pros. If we subtract Taiwan-Japan games, then we get a truer picture of how Japanese players fared against their Korean and Chinese counterparts.

Unfortunately there is no breakdown of the games by country for the last three years. In 2013 mamumamu wrote an in-depth analysis covering all international games by Japanese pros for the year. And before that he included some type of breakdown. In all the years that figures are shown, the largest block of games was against Korean players (I think because of the Samsung and LG preliminary tournaments).

Obviously 2016 is going to show more international activity than the past for Japanese pros, mainly the younger people. That is going to include playing in the lower-level (C) league in China so it will not be surprising if these days China is the largest opponent.

In every year so far the projected win rate for Japan (using the individual ratings for the actual matchups) is well below 50% (29% in 2016 January-April and 33% in 2015), indicating that they are playing at a significant disadvantage on average.

_________________
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Though Kyo Kagen and Yu Zhengqi (aka Yo Seki) might have better win rate, Ichikiri is arguably the Japanese player with the best international result in 2016. According to goratings, while he did play some Taiwanese pro earlier this year, at least half of his international games in 2016 were against very strong players, including Li Quincheng, Shin Jiseo, Lee Sedol, and also Ke Jie.

Hope to see him more in international tournaments next year, before he would be busy with his university studies, or maybe his domestic matches (IMO he will very soon become the biggest threat to Iyama's crown).

If I have the numbers right, the collective record is 314 games, 124 wins, 190 losses, which is a win percentage of 39.5%.

I am curious, do you know for sure if the Japanese players overperformed, underperformed, or hit par on their expected winning percentage?

_________________
Occupy Babel!

How is Iyama Yuta not on that list? He is the only Japanese player ranked in the top ten.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

The chart counts the international games played from 2015/12 to 2016/11, and because of the time conflict with all the title defense, Iyama Yuta played only 2 in that span.

Oh wow, I wasn't aware of that. Is he still holding said title?

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk