We have just had a boy of 15 years 181 days appear in UK soccer's Premier League, and for the league-topping team at that! The team is Arsenal, which is well known both for a glorious history and (in the old days when real newspapers actually existed) for nearly always being spelled with a hyphen. He is Ethan Nwaneri and is the youngest ever Premier debutant, but there has actually been a spate of ultra-young footballers in recent years. Most of them seem to have gone onto do well.
There are similar cases in other physical sports, e.g. tennis.
The same phenomenon appears in mind sports. We have discussed here before why it is that there are similar cases in go. The usually favoured explanation seems to have been the availability of computers. This view seems to be based largely on the fact that Magnus Carlsen used a computer extensively as a kid (I'm, not sure if this was for preparation or as just an always available opponent - I suspect the a latter). There are some problems with making an analogy with chess, though. The most obvious is that strong playing computers became available much later in go than in chess. Sumire, for example, obviously didn't get any help from katago or whatever. One argument is that young go players were nevertheless able to play over very many games using sgf readers, and build up their intuition quicker. That line of thought has some attraction to me, but as I've never seen any mention of young players using computers like that, I'll reserve judgement.
A different line of thought I've seen recently in Japan is that go is now seen as a young person's game, probably as a result of Hikaru no Go and other manga. That is a tempting argument, but when push comes to shove I would plump for the view that it's all mainly a matter of a bigger pool of young players nowadays. Or should I say BIGGER. There have been quite a few astounding prodigies in go history, as I recounted in Ogawa Doteki, Go prodigy, some of whom (like Doteki and Huang Longshi) may well have been stronger than any prodigy today, and all without the benefit of computers or comics. There just seem to be more now because the pool is so much bigger. I think most people on this forum (middle aged and younger) might not grasp just how much the world population has swollen since, say, Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne. People of my generation can even remember seeing parking places in central London!!!!!!!!! When I was very young I was taken to London and was able, without any interference or queuing, to go on the very step of 10 Downing Street and have my picture taken with the policeman. Many years later, I used to cross that step into 10 Downing Street every day, but had to fight my way through crowds of tourists and then show my pass at big iron gates that didn't exist when I was a tot. It is now even worse - much worse .I was similarly appalled on a recent trip to Paris, my first for many years - massive queues and security searches everywhere. They say people live longer nowadays, but I'd hazard a guess that most of their extra lifespan is spent queuing somewhere.
It's the same in go. People bleat about not finding opponents for a face-to-face game. When I started in go I had to travel 300 miles (and back) to get such a game. No sgf files then, of course; and no proper go sets - I used tiddlywinks. From my perspective, we are now awash with go players in the west, and of course go is booming in the Far East.
Having said that, I've been a bit surprised that Korean colts and fillies have not been featuring too much in the Young Players Stakes. It is true that one young filly fell at an early hurdle - the notorious AI Fence - and hasn't quite got back on track. But what about future stallions? I think we can predict a bright future for 10-year-old Kim Ha-yun who beat new Japanese pro Yanagihara Saki to win the 37th World Youth Goe Championship. Past winners of this event have often had great careers, but young Kim is not yet even a pro. He is still the Korean equivalent of an insei, and, as far as I can gather, his nearest rivals, also inseis, are 15 and 16. I don't follow the Korean scene as much as I used to, so maybe I've missed something, or someone. Anyone more clued up?
And have opinions on young go players and computers changed here? I can't see any way that computers helped Ethan become a football star.
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