I'll give you a third option: older (predominantly male) pros in Japan also tend to be more aggressive than average against younger pros. The reason, according to Redmond, is that the older pros are concerned about their stamina and are going for a quick knockout.

I guess my post was offensive in some way, and got deleted. It wasn't that important of a post, I guess.

Hello,
what the japanese probably meant is: women compared to men take more uncalculated risks which is a sign of lesser understanding of go, I think everybody would agree to that statement if it is true. Also take into account that nearly all games played in Korea are quite fast while japanese have much longer games, by nature you are rewarded by fighting and taking risks in quick games and rather punished for it in longer games.

Female pros in go, and maybe also chess, tend to be more aggressive players, and in Japan I think at one time it was taken as a sign of their lesser understanding of go. The problem is, it is the aggressive style that the younger generation in Korea embraced and used to displace the previous generation of pros. So doesn't that mean that the Korean style is what Japanese pros call women's style, and rather than being a sign of not properly understanding go it exposed Japanese pros to be deficient in fighting, overpowering the best players in Japan.

I've been confused for years, maybe someone can end this paradox for me!

There are quite a few broad generalisations in your post that I'm not at all sure about:

- that female players have a consistent style
- that aggressive play is seen as a sign of lesser understanding
- that younger players have an aggressive style
- that there's a consistent Korean style
- that there are identified deficiencies of certain professionals

Also, I wonder if someone were to post up a selection of games without players' identities displayed, how many people would be able to determine if the players were female or male, younger or older, Japanese or Korean or other nationality, or even agree completely whether the play is 'aggressive' or 'passive'.

That's a shame. What about feelings of fast tournaments that get a bad rap here . I fir one am very happy about the Supreme Player tournaments, open and female, on K Baduk. Superior to to watch compared fast tournaments in my personal taste, but of course I adore the format of the new Korean Baduk League. So we can compare and see

It's not the point I wanted to make, but I don't really have the energy to express my opinion well on this matter. Hard stuff going on in my personal life, and I'm generally thinking about how I want to live going forward. Not sure if go plays a part of that life or not, yet. There's a general feeling of nihilism.

I guess that's just how life is. There are certainly good parts of it - maybe that's the meaning in itself. It doesn't have to be an optimization problem... Not sure what direction that points me in, though.

If I live to an average life expectancy, I'm about half-way done. I wonder if there's value in deciding what to try to put in that second half. First half wasn't bad, I guess...