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!

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.

(Assuming the relationship between risk-taking and game speed is strictly linear, which is debatable.)

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be immersed

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.

When commentars outside of the Japanese scene comment on Japanese games they say normally it's the younger pros you expect to be more aggressive. I guess we're projecting patterns in the Korean scene onto the Japanese one expecting it to be the same, not taking into account the significantly longer time limits in Japan . . .

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

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be immersed

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



But Korean pros have dominated Japanese pros in international tournaments that don't have time limits, the LG Cup some Chinese ones. Saying Japanese pros were not used to longer time limits was one of the pathetic excuses we had for Japanese performance. I find it funny how people used to make these excuses for Japanese pros up until the AlphaGo era. It would be like saying the reason why Choi Jeong doesn't win against top pros is because the time limits are too short. Actually Choi Jeong's case is real as for a while her performance in the LG Cup was significantly better than in the Samsung Cup she does better with enough time to think in the opening, which isn't her natural talent, and using insticts in her nature talent in the latter half. She adjusted her playstyle and pacing in the Samsung Cup to make up for the problem that she has with such short limits.

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'.

I'm talking about normal in the distribution of the bell curve, as for the Japanese sentiment John Fairbairn Post subject: Re: Xie Yimin Promoted to 7d!

"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"

I'd be interested to test that idea in the form of a community game.

Two similar games have been played on the OGS forum: 1. guess the rank (amateurs) and 2. guess the date (pros).

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...

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be immersed

Yeah, mean we're worried about offending certain groups of people but no one minds offending fast time limits! I kind of am only half-joking here. I'm much more lenient to a supposed 'controversial opinion' of someone I trust is and has been a constructive contributor who even knows Korean and know isn't a troll, but that's just my personal style and other styles of thinking are also valid I guess.

My best whishes for you and your family

As for nihilism, to me I think it's something that arises only after we attach definitions to ourselves, for all definitions we attach are human-made. If we detach ourselves from definitions we were for ourselves, nihilism doesn't have the food to grow.

As a random example, if a parent defines themselves as having the job of 'fixing' their children's behaviour, it's generally a ridiculous thing for any fallible human to define themselves as 'fixing' another human being, so inherently leads to stress when the other human being doesn't behave as you want or makes even tiny mistakes. If instead they define themselves as having the job of almost deliberately putting children in situations were they have the opportunity to make mistakes with the goal of testing and investigating their character so by the time they're 18 you know them like the back of a 3-3 jonseok, then that is a far less stressful way for a parent to define themselves while ironically probably makes them way better at guiding not just children but people in general, just an example.

Another: we define ourselves self as someone who plays go. But should we define ourselves self as someone whom go likes to have play?

The definitions that lead to the least nihilism are probably correct and are usually the ones that place the least emphasis on human or personal experience. Human-centric philosophers, those that operate from the human-gaze, will always fail.