Anyone here like the games of Seo Pong-su?

I've never heard of him.

I like that he started playing at age 14 and because a professional 3 years later.

Kinda puts our measly shodan in a year plans to shame

I've never heard of him.

He's kind of like Cho Hunhyun's rival, but Cho Hunhyun was arguably more successful.

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Cho Hun-hyeon won 158 titles. Seo won 30. Where's the argument?
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Seo's popularity within Korea was based mainly on the fact that he was their only top player not to have trained in Japan..

Cho vs Seo results are of the order of 225-119. Does that count as a rivalry?

Seo's popularity within Korea was based mainly on the fact that he was their only top player not to have trained in Japan, though it was also aided by his uncompromising style which earned him the nickname of Panther. Seo did also achieve some noteworthy milestones - first player to 1,000 wins inside Korea, first player in the world to 2,000 career games. His career record last time I noted it was an impressive 1295-716-3. (For comparison Cho at that point was 1422-556-4, but he is now in the region of 1800 wins).

Um, I agree that Cho Hunhyun won more games, etc., which is why I said he was more successful. I added the word "arguably", because "success" is not an objective term. I didn't say he had more titles.

Even considering the sheer number of games that Cho Hunhyun played against Seo Bongsu is enough to (arguably) constitute a rivalry.



Are you a Korean person? Do you have a Korean source that did some sort of public survey for this information? If not, why someone was or was not popular in Korea is just your speculation. Either way, this has no effect on the lack of objectivity in a term like "success".

Excellent book by the way: http://senseis.xmp.net/?MasterPlayTheFi ... SeoBongsoo

In fact, it is this book that prompted me to ask the question. (Incidentally, Yuan Zhou says the same thing about Seo's popularity, citing that it is inspiring to some Koreans that a player with the traditional Korean fighting style, not training in Japan, could compete internationally at the level he did. I don't know whether Yuan's source of this notion is John or he just got the idea independently---he has a number of Korean friends, so I suspect the latter but I don't know for sure.)

Since no one so far has said, "absolutely, I love Seo's games" in response to my question, I'm left in an ambiguous state. In a way, I feel it's a pity that all of the attention goes to the very top pros. I think much can be learned from any professional game, especially from players whose ideas may contradict conventional wisdom.

I'll end with an anecdote Janice Kim shared. Seo Bong-su played a young Lee Changho. Lee, as usual, played just the biggest move on the board rather than getting into a complicated fight. Seo asked him why he played that way and Lee said it's the biggest move. Seo said, "child, don't have any blood in your veins?"

Re Janice Kim's quote, I hope there was no implication that playing a game that does not emphasize fighting for its own sake is somehow worthy of criticism. Lee's career speaks for itself in that regard.

Could you point out a game that you think is especially characteristic of his style?

Of course, maybe this speaks to how hard it is for weak players to understand what counts as "aggression" on a professional level. It's clear enough to me when I review for players nine stones weaker... they use "aggressive" as a euphemism for "not what I expected" or "hard to deal with" or "exploiting an obvious weakness that I should have patched up twenty moves ago". I'm sure my understanding of aggression is defective in the same way.

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I am not sure what caused this ill-tempered outburst; did the budgie bite you that morning? John spends a remarkable amount of money buying books, newspapers and magazines from China, Japan and Korea and uses these sources to illustrate and entertain. ...

May we ask for details of your contributions to the subject?