Apparently a Japanese team mainly comprised of young players may soon join the B-league in China.

I guess this is an attempt to regain international competitiveness, and personally think it's really good news

http://www.cdrb.com.cn/html/2012-02/28/ ... 515269.htm

I couldn't figure out the participants were from that article + google translate. Do you know?

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I don't think the team has been decided yet (or at least made public).

For them to be competitive, they should open some of top tournaments as open tournament.

I fail to comprehend. So you say Koreans are competitive because they allow some amateurs to participate in preliminaries, who rarely make it to a main tournament. It is not that this option doesn't exist in Japan. (Agon Cup, Kansai Ki-in tournament all feature amateur players of some sorts as well) Or are you proposing to turn some domestic titles into international ones?

Yes, they should make it as international tournament.
They are complacent because they have domestic tournament locked up for themselves. So they do not have to compete in international tournament(very fierce).

There was a large international tournament hosted and sponsored by Japan. The longest running of any international tournament, in fact. But it was discontinued just this year.

i believe the causality goes in the opposite direction - they fallen behind C&K, so they stopped playing internationally. but you are right that sitting home and continuing like now won't help them to return back. still, i am not sure what should Japanese do in order to improve their situation

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Spilling gasoline feels good.

I might be wrong, but probably not.

You probably failed to recognize that there are plenty of Chinese and Korean and Taiwanese domestic tournaments locked up for professionals of these countries. Until recently Japan hosted international tournaments (Toyata, Fujitsu). That the sponsors cut sponsorship to them in recent years is likely more related to economic developments than to the decision of "complacent" Japanese professionals.

No professional association has their domestic tournaments open for the players from others country association...

And how has China and Korea take it over Japan as the leading GO countries, over the last 20 years? Exactly, not by "opening" their tournaments to foreign players but simply by study and steady improvement, together with a growing GO population from which to select the pros...

So it doesn't make sense to talk about complacency but of declining interest among the general Japanese population... Iyama Yuta, which is a product of the Japanese GO is at the same level with the top Chinese and Korean players, the issue is that China and Korea have 30 like him.

I may be wrong but as far as I know the domestic pro tournaments in China and Korea are generally closed to pros from other countries. Why should Japan be any different?

Korean companies are sponsoring 4 international tournament at the moment. These tournament is as big as their domestic tournament. Also compare Japanese top tournament's prize to Korea and China. Japanese players don't need to participate international tournament because huge prize difference.

Let us attempt an informal intellectual exercise based on the following assumptions, which might be conservative.

• All of the best players in China and Korea are participating in international tournaments and almost no Japanese players show up for international tournaments.
• The strength of the player pool in China, Japan, and Korea are equal.
• It is twice as hard to win an international title than it is to win a domestic title because twice as many top players compete.
• Players believe that their chance of winning a given domestic tournament is double that of winning an international tournament. Therefore, when considering the decision to participate in international tournaments, players halve the prize money in their heads.

Under those assumptions, here is how the pros in the three countries would rank the various tournaments (based on outdated data from Wikipedia).

Legend:

• Domestic titles in plain style = prize money
• International titles in bold = $4K ($2K = prize money X 1/2)
• Minor titles in italics = $3K

What Japanese pros see:

• Kisei = $505K
• Meijin = $400K
• Honinbo = $350K
• Ing Cup = $500K (<$250K)
• Judan = $164K
• Tengen = $153K
• Oza = $153K
• BC Card Cup = $300K (<$150K)
• LG Cup = $250K (<$125K)
• Samsung Cup = $250K (<$125K)
• Chunlan Cup = $170K (<$85K)
• Gosei = $84K
• Fujitsu Cup = $141K (<$70K defunct)

What Korean pros see:

• Ing Cup = $500K (<$250K)
• BC Card Cup = $300K (<$150K)
• LG Cup = $250K (<$125K)
• Samsung Cup = $250K (<$125K)
• Chunlan Cup = $170K (<$85K)
• Fujitsu Cup = $141K (<$70K defunct)
• GS Caltex = $51K
• Guksu = $42.5K
• Myungin = ?
• Sibdan = $26K
• Prices Info. = $23K
• Chunwon = $17K
• Maxim = $16K

What Chinese pros see:

• Ing Cup = $500K (<$250K)
• BC Card Cup = $300K (<$150K)
• LG Cup = $250K (<$125K)
• Samsung Cup = $250K (<$125K)
• Chunlan Cup = $170K (<$85K)
• Fujitsu Cup = $141K (<$70K defunct)
• Chang-ki Cup = $50K
• NEC Cup = $24K
• Lanke Cup = $19K
• Liguang Cup = $10K
• CCTV Cup = $10K
• Tianyuan = $6K
• Mingren = $3K

Is it any wonder that the top Chinese pros are so fierce in international competition? Winning the BC Card Cup could earn a player as much money as he would by winning the Tianyuan (a major title) 50 years in a row. Is it any wonder that the top Korean pros focus on international competition? Even accounting for the reduced probability of winning, international titles yield much greater expected prize money than domestic titles do.

Similarly, it makes perfect sense that the top Japanese pros focus on domestic titles. Not only do the domestic titles have prizes comparable to or greater than the international titles, you only have to face 10 top players instead of 20. Plus, winning in the domestic title leagues alone yields extra income and future benefits (easier path to the domestic titles and promotion) whereas participation in international preliminaries does not.

I get the feeling that top Chinese pros and top Korean pros are slightly stronger than top Japanese pros (for pros a "slight" difference in strength makes a huge difference in results). However, I believe that the reason for the difference is not because either country has a superior system or natural talent.

My personal theory is that top Chinese pros are stronger because they get to play top Korean pros often in international tournaments (and top Korean pros are stronger because they get to play top Chinese pros often in international tournaments). They simply get to play serious games more often (perhaps twice as often) against top level competition than Japanese pros do.

Of course, this would worsen the problem of Japanese non-participation in international tournaments. Dynamics of the conjectured system reinforce the existing disparities. We might need to have $1 million+ prizes in international tournaments for a couple of years in order to properly incentivize the top Japanese pros to compete.

I propose the following modest and economic solution for making the top Japanese pros competitive in international competition:

Cut the prize money for Japanese domestic titles by 50 percent or more.

If this happens, I bet the top Japanese pros would become competitive internationally within 2 or 3 years.

Just that Japanese professionals did participate massively in the Fujitsu Cup and do participate in the Gosei every year. I guess there is a simpler explanation: Koreans are already in Korea, Chinese get travel expenses by their federation (they played a preliminary after all), Japanese travel individually + there are no game fees in the preliminaries. Can it be?

The players were announced last week:
Cho Chikun, 9p
Murakawa Daisuke, 7p
Ida Atsushi, 3p
Ichiriki Ryo, 2p

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

I like how Cho Chikun is considered young. lol

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A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

lemmata, your assumptions are of course, flawed. (intellectual exercise )

"•All of the best players in China and Korea are participating in international tournaments and almost no Japanese players show up for international tournaments."

Plenty of Japanese players show up. It's just that the vast majority are beaten in the preliminaries and so it may seem that none show up.

"•The strength of the player pool in China, Japan, and Korea are equal."

It seems to me that the only measure we have, are won games, semi-final and final appearances etc. By this measure, Japanese professionals are simply weaker.

"•It is twice as hard to win an international title than it is to win a domestic title because twice as many top players compete."

This certainly seems to have a sizeable amount of truth to it.

"•Players believe that their chance of winning a given domestic tournament is double that of winning an international tournament. Therefore, when considering the decision to participate in international tournaments, players halve the prize money in their heads."

I don't know about this. I think that this is too simplistic. In fact, the more I think about it, the more the conclusion appears unjustified. If their chance of winning an international tournament is half that of a domestic one; surely they would just halve their expectations.

"Is it any wonder that the top Chinese pros are so fierce in international competition? Winning the BC Card Cup could earn a player as much money as he would by winning the Tianyuan (a major title) 50 years in a row. Is it any wonder that the top Korean pros focus on international competition? Even accounting for the reduced probability of winning, international titles yield much greater expected prize money than domestic titles do."

Although this statement is rational and may even be true in almost all cases. I think it is clear that this is not necessarily the factor which most motivates. The Chinese and Korean youngesters are both in systems in which rank is 'everything'. Their entire day, everyday, is devoted to improving their rank amongst their peers. To ignore the power of social status is a mistake. Look at your own life: your hairstyle, your clothing, the car you drive, who you spend your time with. All this and more will depend in a big way on the social status(rank) associated with them. Why you imagine these people to be any different, I don't know.

"I get the feeling that top Chinese pros and top Korean pros are slightly stronger than top Japanese pros (for pros a "slight" difference in strength makes a huge difference in results). However, I believe that the reason for the difference is not because either country has a superior system or natural talent."

I don't think there is anyone reason...

"My personal theory is that top Chinese pros are stronger because they get to play top Korean pros often in international tournaments (and top Korean pros are stronger because they get to play top Chinese pros often in international tournaments). They simply get to play serious games more often (perhaps twice as often) against top level competition than Japanese pros do."


... but it appears that the current crop of Chinese and Korean Pros are "naturally" more talented. Possibly because the pool from which they choose is larger.

Apparently a Japanese team mainly comprised of young players may soon join the B-league in China. :p

How many major tournaments in Korea and China are closed to pros from other countries?

Thank you all for such an interesting discussion. This seems really good news! I enjoy the international tournaments tremendously, especially the team tournaments like Nongshim and Jeongganjang (replaced now by Huanglongshi). My model for great international competition is the LPGA, heh, where the Korean women were gladly accepted dispite crushing everyone. Also, the players make an effort (and there's a strong program to support them) to learn enough English to make build contact with the public. The U.S. market for go is probably pretty small (Americans are so anti-intellectual!), but I wish there was more outreach to the U.S.