Poll: Who was the best player in 2013?

[wineandgolover]

How's that for a stake in the ground?

It's a stake in the ground, but I'm not sure it's a correct one. The skill level differences between the top players is very thin. No one will argue right now that there are more high level Chinese players and as a result, they will win more tournaments.

That doesn't specifically mean the best player is not Korean or Japanese though.

Ah, the old human wall theory. Great masses of Chinese go players overwhelming everything in front of them. Strong kids picking up the stones of their fallen, older brethren in a quest to be the last man standing. I suppose that if different Chinese players won the international tourneys, as they did, that would add credence to your argument. I need to consider this one for a while.

[skydyr]

How's that for a stake in the ground?

It's a stake in the ground, but I'm not sure it's a correct one. The skill level differences between the top players is very thin. No one will argue right now that there are more high level Chinese players and as a result, they will win more tournaments.

That doesn't specifically mean the best player is not Korean or Japanese though.

Ah, the old human wall theory. Great masses of Chinese go players overwhelming everything in front of them. Strong kids picking up the stones of their fallen, older brethren in a quest to be the last man standing. I suppose that if different Chinese players won the international tourneys, as they did, that would add credence to your argument. I need to consider this one for a while.

Well, all else being equal, you would expect that the world's best player would be more likely to come from the country with the highest go-playing population, which is probably somewhat correlated to actual population in countries with a history of playing go. If, hypothetically, 66% of the world's go players come from China, you would then expect that the world champion would come from China roughly the same proportion of the time.

Now that China, Korea, and Japan all have serious professional training programs with demonstrable results, I don't think that there will be a decisive advantage to one program or another in the future, aside from the pool of players they have to draw on for their talent.

[TegaiS]

Park Junghwan and Choi Cheolhan were the best among captains in Chinese A League 2013 with impressive 13-4 and 15-3 score. And they also won the 13th Nongshim Cup for Korea.

[Mef]

Well OP has announced that, per his definition, best player = strongest.

Because China won all but one of the international tournaments in 2013, doesn't that mean the strongest player was likely Chinese?

I'm not saying who is strongest at this very moment, I am just proposing that given the way the question is worded, I don't see how 2013's strongest player wouldn't hail from the country that won virtually all the international contests.

How's that for a stake in the ground?

To play devil's advocate, I would imagine the strongest player would use his strength to earn the most money, and not necessarily worry about which tournaments it came from. Under that assumption, all the votes for Iyama Yuta make sense.

[emerus]

Well OP has announced that, per his definition, best player = strongest.

Because China won all but one of the international tournaments in 2013, doesn't that mean the strongest player was likely Chinese?

I'm not saying who is strongest at this very moment, I am just proposing that given the way the question is worded, I don't see how 2013's strongest player wouldn't hail from the country that won virtually all the international contests.

How's that for a stake in the ground?

To play devil's advocate, I would imagine the strongest player would use his strength to earn the most money, and not necessarily worry about which tournaments it came from. Under that assumption, all the votes for Iyama Yuta make sense.

That is ignoring a lot of important facts.

[Mef]

Well OP has announced that, per his definition, best player = strongest.

Because China won all but one of the international tournaments in 2013, doesn't that mean the strongest player was likely Chinese?

I'm not saying who is strongest at this very moment, I am just proposing that given the way the question is worded, I don't see how 2013's strongest player wouldn't hail from the country that won virtually all the international contests.

How's that for a stake in the ground?

To play devil's advocate, I would imagine the strongest player would use his strength to earn the most money, and not necessarily worry about which tournaments it came from. Under that assumption, all the votes for Iyama Yuta make sense.

That is ignoring a lot of important facts.

I guess to restate the thesis in a more clear way:

Iyama Yuta is on a pace to make on the order of $2 million this year from his domestic play in Japan. International tournaments do not present a particularly enticing incentive for him to compete, given that they require a large disruption from his domestic schedule and have a much larger pool of entrants. His total time to prepare for events is limited, and the format of international events is quite different from domestic championships (thus would require different preparation). One would hardly expect his best efforts to be given to any international event, as such efforts would detract from his domestic performance, which is much more lucrative. Therefore, one cannot come to an objective, generalizable measurement of Iyama Yuta's skill based solely on performance in international tournaments.

I do not mean to speak ill of any other player, I simply want to point out that trying to say that Iyama wasn't performing as well simply because he didn't care about international tournaments isn't a particularly compelling argument to me.

Because (as many on this forum who know me know) I'm a baseball fan, I'll include a baseball analogy in the hide tags.

Trying to evaluate top talent based solely upon international competition is not going to be a valid assessment when the compensation structures of different localized events vary wildly. For instance, let's see how the top 5 pitchers in the world* did during international baseball competition (the World Baseball Classic): 0.0 innings pitched...ah yes, none of them considered international competition worth participating in, because none of them wanted to jeopardize their highly lucrative careers in the US's domestic baseball leagues. Only 1 of the top ten 2013 pitchers in the world competed internationally(Anibal Sanchez) and he pulled the go equivalent of getting knocked out in the first round (yay for small sample sizes!).

Does this mean that I think Japan has some secret contingent of super strong players that just get unlucky internationally? Of course not, however I think that saying Iyama Yuta has no claim at being the top performer in 2013 simply because he chooses not to compete in international tournaments is not a strong argument in and of itself. Similarly, I would think it silly to claim that Clayton Kershaw wasn't the best pitcher in 2013 just because he didn't play in the WBC.

Of course some may say, "Oh this isn't the same because Koreans can't compete for Japanese titles!" but that's has absolutely no bearing on this subject. Regardless of who is competing for the local Japanese titles, the focus of the strongest Japanese players is going to be on the local events because there is so much more money in them. Iyama isn't going to turn down half a million dollars or the Kisei just because Koreans couldn't compete for it. Does this mean for certain that Iyama is performing better than the Koreans? No, of course not. Does this mean he is necessarily performing worse? I wouldn't say so. At the end of the day you have to pick some other metric to evaluate them, which apparently many at L19 did, and decided Iyama put up the best show in 2013.



*You could try to argue that the top 5 pitchers in the MLB are not the top 5 pitchers in the world, but that is an awfully hard case to make. The best pitcher in the Japanese leagues, Masahiro Tanaka, just got signed by the New York Yankees and projects to be their #3 starter. That's the third best pitcher on their team, which had one pitcher who was perhaps a top 25 starter last year. Even if he excels to the point of his counterpart Yu Darvish (a questionable assumption) that puts him as a fringe top 10 candidate. Fact of the matter is, any way you care to slice it, a huge amount of the top baseball talent is in the US and chooses to never compete internationally.

[leichtloeslich]

trying to say that Iyama wasn't performing as well simply because he didn't care about international tournaments isn't a particularly compelling argument to me.

Nobody said that? In fact, the bold part is entirely speculation on your behalf.

I would imagine the strongest player would use his strength to earn the most money, and not necessarily worry about which tournaments it came from.

You can imagine all you like, that doesn't make it real.

Basically you're speculating here on why his results are worse than those of other players, with your main argument being "greed".

Iyama Yuta is already financially secure (I assume at least) and will probably go down in history should he be the one to bring Japan back to the international top in go, so imho it makes sense for him to try his best on the international stage.

But all of this is just more speculation and thus fairly pointless.


The only relevant data are tournament results, which aren't in Iyama Yuta's favour, as far as I'm aware.

[wineandgolover]

Because (as many on this forum who know me know) I'm a baseball fan, I'll include a baseball analogy in the hide tags.

Trying to evaluate top talent based solely upon international competition is not going to be a valid assessment when the compensation structures of different localized events vary wildly. For instance, let's see how the top 5 pitchers in the world* did during international baseball competition (the World Baseball Classic): 0.0 innings pitched...ah yes, none of them considered international competition worth participating in, because none of them wanted to jeopardize their highly lucrative careers in the US's domestic baseball leagues. Only 1 of the top ten 2013 pitchers in the world competed internationally(Anibal Sanchez) and he pulled the go equivalent of getting knocked out in the first round (yay for small sample sizes!).

Does this mean that I think Japan has some secret contingent of super strong players that just get unlucky internationally? Of course not, however I think that saying Iyama Yuta has no claim at being the top performer in 2013 simply because he chooses not to compete in international tournaments is not a strong argument in and of itself. Similarly, I would think it silly to claim that Clayton Kershaw wasn't the best pitcher in 2013 just because he didn't play in the WBC.

Of course some may say, "Oh this isn't the same because Koreans can't compete for Japanese titles!" but that's has absolutely no bearing on this subject. Regardless of who is competing for the local Japanese titles, the focus of the strongest Japanese players is going to be on the local events because there is so much more money in them. Iyama isn't going to turn down half a million dollars or the Kisei just because Koreans couldn't compete for it. Does this mean for certain that Iyama is performing better than the Koreans? No, of course not. Does this mean he is necessarily performing worse? I wouldn't say so. At the end of the day you have to pick some other metric to evaluate them, which apparently many at L19 did, and decided Iyama put up the best show in 2013.



*You could try to argue that the top 5 pitchers in the MLB are not the top 5 pitchers in the world, but that is an awfully hard case to make. The best pitcher in the Japanese leagues, Masahiro Tanaka, just got signed by the New York Yankees and projects to be their #3 starter. That's the third best pitcher on their team, which had one pitcher who was perhaps a top 25 starter last year. Even if he excels to the point of his counterpart Yu Darvish (a questionable assumption) that puts him as a fringe top 10 candidate. Fact of the matter is, any way you care to slice it, a huge amount of the top baseball talent is in the US and chooses to never compete internationally.

I know I am on dangerous ground when I challenge analogies lately, sigh.

But I think your baseball analogy isn't very useful for two primary reasons.
1) Baseball is a team sport, which by its nature is different than individual sports and games like go.
2) Today's era in go doesn't correspond with today's era in baseball at all. In baseball, you have several countries that play well, but only one that is dominant. Many, if not most, of the best players eventually go to MLB to prove themselves, and, yes, to earn the big bucks.

For most of the last century, go was similar. The best players in the world were Japanese, or often migrated to Japan to prove themselves. However, that is no longer true. Korea overtook Japan twenty years ago, and Chinese has recently moved to the top of the heap (arguable, I know).

So, unlike in baseball, in go the only way to determine who is strongest is international tournaments. Else how do we know if a successful player isn't just a big fish in a small pond?

Don't get me wrong, I think Iyama Yuta is great, and I admire his domestic success greatly. But best in the world? As they say in Missouri, "Show me."

[wineandgolover]

Iyama Yuta is on a pace to make on the order of $2 million this year from his domestic play in Japan. International tournaments do not present a particularly enticing incentive for him to compete, given that they require a large disruption from his domestic schedule and have a much larger pool of entrants. His total time to prepare for events is limited, and the format of international events is quite different from domestic championships (thus would require different preparation). One would hardly expect his best efforts to be given to any international event, as such efforts would detract from his domestic performance, which is much more lucrative. Therefore, one cannot come to an objective, generalizable measurement of Iyama Yuta's skill based solely on performance in international tournaments.

We're talking about who's best, not who's richest, right?

The strongest players in China and Korea do not go play in Japan to earn the greater tournament money. Whether they aren't allowed to, or choose not to doesn't matter, it just doesn't happen. So it seems unreasonable to use earnings as a metric for best, when the overwhelming majority of players don't have access to those earnings.

If you want to argue which go player was the best capitalist, maybe you'd have a case, but I'm not even sure of that.

[Knotwilg]

If it is really (still) true that the biggest market for Go arguably does not have the best playing field, then the world of Go has a big problem.

It is undeniable that Iyama dominates the Japanese go scene and apparently that scene has still the biggest prize money. On the international scene, the Japanese are overpowered by Chinese and Korean players. There is great reason to believe that it points to a structural lag of the Japanese.

Putting that lag on the account of the mediocre prize money in international tournaments is just too easy.

Making the analogy to soccer/football, it is known that loads of money are to be earned in the Oil states for players and managers that are either thinking of retiring or take a big paycheck along their career. However, we also know those states to be a sandbox cemetery. Players' reputation is damaged when moving there and it is very hard to get back to the real high level competitions like England, Spain or Germany.

Money usually attracts the best in the field but under certain cultural circumstances this is not always true. And it seems to me that the situation in Japan has become unbalanced too.

[Mef]

We're talking about who's best, not who's richest, right?

The strongest players in China and Korea do not go play in Japan to earn the greater tournament money. Whether they aren't allowed to, or choose not to doesn't matter, it just doesn't happen. So it seems unreasonable to use earnings as a metric for best, when the overwhelming majority of players don't have access to those earnings.

If you want to argue which go player was the best capitalist, maybe you'd have a case, but I'm not even sure of that.

Please go back and reread what I wrote. I never claim that "because he makes the most money he is the best". I claim that because he makes the most money, this claim you make...

I find all the votes for Iyama Yuta before the vote purge curious, because he hasn't ever won a major international tournament

...does not strike me as a compelling argument. The state of the discussion was you saying "Many people did Y, I think that's strange because of X" to which I respond "I don't find X to be terribly convincing" and the implied statement of "therefore people who did Y may have been entirely justified in doing so for whatever their own reasons were".

I don't think Iyama is terribly incentivized to participate in international events, certainly not to the extent of his Korean and Chinese counterparts. Therefore, I do not think that a counting statistic based on international play (number of titles won) is a good metric for evaluating his strength relative to his international peers.

[wineandgolover]

Therefore, I do not think that a counting statistic based on international play (number of titles won) is a good metric for evaluating his strength relative to his international peers.

Thanks for replying, Mef. Out of interest, do you have a better metric?

I understand your argument, and it makes some sense. But really it smacks as more of an excuse than a justification. IMHO, you can't be considered the strongest if you can't, or choose not to, play and beat the big dogs.

Out of interest, does anybody know if Iyama played in the big 2013 international tournaments? Was he beaten, or merely absent?

[hyperpape]

1. He missed most of the tournaments this year: http://igokisen.web.fc2.com/news.html

2. His performance in the tournaments he participated in was only ok. But it also wasn't statistically very significant.

3. The obvious right way to do this is to do ratings based on all tournaments, and based on that, calculate performance metrics.

4. Regarding the excuse point, I think mef's point about number of championships is entirely accurate. And there simply is no guarantee that there always has to be an answer to your questions, much less an easy one.

5. Nonetheless, I know of no reason to think that Iyama is the best, and some reason to think that he is not (c.f. #2, and the last set of ratings done by Dr. Bae Taeil, though I'd like to see more people discuss his methods).

[wineandgolover]

5. Nonetheless, I know of no reason to think that Iyama is the best, and some reason to think that he is not (c.f. #2, and the last set of ratings done by Dr. Bae Taeil, though I'd like to see more people discuss his methods).

Thanks hyperpape (autocorrect hell, btw).

Wow,
Bae Taeil's system rated Iyama #21 the last time it was run, admittedly pre-2013.

[trout]

World ranking as of end of 2013(Stat by Dr Bae Taeil),