The International Go Federation (IGF) had asked their members, the national Go associations for some numbers:
Go Population Survey, 2016 February (PDF, 4.4 MB)
(via Dorina Costea resp. Sighris Zargon on FB)
IGF Go Population Report 2016
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IGF Go Population Report 2016
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Re: IGF Go Population Report 2016
Most interesting fact I got from it: The only two countries with an exclusively largest demographic group of children aged 5 - 15 years old are China and Holland Hungary (edit: thanks gamesorry).
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gamesorry
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Re: IGF Go Population Report 2016
Solomon wrote:Most interesting fact I got from it: The only two countries with an exclusively largest demographic group of children aged 5 - 15 years old are China and Holland.
Do you mean Hungary instead of Holland?
It's a nice report, but I don't think the US/Canada only has 1000/500 players ever played in tournaments given the huge number of asian immigrants. In fact, http://www.usgo.org/all-players-rating alone already lists more than 23k players.
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Re: IGF Go Population Report 2016
It seems the report is flawed … for example, apparently no numbers about Germany were used (—> discussion in German DGoB forum).
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Re: IGF Go Population Report 2016
I wouldn't place much trust in the numbers, I believe the IGF just asked its members to estimate player populations in their countries, rather than any kind of vaguely statistically rigorous survey.
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Uberdude
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Re: IGF Go Population Report 2016
Maybe the FIDE figure includes all the chess playing aliens Ilyumzhinov meet on his UFO trip.
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Javaness2
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Re: IGF Go Population Report 2016
Having filled in a similar survey, sadly I'd advise against reading the results. Maybe I am wrong though, maybe the IGF did allow each association the time to collect genuine reliable results.
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Re: IGF Go Population Report 2016
I find it hard to believe that only 50,000,000 people in China are aware of go. Even if they don't know how to play it one out of every 30 or so people seems low.
Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).
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Re: IGF Go Population Report 2016
Solomon wrote:Most interesting fact I got from it: The only two countries with an exclusively largest demographic group of children aged 5 - 15 years old are China andHollandHungary (edit: thanks gamesorry).
This is maybe the "go playing demographic group"?
I'm absolutely sure that the largest demographic group here in Hungary is not "children aged 5 - 15 years old".
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f7/Age_Pyramid_of_Hungary.png/1024px-Age_Pyramid_of_Hungary.png