I've long been both amused and puzzled by the way certain players get the lion's share of attention. The reasons for fans clustering like moths to a flame may seem obvious - their hero is a winner or top of the ratings list. But it's not that simple. Some flames seem to be ignored. Why?

25-year-old Tan Xiao has just won the Quzhou Lanke Cup. Impressive enough, but he has already also won the Chinese Individual, Ricoh, Mingren, Chunlan and Changqi events, as well as being a runner-up a few times.

Not quite as impressive as Ke Jie, whom he defeated to win the QL and against whom he has a very reasonable record.

Yet here he seems just to appear in lists of results. He doesn't get the ultimate accolade of an uberdude analysis. Even in China he seems to be given a low profile. He came up with just 5 pages on a Google search and most of those were results. Why no fandom? Is it because he's from an unfashionable area (Jilin Province)? Or is it because he doesn't play the celeb game as Ke Jie does?

Or have I just missed something?

When he won the Chunlan cup I noted he had been a top player for a while without yet winning an international title and his 9p (and Chinese rating #1 some years ago):

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=12910&p=220962&hilit=tan+xiao#p220962

And although he won the edition of Changqi cup whose semi-finals I visited in Bangkok (but didn't join in the conga like Jiang Weijie), he lost in the early rounds of the next edition which I followed to see who would come to Cambridge for the semi-finals this year.

viewtopic.php?p=229977#p229977

Yes, but that illustrates my point - it's just listing a few dry facts. There's none of the passion or depth of coverage that other players have elicited.

You guys are way too fast with these news

I was just going to make note of Tan Xiao—defeating Mi Yuting, Lian Xiao, and Ke Jie consecutively is quite impressive.



I think it is just that simple. Also, we can see that there was a five-year gap between his winning the Chunlan cup and his previous titles. I don't know, maybe there'll be more notice if he has more good results. He does seem to be in a bit of slump in 2018, though.

Could it be that there are so (too?) many excellent Chinese players that it is difficult for fans to follow them in detail? And whoever is at the top varies rather frequently; just as we are getting to know Ke Jie, say, he is no longer at the top.

Since around a decade or two, there is a large group of strong Chinese players with each one of them being able to grasp an international title, or a main national championship.
"We are more and less same level,it's difficult to predict which one will get on the throne next time"
I got that comment chatting with young Wang Lei himself at the WMSG in Beijing 2008.

In fact fans can get lost, forget one or the other when it changes so often and quickly. Between my Chinese friends opinion of who is the best vary a lot too! And each of them have a nice argument to prove his choice is best.
So you will surely find players arguing here that Tang Xiao is the best.
I think it's more a media thing, they need stars and not too many.
So then you know, the pretty or the big mouth or the politicaly correct... Not things always connected to the strength at go.

Quite, there's a bunch of top Chinese players who are all at the "win an international title or two or a few more domestic" level so I don't think Tan has been particularly ignored: there's no Shi Yue, Tang Weixing, Chen Yaoye, Zhou Ruiyang, Tuo Jiaxi, Jiang Weijie, Lian Xiao, or more recently Xie Erhao, Gu Zihao appreciation thread here. We've got an Iyama one because he's the stand out Japanese player, Park's been top in Korea for years, Ke Jie had a rapid rise, won lots of titles in succession, is a larger than life personality (good-looking, trash talking AlphaGo, going on TV shows, playing up the celebrity role) so is more than just a boring guy in a suit putting stones on a board slightly more successfully than the next one. (And yes I made a Mi Yuting thread because he did well recently with interesting games, and a little bit of a Shin Jinseo one).

What's more notable to me is that Iyama warrants two threads and has a veritable caravan of fans here who are eager to defend him whenever the issue of his playing strength against international competition is raised. I chalk it up to Japan having a higher mind share due to its history of promoting the game in the West and that Iyama had been able to hold all seven big domestic titles simultaneously against weak competition, which makes his achievement appear far more impressive than it actually is. Still, on balance, I think too much attention is being paid to Japan, by far the weakest of the three powerhouses and getting weaker all the time.

TheCannyOnion: Iyama only has 2 threads because of your tiresome posts like this.

How is it tiresome?

I'm merely pointing out the disparity in attention paid to various players. For someone who has never won an international major, Iyama receives out-sized attention when many others who have proved stronger are less fawned over.

If you think that there are other players deserving of more attention compared to Iyama, why do you bash Iyama instead of writing about the other, more deserving players? You seem to embody that which you decry in your endless (albeit negative) fascination with Iyama!

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

I do like the irony inherent in spectator

Us: Discuss Iyama's ranking
Iyama: Wins title

As someone guilty of saying Japanese professionals get to play in 'fancy' tournaments myself (as some weak player), I daresay I now think any athlete or competitor's popularity is dependant not just on ability, but context.

_________________
On Go proverbs:
"A fine Gotation is a diamond in the hand of a dan of wit and a pebble in the hand of a kyu" —Joseph Raux misquoted.

See, yours is a supremely bad attitude and, frankly, unnecessarily sensitive to perceived slights. Re-read my comments here, where did I "bash" Iyama? I'd love to have a rational discussion with you, but only if you are in a state of being less easily triggered.

This is a misunderstanding.

Others have been more. . . Passionate in their quest to find Iyama's 'true strength' (whatever that means). I mean I should probably go through years of training, become a pro and find my 'true strength' (5kyu or something) before that.

TheCannyOnion hasn't been so extreme in my perception, but the concept is nothing new (I wouldn't want to derail the thread but who am I to talk ).

Text can be misinterpreted without extra cues— please don't fight.

Dan level— focusing on the positive. . .

_________________
On Go proverbs:
"A fine Gotation is a diamond in the hand of a dan of wit and a pebble in the hand of a kyu" —Joseph Raux misquoted.

TheCannyOnion: about 90% of your posts on this forum consist in saying that Japanese players are weak and 5% say that Chinese players are strong. What's the point? If you dislike Japan and want to express that continuously on this forum, I find it sad because one of the things I like in go is that it's an international language that promotes friendship among people from all countries.

If that hypothesis is wrong and you just would like this forum to focus less on Japanese players and more on Chinese players, then we would appreciate that you help reestablish the balance by providing more information about Chinese players.

And 100% of my posts are in English, which must mean it's the only language I speak.

Are you extra-sensitive or what? Could you un-trigger yourself, and if you are still interested, we can have a rational discussion perhaps?

There are two "Ifs" in my post. I don't know if they are true or not, you didn't say if they are (this is your right). I don't know why you think I am extra-sensitive. Is that the part where I say that some behavior is "sad" if some hypothesis is true? Or another part of my message?

I never expressed that Japanese players are "weak", but merely observed – correctly – that they are weaker on average when compared to Chinese AND South Korean pros. What is it that you object? Was it the perceived frequency (expressed by you in a Trumpian statistic) with which I expressed it? IF so, then tough, since I don't live to please strangers on the net. IF not, then why did you even formulate your original hypothesis that I was unduly prejudiced against Japanese players? I read it as an accusation carefully wrapped in the garb of a disingenuous hypothesis, since your second hypothesis seems to imply, rather grotesquely, that those who diagnose a problem must also be responsible for solving it. If that's your logic, and assuming you are not a medical professional, the next time you realize that you have an ailment, you must surely be obligated to cure yourself. No?

In other words, I think you were in fact triggered and sensitive, which does say a lot more about you than it does me.

Full stop.

Yes.

What I like to read on this forum: commented pro games, stories around the pro scene, reports on amateur tournaments, people asking and getting comments on their games, people telling how they struggle to make progress (so that I know I am not the only one), etc. In short, I like new information related to go or to go players, professionals or amateurs. Repeating 100 times that Japanese players are weaker than Chinese or Koreans (or repeating 100 times any other fact) is not new information.

You have the right not to "live to please strangers on the net", however this is a forum gathering people having a common interest, and participants should try to make this as enjoyable as possible.

I never said that "those who diagnose a problem must also be responsible for solving it", but I do think that those who diagnose a problem should make reasonable effort to contribute in solving it. I am not a medical professional, but if I have an ailment which is related to diet or lack of exercise, then I will try to improve my diet and exercise more. I will not complain 100 times to non-medical professionals that no one can cure my disease.

You told me to have a rational discussion. I proposed something rational: post more messages containing new content related to go.

Anyway I said what I had to say, I won't bother you anymore. You can forget my post if you don't like it.

However rough jlt's statistics may have been, I doubt there were any suggestions that anyone was being prejudiced against Japanese pros by noting them as not being the strongest, or attempts to say it's inherently negative (no one has done the former, and in the latter one should not mix it up with other posts in this thread that were tired from multiple people saying the similar negative things, not that the specific instance of the statement is something worth complaining about. Please understand)

Not to turn this into a semantic inquiry, but expressing that Japanese players are slightly weaker on average doesn't imply being wrong in way. I don't understand the objection to it.

No one is triggered over any opinion here, it's just how one goes about it may be x10 more important .

_________________
On Go proverbs:
"A fine Gotation is a diamond in the hand of a dan of wit and a pebble in the hand of a kyu" —Joseph Raux misquoted.