Too many pros in Japan?

[hyperpape]

Where do you guys get these stats?

Valerio's sites are wonderful, but someone needs to write an English table of contents or something. I can never find what I'm looking for, and he has several distinct sites and blogs. Usually you can get the information you want despite it being in Italian, but finding the page in the first place can be a pain.

Partial Japanese win statistics are published in English at Mr. Kin's site: http://igokisen.web.fc2.com/japan.html.

John has read everything ever written about Go, so that explains his expertise.

[jts]

it's obvious go and population have no sensible correlation.

Then when you say that the number of pros has gone up, how do you jump to the conclusion "Too many pros in Japan"?

If I posted a thread titled "Too many public servants?" which observed (inter alia) that there were 364,000 public servants in America in 1984 and 440,000 in 2010, my readers would quite rightly see the tacit assumption that ceteris paribus, the number of public servants should remain constant. If someone then pointed out that the American population had increased by 30% in those 25 years, that ceteris was not paribus, and thus that my numbers in effect showed a decrease in the number of public servants, I would be embarrassed and admit that that part of my argument was misleading.

Oren has suggested that the pool of Go-playing Japanese adults has shrunk over this time; is that the relevant baseline you had in mind?

Furthermore, the go pro population might be bigger for reasons such as pros living longer,

This sounds sensible. This is the sort of demographic consideration I was trying to assess by looking at the size of the 20-80 cohort rather than the general population.

[azrael]

Is the increasing number of Western Pros contributing to the increasing number of Japanese Pros?

[tapir]

Tapir, I think that's not really contrary to what I wrote. The professional needs only average 17.5 games per year over 20 years. 17 wins puts them in the top 50, but we're not talking about that many players. Note that over 25 years, they need average only 14 games which is the roughly the cutoff for the top 100.

If a player is the 50th best in Japan measured over the course of two decades, they will have many years when they perform better than 50th (when they're lucky or at their peak), many when they perform worse than 50th. In terms of wins, it will probably be a wash, because close to 50, you don't change many wins either way.

There are 88 or a handful more Japanese players with 500 wins, but that number is heavily biased towards contemporary players, since the number of games has increased over time (compare Sakata to Cho Chikun).

That said, maybe the estimate was too high. I don't know of a way to do it more rigorously, but maybe someone has an idea.

But even if they reach 9 dan short before retirement (25 years after reaching 7 dan!) there will be less 9 dans at any given time. (+ Remember the 750 wins to reach 9 dan are limited to those in the main tournaments. That is significantly less than the wins recorded in the yearly statistics afaik.)

[hyperpape]

But even if they reach 9 dan short before retirement (25 years after reaching 7 dan!) there will be less 9 dans at any given time. (+ Remember the 750 wins to reach 9 dan are limited to those in the main tournaments. That is significantly less than the wins recorded in the yearly statistics afaik.)

Both good points, especially the latter. I hadn't thought about it, and a it suggests that maybe very few will make it from 7 dan to 9 dan based on wins.

I wasn't suggesting that players would accumulate 750 wins and reach 9 dan that way. Rather, I was saying that if you consider the pool of players who reach 7 dan through automatic promotions, it was plausible that they could rech 9 dan on wins, so long as they were young enough when they first hit 7 dan.

[hyperpape]

Is the increasing number of Western Pros contributing to the increasing number of Japanese Pros?

No. The list is simply too short: http://senseis.xmp.net/?WesternProfessionals.

[oren]

Is the increasing number of Western Pros contributing to the increasing number of Japanese Pros?

There is only one Western Pro in Japan...

[gowan]

Is there any country or area in the world where Go is thriving and more and more people are becoming players (amateur or pro)? Seems the Go population of Japan has been declining for 20 years or more. In the USA membership in the AGA has been pretty much stagnant for some time. I've seen stories to the effect that tournament sponsorship is decreasing and go schools are closing in Korea. I have no information about Europe or China.

[hiyayang]

Is there any country or area in the world where Go is thriving and more and more people are becoming players (amateur or pro)? Seems the Go population of Japan has been declining for 20 years or more. In the USA membership in the AGA has been pretty much stagnant for some time. I've seen stories to the effect that tournament sponsorship is decreasing and go schools are closing in Korea. I have no information about Europe or China.

It is my impression that the annual Pro Qualification Tournament in China has become more competitive every year. The following post

http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=432241312

which chronicles the tournament from 1988 through 2003, says pretty much the same thing. According to that post, the number of candidates for pros reached a then-historical high of 264 in 2000 and 22 of them turned pro.

By comparison, 364 candidates competed for 18 slots in 2010, according to http://news.sina.com.cn/o/2010-07-28/051117873596s.shtml. I think the numbers refer to the U17 group, as another news piece says something like 400+ people competing for 20 slots. 2010 is the first year when Zhonggua Qiyuan, on popular demand, created a U25 group for young candidates older than 17 to compete for 2 additional pro slots. In addition, 80 female candidates (U20) competed for 3 pro slots.

As Chinese Go players perform better and better in international events, one can only expect this trend to continue in China for a while.