Life In 19x19

by78 might take it as a "JOF" opinion (or even "IOF-Iyama only fan" if you'd like) , but here are my 2 cents:

Iyama started to become head and shoulder stronger than other Japanese players in 2011-2013, and at such time, I would rank him around 20-30 in the world, since he can beat the very top players in a good day (e.g Bosai Cup, Asian TV Cup), but he can lose to much lower ranks players, and his results versus top Chinese players were quite bad (I still remember his lost to Chen Yaoye and Zhou Ruiyang at the moment).

In 2014-2015, he still played few international matches, but almost every games were against top players, and his results weren't bad at all at the time. With the wins to Park JH, Mi Yuting, Park Yeonghun, Huang Yunsong...I think he deserved a place in the top 15, if not top 10 (again, at such moment).

His game with Lee SD in the last Nongshim Cup was quite disappointing to me, and his recent domestic records seem not very good, so yeah, he can fall to 25-30 at the moment. But let's see, he still plays to few games compared to any other Chinese/Korean players in the top 50.

And if we talk about his competitors in Japan, e.g whether they rank 50-100 or 150-200 in the world, I would say that all of them seems to play very few matches against Korean/Chinese pros, so taking any single example will not be accurate, e.g Takao or Yamashita may be "weak internationally", but Kono Rin or Ichikiri Ryo did considerably better. I would say that Iyama's domestic competitors are becoming a bit better in the last 3-4 years (compare to the period before after Cho U started to go down).

IMO, a lot of people take these ratings systems too seriously. They're just estimates and kind of for fun. If you don't like the ordering, make your own list from your own data.

What's the big deal?

Kirby wrote:IMO, a lot of people take these ratings systems too seriously. They're just estimates and kind of for fun. If you don't like the ordering, make your own list from your own data.

What's the big deal?

*shrug* They're ratings. It seems like if they're accurate that's better than being inaccurate. Could just be me.

hyperpape wrote:

Kirby wrote:IMO, a lot of people take these ratings systems too seriously. They're just estimates and kind of for fun. If you don't like the ordering, make your own list from your own data.

What's the big deal?

*shrug* They're ratings. It seems like if they're accurate that's better than being inaccurate. Could just be me.

What is "accurate"? Ability to predict game outcome? Under what conditions? Who is playing white? What are the player's styles? How many games did the players each play last week? Are they in good physical condition? Is it a best-of-five match? How much money is at stake? Do the players have a history between one another?

My view is that these ranking systems are entertaining and can perhaps give an indication toward the chances of a particular player. But it's just a guess, limited by several unknown variables and a limited set of data.

So your own view of someone's placement differs from this particular limited model. That's okay! The weather report said it was going to rain last Thursday. Sometimes it's wrong. Don't like that weather station? That's ok, too!

Although Iyama's rating may feel low to what many believe his ability is, it's not all that out of ordinary. He was at No. 22 in the ranking just two weeks prior (8/16), so the chart can definitely fluctuate a lot, more so than goratings. The difference between his raw rating score and Li Qicheng's (No. 12) is smaller than the difference between Lee Sedol and Ke/Park. Being consistent against better competitions is rewarded, and I like that. Kim Jiseok, for example, is No. 8 at goratings, but his performance this year suggests he is probably closer to the No. 18 on this cart. Similarly for Jiang Weijie, a former world champ, and we can form that opinion because they play against top-50 players all the time in domestic leagues or selections to represent the countries in international tournaments. Harder to get that data for Iyama.

Honestly the skill level between the top 50 players is just so close that, it wouldn't be weird to put Iyama or anyone else in any position.

I don't think Iyama definitely deserves to be in the top 10 or 20 or even 30. I think he has about a 50/50 chance vs world no.10, but also a 50/50 chance vs world no.40 or even 50.

The difference caused by different styles probably affects the winrate much more at that level.

One thing Iyama has against him though, is how he's constantly "sandbagging" while other top pros get to play other top pros all the time.

I mean, I encourage you all to do a little experiment. Go play some sandbagging games against people 10-20 ranks lower than you. If you feel bad about sandbagging, go play idiotbot or weakbot on kgs or something. Then play real games again. I'm pretty sure you'll see a noticeable effect on your game; even if you're always trying to play your best (even against idiotbot), your play will somehow become weaker.

Now of course other top Japanese pros are not that weak. Only slightly weaker than international top pros. But then, they're pretty much all Iyama plays, except 1 or 2 matches a year. That's got to have an effect.

Or, we could even see it this way; perhaps Iyama is so talented, that even while constantly playing opponents who are weaker than he is, he can still get to a top pro level, it may be possible that if he participated in international tournaments and constantly played with top Chinese/Korea pros, that he might've become the undisputed no.1 in the world and created a new era of go like Wu Qingyuang and Lee Changho.

idontgetit wrote:Honestly the skill level between the top 50 players is just so close that, it wouldn't be weird to put Iyama or anyone else in any position.

I don't think Iyama definitely deserves to be in the top 10 or 20 or even 30. I think he has about a 50/50 chance vs world no.10, but also a 50/50 chance vs world no.40 or even 50.

The difference caused by different styles probably affects the winrate much more at that level.

One thing Iyama has against him though, is how he's constantly "sandbagging" while other top pros get to play other top pros all the time.

I mean, I encourage you all to do a little experiment. Go play some sandbagging games against people 10-20 ranks lower than you. If you feel bad about sandbagging, go play idiotbot or weakbot on kgs or something. Then play real games again. I'm pretty sure you'll see a noticeable effect on your game; even if you're always trying to play your best (even against idiotbot), your play will somehow become weaker.

Now of course other top Japanese pros are not that weak. Only slightly weaker than international top pros. But then, they're pretty much all Iyama plays, except 1 or 2 matches a year. That's got to have an effect.

Or, we could even see it this way; perhaps Iyama is so talented, that even while constantly playing opponents who are weaker than he is, he can still get to a top pro level, it may be possible that if he participated in international tournaments and constantly played with top Chinese/Korea pros, that he might've become the undisputed no.1 in the world and created a new era of go like Wu Qingyuang and Lee Changho.

Iyama's strength is already trending down. He's down 0-3 against Takao in the 41st Meijin. Can you imagine a world top-5 player losing to Takao 3 games in a row? No disrespect to Takao, who's soon to turn 40, but Iyama's strength is wildly inflated by Goratings.org.

Iyama is like Notre Dame of American college football - perennially overrated.

We know that the situation today is very much like it used to be: Japanese players mostly focus on the domestic tournaments. When they meet internationally, they perform in a way that suggests Japanese go is weaker than Baduk or Weiqi but by exactly how much, is very difficult to assess. If the players would consistently meet each other in open tournaments, then we could make a fair assessment of Japanese go with respect to the other countries but we can't. It can be argued that Iyama & co take domestic tournaments more seriously but it can also be argued they shy away from the international encounters.

There are comparable problems in other sports. In football (soccer) there is a world cup for clubs, in which Brazilian and Argentinian clubs perform reasonably against the much richer European clubs (4 wins against 9). One could infer that these clubs are not much weaker but one might also argue that the world club for clubs doesn't mean much to the rich European teams while the South-American clubs have an honour to defend. The Chinese dominate international table tennis but only on rare occasions. Last year they even ignored the world tour finals which became a Japan-Germany affair. Their domestic tournaments mean much more to them. Everybody knows they dominate but exactly by how much? Impossible to know from international encounters with country limits, so that Chinese who are probably are top 10 can't even participate in the best tournaments.

These skewed encounters don't allow for a fair comparison, let alone a reliable ranking.

Kirby wrote:What is "accurate"? Ability to predict game outcome? Under what conditions? Who is playing white? What are the player's styles? How many games did the players each play last week? Are they in good physical condition? Is it a best-of-five match? How much money is at stake? Do the players have a history between one another?

You're a smart guy, do you really think that people who do ratings have never heard of someone getting sick, or having a particular opponent they're weak against?

I suspect that you could do a decent job answering those questions without my involvement. For one thing, I suspect that they're not that different from the questions that have been asked and answered before on this same topic, but even if you didn't remember them, I bet you could give decent answers on the spot.

hyperpape wrote:

Kirby wrote:What is "accurate"? Ability to predict game outcome? Under what conditions? Who is playing white? What are the player's styles? How many games did the players each play last week? Are they in good physical condition? Is it a best-of-five match? How much money is at stake? Do the players have a history between one another?

You're a smart guy, do you really think that people who do ratings have never heard of someone getting sick, or having a particular opponent they're weak against?

I suspect that you could do a decent job answering those questions without my involvement. For one thing, I suspect that they're not that different from the questions that have been asked and answered before on this same topic, but even if you didn't remember them, I bet you could give decent answers on the spot.

All I'm saying is that it's just a model- not the same as reality. Maybe it doesn't align with your personal model... What can you expect?

New ranking as of 11/30/16: http://www.cyberoro.com/news/news_view. ... =1&cmt_n=0

Iyama Yuta is now #38 and he's the only Japanese ranked in Top 100.
Many people must have thought that Japanese go in international scene is gone already, which is why there's so much shock when Ichiriki Ryo won against Lee Sedol back in September.
And Iyama Yuta finally has a chance to play internationally in March 2017, the last time he played with non-Japanese pro was in March 2016, that's a full year of domestic games only.

<- waits for by78's denigration in eager anticipation....

Argh, this automatic logging out is annoying.

Actually, from recent Chinese articles/pro commentary, I gathered that from their perspective, they think that Japan isn't as weak as they have been the past decade anymore. Chinese articles generally think that Japan lacked talent born in the '80s. Cho U was born in 1980, so he's a bit early, while Iyama is 1989, right at the end. Besides, they are basically the only 2 who stood out.

However, there are quite a few up and coming players now like Xu Jiayuan (kyo kagen), Ichiriki Ryo, Yu Zhengqi (Yo Seiki), Shibano Toramaru, etc, and while they're not exactly at the very top yet, they are not like the 80s players, and they still have potential to grow.

Regarding the rankings, I feel that Ke Jie's recent good form is not really reflected in his difference with Park. I'm not sure how much (if at all) stronger Ke Jie is than Park, but at least in the recent rankings, I'd've expected the difference to be a bit bigger.

Also, while I think Shin Jinseo will definitely deserve the spot he's at next year, I'm not sure he is there just quite yet.

Does Iyama deserve such a low rank? I expected him to be in the top 25, or 30 for sure.

For what is worth, Iyama is ranked 35th by Mamumamu's world ranking.

Do these rankings out of Asia know something we don't?