Life In 19x19

Matti wrote:

ethanb wrote:

John Fairbairn wrote:Sakata was 64 when he millideified.

If Sakata's 1000th win made him 1/1000th of a deity... does that mean 1 million wins as a professional makes somebody a god?

Suppose one plays 10+10 minutes lightning games, 40 games a day. It then takes about 68 and half years to play a million games.

Well, there's the small matter of having to win them all too.

John Fairbairn wrote:...Fourteen players have now reached 1,000 wins in Japan. Sakata Eio was the first, in 1984. In some ways that the most impressive case as he was playing in a period of much fewer tournaments. As a measure of how much he stood out, it was over ten years before another player reached 1,000. However, Sakata was 64 when he millideified....

An additional bit of information that would flavor these results would be the number of titles won by each player in the course of those 1,000 wins. I assume that Sakata's total must be highest with Cho next among Japanese pros.

Nope, it's Cho Chikun with 71, followed by Sakata at 64. I'm sure that Sakata would win on percentage of available titles won during his career, but Cho has more.

Here are stats, which are almost certainly unreliable for non-Japanese players, and may not be accurate for the Japanese: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_to ... ders_in_Go. (Yamashita seems to have 19 titles if you count the Shin'Ei and Shinjin-O. I'm not sure if this is customary).

But how many did Cho win by the age of 43, when he completed his first 1,000 wins?

Oh, I misread that. Sakata will be ahead, since Cho only reached Sakata's mark of 64 titles in 2002 at the age of 46, and he won at some tournaments between 43 and 46.

You know, your name is still on the Sensei's page announcing Cho's 65th title.