Life In 19x19

I was not surprised. Most professional athletes are primarily coaches, clebrity endorsers, or receiving patronage. Musicians teach, and busk. Actors are famous for waiting tables, or making ends meet with yet older professions.

lemmata wrote:Just to take a quick poll, who other than me was also genuinely surprised to learn these facts about the income sources of pro players?

Not even remotely surprised, I would have been shocked if it was otherwise. Professional go associations remind me quite a lot of old guild structures, apprentice, journeyman, master etc. They'd squeeze out cheap low skilled labour out of the apprentices and then cheap skilled labour out of them as journeymen before they ever got a shot at setting up shop themselves in many cities all simply to protect or bolster the income of the guys at the top. Accountancy, actuary and law all work somewhat like this in Ireland to this day, apprentice barristers for instance usually aren't paid (this being after our equivalent of Law School). Academics does too to an extent here, I know many PhD students who receive far less than our minimum wage only to go to compete against each other for a limited selection of post-docs and temporary lectureships depending on the field. Again, squeezing cheap research out at the various skill stages while dangling the hope of a full professorship (think head of a department rather than what the American system calls a professor) and the money and prestige it brings.

It's basically a legalised form of pyramid scheme in many of these professions, it's literally impossible for everyone getting in at the bottom to get to one of the very well paying jobs at the top.

lemmata wrote:
Just to take a quick poll, who other than me was also genuinely surprised to learn these facts about the income sources of pro players?

I was surprised, mostly because I hadn't given it much thought before. We can probably all agree that professional go players have extraordinary mental abilities and do extremely hard mental work. Kind of like people who have extraordinary physical abilities and get paid to shovel dirt. Current societies have awe for ability, but prefer output when it comes to shelling out.

Did anyone read Hikaru no Go? Does the manga offer any glimpses into the lives of professionals who aren't competing for titles? I haven't read Hikaru, but I do remember that a pro player was involved in its production.

lemmata wrote:Did anyone read Hikaru no Go? Does the manga offer any glimpses into the lives of professionals who aren't competing for titles? I haven't read Hikaru, but I do remember that a pro player was involved in its production.

I cannot tell you that since I have no clue what life as a pro is.

However - I can tell you that HnG had a whole lot of baloney in it. Ghosts of past Go players in somebody's head... puh-leeze! This right there pretty much invalidates the whole story as anything even remotely factual.

I like this game where more k's are better.

24k isn't bad, for a twelve year old

My guess is they make all their money under the table.