Life In 19x19

Also in a recently posted Korean pros reaction to the Master games they singled out Iyama when asked what human didn't lose in the first 50 moves.

Uberdude wrote:Also in a recently posted Korean pros reaction to the Master games they singled out Iyama when asked what human didn't lose in the first 50 moves.

I thought Iyama was winning for a while... but afterwards, I don't know if I'm remembering this correctly, but I think that chinese pros thought that Iyama was never in a good position after all.

On the other hand, one of Meng Tailing's games was actually okay for a little while (according to chinese pros). Can't remember which one, might've been the one where Aja misclicked.

Despite his ill health, Ke Jie has won against Iyama by resignation in the final of Chinese New Year Invitational.

Here's the game video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0UKc7x2hBI

During the post-game interview, the interviewer asked Iyama to participate more in international tournaments and play more in China because Chinese fans are interested in knowing more about him and his game. Iyama replied that it is indeed his fervent wish to increase his international participation.

I think Iyama should definitely do so. I for one am incredibly curious as to how he'd fare against Korean and Chinese competition. He should participate in the Chinese City League. It will be a great experience for him and make him even stronger.

His next international match is vs. Park Junghwan in Nongshim Cup at February 21.
And World Go Championship in 21-23/24 March.

In the past year, looking at Dr. Bae Taeil's rankings, Iyama has moved from 17th to 31st, but other Japanese players have moved up. Last april, none of them were in the top 100, but now we have 68th (Kono Rin), 75th (Yamashita Keigo), 79th (Ichiriki Ryo). Excluding Iyama, these results are somewhat consistent with goratings--the Japanese players are about 20 places lower in Taeil's ratings, but the same three are near the top.

Given the rapid movements, it seems that goratings is intended to be much more stable in its evaluations of players, while Taeil's rankings are closer to point in time performance rankings. That's not surprising, but it confirms a difference between the two.

Dr. Taeil's ratings put Takao Shinji (136) and Yo Seiki (125) far lower relative to their Japanese peers.

Rankings:
March 2017: http://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 27#p217327
August 2016: http://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=13460
April 2016: http://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=13127

His 10 consecutive wins earn him 3rd top pro in goratings. This is as high as he could get, because both Park Jungwhan and Ke Jie have no sign of giving up their position.

pookpooi wrote:His 10 consecutive wins earn him 3rd top pro in goratings. This is as high as he could get, because both Park Jungwhan and Ke Jie have no sign of giving up their position.

10 consecutive wins against whom? Domestic Japanese competition?

ewan1971 wrote:10 consecutive wins against whom? Domestic Japanese competition?

His 10 latest game records that is recognized by go4go database

https://www.goratings.org/en/players/601.html

8 games against Japanese players, 2 against international competition in the LG cup.

hyperpape wrote:8 games against Japanese players, 2 against international competition in the LG cup.

Eight games against Japanese players... tsk tsk...

hyperpape wrote:In the past year, looking at Dr. Bae Taeil's rankings, Iyama has moved from 17th to 31st, but other Japanese players have moved up. Last april, none of them were in the top 100, but now we have 68th (Kono Rin), 75th (Yamashita Keigo), 79th (Ichiriki Ryo). Excluding Iyama, these results are somewhat consistent with goratings--the Japanese players are about 20 places lower in Taeil's ratings, but the same three are near the top.

Given the rapid movements, it seems that goratings is intended to be much more stable in its evaluations of players, while Taeil's rankings are closer to point in time performance rankings. That's not surprising, but it confirms a difference between the two.

Dr. Taeil's ratings put Takao Shinji (136) and Yo Seiki (125) far lower relative to their Japanese peers.

Rankings:
March 2017: http://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 27#p217327
August 2016: http://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=13460
April 2016: http://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=13127

I think the Dr. Bae has access to many more games not available to Go4go, and since Goratings relies soley on the Go4go databse, I could see where problems might develop. I have no doubt that if Goratings had access to all the professional games, Iyama's ranking would drop to somewhere much closer to Dr. Bae's ranking.

You make me remind of someone.

Well, while I do agree that he is not top 3 right now, the Dr. Bae data was for last year, and to my understanding, mainly rely on international results (not like goratings that counts every game the same weight), and we all know that last year Iyama played very few international matches.

Besides, almost all his international games this year were against top 10 players (beside the game with Lee Younggu, which he also won). While losing to Park Junghwan and Mi Yuting in the computer tournament (I watched both games directly, they were really intense fights to me), he did go 1-1 with an "ill" Ke Jie (who still beat Park in the same tournament), and Zhou Ruiyang, right after the Alpha Go matches.

So, well, yeah, 3rd is overrated, but 30th seems even more unreasonable.

The only disappointing international game of Iyama this year is perhaps the exhibition game against Lee Sedol. Lee won the last 3 games between them, perhaps he found a way to counter Iyama "weird" style.

kimidori wrote:

I got the impression that Ke Jie at his full strength is almost a stone stronger than Iyama.

If we forget about Alpha Go, I think the difference between top players is nowhere near 1 stone. Top pros (even Ke Jie) cannot give top Chinese insei (would become ~ rank 300 worldwide when they become pros) anything more than 2 stones (even 2 stones would already be too hard). Iyama might be top 10 or top 30, but he is still top-pros level (mean he can beat anyone on a good day), so I would expect the difference (if any) to be no more than 2-3 points komi. Remember that if there is no komi, both players would play a completely different game.

Since pros nowadays don't play with handicap anymore, it is easy to mean different things by "one stone stronger".

How about going by the older Japanese way, where winning 3 out of 4 used to be how to measure when it is time to change the handicap? By that measure, Ke Jie surely is one stone stronger than maybe all others.
This only tells half the story though - you may be right in that if he really would play white without Komi, he may lose more than 50% of his games against other top pros including Iyama.

Uberdude wrote:Iyama had a big fight and lost against Korean wonderkid Shin Jinseo in the Samsung cup round of 16.

The game lasted only 118 moves. Hardly a performance I'd expect from a world #5 on Goratings. Of course, Shin is ranked higher than Iyama, but the their ELO ratings are separated by merely 35 points.