Strong Non Prodigy

A strong non-prodigy is simply the reverse of a prodigy--a player who develops great talent in spite of starting go late or exhibiting slow initial progress. Compiling a list might be intrinsically interesting, but also would be useful as a reference for discussions about the relationship of age to Go skill. I suggest that we could include people from several categories: people who became professionals at late ages ^[1], people who became strong professionals at late ages (perhaps 9p in contemporary go), latest age at which a title-holder went pro.

• Manfred Wimmer: Became a professional at age 33-34.^[2]
• James Kerwin: Did not start playing go until college years, became a professional at age 31-32.
• Michael Redmond: Began playing go at age 11, went pro at age 18, is now a 9 dan.^[3]
• Hans Pietsch: German-born 6 dan professional who went pro at age 28-29.
• Yu Ch'ang-hyeok: Became a professional at age 17-18, has won many titles.
• Kageyama Toshiro: 7 dan Nihon Ki-in professional who went pro at age 22-23. The note from Lessons In The Fundamentals Of Go suggests that he began playing at age 15-16.
• Nakayama Noriyuki: Nihon Ki-in 6-dan. Began professional studies at age 21, qualified as professional shodan at age 29.

[1] We can include Japanese, Chinese and Korean players in this category even though they obviously lag behind outsiders. More seriously, it makes sense to include examples of both players from traditional go-playing countries and other countries where possible, since the culture of the country affects when players will be exposed to Go and what sort of teaching they receive.

[2]Having the date at which a player started go in addition to when they became professional would be quite useful.

[3] While Redmond was not a prodigy he didn't start particularly late and he didn't develop slowly. He may have started playing at age 11 but by age 13 he was ama 5d and went to Japan to study to be a pro. Age 18 is not particularly late to become pro 1d, and he advanced through the pro ranks at a good pace.