rank - gup (Korean) explained
Dan, Kyu and Gup
Japan uses a system of kyu and dan ranks (or grades) for amateur players that has been adopted by most of the world.
Korea calls its lower ranks gup. The gup system starts with weaker players around 30 gup (note below), and decreases, so stronger players have a lower gup, with 1 gup being the strongest of all.[1]
I have heard that a Korean 1 Gup can be anything between 2 Dan and 7 Dan European/Asian and that 2 Gup is equivalent to 2k-1D. In the lower ranges, gup and kyu are approximately equivalent, but because Koreans don't have Dan grades, ranks don't go up quite as linearly as European/Asian. What is linear anyway: my experience is that handicap is not additive at all.
This is word having reached me and it can as well be myth.
--DieterVerhofstadt (1 kyu not gup)
Note: I believe in Korea they do not keep track of rankings until 18 gup. Hence there is "no such rank" as 19 gup, or 30 gup for that matter.
Korean do give (sell) "official" amateur dan diplomas. Of course, you must be really strong (or rich ;-) to get it. One way is to pay to take a test (a handi game against a pro). I forget the pricing and the handicap but it gets more and more expensive as you progress up.
Alex Weldon: I think the Gup system has changed to be the same as kyu, or close to it. Everyone I've talked to here says that after 1 Gup, you become 1 dan (amateur). So 1 Gup is no longer the same as 2-7 dan.
JanRamon As far as I know, a Korean would say he's 2 gup if he is "strong" and 1 gup if he is "very strong" (professional level). They usually only use dan levels for professionals (or indeed for diplomas that give more an impression of your wealth than your skill). Therefore I was advised to emphasis the "amateur" in my "amateur 2 dan amateur" level when I went to Korea. And indeed, a Korean 1 gup can give me several stones. But as the hosts made a good attempt to translate everything for us, I don't know for sure how exactly the system works. The Dashn Baduk server uses kyu and dan grades, quite equivalent to european ratings I think.
Alex Weldon: I'm still confused, actually. As I said, a Korean with excellent English (so there was no misunderstanding) said that after 1 Gup, there are amateur dan levels 1-7 before the professional ranks. This is held up by the fact that when I went to a kiwon? several months ago I was tested by a guy who said he was "amateur 6 dan." (in retrospect, I should have actually asked what my rank was... instead, he just came by and said how many handicap stones were appropriate whenever I played a game with someone else).
Also, a guy I play with regularly, and can now beat giving 2 stones handicap, told me last night that he'd say I'm 6 Gup, since he used to be 7 Gup, but is a little bit out of practice. Since I'm around 11k* IGS, there's no way that's true if 6 Gup is really in the low single-digit kyus.
On the other hand, when a student asked me what Gup I was, and I told her that someone told me I was 6 Gup, she gasped and said that was stronger than her teacher. So I don't know.
Charles Matthews It seems that in South Korea dan ranks comparable to international ideas of strong amateur levels (a little stronger than EGF, though) are being introduced gradually, but from the top down. Korean 7 dan represents the top group of amateurs no more than a stone from pros, Korean 6 dan is for winners of a national event. These are elite groups; Korean 5 dan is for the top 10000 nationally, and Korean 4 dan (I've met one recently) is close to EGF 5 dan, anyway EGF 4.5 dan. These ranks fill out in some way the space caused by 2 gup being traditionally a broad level (would cover a high proportion of good to strong European amateurs), since 1 gup has a special meaning. It is probably still not the case that one can consolidate all grade information there easily. (The same could be said for Japan, too, but there the effect is somewhat better hidden.)
Tamsin: I played at the Korean-run baduk club in Flushing, NYC earlier this year. I am comfortably 1 kyu in the UK, but 8 gup in that club was too hot for me that day. It was all the more embarrassing because when I first arrived and said I was 1 kyu at home, they thought I meant that I was 1 gup. This lead to me giving a rather stronger player than me a handicap game, which took a lamentable (now laughable) course. In any case, those Korean players in Flushing were the toughest opponents I have ever run into.
- DrStraw This reminds me of am amusing story I have from almost 30 years ago. I was 1 dan UK at the time and went to live in Iran for a year. There I met some Korean players who had very limited English but who played Go. I told them I was 1 dan and could not understand why they found that so impressive. They told me they were 1 gup, which a Korean with better English translated as 1 kyu. He, himself, claimed 4 kyu (4 gup). Needless to say it was an embarrassing time for me when I was thoroughly slaughtered after they refused to take white against a dan player. Even though I am now USA 5 dan I am reluctant to claim Korean 1 gup because of the memory of this.
[1] The kyu - dan system in Japan is at first sight more confusing. It starts with the weakest players ranked around 30 kyu, and goes down as the players get stronger, with 1 kyu in Japan being a reasonably strong player (similar to about 7 or 6 gup); then it starts over with the dan ranks. 1 dan is the first step after 1 kyu, and the dan ranks go up to 7 in most places. 7-dan amateur players are the people who win the World Amateur Go Championship, for example.
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Korean Go instructors don't like to give out dan rankings, unless the student is very talented. However online Korean server rankings tend to be more inflated than "regular" ranks
Here is a problem for a Korean 5k student:
S_Cho: There are two different ranking systems for amateurs in Korea. One is official HankukKiwon system, which goes from 18 gup to 7 dan. The other is used in typical go salons, which goes from 18 gup to 1 gup. (Maybe they think there is no such thing as "dan" player in amateur level.) Roughly speaking, 4~5 gup in "go salon" system corresponds to 1 dan in the HankukKiwon system, and "typical" 1 gup in "go salon" system corresponds to 4 dan. But, since there is no higher rank, there are strong 1 gup ("kang 1 gup") players corresponding to 5 dan ~ 7 dan. More confusing thing is, if a go salon have some strong 1 gup members, 3 gup player at the go salon (since s/he gets 2 stone handicap to 1 gup players) may be as strong as 1~2 gup players in another go salon.
nachtrabe: It should probably be emphasized, since there seems to be some confusion among a lot of people, that "gup" is just the Korean equivalent for the word "kyu"--I can say that I'm a "4 kup" in Hapki Do and it is equivalent to saying that I "4 kyu" if it were a Japanese martial art.