Korean Dominance Discussion
Korea dominates the international Go scene. Japan does the worst of the three great Go nations. Why? We can discuss it with the statements below as a starting points.
- The competition in Korea is tougher: more new players, more aspiring pros, faster official progress, more top level matches. Hence: better players.
- Japan is still caught in conventional wisdom.
- Japanese players concentrate on home titles, which have more prestige in Japan and are more richly funded.
- It's a matter of conjuncture. Soon Japan and China will have an era where they prevail.
- Korean tournament conditions are the same as the International tournament conditions. In Japan the major titles are best of seven series, with two days for each game. If those conditions would be set on International events, Japan would do a lot better.
2003-2006 Discussion
Bob McGuigan: Japan just had a convincing win in the Asian Cup team tournament against a very strong Korean team. There was a long period of time in which the Japanese were dominant. Personally I think which country is dominant will change from time to time.
Charles Matthews: I think Yi Se-tol is there because in South Korea there is now a training system designed to find players like him, from a whole cohort. There are other aspects, though. Historians will have a better perspective. One of my theories, shamefully weak as I am to be thinking such thoughts, is that the undoubtedly-great Sakata had a negative influence. If you go back to Chinese pro games from about 1980 on, they are still working on sansan fuseki; it takes them quite a number of years to move the style on. At that point Chinese pros were still assimilating the Japanese way (perhaps first business when their pro system was set up in 1982?). Anyway, it's curious; and the Koreans perhaps not long after that started pursuing a different direction.
John F.: I'm not yet convinced that Korean dominance is quite what it seems. It's true that Korean pros are winning the titles, and that Japanese fans have been gnashing their teeth for quite a while now. But I've been struck by something when I've been entering data into the GoGoD tournament tables. Japanese players seem to hold their end up rather well in the early rounds. If you were to look at figures showing simply wins and losses in international events, rather than titles, I have a feeling you'd find that Korea does not dominate that much. Of course their best are the very best, but when Go Seigen was at his peak it did not mean all Chinese players were good.
Incidentally, the Korean reaction to defeat in the CSK Cup seems a bit over the top. "Waterloo" and "sinking of the Titanic" were two of the analogies I've seen. More likely the truth is fatigue. Yi Se-tol has already pulled out of a Wangwi League game for that reason, and most of the top stars have been commuting to China almost weekly for the Cities League. But that's now been postponed indefinitely, along with all other Chinese events, so the Koreans can get a bit of R&R (rest and recuperation).
Bob McGuigan: It seems to be the case that professional go receives more popular support in Korea than in Japan right now so talented children would be more likely to be found and steered into the professional pipeline in Korea. If I recall correctly, in her book The World of Chinese Go, Guo Juan tells how talented children were almost required to attend professional training school. Of course we reject the chauvinistic notion that one country could be inherently better than another so it is interesting to speculate on what factors contribute to a strong and vital pro go scene in a country. Certainly societal support for professional go as an attractive career must be one of them.
John F.: Well, I think a case could probably be made for saying it was the other way round in Korea - it was the success of Yi Ch'ang-ho that led to public support. One aspect I find intriguing is the rise of the teenybopper. In so many physical sports teenagers are rising to the very top, and we are seeing it also in go and chess. Was it really always like this, but in the past children were expected to stay in the background? If so, maybe the rise of Korea is that they let their kids off the leash first.
Tim Brent: I do agree with the contention that Japanese players may look at the international titles as secondary to their 'home' titles -- just as a Canadian ice hockey player will look at the Stanley Cup as more important than an Olympic or World title. As one who follows professional Go, I admit I try to look at the seven Japanese Big Titles more than the Fujitsu Cup for example.
Bob McGuigan: One of the points raised at the top had to do with the differing time limits in the big Japanese tournaments and the international tournaments. There are many fast tournaments in Japan so I doubt that could really be important. But it seems natural to wonder whether the quality of the go is higher in the long time limit matches. Anybody have anything to say about that?
Charles: I think it is widely believed in Japan that longer time limits imply games of greater depth; I certainly heard this point of view from John Power. If to be a pro is to train for games with 6 hours each, as it has been in Japan, then that sets a basic rhythm for what you are trying to do. Going over games from the 1920s and 1930s, where routine Oteai games were over two days, one does find more examples of complex macroendgame - that at least is my impression. The classic Cho Hun-hyeon game is more about getting an early lead, somewhat in the way Go Seigen used to.
Bob McGuigan: Certainly there is a difference in character between fast games and long time limit games. There seem to be more chaotic fights in fast games. In commentaries on fast games missed opportunities, presumably due to insufficient reading, are often pointed out. Are there more such in three hour per player games as opposed to six hour per player games?
exswoo: I think everyone is forgetting one simple thing about Go in Korea: that it is VERY popular. There is a separate Go channel that runs 24/7 (Japan's shares its time with Shogi), and for the education crazy Korean mothers, Go is pretty much the only game that they don't mind sending their children to study, since it supposedly builds the mind, so you have a lot of kids in Korea who are exposed to go when they're 6-7.
There are hundreds of Go academies aimed at children alone, and even people don't play are bound to be exposed to Go when they have to serve their 30 months in the army, since there the only games you can play to to pass the time while you're there is Go and Chinese Chess (the Korean variant). You add to the fact that there are only 191 pros in the Korean Ki-in (pronounced Giwon in Korean), you're bound to have a lot of talented players in the top ranks.
jwaytogo: Youth. That is the key to creating a strong professional go scene. Although there are a few talented pros who turned professional later in life, the very best players tend to have started playing at a very early age. Hence, to have these elites in a national arsenal, the country must actually work quite hard to promote the game among the young.
There is a trend in Japan that views go as a game for the old folks, and go is not a pasttime that youngsters in Japan are likely to participate in. In fact, many of the youth may even consider it boring. I think HnG was a very good attempt at trying to increase the popularity of the game among the Japanese youth, but the impact of these promotion methods have yet to ascertained. We do know that HnG seems to have had a pronounced impact in promoting go internationally. Maybe the insei training program is insufficient. Greater strides may need to be taken to go into the schools to promote go to the very young.
In Korea, playing baduk among the youth is all the rage. Go is part of school curriculum in many places. In fact, the Myongji University even has a Baduk Department that offers a degree in Baduk Studies. Almost all korean youth are aware of the game, even if they do not play. The recent success of Lee Changho and others in the international scene has created a fan base for the game that will be a good foundation for continued promotion of the game in Korea. Korea seems to have the best prospects of maintaining an international dominance in the game in the years to come.
Weiqi promotion and development in China was set back a few decades ago due to political decisions taken by the government of the Peoples Republic of China. (see The World of Chinese Go for details. --Velobici) Nevertheless, China has always had an outstanding youth training program sponsored by the government, whatever the sport or game. They have a huge population from which to select the best players from. The new wave of young players in China have already started to take the stage. Gone are the days where the home game was dominated by one player, like the days of Nie Weiping or Ma Xiaochun. This new wave of young professionals will eventually mature and give Korea a run for its money. In fact, it may already be happening...
RSM: jwaytogo is certainly right; in this past two or three years, China has outperformed Korea in pretty much every international tournament. Most recently, Yi Changho and Yi Sedol, the only surviving Korean players, were eliminated from the 2006 Chunlan Cup in the round of eight, failing to reach the semifinals. With Yi Changho elminited from the Chunlan Cup, the only major international titles held by Korea are the Toyota Denso Cup (Yi Sedol; Yi is still alive in the current tourney) and the Fujitsu Cup (Park Jeongsang). While some are hoping that this is a result of a temporary slump on the part of the top Korean players like Yi Changho, it appears more likely that a generational transition is underway. Unless Yi Changho, Yi Sedol and Choi Cheolhan dramatically improve their international performance next year, younger players like Go Geuntae and Park Jeongsang will soon overtake them.
pwaldron: I asked a Westerner living in Japan about this, and he summed it up in ten words: "Korean mothers think playing go will make their children smarter." Korean mothers think that go is a worthwhile activity for their children and are prepared to ferry them in after-school classes, enroll them in tournaments, etc. By contrast, Japanese mother consider go to be just another pasttime, like video games or watching TV. As a consequence, the Korean dominance is simply a matter of numbers; they have a larger talent base to draw from, with obvious results.