I am curious how the Western professionals qualified for professional status.
I know from his webpage that Dinerchtein was granted professional status by a special decision of the KBA. Were similar decisions made for any of the others?
Afaik (mostly from reading SL), it was the same for Svetlana Shikshina and Diana Koszegi as well as for Manfred Wimmer and James Kerwin. The other western players (Catalin Taranu, Hans Pietsch, Michael Redmond and Joanne Missingham) qualified through the promotion tournament.
I just noticed that Janice Kim was left off of both lists. Any knowledge about her case?
According to this http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7965&p=130689 there are 6 non-asians who have been awarded professional status with KBA through special decisions, namely Janice Kim, Alexander Dinerchtein, Svetlana Shikshina, Diana Koszegi and Mariya Zakharchenko.