Professional

    Keywords: Culture & History, Go term, People

Chinese 1: 职业 (zhi2 ye4)
Chinese 2: 专业 (zhuan1 ye4)
Japanese 1: 棋士 or 碁士 (kishi)
Japanese 2: プロ (puro)
Japanese 3: 専門家 (semmonka)
Japanese 4: 玄人 (kurouto)
Korean 1: 바둑기사 (badukgisa)
Korean 2: 프로 (pro)

Table of contents

Types

There might be at least the following types of Go professionals:

  1. members of professional Go guilds;
  2. playing professionals;
  3. teaching professionals;
  4. go writers (journalists, authors);
  5. professional Go scientists (including programmers).

A professional might belong to more than one type. Being professional often means 'earning money'. In practice one should recognise some degree of semi-professionalism.

Status & History of Members of Guilds

Professional organisations

The usual way of defining professionalism is in terms of membership of a professional organisation - a guild-like group of strong players. The major examples are

These were all founded during the twentieth century. There are smaller groups in Japan, and a pro organisation in Taiwan. There is also some structure for professionals in North America. There may be other places with some recognised pros.

What is a professional?

If a professional is a person whose primary occupation is go, then concept of "professional" players has existed for centuries. The traditional term for such a go (or shogi) player in Japan is 棋士 (kishi).

Go teachers often make their primary income from teaching and writing about go. Unless they are affiliated with one of the Go associations, they are still considered 'amateurs', i.e. not pros. Kikuchi is one example of a very strong player who is not an accredited pro. Yasunaga had a pro diploma, but did not claim pro status or compete (he played in the WAGC).

Velobici: The primary source of income for the (vast?) majority of professional is teaching. Tournament play provides an income supplement for many professionals and is the primary source of income for a small number.

While both players often receive payment for each title match game, title match winners receive significantly more than the losers. Titles in China, Japan, and Korea are dominated by a small number of professionals. This is true at this time and since the inception of the title match system.

In Japan, the country with the largest title match awards, there are seven big titles. As of early 2005:

 Cho Chikun has won 68 titles,
 Sakata Eio has won 64 titles,
 Kobayashi Koichi 59,
 Otake Hideo 48,
 Kato Masao 47,
 Rin Kaiho 35,
 Yoda Norimoto 34,
 Ishida Yoshio 24,
 Takemiya Masaki 24,
 Fujisawa Shuko 23, and
 O Rissei 22. [1]

The dominance of a very small number of individuals is indisputable.

Historical vs. Contemporary Go

In Japan, prior to the Meiji Restoration, the four houses essentially controlled Go. They were sponsored by the shogunate, and indeed played their most important games before the shogun. These castle games, as they were known, were the central fixture of historical Japanese Go, and helped to establish the reputation of several players we study even now. Shusaku, for instance, is famous partially because he never lost in a castle game. After the eventual collapse of the four houses, the professional organizations as we know them today--the Nihon Ki-in and Kansai Ki-in--arose.

There have been also some changes in ranking systems and titles. Historically, there could be only one Meijin, which is the equivalent of 9-dan professional, at a time. Today, there is no such distinction. There are many professionals who have attained a 9p rank, as determined by their respective Go associations. The title "Meijin" has become one of the Japanese big titles. Similarly, the last hereditary Honinbo, Shusai, allowed the title to be made into a tournament. None of the other four houses followed this route, however.

People

Notable Historical Pros

This list is extremely cursory; there are many more historical professionals, some of whom may be discussed elsewhere on Sensei's Library.

Notable Twentieth Century Pros (inactive or deceased)

Notable Active Pros

Notable Migrant Pros

Notable Western Pros

Other Pros

Other Resources


[1] Go World Summer 2005, issue number 104, page 6

[2] Cho Chikun is technically a migrant from Korea to Japan but since he left Korea at the age of 6 and did not return until he had won the Meijin title (age 24), he is Japanese both by go training and culturally.


See also:


This is a copy of the living page "Professional" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2011 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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