Mark Boon wrote:
All the examples given to support the argument either way are at best anecdotal. But looking at the EGF ranking list, the 7-dan players are interspersed with players of professional ranks, with very few 6 dans among them. That is based on a considerable amount of data. Maybe you are correct to have doubts about S. Shikshina, but how about Guo Juan, Catalin Taranu, Alexander Dinnerschtein and others? These things tend to average out over larger numbers.
Let's say that active Pros should have 2800+, though players with 2750+ might still be professional strength. That would give 2 or 3 EGF 7dans of "professional strength", which doesn't contradict anything I said earlier. About the pros in the rating list, since you asked: Dinerstein is at the bottom end of professional strength, note that his promotion from 1p to 3p (like Shikshinas) had nothing to do with his playing achievements. Catalin was over 2800 during his time as an active pro (peaking at 2821 in 2004). He has obviously gotten weaker since he stopped playing pro tournaments, just like Guo, who has been out of the pro scene for so long that I think it's fair to say she doesn't have pro strength anymore. Finally, Diana has only been rated for 3 tournaments since she became a pro - there was a gap of 2 years where she was studying Baduk in Korea - and one of them was the WMSG which obviously has questionable effects on the rating because of so many participants who weren't in the rating database beforehand (for instance she lost against a girl from Taiwan who will have entered the database at 2600 but for all I know will be a professional soon). I think it's fair to say that her current rating probably does not reflect her current playing strength.
I don't quite see the large numbers over which this is averaging out. ;) Regards, Michael _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
