From: Larry Kaufman COMCAST NET> Date: 8 nov 2002 Subject: Re: ISF, 5-dans, Gert Schinder and Artem Kolomiyets ----- Original Message ----- From: "STOUTEN, PIETER [R&D/0467]" PHARMACIA COM> To: TECHUNIX TECHNION AC IL> Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 9:23 AM Subject: ISF, 5-dans, Gert Schinder and Artem Kolomiyets > On Fri 8 Nov 2002 at 12:14 +0900, bogin YAHOO CO JP> wrote: > > >I guess I was just surprised that the Renmei decided to award > >a 5dan rank to the winner. It quite fortunate for anyone to > >achieve such a rank from just one tournament of 5 games. > > > Well, that's a bit like saying it is quite fortunate for someone to become > Meijin from just one event of 7 games (and only having to score 4/7). I think this is a faulty analogy because Meijin is a temporary (1 year) title whereas 5 Dan is for life. But the Japanese are not so concerned with the accuracy of their ranks. Just look at the Pro Dan system, which is primarily based on the total number of career games won. This is primarily a function of age, not of strength. Even among amateurs, it is common to award promotions for service to shogi unrelated to playing strength -- we have several Japanese players in the U.S. who were promoted by NSF (in one case to 5 Dan) solely because of their great contributions to the spread of Shogi. For tournament and handicap purposes, these promotions are just ignored. But we in the West prefer to have ranks that are based solely on actual results, and with mathematically justifiable rules. So there will be many cases where players earn higher ranks in Japan than they do in our system. For example Asle Olufssen reports that he just earned 1 Dan in the Shinjuku Shogi Center, whereas his rating on our system is still far from that level. As long as we base pairings, handicaps, invitations etc. on ratings rather than ranks, there should be no problem. If any other Western player earned a club rank in Japan recently, please let us know so we can monitor the relative levels of our systems. > Just as much as Gert's victory at the ISF, the performance of Artem > Kolomiyets of Ukraine there impressed me. It would be extremely good if > Artem were to participate in the 2003 European Championship. He seems a > force to be reckoned with and a true contender for the title. Maybe we > should start lobbying already? I played four ten-minute games with him besides our tournament game, and although I won them all, two were won with only a second or two left on my clock! I feel that his strength after the opening is solidly 4 Dan, but his opening knowledge is very limited now and so he may not be quite ready to earn that rank yet, though certainly he is a strong 3 Dan at least. Larry Kaufman