From: Larry Kaufman COMCAST NET> Date: 28 oct 2002 Subject: Re: Congratulations ----- Original Message ----- From: "bogin" YAHOO CO JP> To: TECHUNIX TECHNION AC IL> Sent: Monday, October 28, 2002 7:42 PM Subject: Re: Congratulations > Mr. Kaufman, > > Again, sorry. No offense was intended. Please don't apologize for anything. We are just having a polite (public) discussion of some issues. I'm sure that there is little > statistical difference between the Western and Japanese Shogi and there > relative ranks. The level of play is probably pretty much the same > throughout the world. 99% of my shogi experience has been at Japanese clubs > and I haven't really had the chance to play many western players. So, I > guess my perception is a little bit jaded. But, I'm probably not the only > one that has made that mistake. You even wrote yourself that perhaps the > reason that there were no strong Japanese Nationals playing in this past > Shogi Forum was probably because the JSF wanted a foreigner to win. > Unfortunately, I think you're probably pretty close to the truth. Up to > now, as far as I know, of all the foreigners invited to participate in the > Japanese Amateur Ryu-O or other major Amateur tournaments only 1, Reijer > Grimbergen, has managed to win a game. So, despite all of the evidence to > the contrary this way of thinking is still pretty common. Perhaps Mr. > Schnider's victory and the quality of his play will go a long way in > changing that. > I think two things are pretty clear to most knowledgeable shogi players both inside and outside Japan. 1. Club ranks in Japan are fairly comparable on average to Pan-Atlantic ranks (actually, at the lower levels the Pan-Atlantic ranks are stricter). 2. The top Japanese amateurs are much stronger than the top Western players. These facts are not inconsistent. There is a very great disparity between the top Japanese amateurs (who play at about the same level as the bottom class of pros) and an average club 5 Dan (which I would consider myself to be). These top amateurs can actually give bishop handicap to us average 5 Dans, just as a pro can do. The problem lies in the artificial ceiling of 6 Dan on amateur ranks. If ranks were awarded without such constraints, the top amateurs would be at least 8 Dan. > I think anyone can achieve such a high dan is really strong. Like you said, > even among shogi club there is a general difference in playing strength and > the Tokyo and Osaka branches of the JSF are not the strongest in Japan by > far. or course there are much stronger ones. Some clubs even have a > different handicap set up than the one used in Osaka. For example, the > Awaji club in Kobe completely skips the Lance handicap and uses starts with > the Bishop. Assuming you mean that bishop is used for a 2 rank difference (as is also the case with the Shinjuku Shogi Center), this makes for much more competitive games than the Renmei system of lance for 2 ranks. In any case for me, going 45-6 is pretty hard. If by " weaker" > opposition you mean lower ranked than of course you you'll play some > "weaker" guys. But, I don't necessarily think that "lower" means "weaker". Well, on average it must! But of course not in every case. > At Osaka and other clubs, high dan players almost never get paired down too > much. Unless, it's a slow day and there are no players, move or lance is > probably the biggest handicap you'll see among the high dans. It's precisely these games (at move or lance) that are the easiest for the stronger player. When I played as a 5 Dan in the Renmei clubs, I more or less broke even with the other 5 Dans, but I won the overwhelming majority of games against 4 Dans giving the move and against 3 Dans giving lance. This is typical. The top ranked players always score far more than 50%, because the "handicaps" for 1 or 2 ranks are inadequate. > Winning a handicap tournament, like you did is really quite an > accomplishment. Those tournaments are single elimination and the time limit > is 30 minutes and no byo yomi. So, you must really be truly strong in order > to be able to win it. So, I wasn't implying that you didn't deserve you're > rank. You are extremely strong and your results more than back up your > rank. I wasn't trying to imply that you, Mr. Schnider or anyone has to > justify their rank. No one ever implied that I needed to justify my rank. The compulsion to do so came from within. I'd be more than happy to achieve a 6dan rank at the > club level. > $B!! (BI guess I was just trying to point out the differences in the two > promotion systems. I wasn't trying to be critical. I apologize if it came > off that way. > You didn't. > By the way, in order to make 6dan, even at the relatively weak JSF Osaka > Shogi Club, you'd only need to go 18-0 or 26-2. Despite all of the strong > players who regularly play there, since 12/2001 there have only been 4 > people who have been promoted to 6dan from 5dan. They all had 26-2 records. > During the same period, only 8 people have been promoted to 5dan. Of the 5 > dan group only 3 were able to go 13-0. So, I don't think it would be > embarrassing to achieve such a high dan ranking at the club level. It's not > like there giving them out like candy. > I recall playing a couple of games against players who had earned 6 Dan via the club route. They were certainly strong players, stronger than I am, but nowhere near the level of players who earned 6 Dan by winning one of the Japanese national championships. Those players should be 8 Dan! It is this artificial "rank compression" that I'm criticizing. It makes the top ranks almost meaningless. The real proof of this is the situation on "ShogiDojo". Despite the fact that the Dan ranks run about two ranks below normal club ranks (for example I'm a middle 3 Dan there), there are actually amateurs who are 6 Dan on "ShogiDojo" (one of whom is Mr. Hayashi who beat me in the final of the Shogi Forum event in 1999). So, these few players would be 8 Dan in most clubs if the ranks went that high. > Once again sorry for any misunderstanding. > There was none! > Bill Gaudry > Larry Kaufman