dai@FAS.RI.CMU.EDU (Dai Feng) (03/31/88)
I know go players are rated by dans, but never heard of the rating kyu. What does kyu mean, especially relative to dan? Dai
jscosta@cod.NOSC.MIL (Joseph S. Costa) (03/31/88)
In article <1257@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>, dai@FAS.RI.CMU.EDU (Dai Feng) writes: > I know go players are rated by dans, but never heard of the rating kyu. What > does kyu mean, especially relative to dan?
vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn) (03/31/88)
In article <1046@cod.NOSC.MIL> jscosta@cod.NOSC.MIL (Joseph S. Costa) writes: >In article <1257@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>, dai@FAS.RI.CMU.EDU (Dai Feng) writes: >> I know go players are rated by dans, but never heard of the rating kyu. What >> does kyu mean, especially relative to dan? My understanding is that, roughly, dan means "black belt," whereas kyu means "below black belt." Numerically, go rankings are on a scale from -30 to about 8 or 9, where below zero is kyu, and above 0 is dan. People who don't know the rules are 30 kyu, a weak ametuer is about 15 kyu. I'm a 5 kyu, which is a low- to mid-level player. I try to play dan players whenever I get a chance. To Dai, the above are all ametuer rankings. Professional rankings are completely different: *much* stronger. There are no professional kyu rankings. To the net: who knows how many stones say a 5-dan professional would give a 5-dan ametuer? O----------------------------------------------------------------------> | Cliff Joslyn, Professional Cybernetician | Systems Science Department, SUNY Binghamton, New York | vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu V All the world is biscuit shaped. . .
t68@nikhefh.hep.nl (Jos Vermaseren) (03/31/88)
The ratings of go know several systems. The most used system in the West is the Japanese amateur ranking which goes in dans and kyus. The higher ones dan ranking the stronger one is. Kyu's are negative dans but there is no zero in this scale. So 1 kyu comes one step under 1 dan. In the amateur ranking the difference in strength between two players can be given in terms of the number of handicap stones that are needed to play an evenly matched game. This number is also the number of dan or kyu grades that they differ in 'official' strength. In practice there can be large fluctuations as people have 'angst gegners', off days etc. Also it turns out that the handicap is a little meager and white wins most handicap games. This can be attributed to several sources: 1: Players tend to overrate themselves. In many countries the dan grades are awarded by a classification committee. For the kyu's such a thing may not exist. People like to be 'almost 1-st dan' or 1 kyu. Etc. 2: The system may not be linear. 3: The following was recognized in (I believe) Germany many years ago: 1 stone handicap gives black on the average only half a stone more on the board. Two stones handicap gives him actually only 1.5 stones more etc. So maybe black gets not enough handicap. The following solution for point three was made: To be accurate we need half dan grades. This gives the 'class' system in which the zero was taken to correspond to the strongest player. It is not known whether this is very accurate. Anyway, 1-st dan corresponds to the classes 19 and 18. 19 is called weak 1 dan and 18 is called strong 1 dan. 17 and 16 is two dan, etc. The handicap is now determined via h = (class(a)-class(b))/2 Fractions are rounded up but the compensation is then 5.5 points komi. This means that it is always black who gives komi. The handicap between a two dan and a one dan can vary this way from 1 stone ( 17 vs 18 ) to a full two stones ( 16 vs 19 ). In practise this works very well, although some white players may complain that now they have to work so hard. In the past years this system has lost quite some ground. The Germans have abandoned it, because getting the dan grades right is already no simple task. Only the Dutch are still using it but then only for internal tournaments. Still it has many advantages. Often one knows that a player is getting stronger but the promotion of a full dan doesn't seem justified. It is still possible to give him official recognition with a promotion to 'strong .. dan'. It also makes the handicap games much more interesting. Lately (in the past few years) the Hungarians have tried to set up an ELO rating for go in which people coeld earn or loose points according to results in tournaments. To do this properly is a formidable task that can only be expected of somebody if he gets paid for it. In that case it is possible to complain is things start lagging behind. The go scene in Europe doesn't have these financial means, so as could be expected the results are very irregular. This system suffers also under the visits of people who's strength is not well known, or who visit on their vacation one or two tournaments and then go back to their own continent, never to return. Nowadays the dan grades in Europ start to become a little unified. For years there could be up to two stones difference between players with the same official strength. As people meet each other more frequently in international tournaments things get corrected, sometimes people get demoted, and nowadays Germany, the Netherlands, France and England have their classification basically in agreement. Also the Poles are getting tuned to this level. Till two years ago the Russians and the East Germans were still off by one or two dan grades but also this is improving. It seems that their early classification was based on comments of very polite japanese visitors. In Japan the amateur rankings are an anarchaic mess. There is no system in it and each club has its own dan grades. If one goes there as a Dutch 4 dan it can happen that one day one has a tough time agains 3 and four dans, while the next day in another club one gains even points while playing as a six dan. This must make the organization of a good tournament very difficult. The dan grades in the US are very often one or two dan grades off compared to Europe. Occasional visitors to European tournaments have found that it very difficult to win any games in the early rounds if they use their US strength. There is no problem with this, as each country may set up its own system and the main thing that counts is its internal consistency. Only when individuals join in oversea competition one may need a 'personal reevaluation' on a case by case basis. The stronger amateur players in the West are about six dan. A player who would be a seven dan player would probably qualify to become a professional (European scale wrt the seven dan). The professionals have also dan grades but their differences in strength are probably about 1/4 of the differences for the amateurs. Maybe the 1/4 is nowadays even an overestimate because a 9 dan prof will have a very hard time giving a 1 dan prof 3 stones. I hope this gives some information about the go classifications. Jos Vermaseren T68@nikhefh.hep.nl (or T68@nikhefh.uucp)
neubauer@bsu-cs.UUCP (Paul Neubauer) (03/31/88)
In article <1021@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> Cliff Joslyn writes: >>In article <1257@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>, dai@FAS.RI.CMU.EDU (Dai Feng) writes: >>> I know go players are rated by dans, but never heard of the rating kyu. What >>> does kyu mean, especially relative to dan? > > Numerically, go rankings are on a scale from >-30 to about 8 or 9, where below zero is kyu, and above 0 is dan. >People who don't know the rules are 30 kyu, a weak ametuer is about 15 >kyu. I'm a 5 kyu, which is a low- to mid-level player. I try to play > >To Dai, the above are all ametuer rankings. Professional rankings are >completely different: *much* stronger. There are no professional kyu >rankings. To the net: who knows how many stones say a 5-dan >professional would give a 5-dan ametuer? Being closer to 5-kyu myself, it may be presumptuous of me to try to answer this question, but my guess would be about 4. On the other hand, this situation would be most likely to come up in a teaching context rather than a competitive one and 4 stones probably would not suffice to make the difference competitively. A 4-stone handicap would probably make the amateur work extra hard, but then that is what you want in a teaching situation. I have never actually seen that particular pairing (pro 5-dan vs. amateur 5-dan), but a number of years ago when I was in Berkeley, we had a touring pro 7-dan come to town. He gave the local 3-5 dans 6 stones (and played at least 2 or 3 games simultaneously). Only one local player (a 3 dan) actually won a game with him during the week he was there. -- Paul Neubauer neubauer@bsu-cs.UUCP <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!neubauer
hwc@sigma.UUCP (wah Chan) (04/01/88)
In article <1021@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn) writes: >In article <1046@cod.NOSC.MIL> jscosta@cod.NOSC.MIL (Joseph S. Costa) writes: >My understanding is that, roughly, dan means "black belt," whereas kyu >means "below black belt." Numerically, go rankings are on a scale from >-30 to about 8 or 9, where below zero is kyu, and above 0 is dan. rankings for amateur players - 30 kyu to 7 dan; for professional players - 1 dan to 9 dan >To the net: who knows how many stones say a 5-dan >professional would give a 5-dan ametuer? > around 3 to 4 stones for US 5 dan amateur. -- Honwah Chan {ihnp4,decvax,allegra,...}!uw-beaver!tikal!sigma!hwc