Expert vs Top Expert vs Korean 7dan


Check the 6dan players' results against European 7dans.

In Europe, 6dan level is like an expert. As a hobby player, it is hard to reach to 6dan level. Interestingly, most of Eastern 6dan players make their livings on Baduk lessons, but most of Western 6dan players have other full time jobs. However, it is hard to say that Baduk is a hobby for them because they spend their all of free time for Baduk.

Anyway, as you can see, the strength gap between 6dan and 7dan is quite big.
Even 'expert level' 6dan is quite weaker than 7dan in Europe. 7dan players are unique. They are like top experts in European Baduk world. There only 7 players in Europe who have 7dan level (4 standard players + Diana Koszegi 1dan pro from Korea, Artem who played korea prime minister cup, and Rob_van zeijst 7dan of Netherland.

Let's compare European 6dan with Korean 7dan.

Peculiarly, Pal Balogh has very high winning percentage against Korean 7dan players. But without him, the winning percentage of 6dan players becomes 6%. With this result, you can easily guess how those two groups' strengths are different. However, still they have possibilities to defeat Korean 7dan.

And European 7dan against Korean 7dan player.

Maybe now, you can guess European top players' strength. They are strong enough to defeat Korean 7 dan players, but anyway definitely weaker than them. Even without Christian Pop who has the lowest winning percentage, still they marked 28% of winning percentage.

I checked these four European players' results against other Korean 7dan players who attended European Go Congress; 9 players - Kim Jun-sang, Hong Seok-ui, Park Jong-wook, Youn Kwang-sun etc). The results were 8 wins and 26 losses (23.5%). It is similar with the former results.

Epilogue

Other standard Korean 7 dan players and I are used to be the strongest amateur players, but we passed Yeongusaeng over 10 years ago and do not study Baduk hardly since away from Yeongusaeng, which means we are not at top amateur level in Korea anymore. Even against us, however, European top level (7dan) players have quite bad results. So they are not a menace at the moment.

But while I was working on this column, I attended 'the 12th Go to innovation' tournament in Berlin. At the 1st round, I turned on my head and blankly looked to top group area, stronger than 3dan. Then I realized that I was one of the oldest men there. Even they were all teenagers. I felt very weird and suddenly thought that one of them could get stronger than me and would beat me in the near future.

Surely, European top level is weaker than Korean top amateur level. However they are quickly chasing us. I am looking forward to the day when European players play as strong as Asian professional players. It would be more interesting for all Baduk countries.