Road to Pro

Auf GoDiscussions.com wurde vor einiger Zeit ein Thread mit dem Namen "Pros are so strong" gestartet. Darin wurden einige Interessante Anekdoten und Infos zu Tage gebracht, die vor allem für uns Amateure ;) interessant sein dürften.

Eine dieser Storys besagt, dass Yumi Hotta (Erfinderin von Hikaru no Go) einen Profi gefragt hat wieviele Jigo's er in einem Simultanspiel gegen Amateure maximal erreichen könnte (Wir erinnern uns an Touya's glorreiche 4 Jigo-Aktion). So in etwa spielte sich das Ganze ab:

The other day I was hanging around and killing time with Shimojima and Miyagawa, both 6 dan pros. If there's one thing you should brush up on to prepare your self for a trip to Japan it is this "hanging around". Everyone I have ever met here is very good at it, and the go insei and professionals are no exception. Actually, I think they're exceptionally good at chewing the fat (what a remarkable expression) while waiting for something to happen. If nothing happens then eventually someone will be forced to leave to give go lessons somewhere; this can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 3 hours or more. Anyway, listening to the conversation it seemed that Yumi Hotta (who by now can buy a house with the royalties for her successful manga creation "Hikaru no Go") had called Shimojima and asked, bluntly, "How many games can a professional simultaneously rig so black wins every game by exactly one point?"

Shimojima, six years the younger, was asking Miyagawa (29) politely for his opinion. "How about it, Sensei? I had no idea what to tell Mrs. Hotta and I promised to call her back." Miyagawa: "It's an impossible question, good luck with it."
"But I have to tell Mrs. Hotta something, don't I?"
Miyagawa: "Look, the problem is that you only can rig a game so closely if the amateur(s) in question play reasonably well. It is unbelievable if you seriously start calculating how many points some people just throw away in the endgame. There's no way on earth, short from filling in your own territory and other less subtle methods, that you can precisely determine the outcome when playing against the wrong person. If you really want to, you can tell Mrs. Hotta that 3-4 games must be doable, but I for one would never bet my life on it, not if it has to look real."

"Yeah, that makes sense, I guess the 3-4 game number was probably what she was hoping for. I'll just tell her that."
Now, don't get me wrong. At no moment was either Shimojima or Miyagawa speaking with contempt for weaker players. This is just a good example showing that many amateurs, Mrs. Hotta included, think that professional players are a step closer to god and that they pretty much know everything about anything. Nothing could be further from the truth. Aside from extraordinary fighting skills, a lot of pros often have no clue about the whys and hows; they just don't show it. After all, that's what they get paid for. By the way, I'm not talking about the world's top ten players, of course.

Auf die Frage hin ob es denn tatsächlich ein "Talent für Go" gäbe antwortete Miyagawa wie folgt:

"Talent" he said, "the only talent I believe in is the ability to persevere in one's studies."

Diese beiden Infos dienen lediglich der Veranschaulichung, dass Pros auch nur Menschen sind. Fakt ist sogar, dass starke Amateure dank Internet-Go es mittlerweile sogar mit schwachen Pros aufnehmen können. Und mit "starken" Amateuren sind wirklich starke Amateure (KGS 9d+) gemeint. Allerdings muss dazu gesagt werden, dass Profis solche Spiele meistens nicht wirklich ernst nehmen und die entsprechenden Siege von Amateurspielern oftmals auf diesen Mangel an Initiative seitens der Profis zurückzuführen sind. Es steht also fest, dass immer noch eine Abstand zwischen dem Level eines High-Dan Amateurs und dem eines Profis klafft. Fest steht aber auch, dass sich dieser Abstand mit der Einführung von Internet-Go stetig verringert hat und sich auch weiter verringern wird.

Minue622 hat hierzu aber eine grundlegend andere Meinung. Die Begründung lautet dabei wie folgt:

Not really.
Such a Semi-pro, or 'fake amatuers' (we call such players as 'semi pros', who failed to pass pro test tornament(for example, ex-inseis), but strong enough to play ordintary pros in even game due to long years intensive insei training course, (mostly over 10 years) already have existed for long time in Asias.
Hardly due to intenet...

Although internet contributed much for amatuer's improvment, geting pro level strength is not that easy and simple job as you imagine. You will realize it if you once get to amatuer hign dan level, and how hard it is to get pro rank strength.
For example. on average, all of pros or "semi-pro(fake amatuers)" solve 40,000~60,000 advanced level reading problems until they try serious pro test tornament. about problem level, such problems takes at least 30mins or more for me to solve or read out, (for kgs 7d amatuer player).

In korea, many (7~15 yo) kids with a good Go talent study hard more than 8~10 hours every day just to get pro rank someday, sadly most of them fails to pass pro test tornament. (no wonder, becuz just top 3~5 inseis are allowed to get pro rank in a year)
also, such a reading problems is NOT main part of study, but just part of learning training. this info might help u get some proper idea of pro's real strength.

Die Meinungen gehen also auseinander. Wie steht ihr zu dem Thema? Wie genau unterscheidet sich die Stärke eines Pros genau von der eines Amateurs? Postet eure Meinung in den Comments :)