I am curious if there is a list anywhere on the internet of known nicknames of professional players, nicknames like “The Stone Buddha” and “The Angel of Death” always intrigued me and made me want to look into games, and it made me think that a list of known nicknames of pros would be an interesting way to find certain types of games and certain types of pro players. I tried searching sensei.xmp.net and didn’t find anything. Does anyone know if such a list exists?
Thanks
AFAIK most pros are known by their proper name and it’s the exception rather than the rule for a pro to have some kind of interesting nick name
That’s true, but I have heard quite a few in passing that I don’t even remember anymore, I wish there was some list for the ones that are well known. The number might be surprising, especially if there was help from someone who speaks other languages who could help share/translate them.
Honestly, the only source I’ve ever found for such things is Nick Sibicky videos on YouTube…
You could start by just searching the word nickname on Sensei’s library. It doesn’t bring up one particular article, but some where the word nickname is used.
I don’t know and don’t particularly want to fact check all the nicknames myself but it could be a good start. (I’m sure being able to speak/read chinese, japanese, korean would help - as opposed to relying on only english translations/commentary.)
For instance on https://senseis.xmp.net/?SakataEio they say " He was called, the Inventor of Myoshu by Go Seigen and nicknamed, ‘the razor’ because of his fierce and brilliant moves during complex fights." - and it’s also mentioned him as “Razor-Sharp” Sakata in “Killer of Go” the book.
Kato Masao was supposedly known as (the) “Killer” according to wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masao_Kato, and nick sibicky and I thought I read something like this in a book too.
There’s other random things in senseis threads like here
“Takagawa Shukaku, in the fourth game of his ninth straight defense [sic] of the Honinbo title against Fujisawa Shuko (1960).
Takagawa, who was nicknamed “Wily Old Fox” (because he was believed to deliberately play bad moves every now and then to confuse the opponent)…”
I think in order to compile a list either trying to search through articles/profiles of players on sensei’s library, on wikipedia and looking at people reviewing their games (people who add in some background to the player preferably) might be the starting point.
There’s also a list of go players, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Go_players , which includes some nicknames for Eio Sakata, Masao Sugiuchi, and Masao Kato.
Well, in that case, you’ll have to make one, @Safari_Atari no other way around it.
Here’s also one I just spotted randomly in a video (I wouldn’t have paid attention only for this thread).
Choi Cheol Han is supposedly nicknamed the “poisonous snake”. Wikipedia says his nickname is “The Viper” so it could be a translation thing.
You can google some of them. Translating nicknames can be pretty difficult though. Also, nicknames can change over time.
This is the “sleepy-eyed rônin”, a reference to Nemuri Kyōshirō - Wikipedia.
A reference to his “great comebacks” where he came back from 0-3 to win 4-3 multiple times.
Something like “Hot-blooded boss”? According to the dictionnary, 親分 is used for the head of a crime syndicate or the like…
Something like “The penetrating flow”, I guess an image of a river that cannot be stopped.
ぶんぶん seems to be onomatopoeia for shaking or the habit of tapping one’s finger or feet on a surface. So I guess an idiomatic translation could be “A ball of nerves”.
Forgot this one. 中年 is middle-age, so i guess it is a reference to the fact that he got his titles when he was around 40.
I don’t think number 17 is correct but still pretty close I don’t know Japanese but I do know some Chinese words so I think a even closer meaning will be (to be filled when I am free)good job getting close to the meaning though
It might be the case that some of he Wikipedia pages for players include a nickname too
| Full name | Cho Hunhyun |
|---|---|
| Nickname | The God of War |
According to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cho_Hun-hyun
Found here three nicknames. Probably already covered by @S_Alexander
Maybe make that list into a wiki, so that we can add names is a good option?
Japanese streams now put nicknames on certain stream thumbnails. You can see on the right Cosmic Style vs Computer.
And apparently Ueno Asami is the hammer girl. Because her go looks like she’s swinging a hammer.
^^
Viktor Lin made a blog post on this topic in 2012 – Pros’ Nicknames According to Chinese Poker Cards.
| Professional | Nickname |
|---|---|
| Nie Weiping | Go Saint |
| Fujisawa Hideyuki | World’s Number One of First Fifty Moves |
| Otake Hideo | Cosmetic Player |
| Rin Kaiho | Two Waists (?) |
| Chang Hao | Duck |
| Takagawa Kaku | Fox |
| Yoda Norimoto | Tiger |
| Park Yeonghun | Half Point Prince |
| Zhou Heyang | Economic Husband (?) |
| Xie He | Xie Saint |
| Gu Li | Ancient Great Force |
| Cho Hunhyun | Gentle Wind Fast Gun |
| Kong Jie | Little Beauty |
| Yu Ch’ang-hyeok | World’s Number One Attacker |
| Kato Masao | Stone Amputator |
| Chen Zhude | Chinese Fuseki |
| Choi Cheolhan | Venomous Snake |
| Liu Xiaoguang | Nemesis (?) |
| Rui Naiwei | Witch that Paints the Board |
| O Rissei | Assassin |
| Cao Dayuan | Little Zhuge * |
| Hu Yaoyu | China Hero |
| Sakata Eio | Razor |
| Cho Chikun | Digging Mole |
| Kobayashi Koichi | Subway Style |
| Kitani Minoru | Sacred Boy Dumpling (??) |
| Yu Bin | Washing Machine |
| Zhou Junxun | Red-faced King |
| Ishida Yoshio | Computer (Electronic Calculator) |
| Wang Xi | Rapid Cannon |
| Qiu Jun | King of Polishing |
| Lee Sedol | Little Lee Shuriken / Flying Knife |
| Takemiya Masaki | Cosmic Style |
| Ma Xiachun | Demonic Sword |
| Cho U | Veda Days (?) |
| Lou Xihe | Divine Pig |
| Kobayashi Satoru | Basicist School Player (?) |
| Liu Xing | Beauty Guy |
| Hashimoto Utaro | Genius Utaro |
| Iyama Yuta | Golden Boy |
| Lee Changho | Stone Buddha |
| Go Seigen | Saint of Shuwa |
(* “Zhuge Liang, one of the greatest strategists and scholars in Chinese history, his uncommonly two-charactered family name is synonymous with intelligence and strategy”)
Great to know! thanks
I just discovered this gigantic list of nicknames by pros on Foxy:
https://www.h-eba.com/Lizzie/foxgo.html
maybe not entirely on-topic, but this seemed like the best place to link it.