The accuracy of the board gives me confidence the dress is also correct.
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I feel a lot of people have the wrong or incomplete idea about the amateur rankings system and our professional ranking system.
Basically, all CJKT Go main associations provide two/three major methods to get their official diplomas. The first one is through local tournaments, if you win or are in the top X places got the chance to get promoted. The second and third ones are through some types of âexamsâ or ârecommendationsâ. Like those in Korea or in Japan with questions and tests that you can take, or through their online platforms and then through qualified âteachers/qualifiers/examinersâ that grant recommendations to the associations and get diplomas (the different between the second and the third one is sometimes, the test are âsymbolicâ or not required like those in Japan, where simply recommendations are enough.
The difference between each associations is mainly how they focus on, in Nihonkiin, the recommendations path takes a major pie of the diplomas issued (and they have a system of mutual recommendations, where once you got amateur 1d, you can qualify as âpromotersâ and got to recommend ranks below you). Here in Taiwan, the recommendations can only be given by players already in 6d (or pros and 7d where they can recommend 2d to 4d), but above 5d, part take the tournaments are the only methods (or special honorary ranks, but it will be listed on the diploma). And in China, and Korea, I believe the recommendations or exams can also only go up to 4d. But for 5d and above they all have to partake in tournaments.
And the diplomas and ranks do matter here, since you need to hold a diploma of that rank to partake in the tournaments group in that rank (or rank range for kyu players). So even if you got easy ârecommendationsâ you likely will be stuck at that âhonorary rankâ forever, since most ranking up in tournaments require at least in the top 12.5% (1 in 8) or higher to get prompted. (Like here in Taiwan, ranking up to 1d, is 1 in 8, and up 2d to up 4d is 1 in 12, up 5d is 1 in 16, up 6d is 1 in 24, and up to 7d is 1 in 64. (it used to be a lot easier, but in very recent years we have started to tighten the ranks).
As for professional rank, there is a difference between ranks and ratings. Places like China and Korea had their own ârating systemsâ parallel to the ranking systems). Pros usually can gain rank based on the accumulated winning/rating or titles, but ratings can change based on the games they partake in. Their rankings are like âtrophiesâ and accomplishments rather than the judge of their âplaying strengthâ, and winning a certain title, or breaking into certain leagues or in the top 4, finals in international tournaments can jump pro ranks immediately. I think to a certain degree, amateur ranks especially the high dan ranks also function in a similar fashion, it is more about the historical height of someoneâs achievements (top in some tournaments) than the judge of their current strength.
For Joanne herself though, we certainly wouldnât know her current strength since she hasnât partaken in serious pro matches in recent years, but historically she was one if not the strongest female Go pro in Taiwan (and holds the highest female pro rank), especially in the 2010 to 2020 period.
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But the basic idea behind the Asian rank certificates is that they primarily certify that the holder has the knowledge and/or mastery of the game to play on a dan level?
I was thinking about this when comparing OGS with 101weiqi. Since the rank on OGS only reflects playersâ result while rank on 101weiqi primarily reflects playersâ theoretical knowledge demonstrated through solving tsumegos (I grant that direction of play is lacking there).
I guess that the real difference is simply that the go community in the West is too small and that playing Go does not really bring any cultural capital (hence honorary dan certificates are meaningless in the West). There are usually too few players to have a rank-specific tournament and there are too few pros and institutions that could theoretically issue rank certificates.
The European rank system is also open to abuse. Since there are no certificates, you first self-declare your initial ranking so if I as a DDK want to officially be a dan player I should the first time I played in a tournament declare myself as 5 dan and then by the end of the tournament I would probably still be like officially 3 dan after loosing all games and then I just have to play one low class tournament a year to keep an official dan rank for at least a couple of years despite loosing every tournament game I ever play.
The two major processes in obtaining amateur ranks sort of anchored each other here. Competitions/tournaments test the validity of recommendations and exams process.
A long time ago, when amateur ranks were first established, the âprosâ started to rank amateurs based on how many handicaps amateurs could play against them, and in many ways still the major âexamâ methods. Like if you can play without komi against a pro can qualify as 7d, 2 handicaps as 6d, 3 handicaps as 5d, etc. (or if amateur high dans are examiners using handicaps based on rank difference). And CJKT associations have different types/classes of âexaminersâ and âjudgesâ (in Japan they are S, A, B classes, for 6 dan, dan, and 9 kyu; in Taiwan, it is A, B, C classes who need to be at least 4d and based on years of experiences; in Korea, they are teacherâs judges permits, etc.). They will not only have the authority in tournaments but also recommendations powers. Although Go associations allow high dan (usually 5d 6d above) to recommend/exam others, but normal dan players donât even know the procedures for giving âexamsâ or ârecommendationsâ to others, hence the jobs of these examiners are quite crucial in anchoring the ranks. (a few that allow taking questions/tsuemgo-like exams for basic Go knowledge are usually reserved and only for kyu ranks only, dan ranks always involved some kind of test games)
The other side of these, are Go schools and teachers, legit official high dan diploma sort of by default a requirement as Go teachers, and almost all players went through Go schools/classes to learn and were examined/judged by these teachers before they part take in tournaments, and self-declared ranks has limited (usually only for kyus, and even just low kyu ranks, like the new measure as we have here in Taiwan only allow up to 15 kyu self-declared rank, so it is generally less of an issue for players to run into less qualify players in tournaments. If you want to fast-track through the ranks, go through the recommendation channel). Hence the kyu and dan amateurs are both anchored to a degree (not perfect, but usually in the right ballpark, low kyu in the low kyu and self-taught, high kyu in high kyu from teachers, low dan in low dan from examiners and tournaments, and high dan just go through the tournaments).
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I was wondering why there was so much discussion on Joanne Missingham but it seems like the discussions were mainly on Dan certificates and Weiqi dresses 
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I think in practice itâs not so easy to get away with shenanigans like that. There are several steps involved and each of those steps is reversible.
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Organisers of EGF rated tournaments (who can upload tournament results to the rating system) are usually appointed by national member organisations and they have some responsibilities. Those organisations want to maintain a good standing in the European go community, so they probably wonât just pick anyone.
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Those organisers are expected to do some vetting of players who are new to the system. So when an unknown player registers as 5d, organisers will most likely ask them where they got that rank and ask if they have some proof or if someone can vouch for them. Even weaker new players, like 10k, may be inquired in which club or server they got that 10k rank, perhaps adjusting their rank, if only to increase the likelihood that their games will be enjoyable for them and their opponents.
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And even after registering successfuly at a wrong level, you may still not be in the clear. Like, I was once in a tournament in London where a new Chinese player registered as 5d but subsequently lost 6 of their 7 games, including 1 game against a 1k. The organisers then retro-actively changed their rank to 1d before uploading the tournament results.
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Still, during the 25 year history of the EGF rating system, there have been a few cases where a corrupt organiser colluded with some obscure players to get them entered in the EGF rating system at a high rank. But those instances were spotted and reported rather quickly by actual strong and well-known players from that country. Then the EGD manager rolled back those fake tournament results from the rating system and revoked upload access from the corrupt organiser.
Also keep in mind that there isnât much fun in spending time and money to travel and participate in tournaments only to lose all your games (and over time this may also give rise to some perceived or real peer pressure).
There are quite a few European tournament players who have voluntarily demoted themselves to a lower rank (even several times) after a decline in playing strength (from aging or some other issue) to keep enjoying their tournament participation.
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No, not to my knowledge. Organisers are not appointed, they re locally people interested to organize in their local structure.
Then EGF will attribute to the tournament a European grade (which may be going through discussions between organisers and EGF)
Yep there is a sad reality here about decline by aging but which seems globally accepted by players. I do it for myself. Thatâs just life. I hope to not getting into full blundering like missing Ataris
Does the EGD manager give upload access to local organisers whenever they ask for it? Or is someone else uploading the tournament results?
I thought in the Netherlands only a few people have upload access.
Maybe system changed, my information not being very fresh but what I know was
1 you organize a tournament
2 after the tournament played you send results to EGF
3 EGF determines how he handles the tournament (Like its grade) and integrate it
If you want a good grade, organizers should communicate with EGF about requirements and such, before organization of the tournament.
Who upload the results wasnât really a concern but maybe this evolved?
The EGD shows who submitted tournament results, but before 2007 there is no data in that column. I suppose until then organisers just sent their result files by email to Ales Cieply (the inventor of the EGF rating system and its original manager) who probably processed it manually on a local PC. IIRC at that time he published an updated rating list only monthly.
Then Italy took over the EGD and automated much of the process. From the end of 2007 I can see that Aldo Podavini (a former long time manager of the EGD) started submitting results that were also registered in the system. In 2007 organisers were probably still transitioning from sending results by email towards uploading them instead, and Aldo still needed to do it for them regularly.
Checking Dutch tournaments from about 2009, most of the time (60-70%) uploads have been done by Herman Hiddema, though in recent years there seems to be a new account uploading most results, which looks like an account of the Dutch go association itself (but it might still be Herman behind the scenes).
When I check the UK history, I see that since 2009 they have been uploading results. That has been done almost exclusively by Geoff Kaniuk, although in recent years Matt Marsh seems to have taken over.
Checking France, I see that tournament results are pretty much exclusively uploaded by Sylvain Ravera since 2010 (Iâd never heard of him before, but maybe you have?).
I didnât check other countries, but I expect to see a similar pattern, where a national organisation has one or a few designated persons responsible for ratings related matters, such as checking and uploading tournament results into the EGD.
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According to her IG there are totally 8 games on the dress. The match that appeared a lot (those marked 1 by you) is her own game from 2015 (up to move 25)
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