@teapoweredrobot @bugcat @Gia Thanks so much for all you guys. I’ll keep digging and get to the bottom of this history and evolution of kyu rank, and I already have some very interesting findings.
First I’d like to add documents describing how the Hoensha determined their 1k to 12k rank
This came from the original version “坐隠談叢 : 囲碁宝典” vol 1, by 安藤如意 (Ando Nyoi, 1866-1914, birth name 安藤豊次 Ando Toyoji), published in 1904. It is the first modern publication of Go history and a dictionary (the first addition has 5 volumes, and republished and organized in 1910 into 3 volumes). And there is a newer updated version base on it published in 1955 by 渡辺英夫 (Watanabe Hideo 1903-1998, Nihonkiin 8d professional and a Go historian)
Here it referenced a memo from the newpaper/magazine issue 46 published by Hoensha in 1883 and how their “kyu-ranking” system worked -
In the old dan ranking system, a Jozu (上手 equal to 7d) player would give a Shodan (初段 1d) 3 handicap stones in games as a qualification for becoming a dan player (from 9d to 1d, each rank difference is half a stone handicap). However, the old system was riddled with problems, such as 8d and 9d were very difficult to achieve and often stay empty, while many players not as strong as they should be were promoted to 1d (there was even a phrase for it 田舍初段, a shodan from the countryside, strong players in remote counties but much weaker than a normal shodan in well-developed regions like Tokyo), where most competitive players clump together between 2d and 5d (the ranking adjustment is always an issue even hundreds of years ago).
So they proposed to put the best possible player Meijin (名人) at the top using kyu 級 as rank name as 1 kyu, and old 1 dan as 9 kyu, and added 10 to 12 kyu ranks with a larger handicap gap of 1 stone per rank. That is a 1k player can give a 9k player 4 stone handicaps, a 10k player 5 handicaps, an 11k player 6 handicaps, and finally a 12k player 7 handicaps. And they would put this to practice only within the Hoensha (they also wanted to test and see how the new system worked) and would give players diplomas based on these new kyu ranks, which is a big deal since at the time only the four great Go houses can issue diplomas as one of their major source of income after the Meiji Restoration (when they lost their government stipends).
The publishing of newspapers and magazines was also a new source of revenue for Hoensha. Even the catalog of Go players would cost money to buy, and we can see on the member list with the price to purchase it, 定價金五錢 5 sen at the 1884 member list, and 定價金六錢 6 sen for the 1891 list (about the price of a book today).
Regarding the relationship to the evolution and history of kyu ranks, the 10k to 12k in the Hoensha indeed feels like the precursor of the modern kyu rank, with 1 stone rank difference and all that, but only have 3 ranks among them. It was probably designed to include and promote Go-playing for a wider audience to join Hoensha to compete with the traditional Go houses, and most likely a form of promotion system for their 塾生制度, the precursor of the Insei system for discovering young talented kids around the same time.