I am continuously impressed by the abilities of young Go players worldwide. Where do these prodigies come from? What makes them so strong? Let’s look at some examples and see what can be learned.
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Placing among the top 10 finalists in the World Amateur Go Championship is no easy task, but Cheng-hsun Chen<\/strong> of Chinese Taipei managed to place 6th<\/sup> this year. Not bad for someone who is 11<\/strong> years old! Chen studies Go “almost entirely on his own” and is definitely someone to look for in the future. A full interview with Chen can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n You may have heard of Fujisawa Rina<\/strong> of Japan, who on April 1st<\/sup> 2010 became the world’s youngest female Go professional. Also at age 11<\/strong>, her win against 9-dan pro Kanda Ei in the Kisei preliminaries is rather impressive.<\/p>\n Both Yang Dingxin<\/strong> and the world-renowned Cho Hunhyeon<\/strong> became professionals when they were 9 years old [thanks to reader Stephen M. for spotting this!]<\/p>\n Many on KGS<\/a> have heard of Chan Chi Hin<\/strong> of Hong Kong, perhaps better known by his online alias kghin<\/strong>. At age 12<\/strong> (born Dec. 1997) he plays as 8-dan on KGS and aspires to be among the top 5 players on KGS before participating in the Asian Games in November. He currently holds position #21.<\/p>\n A special mention goes to a favourite of L19<\/a> Go forum members – Adrian Thomas<\/strong>, known as minipogo<\/strong> on KGS where he currently plays as 11-kyu. Only 2<\/strong> years old and possibly the youngest Go player in North America, Adrian learns Go from his father and is improving rather quickly. You can follow his adventures here<\/a>.<\/p>\n It is also impressive that the US National Youth team (from Tiger’s Mouth<\/a>) recently won a series of friendship games against Alexandre Dinerchtein’s Korean-style Insei League on KGS<\/a>. Seventeen games were played, and the US team won 9-8. You can read more details about the event on GoSensations<\/a>.<\/p>\n Update: Only 12<\/strong> years old, Zi Yang Hu<\/strong> (CGA 6-dan) won the 33rd Canadian Open in Vancouver<\/a> (2010)!<\/p>\n Finally, it should be remembered that there are many young Go students (Japanese insei<\/em>, Chinese yuansheng<\/em>, Korean yeongusaeng<\/em>) in Japan, China, and Korea studying to become Go professionals. What makes them so strong? Apart from dedication and passion for the game, perhaps it can be argued that a great capacity for imagination and creativity are contributing factors. Go is a lifelong journey, and starting at a young age can only be beneficial (even to those not aspiring to be professionals). In any case, it is a great thing that thousands of youth worldwide continue to learn Go through national programs (such as the American Go Foundation<\/a>) or media like the popular Japanese manga, Hikaru no Go<\/em>. It is very exciting to think about how these youth will contribute to the future of Go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am continuously impressed by the abilities of young Go players worldwide. Where do these prodigies come from? What makes them so strong? Let’s look at some examples and see what can be learned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allaboutgo.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allaboutgo.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allaboutgo.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allaboutgo.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allaboutgo.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/www.allaboutgo.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":719,"href":"http:\/\/www.allaboutgo.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions\/719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allaboutgo.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allaboutgo.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allaboutgo.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}