3 ms·

You're right that Shin Jinseo is a generational talent, and more dominant than anyone since Lee Changho (peaked in the 90s and was strong into the early-mid 200

You're right that Shin Jinseo is a generational talent, and more dominant than anyone since Lee Changho (peaked in the 90s and was strong into the early-mid 2000s). However, you can't compare goratings over time, the top ranks are not nearly stable enough. https://www.goratings.org/en/history/ https://www.goratings.org/en/history/ (I think it's believable Shin Jinseo is better than Lee Changho, but not that there has been steady progress since the days of Lee Changho, so that there are now 20 players stronger than him).

gamegoblin 1mo ago
Could you just have superhuman Go AI just how good humans are somewhat more objectively? Not without flaws of course, but probably interesting
rao-v 29d ago
The problem is ambient go knowledge. A top 100 player would easily beat time traveling Lee Changho in his first few matchups. Of course give peak Lee Changho a fortnight to prep with Katago and … well that would be something!
- hyperpape 29d ago
  It's not obvious to me, but I lean towards saying this is false. The 2026 player would play a better AI inspired opening, but I'm not sure that would be enough to overcome the skill difference. (This is especially true if they don't get briefed "this is time-traveling Lee Changho, he doesn't know contemporary joseki, play a trap variation").
  - rao-v 27d ago
    Your point is pretty fair. The reason I think the top 100 pro would win is that when I watch pros review they are very quick to catch when someone is playing a non-current or up to date style. I’ve also seen a few middle game situations where the classic famous go move is now “obviously” not good after we’ve seen how AI handles it. This all adds up to many ways good sound moves to Lee Changho have now obvious responses. Do I believe he would adapt inhumanly fast? Absolutely! Legendary fighting spirit
DiogenesKynikos 29d ago
You can't compare Elo ratings over long stretches of time, period. Ratings drift over time, based on the total population of people competing. I think the most accurate way to view Elo ratings is as a measure of skill vs. the average rated player. If you want to compare Magnus Carlsen's peak rating of 2882 in the year 2014 to Garry Kasparov's peak rating of 2851 in the year 1999, you have to know how strong the total pool of players (including all the amateurs who compete at lower levels) was in the year 2014 vs. 1999. The only way to actually anchor the Elo system over long periods of time would be to have rated humans occasionally play against a set of unchanging computer players, which could then serve as static rating calibrators. You could use those games to then calibrate Elo ratings from different time periods to a common scale, by asserting that the computer ratings don't change.
- somenameforme 29d ago
  Even that would be slightly malinformative because of opening theory. If you warped a very strong player from the past to the present, he'd do very poorly at first simply because of advances in opening theory. But give him a bit to catchup and he'd likely have his rating zoom on up. So modern players would do better against the static computer because of the same advantage, but that doesn't mean they're necessarily stronger in the sense that we hope to measure. The question people always want to know are things like how would a Morphy, Capablanca, or Alekhine do in modern times with access to modern theory and the like - not how well would they do against Carlsen if they went in with nothing but the knowledge of their era.
  - mafuy 29d ago
    In Go, we had an extensive documentary on this, based on the strange case of a man possessed by the spirit of an ancient master Go player. I'm not going to spoil the results here; it's an enjoyable series and includes many small introductory tutorials to the game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikaru_no_Go https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikaru_no_Go
- snakeboy 29d ago
  > If you want to compare Magnus Carlsen's peak rating of 2882 in the year 2014 to Garry Kasparov's peak rating of 2851 in the year 1999, you have to know how strong the total pool of players (including all the amateurs who compete at lower levels) was in the year 2014 vs. 1999. I imagine that FIDE has all of this data somewhere, right? They don't publish more in-depth distributional analyses of players somewhere?

gamegoblin 1mo ago

Could you just have superhuman Go AI just how good humans are somewhat more objectively? Not without flaws of course, but probably interesting

rao-v 29d ago

The problem is ambient go knowledge. A top 100 player would easily beat time traveling Lee Changho in his first few matchups. Of course give peak Lee Changho a fortnight to prep with Katago and … well that would be something!

hyperpape 29d ago
It's not obvious to me, but I lean towards saying this is false. The 2026 player would play a better AI inspired opening, but I'm not sure that would be enough to overcome the skill difference. (This is especially true if they don't get briefed "this is time-traveling Lee Changho, he doesn't know contemporary joseki, play a trap variation").
- rao-v 27d ago
  Your point is pretty fair. The reason I think the top 100 pro would win is that when I watch pros review they are very quick to catch when someone is playing a non-current or up to date style. I’ve also seen a few middle game situations where the classic famous go move is now “obviously” not good after we’ve seen how AI handles it. This all adds up to many ways good sound moves to Lee Changho have now obvious responses. Do I believe he would adapt inhumanly fast? Absolutely! Legendary fighting spirit

DiogenesKynikos 29d ago

You can't compare Elo ratings over long stretches of time, period. Ratings drift over time, based on the total population of people competing. I think the most accurate way to view Elo ratings is as a measure of skill vs. the average rated player. If you want to compare Magnus Carlsen's peak rating of 2882 in the year 2014 to Garry Kasparov's peak rating of 2851 in the year 1999, you have to know how strong the total pool of players (including all the amateurs who compete at lower levels) was in the year 2014 vs. 1999. The only way to actually anchor the Elo system over long periods of time would be to have rated humans occasionally play against a set of unchanging computer players, which could then serve as static rating calibrators. You could use those games to then calibrate Elo ratings from different time periods to a common scale, by asserting that the computer ratings don't change.

somenameforme 29d ago
Even that would be slightly malinformative because of opening theory. If you warped a very strong player from the past to the present, he'd do very poorly at first simply because of advances in opening theory. But give him a bit to catchup and he'd likely have his rating zoom on up. So modern players would do better against the static computer because of the same advantage, but that doesn't mean they're necessarily stronger in the sense that we hope to measure. The question people always want to know are things like how would a Morphy, Capablanca, or Alekhine do in modern times with access to modern theory and the like - not how well would they do against Carlsen if they went in with nothing but the knowledge of their era.
- mafuy 29d ago
  In Go, we had an extensive documentary on this, based on the strange case of a man possessed by the spirit of an ancient master Go player. I'm not going to spoil the results here; it's an enjoyable series and includes many small introductory tutorials to the game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikaru_no_Go https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikaru_no_Go
snakeboy 29d ago
> If you want to compare Magnus Carlsen's peak rating of 2882 in the year 2014 to Garry Kasparov's peak rating of 2851 in the year 1999, you have to know how strong the total pool of players (including all the amateurs who compete at lower levels) was in the year 2014 vs. 1999. I imagine that FIDE has all of this data somewhere, right? They don't publish more in-depth distributional analyses of players somewhere?