Older News From 24 June 2000:
The latest Chinese Elo-type rankings, including games up to 30 April 2000, are as follows, Ma having knocked Chang Hao off his perch (or maybe Chang fell off through tiredness - he has had a particularly gruelling travel schedule lately). Zhang Xuan is the only woman in the list.
- Ma Xiaochun, 2713
- Zhou Heyang, 2685
- Chang Hao, 2681
- Yu Bin, 2657
- Luo Xihe, 2656
- Wang Lei, 2646
- Shao Weigang, 2645
- Liu Xiaoguang, 2614
- Ding Wei, 2613
- Kong Jie, 2605
- Nie Weiping, 2580
- Liu Jing, 2571
- Zhang Xuan, 2562
- Cao Dayuan, 2557
- Dong Yan, 2554
- Wu Songsheng, 2554
- Qiu Jun, 2532
- Liu Shizhen, 2527
- Wang Yuhui, 2522
- Hu Yueyu, 2519
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Older News From 15 June 2000:
How much do go players in China earn? In 1999 top dog was Ma Xiaochun 9-dan with a whopping 1,864,400 yuan. It's about 13 yuan to 1 pound sterling. You can buy a book of his games for about 15 yuan, and a good salary for a highly qualified professional person would be 12,000 yuan a month.
But of Ma's earnings, just over 1.5 million yuan came from three international (and non-Chinese) events. He got 539,500 yuan from the 12th Fujitsu Cup, 408,000 from the 3rd LG Cup and 560,000 from the 3rd Samsung Cup. In contrast, he got just 36,000 yuan for winning the Mingren. Top prize for the Mingren is actually 30,000, but the totals here include game fees. On the whole, game fees in domestic Chinese tournaments are about 500 yuan (travel and subsistence extra), but the newly reinstated Qiwang has just broken new ground with game fees of 800 yuan.
The once all-mighty Chinese Individual Championship weighs in with a paltry 2,000 yuan first prize. The top domestic prizes at present include the 150,000 yuan for the Agon-Kiriyama Cup (plus the chance to win the Japan-China playoff) and the 134,000 yuan for the Lebaishi Cup, but the Qisheng tournament provides 300,000 yuan and that was won by the man in second place last year.
Step forward Chang Hao. His total was about 1,100,000 yuan. He also added to his total from the Lebaishi Cup, the CCTV championship, the Tianyuan and the Mingren. International events helped him too, but not as much as Ma. He got 328,000 yuan from the Chunlan, which is Chinese sponsored.
Way back in third place was this year's Qisheng, Zhou Heyang. His total comprised earnings from the NEC Cup, the Japan-China NEC Cup, the Chinese Individual Championship, the Agon and the Chunlan. In all he made about 500,000 yuan.
Although these are superstar earnings by Ma and Chang even by western standards, it is easy to see that even the average Chinese 9-dan is finding it very difficult to make a good living from prize money and game fees alone.
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Older News From 24 May 2000:
Rui Naiwei 9-dan has accepted an invitation to play again in China. After a hectic May 2000, in which commitments included playing in the Ing Cup, returning to the USA with husband Jiang Zhujiu 9-dan on private business and attending Go Seigen's 87th birthday celebrations in Tokyo, she will go to Shanghai in June to play in the 4th Hitachi Cup, China's pro pair tournament. There are hopes that Kong Xiangming 8-dan, one of last year's losing finalists, will return too.
Chen Zude, China's go supremo, declared that Rui's return was a "good thing". While the need for Kremlinological analysis of utterances from China is no longer as strong as it was, we may safely assume that Chen's access to the top of the Party hierarchy makes this close to a government-backed statement. Indeed, there are signs of possible tensions between the go associations of Korea and China over Rui. The Koreans, having given her and her husband a chance to play full-time again, are keen to reap the benefits, which includes Rui representing Korea in international events. China is highly appreciative of its links with Korean go - many a Chinese kid worships Yi Ch'ang-ho not Chang Hao - but... Rui herself is faced with endless bureaucracy whenever she travels, so there are pulls every which way. It is noticeable that Jiang does not yet enjoy the same level of rehabiliation in China, though he has been allowed back.
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Older News From 26 April 2000:
Declaring that all she wanted was a level playing field, China's only resident female 9-dan Feng Yun decided to leave for Canada on 23 April 2000, exactly in the middle of the 1st China-Korea Women's Match in which she expected to play.
Feng, well known to western players from previous trips overseas, apparently wanted a bigger slice of the action and so transferred from Henan Province to Beijing. She also expected to represent the Beijing team in the recent National team Championships, but was ignored in favour of a lowly 3-dan Xu Ying. Xu is well placed through her work on CCTV's go programme and no doubt she would not have been happy to have been bumped off the team by a provincial.
Chinese officials cited uncertaintly over Feng's residency qualifications as the reason for not selecting her, but Feng appears to have taken it badly. She decided almost instantly to go to Canada, though said she was not a "second Rui Naiwei" - she appears to have no fixed plans to play go in the west.
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Older News From 23 March 2000:
The changing face of Chinese go was amply confirmed when the results for the first two months of the year 2000 were posted in the Chinese go press. Of the top 11 places only two were filled by established 9 dans (Yu Bin and Shao Weigang) and the only other 9-dan was the new one, Chang Hao - all were tied in third place with six wins. The rest were 4 to 6 dans.
Top of the list with 8 wins was Dong Yan 6-dan, followed by Qiu Jun 5-dan on 7 wins. The others in the list were Hu Yueyu 6-dan (already!), Huang Yizhong 5-dan, Xie He 4-dan, Wang Yuhui 6-dan, Liu Shizhen 5-dan and Kong Jie 5-dan. Ranked by winning percentages, top player is Yu Bin on 86%.
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Older News From 8 March 2000:
Rui Naiwei 9-dan and husband Jiang Zhujiu 9-dan were allowed to return to China together on 7 March. The trip was arranged by China Television. It was intended as a glorious homecoming for Rui, winner of the Kuksu in Korea, of course, but Jiang's presence may be the most significant element.
There was no tickertape-type state greeting, but Chen Zude 9-dan, head of the China Sports Federation and highly influential with the ruling party, did welcome the pair to Beijing and hailed Rui as "this very rare woman". One of Rui and Jiang's priorities was to re-establish contact with old go friends such as Liu Xiaoguang 9-dan and Yu Bin 9-dan.
The couple have already declared they would not want to settle in Korea permanently, but - at least for the time being - their earning power seems greater on the international circuit, and so a permanent homecoming does not seems on the cards yet.
