Todays Strongest Go Players

With go's increasing popularity, today there are many unbelievably strong players that deserves to be mentioned. It's obviously not easy to pinpoint who exactly is the strongest baduk player today. Even the best go players have their ups and downs. To find out who the top go players are, the first thought that comes to mind is to look at who currently holds the most prestigious international baduk titles.

The following are the biggest international baduk cups and the respective title holders:

6th Ing Cup(2008/2009) - Choi Cheol Han(9p) : 4 round final match with Choi Cheol Han(9p) defeating Lee Changho(9p). Here are sgf's of the matches: round 1, round 2, round 3, round 4.
2nd BC Card Cup(2010) - Lee Sedol(9p) : 3 round final with Lee Sedol(9p) defeating Chang Hao(9p): round 1, round 2, round 3.
14th LG Cup(2010) - Kong Jie(9p) : 2 round final with Kong Jie(9p) defeating Lee Changho(9p): round 1, round 2.
15th Samsung Cup(2010) - Gu Li(9p) : 3 round final with Gu Li(9p) defeating Heo Yongho(8p): round 1, round 2, round 3.
7th Chunlan Cup(2009) - Chang Hao(9p) : 2 round final with Chang Hao(9p) defeating Lee Changho(9p): round 1, round 2.
23rd Fujitsu Cup(2010) - Kong Jie(9p) : 1 round only final, with Kong Jie(9p) defeating Lee Sedol(9p): final match.

There are many strong go players. Here is a list of arguably the best go players in the world today:

Choi Cheol Han(1985-): South Korean 9 dan professional, and the current title holder of the Ing Cup, the biggest international go tournament.
Lee Sedol(1982-): South Korean 9 dan professional. Lee Sedol reached 9 dan at the age of 21. He is the current title holder of the BC Card Cup.
Kong Jie(1982-): Chinese 9 dan professional, and the reigning champion of both the LG Cup and Fujitsu Cup.
Gu Li(1982-): Chinese 9 dan professional, and the current title holder of the Samsung Cup. He ties for second place with Chang Hao after Ma Xiaochun for amount of titles won in China. Gu Li is the #1 ranked Chinese baduk player by the Chinese board game agency Zhongguo Qiyuan.
Chang Hao(1976-): Chinese 9 dan professional, and the title holder of the Chunlan Cup. He ties for second place with Gu Li after Ma Xiaochun for amount of titles won in China.
Lee Changho(1975-): South Korean 9 dan professional, and the record holder of most major international titles won(21), in addition to having won the 2nd most national titles after Cho Hunhyun.
Park Jungwhan(1993-): Park Jungwhan is a very promising player, he's right up there with the best at a very young age, and the youngest South Korean 9 dan baduk player today. Park won the 4th Korean Siptan title in 2009 and defended it successfully against Lee Changho in 2010. He also won the 14th Korean Chunwon title in 2010, and won the Asian Games Pair Go tournament of 2010 along with Lee Sula, a 1 dan professional female player.
Cho U(1980-): Japanese 9 dan professional. Cho U is arguably Japans best player right now. Cho U is the only person to have ever hold 5 of the major Japanese titles simultaneously, and the 2nd person after Cho Chikun to win all 7 major titles at one point or another. Cho U haven't been appearing in many international tournaments lately, seemingly focusing on the Japanese titles instead. Cho U is known as a very territory oriented player with great reading ability.
Chen Yaoye(1989-): Chinese 9 dan professional. He lost 3-2 in the final match against Gu Li in the 10th LG Cup after a 2 win comeback. Chen is known for being early territory oriented.
Kang Dongyun(1989-): South Korean 9 dan professional. Kang won the 22nd Fujitsu Cup, and is a very promising player.
Park Young-Hoon(1985-): Korean 9 dan professional, reaching the 9 dan rank at only 19.
Zhou Heyang(1976-): Chinese 9 dan professional. He has won 12 national titles, coming in 5th place for number of titles won in China.

You may have noticed that only one of the players on this list is Japanese, even though Japan is known to be one of the strongest and most influencal go countries. Well, if you've been playing baduk for a while, you probably already know this, but Japan haven't been doing that great internationally for the last 10 years or so. Instead, South Korea and China have been somewhat stronger.

This list was last updated on January 27, 2011. If you want someone added, feel free to contact me on my e-mail address: fredrik@learnbaduk.com.