Professionals, known also as Pros, are Go Players who passed the test to become one. Most of them studied first at Go Institution as an Insei from there, as Class One's student has directly taken and passed an exam.
Pro Exam
Requirements
To take the Pro Exam Participate must partake the First round only Insei from Class 1 can take the exam and insei from the top 8 automatically past the First Round although Hikaru was at 7th place when he took the exam only the Top 8 from the last 6 month automatically past and Hikaru had to take the prelim a non insei can also participate only people under thirty years old once a person reaches to thirty they are no longer obliged to take the pro exam such as Tsubaki
Process and Outcome
The Pro Exam process as a Round robin tournament
Only three can past the Pro Exam usually those with the most win however there are many strong player such as Isumi didn't pass and took the exam so many time and fail mostly due to not able to control his emotion while playing and was affect by pressure and player such Mashiba was able past and Isumi was much stronger then Mashiba another example where Honda who have 6 lost manage to past due to Isumi and Kadowaki took all the win as Isumi did not gain an single lost when he took the exam as a outsider and Kadowaki only lost to Isumi
List of Professionals
Japanese
- Koyo Toya (Meijin, retired)
- Kuwabara (Honinbo)
- Seiji Ogata (Judan)
- Zama (Oza)
- Ichiryu (Kisei)
- Shigeo Morishita (9 dan)
- Shinoda (9 dan)
- Atsushi Kurata (7 dan)
- Michio Shirakawa (7 dan)
- Gokiso (5 dan)
- Koji Saeki (4 dan)
- Hiroyuki Ashiwara
- Chieko Sakurano
- Yoshikawa
- Akira Toya (3 dan)
- Kosuke Ochi (2 dan)
- Yoshitaka Waya (2 dan)
- Shinichi Murakami (2 dan)
- Mitsuru Mashiba (2 dan)
- Hikaru Shindo (1 dan)
- Kiyoharu Yashiro (1 dan)
- Shinichiro Isumi (1 dan)
- Tatsuhiko Kadowaki (1 dan)
- Toshinori Honda (1 dan)
Korean
- An Daesun (8 dan)
- Yongha Ko (3 dan)
- Ilhwan Im
- Suyong Hong (2 dan)
Chinese
- Yang Hai (8 dan)
- Lu Li
- Wang Shizhen (4 dan)
- Zhao Shi (3 dan)
References
Japan | Hikaru Shindo • Akira Toya • Koyo Toya • Seiji Ogata • Yoshitaka Waya • Shinichiro Isumi • Kosuke Ochi • Toshinori Honda • Tatsuhiko Kadowaki • Shigeo Morishita • Kuwabara • Zama • Michio Shirakawa • Hiroyuki Ashiwara • Atsushi Kurata • Kiyoharu Yashiro |
Korea | An Daesun • Suyong Hong • Yongha Ko |
China | Yang Hai • Lu Li • Wang Shizhen • Zhao Shi |