Shin Jin-seo, a baduk genius who joined the team as ‘self-taught’ and became the world’s strongest player with ‘AI’

It is often said that the world of Go is overflowing with ‘prodigies’, but Shin Jin-seo (23) was a ‘genius among geniuses’ as a child.

Born in Busan in March 2000, Shin Jin-seo, a ‘millennial’, first encountered the game of Go at the age of 5 in a Go class run by his father.

His father also taught Go for fun, but in less than two years, he surpassed his father and reached the amateur 9th Dan, the strongest player in Internet Go.

Most of the children of her age who aspire to become professional players are at the age when they start full-scale training at a professional Go gym, but Shin Jin-seo only developed her skills by ‘self-taught’ by playing against ‘adult strong players’ on the Internet.

Shin Jin-seo first learned to play Go at the age of 5 at her father’s Go class.

In 2010, when he was in the 4th grade of elementary school, he surprised the baduk world by sweeping the championship by defeating all his older brothers who were two years older than him in the national children’s competition.

Some professional players who recognized Shin Jin-seo’s talent recommended that she study systematically at the Go dojang as soon as possible, but self-study through the Internet continued.

In the 1st Gifted and Talented Enlistment Contest in 2012, when she was in the 6th grade of elementary school, Shin Jin-seo won 12 victories, including defeating all research students belonging to the Korea Institute, and became a professional knight.

Shin Jin-seo, who ranked 5th as the youngest player ever to join, had only briefly attended a baduk dojo before becoming a pro player.

Shin Jin-seo playing against Shin Min-jun (left) at the 1st Gifted and Talented Enrollment Contest in 2012

Even after joining, Shin Jin-seo’s talent was special.

In 2014, Shin Jin-seo, who swept the Rookie of the Year competition and received the Rookie of the Year award at the Baduk Grand Prize, was selected as the best knight for the first time in 2018 by sweeping the most wins, odds, and winning streak categories.

After the shocking appearance of the Go artificial intelligence (AI) AlphaGo in 2016, it was even nicknamed “new artificial intelligence” by understanding AI methods best and using them most similarly.

Shin Jin-seo, whose skills have grown rapidly through AI, won the 2020 LG Cup and won her first major world championship title.

In December of that year, Shin Jin-seo defeated Park Jeong-hwan 7-0 in the ‘Namhae Super Match’ and became the number one player in the Korean baduk world.

Shin Jin-seo (left) defeated Park Jeong-hwan in the 2012 Namhae Super Match and became the No. 1 player in Korean baduk.스포츠토토

Since then, Shin Jin-seo, who started collecting major world titles such as Samsung Fire & Marine and Chunran-bae, led Korea’s three consecutive victories in competitions, especially as a guardian spirit in Nongshim-bae in national competitions.

Shin Jin-seo, who led Korea to a come-from-behind victory by recording 5 consecutive victories at the last minute in the 22nd Nongshim Cup, which ended in 2021, gave Korea the championship with Pajuk’s 4 consecutive victories in the 23rd Nongshim Cup last year.

Shin Jin-seo competed as the last runner in the 24th Nongshim Cup held in February this year, and contributed to Korea’s 3-year consecutive victory by defeating China’s Gu Zhi-hao, 9th dan, and recorded 10 individual victories in a row.

Shin Jin-seo, who has been ranked No. 1 in Korea for 44 consecutive months, has been ranked No. 1 since 2019 on Go Ratings, an unofficial but world ranking website.

Shin Jin-seo won the 33rd title in her personal career with the victory of Mr.

In the major world championships, LG pear won twice, and Samsung Fire & Marine Cultivation and Chunran pear climbed to the top for the 5th time in total.

Shin Jin-seo, who is already rated as the world’s No. 1 player, won the long-awaited championship in the Ingssi Cup, also known as the ‘Go Olympics’, and went from being a ‘genius boy’ who became a professional knight to ‘self-taught’ to reigning as the strongest player in the world both in name and reality.