Top 20 Go Players: Zhou Ruiyang and Tuo Jiaxi

This article is part of the series: Top 20 Go Players of 2010.

Today I’d like to introduce the only two players in the top 20 whom An Younggil 8p, who has been covering this series, hasn’t met or played personally. At number 11, we have China’s Zhou Ruiyang 5p and at number 12, we have Zhou’s fellow countryman, Tuo Jiaxi 3p.

Zhou Ruiyang (5 dan)

Zhou and Tuo are both young promising players, rapidly climbing the ranks and carving out a name for themselves on the world stage.

The two players’ Go careers are almost perfect mirrors – both were born in 1991 (less than two months apart), both turned pro in 2002 at the age of 11, both have won the Fujitsu U15 (a Chinese domestic tournament for young players).

In 2008, Zhou defeated Tuo to take out Xingren Wang (a Chinese domestic tournament for players aged under 30 and ranked under 7p). In 2010, Tuo defeated Zhou to take out Changqi Cup (another domestic tournament).

On the international scene, Zhou reached the quarter finals of the 3rd BC Card Cup this year (2011) and has previously reached the quarter and semi finals of the Samsung Cup. Tuo represented China in the Nongshim Cup in 2008 where his result was a very respectable 4 wins and 1 loss.

Tuo Jiaxi (3 dan)

Interestingly, under the Chinese Go Association’s Elo ranking system, Zhou has been consistently ranked as number 1 since December 31 2010. This places him above the likes of Gu Li 9p and Kong Jie 9p, according to that system. Tuo is currently ranked number 10 but has been ranked as high as 7.

It will be exciting in the coming years to see how Tuo and Zhou perform in international tournaments. They are certainly two young players that Go fans should keep an eye on.