We have now a very good player here. Sorin was Romanian champion several times and former insei in Japan. All go players beware :-)

Pleasure a strong player joined. May play him once, but I have no time recently.

BTW, is he stronger than Bela Nagy? or than you? ;-)

Yes, he is stronger than both of us.

You can look up the strengths of strong European players like Bela Nagy (and weak ones like myself) at http://www.european-go.org/rating/gor.html. But I don't see the name Sorin Gherman there. Does he no longer play in tournaments in Europe? Or does he use another name?

Wiliam I fortunately played all of them, but unfortunately I am so weak that havent any idea who is strongest! :-))

Nick. Sorin (what is surname and first name???) lives actualy in USA so u can find him on AGA rating list! :-)

So u cannot compare strength with two different ratings… :-(

But two (I will not say who! ;-) really strong players told me that 2 or 3 (or 4? I forgot if Dragos is also so strong in theirs view) romanian players are stronger than Sorin :-)

BTW there is again problem with league and must of win lower leagues for sorin to play 1-st league!!! :-(

If there is not other possibility to solve it I propose use my 9x9 first league place for Sorin. Although I was very happy (and suprised) that it happend I think that he will be more accurate player to 1-st league! :-)))

Sorin is the name, Gherman the family name, as in any western language.

Sorin Gherman and also Robert Mateescu were both 6 dan in Romania. Now they live in USA.

Sorin Gherman was one of the 'gods' of the Romanian Go scene along with Robert Mateescu (they both were insei's in Japan) and the nowadays 5 dan PRO player CATALIN TARANU when i started to play GO. Crelo was also (and still is) one of them, having a big role in developing the romanian Go scene.

The guy responsible for all of this is Radu Baciu, the most 'addicted to Go' guy i've ever seen. If you know or want to learn romanian please see the romanian Go website.

I had been wondering where all the Romanian Go players on the stie were coming from. It seems many of the games have one national community that's surprisingly well represented. In Othello, it's the Nederlanders. In Go Moku, it's the Hungarians, if I remember right.

:-) I dont want to say nothing (Crelo know why), just be confused :-)

I really admire romanian go scene although theirs web pages are TERRIBLE! Maybe I am really stupid, but cannot find any page with good links to tournaments… :-(

BTW. boys dont u want to come to toyota to Kosice ( http://www.european-go.org/toyotatour/calend1.htm) next month? :-) (In Brno there were 3 romanians in first 5 :-)

I remember that Dragos Bajenaru is also former insei is it true? How many inseis is from Romania?? :-)

I had been wondering where all the Romanian Go players on the stie were coming from. It seems many of the games have one national community that's surprisingly well represented. In Othello, it's the Nederlanders. In Go Moku, it's the Hungarians, if I remember right.

Excuse my ignorance, but what is the stie? In Othello, it is true that in the Netherlands, several fairly strong players have emerged in recent years. But their world champion, David Shaman, was born in the U.S. and has lived in a number of different European countries. Japan has always been considered the strongest Othello nation. USA has done very well recently, and England and France also has some very strong players.

Now I just suspect that “stie” has something to do with this particular site. ;)

Hmm, stie is of course a typo for site. Sorry. :-)

Romania has six former inseis and one pro player.

The firts insei was Robert Mateescu 6 dan around 92 I think. Then was Sorin Gherman 6 dan in 93-94.

In 95 Catalin Taranu went to Japan and he succeded in two years to become profesional player at the Nihon Kiin, Nagoya branch. In 2001 he became 5 dan.

After him there were Ion Florescu 6 dan, Cristian Pop 6 dan, Dragos Bajenaru 6 dan and Valentin Gheorghiu 5 dan.