Janice Kim

Who is Janice Kim?

Janice Kim is a professional go player, author, and business owner. She was born in Illinois in 1969, and grew up in New Mexico. As a teenager, she studied go in Korea under Jeong Soo-hyon. She represented the US in the first World Youth Go Championship in 1984, placing third; in 1986 she played for the US again and won the event. In 1987 she became the first Westerner to be accepted by the Hanguk Kiwon as a pro; she remains one of only five western females ever to attain professional status. She holds a bachelor's degree from New York University.

In 1997, she created Samarkand, an online store for go-related items. Samarkand later became wholesale only. In 2003, she was promoted to a 3-Dan professional go player, the first female Westerner to do so. Kim is the author of the Getting Go articles that accompany installments of Hikaru No Go, a manga about a boy who releases the spirit of a famous go player, in the American magazine Shonen Jump. She also writes occasionally for The American Go E-Journal.

She has now become a professional poker player.