Hello friends, this is my first post/question so I guess I'll keep it short and sweet. Does anybody know how the Korean kub ranks compare to Japanese kyu ranks? Been playing online games with an app that uses the kub ranking system. Just made it to 16 kub but wonder whereabouts that puts me in the kyu scale?

First I'm assuming Kub is another transliteration of what is more commonly called gup (g/k and b/p similar in Korean). But even with that it's hard to say, some gup ranking systems have 1 gup as just below pro strength, so European 6 or 7 dan plus (it used to be dan ranks were only for professionals, so a very strong amateur would be 1 gup, the Hankuk Kiwon have since introduced amateur dan ranks similar to those in Europe (Japan dan ranks are quite a bit weaker than European ones)). Others have 1 gup similar to 1 kyu in Europe. In the former 16 gup would presumably be stronger than 16 kyu, but in the later maybe similar. I've no idea what system your anonymous Korean server uses, so why not just play a few games one some Western server and you'll find your rank there soon enough. Afterall it's not like EGF/AGA/KGS/OGS/IGS/DGS ranks are the same anyway.

Okay thanks Uberdude for the quick reply.
Unfortunately I'm just playing from my mobile phone and haven't figured out how to use the other servers you mentioned yet (this being my first attempt at online play). I downloaded the 'Go of the world' android app from Google playstore and most of the players seem to be Korean by the looks of it and it uses the kub/gup ranking system. Anyways, it just seemed a little tougher than what i expected of a 16 Kyu, not that I have a good idea of that either since I haven't played anything but AI's in the past

This reminds me of an amusing anecdote. In 1977 I moved to Iran for a year. I was a British shodan at the time. I did not expect to find any go players there and so was surprised to find some Koreans who played. At the time I had no idea that the western and Korean ranks were different and neither did they. I told them I was one dan and I could not understand why they were so impressed. They were only one kyu.

Anyway, we played and they insisted I take white. Needless to say they wiped me off the board, but they still refused to take white against a one dan. We played a few games and then they lost interest, none of us having any idea why.

It wasn't until several years later that I learned about Korean ranks. Back then almost all literature in the west from from Japan and there was no contact with Korean go. I did not even know it was called baduk at that time.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).