Well, the "ratings" are ... so in practice it works as you like ... If you don't have interesting games, the reasons are probably lying elsewhere

At least for amateur games ... most go-server and official rating-systems (like EGF for example) do not use a "rank" (e.g. 2k) to determine "fair" game-settings, but a "rating" which is a fractional number (e.g. 2k == 1870 Elo rating, or -230 AGA rating). After a game the expecting winning probabilities change the rating of the players. "Ranks" are mostly used for reference (shorter and easier to remember) than a rating.

If you don't like playing the game the way I like playing the game then their must be something wrong with you jug. Maybe you are interested in playing large handicaps or something who knows. But what can you expect from someone that can't even remember their rank? Not much.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. It is not about what I like or dislike to play.

All I'm saying is, that servers usually use a fractional rating already to determine how big a handicap/komi is, though there might be differences how the different servers calculate it.
But there are servers (e.g. the turn-based DGS), that get you an even game with the difference you gave (0.6k), especially on smaller board sizes, though I assume you mean for 19x19.

If the preferred server you are playing on does not, then either try to use a manual game-setting, or find a server to your liking that does create game-settings to your liking.

Uhm… what?
Grtz, Tom

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“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?

What servers are you thinking of, jug? I think KGS uses nominal ranks for handicaps.

And I think the original complaint makes a lot of sense. Why should the system pair two players with a handicap that it *knows* is larger than is necessary? Surely a too small handicap usually makes slightly more sense than a too large one.

The advantage is that the system is simple to understand, and I guess I'm ok with that. But 2k vs 1k = even, 2k vs 1 dan = 1 stone is also easy to understand.

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Occupy Babel!

Well, KGS does take into account the difference in rating as oppose to rank when recalculating you new rating. That seems good enough for me.

Also, 2k vs 1k is not an even game: it is a one stone game. And 2k vs 1d is two stone game. This is how it has been since before that advent of ratings. Why complicate a simple system by trying to use numbers which are only stored on the computer and not directly visible to the user.

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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).

You think this is interesting? There must be something wrong with you. Maybe you shouldn't go around saying there is something wrong with people when they have a valid argument. People might think you are one of those ELO-sers.

I don't know about jug, but there is definitely something wrong with you if you go around insulting people with an attitude like that. Jug's statements are perfectly coherent, which is more than can be said for yours.

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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).

Do you really like to be called pidantic?

Cheers,
Rainer
(GoChild GoRo with 2225674 points)

He started it, but if you want to join in. You can also be wrong with your bad self.

Wrong wrong so wrong, you should be ashamed of yourself for not reading his original post.

You know what? I didn’t read anybody insulting people this way—except in your posts.

I think you may count yourself lucky that others here are not verbose about what they think of you. (But then again, many of us would probably be banned for a while )

Sheesh …

Tom

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“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?

This is a bit of a non-sequitur. I'm talking about how handicaps are determined. I think the KGS rating system makes sense.
I could have been clearer: this is a hypothetical system of reduced handicaps that is transparent--it only relies on visible numbers. I think it may be used by some AGA tournaments, come to think of it, but whether or not it's been used before, it would partially solve the complaint about handicaps.

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Occupy Babel!

You find me puzzled about this accusation, which is the reason I think you misunderstood what I was saying. When I re-read all our posts, perhaps you thought that my original remark about "reasons" ...
was referring to YOU personally. I see now & could agree, that that sentence could be understood in an insulting manner, but I assure you that this was not intended. Rather I intended to hint, that the reasons to blame lie in the different server-environments. Sorry for being imprecise there. When you write something, it's often not clear, that it can be ambiguous. Sadly, that's one the disadvantages of text-only communication methods (without seeing the counterpart or hearing the intonations).

If that is not what caused your infuriation, you have to point out to me what you found irritating in my statements.

After seeing about 15 posts bickering about the correct use of terms about "rational/decimal/floating" rank, I thought I add something more substantial to the thread ... which seems to have an unintended opposite effect.

As one of the developers of DGS I know, that at least DGS uses an even game for a rank-diff of only 0.6k (e.g. see http://www.dragongoserver.net/rating_ch ... 0&komi=6.5 for expected game-settings on DGS for users with a 0.6k rank-diff (need DGS-login e.g. guest-user)).

I think the old OGS was similar, though I'll have to admit I also thought the real-time-servers (IGS, KGS, Tygem, etc) where using ratings (not ranks) ... I guess I was misinformed there. One more reason to dislike such a server-behavior like the OP expressed

So there was something wrong with you, and how you engage people? I'm just pointing this out so that everyone else can blame you for their wrongness in characterization of myself.

I think there was an unintended ambiguity in what I said. I apologized for this potential misunderstanding. However I don't think that something is wrong with me or about how I engage people. If you don't accept my apology and think otherwise, that's your prerogative. If you want to continue on this "side-topic" it's probably better to use private messages.

Glad to be of service if that ends it.

@admins: Can we please ban SmoothOper already? He's been trolling and insulting people here since forever, and has never contributed anything of value to the forum.

Oh, I see when there is something wrong with you, its an unintended ambiguity , when other people aren't clear, something is wrong with them , gotcha . We'll see if anyone else chimes in here, pal.

jug has been respected member of the go community for many years - a developer of DGS. English is not his first language.

...but apparently, you have even more trouble understanding English. I think you're the only one who misunderstood what he was saying here.

nah, our admins prefer banning Professional Go players who offer to teach us how to play Go.

There must be something wrong with you xed_over. Which, nationality appreciates that again? Is that one of those European fascist things? No no it is a respected way to behave in a Go community. I laugh. I hope either jug or I get banned because I don't have to put up with this. I hope this comes across with no uncertain ambiguity.