I recently made a bit of a mistake and played a game against a ranked player on kgs (accidently left the option on). Now I am not able to select my rank, which I am pretty sure is 30k...

How long will it take to get back down to my appropriate rank? Current record is 1/21 and that is when a lot of my games were against 30k players... that one win was when another player left before we even really started

I do have a few games where I played against 6k players... but that is where I didn;t know how the system worked... and thought lower number = worse player

Currently the system has me at 24k which is WAY too high

Spent few hours reading some basic go tips on the internet and the rank will be too low.

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Formerly Gorim

Yeah, don't sweat it--play lots of games, and it will either normalize to your real rank or (more likely) you will grow into your current rank. And beyond it.

Rather than a mistake, I'd say it is a step in the right direction. Play more rated games. Ranks in the 20s are very unstable--you will be stronger than some 22 kyus, and weaker than some 28ks. Just play a bunch of rated games.

You will improve much faster if you play against stronger players. The benefit from playing people who are 20-30k is very limited and in many ways counter-productive. Sure, for the ego it is nice to find someone who knows as little, or less, than you, but usually that means you will play something that resembles a child of Othello and Capture Go, and is not actually Go.

People at 12-18k on KGS usually know some basics and play in a way you can easily understand or learn, so they make good opponents for you. Widen the rank range in your automatch preferences, which also takes care of handicap stones.

Stay away from bots that are rated worse than 18k. They usually just put down stones randomly and you need to see better play to learn from. Better bots are fine, if you can catch one. Also consider playing a bunch of 9x9 games if you feel you can't tell when groups are alive.

Above all, don't fret -- and have fun instead! Welcome to the community!

Make the course and the exercises at 321go.org and you will be 15k in no time. Then you will laugh at that you thought that 24k would be WAY too high.

Or if you're willing to spend some money on the hobby, buy Graded Go Problems for Beginners Vol. 1 and study it and you'll be many stones stronger very quickly! (I like books of problems, so I'm biased!)