Why am I so bad when I play online?

[ramanujan]

Does anybody else experience a 3+ stone decline in their skill level when they play in front of a computer? I am AGA 4k, when I play at AGA rated tournaments I do well against other 4k. I play dan level players in person, and tell me I'm better than 7k, my current KGS.

[stalkor]

it depends on many factors how well you play

for one, are you using normal timesettings or do you blitz?

also, playing on a computer in your own home can bring many distractions.
for instance, music, internetting while waiting for the opponent to click, messaging services, you name it can all distract you from playing seriously.

i can imagine on a real board you sit there and have no such things distracting you and you need to work on having that same seriousness online as in real life.

Last but not least, the opponent. Ranks say only so much, especially online ranks tend to be very off target. Also you do not know how this person is playing, for all you know it could be a drunk and stoned 6 dan on a 7k account sandbagging.^^

[freegame]

you can also not just compare the different rating systems.

KGS and AGA ratings are not linked together.
an AGA 4kyu would be around 7kyu in an European EGF tournament and should be around 5kyu on KGS

the rest might indeed be because of "playing conditions" and bad luck with opponents.

[Kirby]

You can't really link the AGA and KGS ranks, because it depends on how much you play in the AGA and on KGS, as well as other factors.

To give an example, when I was 4k AGA, I was 1k on KGS.

This may have to do with how seriously you take games in both settings. I think I take online games more seriously than AGA games for some reason. I don't know why.

[Cassandra]

In Germany we have the Hebsacker Internet Go Cup for several years.

Some participants play on KGS only, so we have to transform their KGS-ranks into "real life"-ranks.

When comparing those two ranks of the other participants (who play in both "worlds"), we find regularly that there is a bandwith of approximately +3 ... -3 ranks in either direction.

E. g., there are 5 kyu in real life, who may be 2 kyu, 5 kyu or 7 kyu on KGS.
Or a 5 kyu on KGS sometimes may be 2 kyu in real life, sometimes 8 kyu.

[karaklis]

Indeed, there's a large bandwith if you want to translate the rank of one ranking system into another. I have created a table that shows this bandwith (also note the last paragraph on that page).

[crux]

Does anybody else experience a 3+ stone decline in their skill level when they play in front of a computer? I am AGA 4k, when I play at AGA rated tournaments I do well against other 4k. I play dan level players in person, and tell me I'm better than 7k, my current KGS.

Take your hand off the mouse.

[xed_over]

Some people play better online than in person, and others play better in person than online.

And the only way to compare AGA ranks to KGS ranks might be to play against the same people in both systems.

I used to play a coworker during lunch breaks. He often beat me with even games. But when we played in AGA tournaments, I had to give him 2 stones because of our rank difference, but I almost always won those matches.