Hi everyone,

As is well known, once established, KGS ratings tend to move upward very slowly, even if you play and win a lot of games. I understand the reasons why it is designed that way, but I think the frustrating thing is that it is easy to spoil your rating by having a losing streak caused by tilt, but not so easy to undo the damage, especially as those lost games keep on hurting you because of the way in which everybody's ratings are linked together. Probably everybody is familiar with the depressing feeling of having had a bad day or two, having had a losing streak, and finding oneself at the foot of a large hill that can only be climbed by winning a large number of games below your mark.

Anyway, I will list here several strategems for trying to get a damaged rating back to health. Please let us know which ones you think are effective.

1) Start a new account
2) Play on another server for a few days
3) Play on another server for a few weeks
4) Play on KGS, but switch to another server whenever you lose, to prevent tilty phenenomena
5) When setting up a KGS game, adjust handicaps and komi to reflect what you think is your proper level (and accept that potential opponents are well within their rights not to agree to these modified terms)
6) Accept you're not as strong as you think you are

Personally, I don't like option 1 because it seems a little dishonest. I like to know who I'm dealing with, even if I only know them by nickname - it is confusing when several people turn out to be just the one person.

I keep meaning to play on WBaduk (I now have an account thanks to a kind Danish Otaku!), but I really do like the playfeel of KGS. It is such a well designed client and environment.

It bothers me that Option 5 might irritate potential opponents. I know I sometimes don't like it when others offer me alternative conditions, but then again you are never compelled to accept them.

Option 6 is probably the beginning of becoming strong

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Learn the "tea-stealing" tesuji! Cho Chikun demonstrates here:

Maybe turn off your rank for a couple of months...?

jts wrote: Maybe turn off your rank for a couple of months...?

What exactly happens when you do that? Does it effect a complete removal of your data from the system or hide your information? Does it give you a fresh start at whatever level you happen to be at?

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Learn the "tea-stealing" tesuji! Cho Chikun demonstrates here:

You don't need to actually turn off your rank. Just don't play any games on that account for a month. When you come back your rank will be very volatile the first few games, so be sure to win most of those!

Keep a second account or play on another server for awhile so that you can still enjoy go.

Or just play free games

Or just don't care.

I usually grind a lot of games on other servers like Tygem or IGS, and when I feel very focused, I play a KGS game against higher ranked oponnents and reduce the handicap so the win counts a lot more. The combination of the inactivity loosening your rank (your number 3) and the heavier weight of wins like that (your number 5) seems to do to the job.

Make a "stupid" account and use it whenever you want to play without worries about rating

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My name is Gijs, from Utrecht, NL.

When in doubt, play the most aggressive move

Option 6)

To be honest, I'm not so sure if this phenomena is true, or just "feels" true. When I was trying to get my account back into the dan ranks, I went up a rank per game through SDK, until I blundered badly against a 2k and had to resign. I dropped back to 3k, and needed 3-0 to reach 2k again. After a win at 2k, I then got fairly outplayed by another 2k, and was at 1-1. Despite that, 6 games later, I was back at 1d (3-0 against 2k, and 3-0 against 1k), so the journey of getting that rank back up didn't feel particularly onerous. I also suspect that, because I have a very high winning percentage due to being underranked early on, a loss will have more weight than a win because it provides more useful data to the system right now. Over the course of time, your displayed rank will reflect your overall performance, so just let it say what it wants, and play more games

Why is the question relevant? It's the same game no matter what rank you are. And your strength at the moment has nothing to do with your graph being at top or bottom of the scale. The graph is about long-term average and is only accurate when you actually play a large number of games instead of trying to "cheat" the system with volatile ranks.

An equally good question would be how to correct for the ways your rank is inflated by your opponents being on tilt.

Unless you go on tilt more often than an ordinary player, everything should balance out. If you do go on tilt more than an ordinary player, then your rank should reflect that--it reflects your average play, not your best.

The only people who have to worry about their rank getting stuck are rapidly improving players.

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Occupy Babel!

The damage of a couple off days can be undone by a couple of better-than-average days. So having a couple off days won't leave you with a huge hill to climb.

If your couple off days happens more often than the couple better-than-average days, then yes you will never get your rank up. But in that case I suspect your estimate of your own rank is a bit skewed.

I've won 12 of my last 13 games on KGS on a relatively new account, but I still haven't ranked up. There are some systems that adapt to wins faster, and there are different philosophies on when your rank should move up (eg. If someone is on a winning streak, do we believe that they deserve to try playing at a higher rank, or should we use past history as a larger indicator of strength?).

In any case, I have no problem with winning for a little bit more before moving upward. It's fun winning, I think.

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be immersed

I am starting to agree more and more with Toge's sentiment here. It is the same game no matter what rank you are.

It's true that I have my own opinions on how a ranking system should work, and they differ a bit from KGS's method. However, no matter what system you have, you still get to play the same game.

If you lose and your rank goes down, you can play again tomorrow - or maybe later today, and win.

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be immersed

I wasn't suggesting that turning your rank off (which merely prevents people from following you - the algorithm is still generating an appropriate handicap, and that becomes your rank when you turn it back on) would "unstick" your KGS rating, but it might "unstick" your mind.

I highly disagree with this.

One of the things I've found when straddling the line between two ranks is that the higher rank is more likely punish small mistakes than the lower rank. In other words, you have work out these kinks to make it in the higher rank, whereas complacency is forgiven in the lower rank.

If your goal is to improve, or to play the best you can, then given an option between the two ranks, there's really no question as to which would be more desirable.

I agree that it takes longer to improve if you are playing a weaker player. These days, though, I am trying to play every day. So if I play a weaker player, sure, they might not punish me for small mistakes. But I should definitely win, then.

Like I said, I'm on a bit of a winning streak right now, and I expect it to continue if I truly am stronger than the rank that I have right now. So eventually, I will get to the higher rank, and those that are stronger can punish my mistakes.

In the meantime, I can refine my current skills by ensuring wins against those that don't punish my mistakes well.

Yeah, it takes longer than if I was simply bumped up a rank, and could play against stronger players more easily. But I don't think it's a waste to practice winning against those that don't punish my mistakes.

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be immersed

There's just not enough data here -- were these games all even games against the same ranked players, or or properly handicapped games against stronger/weaker players? Were they the same player, or all different?

If all even or properly handicapped, then your probability of winning hasn't changed. If you flip a coin 13 time and get 12 heads, the probability of getting a head on the next flip is still only 50%.

If you want rank up, then you need a number of unexpected wins against stronger players (or improperly handicapped opponents). Even loses against the same settings (when combined with these wins) can still cause your rank to increase.

Recall getting an initial solid rank, you need at least 2 wins and 2 loses, because the system needs to establish both an upper and lower bounds.

Sure, there are other ways to "cheat" the system for a short time, but it will eventually level out again anyway.

When playing even games against stronger players, or adjusting the handicap against stronger/even/weaker players, you are essentially telling the system that you want to "self-promote". So now you have to prove to the system that you deserve the promotion by establishing both an upper and lower bound at that new rank.

But that is not at all the situation. The system does not know this probability, no one knows. After 12/13 heads it is reasonable to assume that the coin is skewed, and this is what KGS does. KGS tries to understand what skew is the most likely given all the previous flips, i.e. determines which relative strengths would have given the actual game results with the maximum probability.

In particular you don't need to decrease the handicap to get promoted. If you are winning enough KGS will promote you, even if you always play with the suggested handicap.

Some reasons for not promoting are that those people were overranked, or on the lower limit of their rank, or you have played a lot recently and those 12 wins are not so much if you have other 100 games of which you lost 50.

Yep, they were all at the appropriate handicap, and just against various (different) random players. The loss I had was also at an appropriate handicap, where I was playing a stronger player.



Well, hopefully the probability of my winning has changed because of my studying.




Yes, it will level out eventually. If you read the other posts that I've made in this thread (even my last post), I think that you'll see that I'm agreeing with this.



I'm not sure why you are talking about this, because this is not what I'm doing. I have been playing properly handicapped games.

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be immersed