Life In 19x19

Richard Nixon


I believe his gestures indicate he's between 2k & 2d...

DrStraw wrote:I am an amateur so any estimation of my rating is not likely to be within two stone either way of my true strength which, of course, varies by as much as two or three stones depending on my mood.

Of course, if you're a professional, your ranking doesn't fully reflect your true strength either.

I'm surprised how many people I've seen (not just in this thread) who say their rank varies by up to two or three stones depending on their mood. I don't notice my strength fluctuating significantly on a day-to-day basis.

Dusk Eagle wrote:I'm surprised how many people I've seen (not just in this thread) who say their rank varies by up to two or three stones depending on their mood. I don't notice my strength fluctuating significantly on a day-to-day basis.

Really? Interesting...I'd say my strength fluctuates by as much as 4 stones. The difference between me playing a 5th game of Go at 3am in the uni library when I should be doing my homework that's due in 5 hours while listening to obnoxious techno music and running off energy drink fuel to keep me up and alert...and me playing my first game of Go at 9am on a Sunday morning after getting 10 hours of sleep with everything crossed off on my to-do list while drinking a hot cup of barley tea is phenomenal.

Joaz Banbeck wrote:Is your rating reflective of your true strength? ( I'm not asking for a comparison of rating systems here. Please assume that most of the other player's ratings on that rating system are accurate. I only want to know if you think that yours is yours accurate. )

So this poll is about how schizophrenic you are? I answered that my rating (i.e. reality) is about one stone below my imagination.

Araban wrote:No one's going to say their rating is too high because of ego. Well, except for ketchup maybe.

Win. Although, I did not vote in the poll.

Araban wrote:

Dusk Eagle wrote:I'm surprised how many people I've seen (not just in this thread) who say their rank varies by up to two or three stones depending on their mood. I don't notice my strength fluctuating significantly on a day-to-day basis.

Really? Interesting...I'd say my strength fluctuates by as much as 4 stones. The difference between me playing a 5th game of Go at 3am in the uni library when I should be doing my homework that's due in 5 hours while listening to obnoxious techno music and running off energy drink fuel to keep me up and alert...and me playing my first game of Go at 9am on a Sunday morning after getting 10 hours of sleep with everything crossed off on my to-do list while drinking a hot cup of barley tea is phenomenal.

This seems like an one-way-road to me. Of course you can play significantly weaker than your current rank but can you play significantly stronger in ideal situations, based on your average rank?
I don't think so. If I would beat a Dan-player, I surely don't take this as my supreme skill but accept that he had a bad day - maybe playing a 5th game of Go at 3am in the uni library when he should be doing homework that's due in 5 hours while listening to obnoxious techno music and running off energy drink fuel to keep him up and alert.

On the other hand, maybe I'm too modest.

If your rank is an average and it's been partly calculated from games where you played weaker than that rank, then it follows that you must have played stronger in some other games.

On the other hand, maybe I'm too modest.

No ... no ... not seeing it :p.

My rating is based on my results, and therefore it is accurate.

Currently my KGS rank is relatively accurate since I don't improve atm.
But during my first year of playing I was almost always underrated by about one stone(my winrate being >>50% at that time backs this up), since the KGS ranksystem can't cope well with quickly changing strength.
My EGF rank is useless since it's mainly determined by what I rank I tell them on registration.

schilds wrote:If your rank is an average and it's been partly calculated from games where you played weaker than that rank, then it follows that you must have played stronger in some other games.

Sure, but I can't imagine playing 4 stones stronger than my average rating. At least not when I did not lose intentionally to get a weaker rating beforehand =D

Bill Spight wrote:As Terence Reese said, "A man who plays up to himself is hard to beat." Most players do not play up to themselves, and so their ratings do not reflect their true strength.

When Billie Jean King was commentating tennis tournaments, she used to talk about a player "raising the level of her game" during a match. For serious players this is an important concept. I used to know a dan player who, IMO, did not have the skills of a dan player. But he won a lot of games because he simply refused to lose.

This is interesting, as it gives me at least part of the answer to a question why i am so bad at casual games (especially under-handicapped with weaker oponents) and so good (in comparison) at tournament games. when i compare my individual skills with my oponents, i usually come out worse than them - worse tsumego, not knowing joseki, not understanding why i play what i play, etc. but when i play them at the tournament, i can beat them (sometimes )

I voted for a stone high simply because within the last month my rating has jumped 2 to 3 ranks according to Kgs and I don't think it is settled, aside from that I do think it is somewhat accurate maybe a stone off at times.
I have to agree also with Araban depending on my mood or the current circumstances I could play within a 3 stone difference roughly in either direction of my current known rating, which being 7k would say I can play as good as a 4k or as bad as a 10k. Though I try to avoid playing games when I am not feeling up to it because then it feels as the games are complicated beyond comprehension even when it is as simple as can be.

Without having read the thread, I turned the question into "how many games out of 100 would I win against an equally-ranked player," only to see Bill's proposed alternate formulation . I said my rank is too low because of rating lag--I've won more than 60% of my games after going from 8 to 7 kyu. But this is similar to the referenced chess study's exclusion of game submission delays, so perhaps my response shouldn't count.

I voted accurate due to not currently having a rank anywhere. I turned my rank off on KGS so I wouldn't worry about it when I play and I don't have an account anywhere else and am not a member of any Go Association.

However when I asked I usually say I'm around 5 or 6k but one of my friends at the Go club I go to who is 2 dan says that I am probably 1 or 2 stones stronger than that currently.

There is a self test in case you are not sure about your rating accuracy.

Ask yourself whether you stopped playing rated games or play only if you feel you can show your full strength or avoid players you do not know or rather wash the dishes instead of playing... if this is the case your rating is obviously too high.

Personally my KGS rating is sometimes too high especially when I return to KGS after an absence, my EGF rating is too low due to having played only a handful of tournaments and my OGS rating is probably about correct and my WBaduk rating is just my WBaduk rating. (I look at the last one when depressed and instantly feel better. And it is always my aim to harmonize my ratings, taking the WBaduk rating as the measure.)