xed_over wrote:...
rank has nothing to do with improvement (and/or what Toge said)
This depends highly on how you define "improvement". For some people, "improving" at this game means that you can win more often. I think this is a reasonable definition, because as a rule, players that win more often know more about the game than those who don't. With this definition, I think that rank has a relationship with improvement. While you may lose a few games before winning more in the big picture, eventually, the increased winning rate will be reflected in your rank.
Now there may be some who define "improvement" in other ways, such as:
* Learning new things
* Having more fun with the game
In this sense, you may learn something new, but it doesn't increase your winning rate, for example. This would make the quoted statement true.
When it comes down to it, I think it is worth one's time to sit down and ask yourself,
"What is my goal in playing this game? How do I define 'improvement', and what do I want to get from go?"When you answer these questions, then you can have a metric for determining whether you've "improved" at this game. For some people, rank will be correlated with the answers to these questions. For others, it may not be. But whoever you are and wherever you're at in life - I think it's worth it to evaluate these questions.