Hello, I am at the very bottom of the ranking system. It is next to impossible to find a 19x19 game. I was curious as to if anyone had any tips for me to get into 19x19 games. If there are any good groups. I have found someone to teach me the game. But how can I develop without actually playing against someone? Anyone else having this issue? idk just trying to find a full board game i have spent 3 days trying to find one and haven’t besides one correspondence game that just started today. Anyways if anyone knows how I can get into games let me know please!
well you should be able to join free games that are 19x19. past a certain rank difference, you can’t do ranked.
well it depends on what you want to improve upon in your game. If it is fighting and reading, tesuji and life and death problems will improve that, which in turn will improve your game. There are a few youtube channels that cover some aspects of the game like openings, and some fuseki strategy for beginners. (nick sibicky does some good ones for beginners).
other than that though, just playing is one of the best ways. If you ever want a game, I’m happy to play one.
Tried looking up your name, could not get it to work. perhaps you could add me and send me a challenge. ?
Do you know you can create games waiting on others to join? Some creates 5-10 games at a time and just wait …
You can also join the site ladder and challenge someone with the rank you desire to play with. That’s what I do. Look at that person’s game history to make sure he/she is still actively playing.
90% of all games played on OGS are live, so I’d suggest you create a game offer and wait.
Play > Create, set game speed to Live, Time control to byo-yomi and adjust the other settings to your liking. You should probably uncheck ‘restrict rank’ but if you want to make sure to only play people around your level, set ‘maximum level’ to 24k.
If you want to know when your odds of getting a game are best, check the top right corner of the chat. It will read “USERS (xxxx ONLINE yy CHAT)”. If ‘online’ is a little above 2000, that’s your cue. Lowest I’ve seen was something around 1000 maybe? Average should be ~1500, unsurprisingly.
25k and weaker make up about 3% of the player pool, so with 2000 active accounts - 2x active Live games (check games tab) which usually comes down to <100 games… that’s about 0.03 x 1800 ~ 54 players. Of course not all of them will be looking for a game, but as long as 2% of them do… 
Make sure to befriend people you enjoy playing with, that’ll make it way easier to find games, regardless of your level.
Hey thanks for this whole load of information it was very helpful and i will be taking your advice into consideration.
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earlier i tried that, i got one correspondence game.
I can’t help about live games.
If correspondence is good to you, joining the ladder and challenging players above you will assure at least three games.
When you’ve climbed up a little you could also be challenged by other players and have up to three more games.
No more than six games at a time on a ladder… but there are also other ladders in groups.
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