Hi there
At my level - basically I don’t really know what I’m doing - it seems almost impossible to find a live game on OGS. I’ve looked into playing against computers to get to play a bit more - and be able to undo - but in most places I’ve looked people did not recommend playing against a computer at very low levels. I would like to play against other beginners like myself on OGS but there don’t seem to be any. Or at least not when I’m awake.
Any suggestions?
Cheers!
Okay, here is a sort of manual just for you.
BTW: welcome at OGS Forums & hope you enjoy your stay.
If you click Create …
… you will arrive on this page.
where you can set the specifics of you challenge …
If you click Ranked the margins (min/max) of your challenge are limited to 16 K to 3 D.
(Never understood why, but that is probably another topic).
But since you
I advise you to unclick Ranked, which makes the margins of your challenge much wider.
Set your limits
to 25 K to 20 K.
(Handicap=Auto (system automatically sets handicap stones) may also help.)
This way I hope you will find an opponent of roughly the same rank as you are.
And have an enjoyable game.
And don’t worry about
I don’t know either 
Have fun!
Cheerio!
Edit: second screenshot was incorrect, added the right one.
margins are wider, but beginner don’t need 9k-9d opponents
also, ranked games may be more popular
it depends on your rank
Ranked games are limited to players within 9 ranks. Since Atorrante is 7k, he can play ranked games against 16k-3d. Guggelhopf is 25k so can play ranked against 16k and lower.
Thanks for adding this relevant info.
I would suggest just using automatch rather than creating challenges, especially at that level, but you can of course try both and see what works best.
There’s plenty of beginners on OGS and I don’t recall having any trouble finding 9x9 games with automatch when I was one, but it may also depends on timezones I guess.
Good luck in any case!
Maybe you’d like to tell us at which time (in UTC or your timezone) you’re usually trying to find games? And how long you have to wait to get one approximately?
Same here, but I turned on all sizes. I felt this was good for my development anyway because it prevented getting too attached to the small boards
Make a new account so you can play the other beginners OGS has misranked as 6k!
May search the forum, as this is a complex situation.
I think OP might have been 27k at the time of posting. I know 27ks can’t join tournaments and wonder whether there might be a problem with matchmaking, too.
I don’t have always the energy to help those newcomers to go on OGS.
Play unranked and get no answer. Play ranked and get in the torture room.
Old topic, noone really cares.
Is he already 25k?
Edit: ok found him and yes you have a shiny new rating
Yes, but with not many games, so his rank is not reliable or stable yet.
Now automatch and ranked games may bring very different kind of players some like you with same kind of rating but some with a ranking much higher, but who could be as good as you… and more.
Live games is a growing part of OGS, compared to correspondance. May still miss some players at the extrem of the scale.
Not only am I willing to play against beginners of any kind, but I used to do that on Yahoo! Go all the time, where it was easy to use the game board for teaching. I had a script stored, where I would send pieces of text to the opponent at appropriate times to teach them most of the basics of nomenclature, tactics, and strategy, and I taught many people.
OGS is not set up for this sort of “play”. There is no good way for a 26k player to discover that I’m an unusual 11k who is open to playing them anytime and helping them get going with go.
