I always get this error message when trying to play a 9x9 game with a bot. What does that mean, what can i do? I just started today here, but guess my rank around 16k and wanted to play with a 17k robot - so whats wrong?
I never played a ranked game here, so how can i see my start rank?
thanks!
The system considers that your starting rank is 6k. So play a bot which is 15k or a bit stronger. After you lose a few games, your rank will quickly settle at your real level.
I think this is an unfortunate drawback of how initial uncertain ranks are interpreted for such restrictions. For applying this sort of restriction, maybe the system should instead allow the game if any part of the uncertainty range of both players are within 9 ranks.
how do you see my starting rank is 6k? How come they put me to that rank without having played a ranked game? What an honour but i think i am much weaker…
The rating system is designed like that. On this server you can’t choose your starting rank. Anyway don’t worry too much about rank, it is still provisional. Once you have a solid rank (after you win and lose a few rated games), it will appear.
This 6k starting rank is really stupid. And what a useless and misleading error message poor Rilon got. It’s kafkaesque for a 30k trying to get to 30k. I think every beginner who OGS assigns 6k and forces them to get stomped on to get a sensible rank should message the admins asking for their rank to be reset. That would reveal the argument that we can’t have a system where people choose their starting rank because when we did the admins were overwhelmed with rank reset requests for the folly it is: in the current 6k system they should be even more overwhelmed with rank reset requests from every beginner.
Thanks a lot for your help!
I’m not a complete beginner, started to play Go more than 20 years ago 
I guess i am somewhere between 16k and 13k. Just won a few times against amy_bot (11…15k?) - but it seemed weeker to me.
Where can i see my actual ranking - its just the graph?
Go to your homepage: Rilon
You are currently 10k. Of course since you haven’t played many rated games, this rank is not very reliable yet so it may change soon.
O.k. seems i am rated 9k now - seems i have improved a bit since my last games.
The amy-bot sometimes makes useless moves for a 10k ranked bot - i am surprised how easy it is to win area back from him…
It’s better not to play too much against kyu level bots. After some time you find their weaknesses and always win in the same way, but humans play in a more diverse manner so it doesn’t mean you’ll win against humans with similar rank.
OGS rank could be different from what you think from IRL games or other servers.
I’m ranked 4k here but I feel myself more about 9k or so. My EGD rank is 8k actually but also these got bumped a little some time ago.
I agree.
I found other bots that have quite a strange rank respect to their strength.
I believe that many human players don’t care much about losing against a bot, if they aren’t even doing it on purpose. I don’t play often bots, but I usually find them qiute overranked.
You could try the noob_bot / doge_bot team which spans a nice range in strength and seems quite consistent to me.
More info at the noob_bot profile:
Once more time…
It’s years that is, and regularly very brave newcomers (Do you remember the time you were a beginner ?) Come and try understand what’s happening to them, or ask how they can play with other beginners.
Nothing changed.