I guess it makes sense to challenge idle rung holders 5-10 ranks weaker than you to clean up the ladder, but on the other hand it seems like targeting the weak ones instead of facing off equal opponents.
I’m not much of a ladder regular, so I’m interested in everyone’s thoughts.
I think it’s a valid strategy to speed up ladder climbing, with the high likelihood of winning such games. Eventually, one reaches a spot on the ladder where that is no longer an option. I think that point (on each ladder) is where the ladder becomes more competitively sorted with more reliable players and less randomly affected by the chance of timeouts.
People can approach ladders with different mindsets and objectives. For example, some are just interested in climbing as high as possible, while maybe taking the easiest and quickest path. Eventually getting into that “competitive tier” near the top is a great way to get some high quality correspondence games from reliable players.
A fun thing that I like to do while climbing is challenging a mix of players at different ranks, such as by selecting (among the highest players that I can challenge) one that is much weaker (to ensure a high likelihood of climbing up), one that is much stronger (for the sake of learning and experience against a better opponent, even though I’m unlikely to climb that game), and one that is roughly the same strength as me (for the sake of just playing an evenly matched game).
That’s why any game that I initiated is typically a ladder game.
Why take a chance with a random opponent, when you can screen your opponents on the ladder and chose the parameters you need.
Do you target sitting ducks or hawks though? 
For a while I had an approach that was “get as high as possible as quickly as possible”, but after a while I realised that this is not really the goal.
So now when I need a new correspondence game, I chose the next person on the ladder who:
I think thats valid. Thats the ‘natural’ method to have it balanced in the end, right?
I usually try to challenge 1 or 2 weak players and with the last one I harrass someone much stronger than me. xaxaxa
Ooh, I hadn’t thought of that.
Is it considered bad manners to “force” a stronger player to play with you? I mean, they can’t quit because they lose their spot, but it can’t be fun for a 3k for me to challenge them, even on my best day.
Why? They would see it as a teaching opportunity, right?
Usually teaching should be offered, no?
Teaching by telling during the game: not allowed.
Teaching by showing how it’s done, and a review: sure 
Thats how evil it is, even if it would be bad manners, they couldnt say anything against it!
But in all seriousness, I dont see any problem with it because the ladder works with its own ladder ranking and not with the usual way to rank players.
So, what’s your opinion, @Gia?
I challenged after posting here
Edit: uh-oh I guess my fate is sealed, I just caught the implication…
Honestly though, I scrolled from top and btw fun fact the first 600 or so were greyed out, probably because they’re always topped up in challenges? It’s the most active players?
And I challenged scrolling down whatever wasn’t 3k or 2d, there’s a lot of that!
If I knew it’s not frowned upon, I would probably had harassed a 5k as well.
There’s some rules about how far up you can send challenges (relative to your current position), but I don’t remember exactly what those rules are. Essentially, it just forces you to climb in gradual steps up the ladder, but you can still make pretty big jumps.
Yeah this. Although
You can challenge players higher than you on the ladder, subject to the following limits:
- 10 positions higher than you: you can challenge anyone up to 10 positions above you.
- 40% of the players above your position (e.g. if you are 100th, you could challenge the player in 60th place on the ladder). Players on positions out of your reach (in faded grey mode) can’t be challenged.
- 5 positions lower than where you would be if the ladder was sorted by rating (e.g. if you are the 7th highest-rated player in the ladder, you could challenge for 12th place, even though you are at the bottom of the ladder.)
I don’t think the last one works, the third bullet point. I feel like I have a memory of testing this on beta or on some small ladder on the main site.
If we take a couple of group ladders that I’m just joining now to test.
I looked at the 9x9 ladder where I was the 20th player and I could challenge 10 above me in 10th.
So the 10 above you makes sense, and 40% above is 8 above, so I could challenge 12th if that was more than 10 places.
I checked the 19x19 ladder 31st place
and I can challenge 12 places above at 19.
40% above is 12.4 places above so ~12, so that makes sense.
If you sort that ladder by rating though, I’m probably, let’s say 5th, two 2ds, two other 1kyus. 5 more places than that is 10th, but I can’t challenge past 19.
So unless the site ladder keeps some sorted list of the players, separate to the actual ladder list, and I kind of doubt that that’s the case, then maybe we can conclude that bullet point 3 doesn’t apply (unless it’s only the site ladders).
Probably not, because list of top players by rank has been a long requested feature, and right now I don’t think it is easy, though maybe easier for only ladder?
Still I’ve never seen any code for it.
Some of us target hawks, hoping that they are inactive and people are just too afraid to challenge them and find out 
The glass is either half full, or half empty.
Nice illustration of a picture tells more than a thousand words.
