Hey all, first time poster here. I’ve been playing on OGS for about 9 months and really enjoying it. Today I tried to play against a 6 kyu bot that I’ve been training against (doge bot 3) and the site would not let me play against it because my level (12 kyu) was “too low.”
I haven’t played ranked matches in a while so I’m still at 11 kyu. However, I’ve been decently competitive against the 4-8 kyu bots on the site and have recently won two matches against that bot, so I was hoping to keep training against stronger opponents to sharpen my skills.
Is this a new decision to limit players to bots within a few ranks of their current level? I’m pretty frustrated I can’t do what I was able to do just a few days before!
My guess would be that the person operating the bot set these limits and the message. You could ask them.
And maybe it would work if you challenged the bot with an unranked game?
Thanks for your reply, that does seem to be the case (I also messaged the main site and they said the same). I tried the challenge idea and unfortunately that doesn’t work either. I’m going to communicate with the bot operator and make sure I understand what’s happening. It’s a little frustrating because I’ve been playing the bot in unranked matches for weeks now!
I am currently playing a correspondence game with that same bot and I noticed it’s rank is very volatile. It changed from 6k to 2k and back to 7k in the space of a day! Could it be that you challenged it at a time when it’s rank was temporarily up in the 2k region?
To make it clear, OGS does not manage the bots here that’s the responsability of each bot owner (who gracefully let other players use it) so the same general rules of OGS as the one for a human player will apply to a bot, no more no less.
Then communicating with the bot owner is the way to go as you did for its behavior.
I had an even game against doge_bot_3.
I am 5k here on OGS, where I play correspondence only.
My rank irl more likely is about 9 or 10 k.
Since I’m an old stupid, I forgot about an atari that almost lost the game, but these aren’t things on which you can rely in your games, right?
So, if we forget about that blunder, I was easily winning by 50pts or more against that bot.
I couldn’t say that it played weirdly (like amybot does, for instance) but surely it wasn’t very effective. So I really wouldn’t say that its rank is the one displayed next to its name (6k right now).
This is something that really amazes me: how is that weak bots are often overrated? Is it just my feeling or is it really so? And in that case, how does that happen?
This is quite misleading for new players: when you always beat amybot_ddk could you really say that you’re better than its rank? 9k? No way!!!
I really don’t understand this whole “weak bots” thing.
I played against my phone (a bot) when I was starting my go experience and it was useful. I always recommend that to beginners.
But from 20k up I’d leave those bots and play only humans.
Same here. There were times when I though “Damn, this bot is strong”. Like when it made some big sacrifice that I though was stupid but then it made a huge moyo elsewhere so trade was good for bot. But then in end game it ignored my huge sente move to play small gote move elsewhere, then played a move inside its own territory to kill an already clearly dead group. That’s like 15 kyu play or worse.
In terms of improving, playing games without the kind of crazy moves that only bots seem to come up with, enjoying the social side of the game, etc. I agree completely.
The one advantage of bot games is a purely practical one. I like to play live games but I often don’t have time for a whole game at once so I end up playing a lot of correspondence. With a bot game, I can play live while I can, then take a break, then play live again later when I have more time.
One contributing reason is that many rank-manipulating sandbaggers use the bots to rank down by losing games to them. They do this because the bots won’t report them.
I agree with one exception. The bots are useful to avoid unintentional sandbagging. For example, I have created two new accounts for playing the smaller boards live. I don’t want to sandbag as a provisional player, so I am going to rank up the accounts using bots and then shift to playing people.
In that case, you might want to look into who has been playing doge_bot_3 recently as the bot’s rank went way up (sandbagger?) and then way down again (regular games?). Not sure of exact time frame but I think it was yesterday and/or the day before.
Bot is 7k now. Challenge accepted.
After 120 moves it resigned.
Score estimation: I was ahead +70 pts.
I don’t think I’m gonna play it again.
Nice use for advanced users with new accounts.
It should be a site feature: “Hello new user! Please, play a couple games against our bot to assess your starting rank”.
I don’t know.
Maybe it accepts even games only within 2 kyu difference.
