Looking at ladders dynamics, at least in the 19x19 I’ve been in for a few months, I wonder how people choose opponents to challenge. I see that many, at least in the bottom of the ladder, challenge opponents just above them, when they could choose ones hundreds of ranks above, whom they would have a good chance to beat. I suppose they do so because they don’t figure out this possibility, or don’t bother to skim all the ladder pages up to find out, which can be a pain in the neck when you are around #800.
A nice-to-have feature, at least for people at the bottom of the ladder, would be an automatic suggestion of such opponents, based on a simple algorithm like : select “weaker” (based on general kyu/dan ranking) players that you can challenge, starting from the higher ranked on the ladder. For example, if I’m 15k I could find the highest ranked (on the ladder) 17k or weaker.
Not sure how difficult it would be to implement, just an idea.
Each time I want a new game I follow the same procedure:
Scroll up to the highest eligible challenge (as you say, often far above you in rank.)
Scroll down until I find a similarly ranked opponent.
I try to play someone my own rank if possible. If not then I will usually challenge someone slightly stronger than me. I don’t think I’ve ever knowingly challenged anyone with a lower rank.
I tend to pick highest ranked player who has some ongoing games for even higher ranks, it’s faster to go up if your opponent has cut his/her rank number in half, when your game finally ends ^___^
I too agree it would be nice to see directly where your top is, instead having to look few pages ahead.
On a sitenode (or maybe worth of it’s own thread):
I would love to see all the ladders from all the groups i’m participant on https://online-go.com/ladders instead just the 3 sitewide ones.
Interesting to see quite different strategies. My naive view was that one would seek the easiest way to climb up, at least when you are in the bottom, finding weaker opponents to “lift” you up (so to speak), and when you have climbed a little, you will be challenged the same way by players stronger than you. So at some point you have a balance of games against weaker players (that you challenge) and stronger players (who challenge you).
I do challenge weaker as I m far too low at the start of the ladder so I want first to correct this.
Now i will surely change that later when it will be more updated.
I think weaker If so can still learn from that and i m open for commentaries and question