Congrats! You are not supposed to be losing, the rating system is supposed to figure out your rank based on how well you actually play. I just hope it handles handicap games well enough.
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I tested:
5 stones on 13x13 and thatâs enough to go directly to 25k (in 1 game).
3 stones on 13x13 made me 20k
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OK cool that makes sense. so far itâs alarmingly actually improved my rank, which is definitely not right (i have only been playing for a couple of months and am not good at all), maybe i can just play some non-handicap games against the bots if they might be better at calculating that. my reason for wanting an accurate rating isnât so much not wanting to be crushed by superior oppostion, itâs about not wanting other people to accept a game with me because they think iâm at a certain level and then find out i canât play very well and be disappointed because iâm not an interesting opponent
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Try 2 stones on 13x13
Some people do become quite good in a couple months. At this point, you might just want to play real people even, and see where you land (Iâm guessing not 25k)
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yes that probably makes sense really⌠the problem is just that misrepresenting myself in any way to others, even accidentally, gives me a horrible squirmy feeling that is making me shy away from starting games with people i donât know because i donât like the idea that theyâll be believing something about me that isnât true. but i probably just need to get over that, i guess anyway anyone who is familiar with this platform will know that sometimes when people are new here their ranking is off.
anyway thanks to you all for all your help and suggestions, it feel supportive and makes it a bit less scary to start games with people to think that probably most people here are nice
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Not talking for me, but surely they are (most of them.)
Play people, thatâs where the fun is.
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Back to OP, these testing will make me give this advice now in resume:
play a 13x13 with amybot 10k, taking black with 4 stones handicap.
If you lose youâll be rated as full beginner with just this game.
If you win youâre bit better, try a 3 stones. Then a 2.
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My impression is that 13x13 might be a bit more helpful or accurate too, and the games might not be too much longer than 9x9.
For 9x9, I think it is difficult to lose on 5-6+ stones, even with a large rank difference (though possible for total beginners), and on a side note, I have been wondering whether 9x9 handicaps on OGS are really accurate.
The handicap stones seem to have so much weight on such a small board, and Black seems to receive quite a bit more than what âfeelsââ even to me.
For example, in all of the 9x9 tournament games I have played in which there has been an auto-handicap, I have found it nearly impossible to win at the handicaps the server gives automatically.
(5d vs 12k meant 4 stones handicap with reverse komi of -5,5 and vs. 19k meant 6 stones.
When Iâve played against a fairly new beginner friend of mine â a 24k â with 7+ stones on 9x9 via OGS auto-handicap, she always won. It was nearly impossible for me so long as something was defended.
Even 2 stones against a 4k on 9x9 is very hard for me, and I have the impression each stone is worth around at least 6 stones of 19x19 handicap, although OGS gives much more handicap to Black on 9x9 than that.)
Searching through the forums, I see an old post about OGS not computing 9x9 handicaps correctly. I wonder whether this is still the case.
Edit : Ah, I found this further down that thread, too :
And this, from the GitHub bug ticket following that post :
That is approximately the same win/loss ratio I have as White in 9x9 handicap games with handicap above 1 also (1:8 or less), so perhaps the OGS 9x9 handicapping system should be looked into and adjusted to be more accurate ? ^^
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I agree i feel a 13x13 is a good compromise between the sharpness of the 9x9 and the grass lands of a 19x19. Considering that you play a bot 10k i find the evaluation quite efficient and worthy. Looks hard to beat with 4 without a little bit of practice, and with 3 without a bit of theory and ideas.
Most interesting discovery is that youâll need just 1 game for a beginner to get his diploma.
There is less space to do something as 25 stones on a 19x19 IMHO.
Anyway on OGS it seems that
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Yes, I just tried it too and I get a similar feeling on the 13x13. ^^
Cool, maybe I can recommend it in future to beginner players whilst there isnât a better solution for this. ^^
Yes, I agree, I would rather give 29 stones on a 19x19 than 7 stones on a 9X9 to the same player. ^^
Iâll open a new thread about it to not derail this one. ^^;
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I just want to express my sadness with current state of account creation.
My son started playing Go all on his own, been playing with friends and played on playok. I see him crushed and - thinking OGS was still like when I created my account - created an account here.
It wasnât a very good experience for him. Since the account was 10k he couldnât play ranked with 25k bot. After he lost against the 1x kyu bot he looked sad so I helped him âdemoteâ the rank further to 2xkyu. It tooks 3 games. And then at that time I let him play against the 25k bot confident that he would have a decent game.
Turned out the 25k bot was much much stronger than when I started also, it destroyed my son again. At which point it was too late so his mom told him to go to bed.
And then he hasnât shown any interest in the game these days after 
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When system creates bigger problems for beginners than for sandbaggers, beginners (or their parents) start to âsandbagâ too. Result: there are more lost on purpose games than without such system and therefore bigger rank chaos.
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This thread has shown that it doesnât take three games to reach 25k. It just takes one 13x13 game with four handicap stones against a ~15k bot (9x9 works too when losing, but wins seem to be overestimated there, and winning on 9x9 is easier with the same amount of stones).
If 25k is not low enough, a possible next step after that game might be to play a handicap game against a ~25k bot. And maybe show your kid that you can lose handicap games too by playing KataGo.
Just donât tell him the purpose of winning - my kids have no idea how to end a game, but at least they like putting the stones down 
Also kidsgoserver.com should have a better experience if you get another opportunity.
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âWell sorry for not knowing every mechanism of the server when creating my new account, totally my faultâ 
Yeah, he doesnât know all of the rule yet. Winning or losing is just being able to capture stones to him.
Iâll try convincing him to try the kidsgoserver today, thanks for the info!
Yes, thatâs a problem, but this thread started after someone asked in the chat for advice. Now more users know about it and can point to this thread when someone asks again.
Iâve just made my first post a wiki, so we can put the important information there and people donât have to read the whole thread.
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