I’ve just created an account—what’s the best way to raise my rating quickly?
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Beat much higher rated people in even games.
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Thanks
Even better.
Beat much higher-rated people while giving them handicaps.
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Learn to play Go very well.
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Are you new to Go, or just new to OGS?
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Git Gud quickly (if you aren’t already a strong player)
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Have you considered a criminal career?
How about bribing your opponent with US 5000,- to “vote” for you?
Or hacking into the system and taking it hostage unless you are awarded a permanent 9D rank?
All that stuff about getting good will take years when you are talented and about forever when you are not.
I hope you can curb your impatience and enjoy your way to become a good player. The road towards that might be more fascinating than the goal itself.
Enjoy the game. And have fun!
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Let me try to reframe this for a minute - imagine this same question within the context of a martial arts dojo - you’re working away at your current level, and you see students all around you at various higher levels.
You know if you spend enough time, eventually you’ll rank up to a Black Belt. But you ask yourself - how does one rise through those ranks QUICKLY - or at least more quickly than the rest of the students all trying to GIT GUD at their own pace - am I getting that right? Is this the question you were trying to ask?
Because that’s the thing about something deep and complex like Go or kung fu - people can spend years of their life on it - sometimes decades - and still be learning things along the way. Just getting from Novice (17-12 kyu) to Adept (11 - 8 kyu) is very difficult. Young kids in Korea drilling for 10-12 hrs a day can do it in less than a year. For most Westerners (who aren’t playing 10 hrs of their own games each day, and then reviewing those games closely) - that process can take much longer. For a casual player like me - it’s took several years.
Getting from 6 kyu to 1 dan - the metaphorical equivalent of a Black Belt is a progressively steeper climb, and requires a lot more commitment in terms of serious study.
As such, when you ask this question - you’re really asking - how much of my time and effort am I willing to commit to this? How can I absorb the information and experiences needed to progress more quickly than the other students around me?
There’s no substitute for time and effort. Just make peace with that.
After that, you roll up your sleeves and go looking for the resources that are going to work best with your current rank level and your learning style (i.e. videos? books? tsumego? etc)
There are a lot of resources here on OGS - including my 19x19 FOR BEGINNERS series
Here’s another great thread regarding other good resources online
There are a lot of great rank-appropriate PUZZLES in the Learn section of OGS, so you can pick ones appropriate to your rank and improve your reading of Life / Death, etc
So yeah, watch some videos, review some professional games, read some articles, do some exercises - see what works for you.
Once you started all that - I strongly encourage you to try other board sizes and time controls besides fast 9x9 games. As you learn Go, you will realize that you need to be a Generalist - not a Specialist. In some ways, getting really good at 9x9 can really lead you down the wrong path when you start playing 19x19 (especially in the Opening and early game). Try everything. Play slow correspondence games and learn how to read out really complex variations. Play fast games on bigger boards. See what this game has to offer, and what inspires your imagination.
Lastly - don’t focus on rank. It’s just a number - and it can be a somewhat inaccurate reflection until your rating stabilizes over time. The other thing is your rank can be different for different time controls. So, just speaking for myself - I’m so used to playing slow correspondence games - that if I were to start playing Live and Blitz games my overall rating would trend quickly down - so if I’m currently 8 kyu, that rating might be like 10 kyu in correspondence and 17 kyu in blitz - my rank sort of smeared across the different time controls.
So yeah, don’t focus on the number. Just play other players close to your skill range and explore the game. As you absorb new skills and experience those internal changes will naturally affect the way you play, and allow you to win games that would have stumped you before.
Don’t try to rush it. Just figure out what methods of learning are most rewarding and sustainable for you, and hopefully you can progress at a satisfying pace.
Good luck.
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As OP asked about raising his rating rather than strength, I presumed he was already strong and just wanted the rating to catch up. Maybe he wasn’t making that distinction though.
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I went to OGS, found a recently created account with the OP’s username, and looked through a few of the games.
Assuming this was the OP, I figured they were somewhere in the mid-DDK range, and based my suggestions accordingly - this was also the reason I encouraged something other than fast 9x9 games - as this was all that user had played to date.
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If you’re talking about increasing your rating, the best way is to win ranked 19x19 games against users who have higher rating than you.
Ogs’s rating system takes the board size, possible handicaps, and the delta of player’s current ratings into account when calculating the new ratings. 9x9 games only have 25% of the impact on ratings when comparing to the impact from 19x19 games.
In case you meant increasing your strength, then the usual answer is: play a lot of games, solve tsumegos, study theory and new concepts, and watch/replay games by stronger players to see what they do differently than you would do in the same situation ^^
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no, it was before glicko
even 9x9 and even 19x19 now do same impact
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Gosh, I’m surprised by that. I thought less impact for small boards was a good idea as you typically play more in the same time so reduces volatility ( in time rather than game space).
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Ogs
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You should have been presented with an option to select your rank when you joined OGS. (see this thread)
Selecting the “Advanced (5k+)” bucket would be the quickest way to get a high rank, if you are already an experienced player.
If you are not already a strong player, then my advice is different - play a lot of games and do your tsumego!
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I don’t know about kung fu, but in go it’s obvious that not everyone rises through the ranks at the same speed.
And when I was a student at university it was obvious to me that many students were wasting their time, spending many many hours per day “studying” but not really learning anything. During the day they went to class, copied down what the teacher was saying without really listening to it or trying to understand it, then in the evening they would spend hours reading their notes and trying to understand them or learn them by heart. A much more efficient method would have been to actually listen to the teacher, learn the lesson during the lesson, and then in the evening, practice with exercises.
We see the same thing in go, with some people getting stuck in the same rank for years despite attending many go classes and go camps, while others improve much faster.
So, looking at what other people in the dojo are doing to rise through the ranks, and asking the question “how can I rise through the ranks faster?” might actually be a very good idea.
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Your observations regarding students at university are very universal across various types of group learning - kung fu included.
In each case, classes are structured in such a way that (attendance) + (minimum / average effort) = rank up. At the end of that time, you get handed a belt, or a diploma, and there’s a vague assumption that you’ve acquired certain skills / abilities.
And in each case, there are students who are really there to learn - because of genuine drive or curiosity. Their need to improve / gather knowledge has nothing to do with grades or tests - they’re internally motivated without any of those structures. The various belts or degrees are just markers along the way to something else.
Absolute agreement! Much in the same way that I study professional games - watching high level live games on OGS has taught me a lot! Likewise - I’ve had the enjoyable experience of watching friends on OGS - either figuring out a hurdle they were stuck on - or being able to observe them discover their own playstyle over time and begin to experiment with confidence.
As someone who writes Go articles for beginners, it gives me a clearer idea of HOW people absorb certain concepts and WHEN - because so many Go concepts are actually made out of component parts that can only be grasped through experience.
So yeah, I agree - the drive to learn / innate ability are very different across players. When a given player starts their learning journey - or decides to get serious after years of being casual - we can talk about the resources or exercises that would assist in that - but it’s interesting to look at the INTERNAL aspects of this process
Does a given player have what it takes to truly commit to that learning path - not out of some dutiful notion regarding the responsibility to RANK UP - but out of a genuine curiosity and drive that keeps them awake at night trying to wrestle with the mysteries of this game and how to adapt to its infinite depths.
For myself - I do and I don’t. I “messed around” on my own - stuck at 25 kyu playing against GnuGo and losing by 20-50 points over and over for about 12 years. I joined OGS in 2016 after the Lee Sedol / AlphaGo games, and it took me another 10 years to get from 25 kyu to 8 kyu. I’ve only played 35 ranked games on OGS - the rest of my games were either even games against GnuGo, or centaur-go games where I get AI suggestions against another AI (GnuGo, Cosumi, Leela, KataGo, et al), but I choose direction of play.
I think of myself as a very casual player - a scrub. I certainly didn’t put in the time or effort to GIT GUD quickly. By taking 20+ years to get from 25 to 8 kyu - I am at the far left end of that time-elapsed Bell Curve - since many players were able to make that journey in 1 or 2 years.
And yet
By slowly accruing that time and effort, I managed to climb into the right hand side of the Go rank Bell Curve, over the hump and almost to one sigma!
Even though I never had the time, the motivation, or the gumption to GIT GUD quickly - I had whatever it is that keeps one up at night, trying to figure out the mysteries of this game. It has held my fascination - and continues to challenge and inspire me - even when it’s been months between actual games.
Even though the OP asked a very simple sounding question - I have enjoyed exploring the topic of what it takes to progress in this game - at whatever speed. And perhaps also to let beginners know that - even if you don’t shoot up the ranks - it’s OK - this game is still endlessly fascinating.
People who get frustrated because they can’t get from 17 kyu to 1 dan in a year and stop playing the game are doing themselves a dis-service. Don’t let things like rank discourage you from actual learning - find your own drive and motivation, because that’s more likely to keep you going in the long run.
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Ah, I really should refrain from saying this because humor can be dicey…
To be clear, I do not wish to cast aspersions on @anoek or his mates, but apparently we live in a world where everyone has their price. If it’s only rank we care about, and not actual playing strength then perhaps…
Hey Anoek, I think there may be an issue with my rank. If I donate 50k USD to OGS might you be able to “investigate”?
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Like the students described by Arsenlapin, I know what I could do to improve faster. I don’t do it because of intellectual laziness.
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