Live tournaments are fun, but so are the ladders. Though, ladder games are correspondence, and some people (who would like to participate in ladders) don’t like to play long games. Why not make a live ladder? I have one idea, but it is probably not the best, so any suggestions appreciated! 
All online players would be able to join a live ladder. If some player leaves, he would be disqualified from a ladder, but he can join it as soon as he connects again. Timing would be like for normal live site wide tournaments, and a player who keeps his first place for more then 4h would be “The ladder winner of the day” or something (but if someone challenges him directly before his “winning moment” he would have to finish that game before he gets the prize. Or not? Should he get his reward exactly at the moment he reaches 4h? What do you think?). Of course, only one challenge per person, it is not possible to play many live games anymore… 
I don’t quite see how this would be different from a tournament where one doesn’t have to play all rounds.
I don’t see how this is feasible. After the game ends then another player would want to challenge the number one person. He would never be able to claim the ladder win
He would claim win once his last game started in a period while he was #1 finishes 
Ladders are always good when you want to get some more games… For example, if you are in the ladder, you can challenge some players you can’t challenge for private games.
We have had internal discussions about adding a league system for groups in the future, where the participants play live games at a given date. (E.g. Sunday afternoons)
I guess this would come pretty close to your idea!
That is nice indeed, but what do you think about permanent ladders, like normal ones?
Just to expand on what @Franzisa said… we have an update coming for tournaments soon (one of which is a league style tournament… where games are basically negotiated on their start time but it is otherwise a live tournament of sorts). Also in this tournament pipeline will be automatically run (and frequent… think daily and weekly) live tournaments along with sitewide leadersboards (!!).
I think these things that we have planned would work out better for what you are imagining than a live ladder system… which would really amount to just a transient perpetual tournament.
I’m not sure that adding more stuff to sunday afternoon is a that great idea, imho it has already started to be too much going on at that specific time…
but yea, specifying it to a certain timespam would definitly be required in such a ladder, be it whatever day of the week or maybe even only a timespam of 3-4 hours every month, it is a cool idea
Another version could also be that you could have a “ladder checkin” … naturally you would have to flag yourself availible for the ladder X hours / Y timespam to stay etc… … one issue is naturally the timezone differences and maybe having “opening hours” for the ladder could solve that kind of stuff…
Sunday was only an example.
The German league systems that I know work that way: A specific date for live play is specified and players have to play their games on that date; unless both players agree on a different time due to real life issues.
I’d suggest we wait for matburt’s new system to go live before we comment too much on it. 
The live ladders are a nice idea, but I fear they come with too much “but what if…?” to be realized in the close future. Especially because the league system might close the gap already. We will see
Hello,
Sorry for reviving this topic, but is the updated Matburt talk about the thing about periodic live tournaments ? I find it really awesome but it’s not a live ladder though.
One could imagine a ladder on which players have to accept one request every two weeks, and the game would be played on a time agreed upon by both players (I say that but I’m not a developer so I do not know whether this is feasible).
Thanks for your replies
It’s feasible it’s just somewhat non trivial to implement… I might revisit this sometime this next year but right now the Ladder somewhat acts as an ongoing correspondence tournament for the participants.
I can definitely imagine that it’s not an easy thing to do ! I have no idea what it is to make OGS work and I find this server awesome enough, you guys did a great job ! 
The thing is I’m not personaly a great fan of correspondence game, and am thus very interested by your mentioning of the “league style” tournament, with games “negotiated on their start time”. What is it exactly ?
Hi guys. Can we revisit the subject of Live Ladder games, at least for Groups?
Hi. Can we please revisit the subject of Live Ladder games, at least for Groups? Is there somewhere to add to a wish list? You can see the idea for other sports here: Challenge Software
I think it might be better to go in the direction of lichess style live tournaments rather than a live ladder.
The live ladder sounds a bit chaotic. Especially once you get near the top it’s all about defending your place eg imagine being at #2 and then hoping that your game finishes at the right time for you to challenge #1 before they’re occupied by another challenge.
Instead lichess do these blitz and bullet tournaments that I’ve seen (I’m not suggesting those time controls necessarily) where every win earns points, and the tournament has a fixed duration. The more wins you get the more points. The person with the most points at the end of the tournament time wins.
I can link some video examples of these tournaments. You just play as many games as you can (although it does sound a bit tiring if one wants to win so too would defending your ladder position for 4 hours I imagine).
If we could at least have custom game settings for group ladders, that would make them a lot more fun. Group members can always informally play their games live even under correspondence time settings.
When it is a private group, there is nothing to stop your members joining the existing group ladders, and simply playing fast games with active, online members. Just because it’s a corr game, doesn’t mean you can’t finish it in an hour or even 15 mins if you both so wish.
Yes, but as pdg137 says, would prefer custom game settings. The main objective is not to win a tournament, rather to play many games among group members and promote activity (because this is what we need in our case - think national level). Playing online quick moves whereas the settings are on correspondence level, means some games could be fast whereas other games too slow. We would prefer same game conditions for all. We will be playing the games either on “Games night” when we all meet, or at any time a challenge is made and time confirmed by players. No need to over-engineer. See what other ladder software do.
It just sounds like you need a list of names in the one place really. If everyone in the group just said hi in the group chat, you can click their name and challenge them.
If it isn’t about winning a tournament, I don’t see why winning the ladder is any different, other than maybe an incentive to challenge a higher up player.
If you just challenge the players yourself you control the time settings too.
My own idea on live ladder to be reasonably working
Take a format like ASR or other leagues.
Have to come once week in a scheduled time to play live. For this you have a schedule with different time in each week already established, and you preselect the one you can be.
Then if agreement between players can play more.
Another way more simple is just agreement. Someone challenge someone on a public wall. Then they have a week to fix a date in it and play. If no agreement sanction for both, basically a demoting of x places down (10?)
To not start to count whatever games, mark each game by "live ladder"at the beginning of the game (like in the leagues)
The problem is to get something automatic, with no referee/manager/more pressure on our admins… like it’s working for AST.
Live ladders sound fun. Of course it’ll be messy. And perhaps technically challenging. But I was kinda disappointed when I found ladders are correspondence-only.