I’d really like to play more live ranked games as a way of improving, but I often struggle with ladder anxiety, especially when facing the prospect of automatch. Since it’s easier for me to play ranked games against buddies that I already know, I have the idea of making a new friend or two who is around my rank, and challenging each other to play games and improve together.
My current rank is 7.3 kyu, ± 1.7. My highest rank was ~5.4 kyu, I think, and I feel I could probably get back to that with some more ranked play. I have a couple buddies that I play live games with, but they’re all DDK. I’d really love to find a SDK/dan buddy to play regularly with.
So I think a good practice partner/friend/rival would:
- Be around my rank or stronger, maybe 7 kyu - 1 dan. (Even stronger would be fine!)
- Have a flexible schedule so that we can play maybe 1.5 games a week or more. I’m currently in Beijing, and my schedule is best for go after dinner, around 8pm - midnight, China time (GMT +8), which would be the afternoon in Europe or morning in North America. Morning games would be great too, because I’m certain I’m sharpest after breakfast.
- Be affable and open to some postmortem discussion of our games, and having some of our games reviewed by others.
- Enjoy live time controls. My preference is around 20m + 5x30 byoyomi. Slower would be fine, too.
I’m online a lot, so I think the way starting a game would happen is just periodically checking in with each other to see if we’re available for a match that day, and what time would be good.
I’m currently a site supporter, so our games would be reviewed by the Level 3 AI.
If more than a couple people are interested in this, then maybe we could even form a group and help each other towards dan level, mainly by playing! I know SDK study groups like this have formed before. I’m posting this to find at least one good partner/rival to play against. If a group naturally grows out of it, that would be a bonus!