Ranking updates need overhaul

Support
1

The ranking update system needs to be overhsuled to precisely update the current ranking of its players.
i just played a match where the ranking on the plsy screen read 14k, which i assumed was equal to my rank, however, upon the start of the match, i discovered they were 15k! which is not the type of opponent I wished to play against. i lost, now my rank slipped to 15k, and now i have to double my effoert, but when i create a match it still shows 14k.

my profile show 15k, this is deceptive as put a person in an unpleasant situation to whete people who want to face an equal peer, are now forced to win to maintain, or lose a bundle.

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If you refresh all tabs with OGS, your rank will not be displayed as outdated anywhere. Rank restriction of opponents works without bugs for years for me. Even if there is bug, it means they lost their rank today and not really different in actual strength.

2 Likes
3

All this show me that you and your opponent have similar ranking so i hope you had a lot of fun because of this.
Enjoy your games!

Besides a true rank in my idea is a rank you can confirm with stronger, equal or weaker players. Takes usually some games to establish firmly…

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4

A good example of overly focussing on the ratings. Games like Go are some of the most beautiful of human inventions, can we please focus on that?

(I’m not saying rating bugs shouldn’t be fixed, of course.)

–
Ian

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Sometimes the ranks that are shown in the player cards, the chat and the profile page don’t seem to match, maybe that’s what’s irritating.

But yeah, 14k vs 15k seems like a decent chance for a good game.

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Yeah, I forget what uses what, but some things use the overall rating, and other things use the relevant specific rating

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On the profile page you can see your rank +/- the uncertainty, so for the moment it looks like:

14.5k +/- 1.5k

So OGS estimate is that your “actual rank” could be anywhere between 13k ... 16k. If you do the same to your opponent ranks, then you see that there is a decent chance that your “actual rank” is higher than that of your two recent opponents. And yes, while that chance is less than 50% at this point in time, it is definitely more than 5% (for Glicko, there is 5% chance your “actual rank” is outside of those +/- bounds even).

I’ve made use of the “don’t show ranks” button in my settings because I also used to worry about how a game would affect my rank. I do still occasionally check my opponent ranks, moreso during correspondence to know what to expect from a long game. But it’s allowed be to be much more interested in having fun games, rather than think about improving my official rank.

1 Like
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I don’t think that’s right really. Everything uses the overall rating and the specific ratings are shown for interest/I don’t really know why.

I think differences arise because some places like in chat are not updated, others update straight away and still others update on refresh or some other trigger. However as far as I know, matchmaking will always use the correct, latest ranking.
And frankly +/-1 rank is pretty much an even match as Jonko mentioned

In short there doesn’t seem to be a problem to correct.
If one is ranked 14k, loses a game, drops to 15k, wins a game, goes back to 14k, then that’s just the system working as it should.

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“Use” was probably the wrong word. While I wasn’t necessarily thinking exclusively of being used for display, I was thinking primarily of displayed ranks being the overall in some places, and the specifics in others

Yeah, this is also an inevitable source of potential seeming mismatch

Yeah. Though I will say, as a 3k, I always feel when playing a 2k that it’s going to be hard to win, and when playing a 4k, that’s it’s going to be hard to not lose. Maybe I’m just a pessimist

Agreed