Rookie here

Is there a beginners game room here cause i seem to be getting players that want to play that is that are way stronger then me 10 kyu lr better

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Sorry but newcomer start in between like if they were stronger as beginner. But the system will give you more same level players after a few rated games.

If you prefer you can use “create game” with more correct settings. Sadly even if you ask for lower levels then it can be possible that the system will refuse the game to be ranked, because your assigned starting level will be still too high.

Then 2 solutions:

Accept to be crushed for maybe 5 or 6 games.
Play 9x9: they have the same importance as 19x19 in your global rating, so it’s a good trick to get a quicker adjustement, even if you play later 19x19.
Or
Play first some games unranked to get a bit stronger before playing ranked.

Besides you can contact players of the same level you think you are and propose them a game directly when they are online. Just click their name to get a pop up with different options (clicking again their name in the popup will open their full profile too, so you can check their level, what kind of games they like to play, etc…). And you can go to the chat and ask there who would like to play.

One of the main reason of this is to avoid sandbagging (players who try to get a level lower as their real level). If you are interested there are more topics in the forum how and why the rating system work.

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The four largest groups on OGS are oriented towards beginners and teaching

Joining the double digit kyu room’s ladder is one way to get correspondence games with a variety of 10 kyu and weaker players

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You can also play some games against weak bots such as amybot-beginner and noob_bot_3. If your rank is still too high to play them, try noob_bot_2, lose a couple games, and then try noob_bot_3 again.

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Play a few quick games on 9x9. After 5 or 6 losses your rank will drop and you will be matched with opponents of similar strength.

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Standard OGS advice for beginners:

:roll_eyes:

This is ridiculous! Imagine the scene:

A Go club. Players are playing. The door opens and a newcomer enters…

Newcomer: Hi. Can I join your Go club?

Existing member: Sure

Newcomer: Can I play a game?

Existing member: Sure

Newcomer: I am a beginner so can I…

- They get cut off

Existing member: Woah! Let me stop you there kiddo. There ain’t no “beginners” here. How do we know you aren’t secretly really good? We don’t want our existing beginner members to get beaten by you. Just think of how that would dent their pride. People would quit the club left, right and centre. No, no, no! You play on the 10-12 kyu table till we know how strong you are.

Newcomer: What the…? Crazy system! Well, whatever - you will see after one game, I am nowhere near 10-12 kyu.

Existing member: NO! YOU PLAY 5-6 GAMES ON 10-12 KYU TABLE SO WE CAN BE SURE!

Newcomer leaves

:flushed:

Can we PLEASE set up something better for beginners PLEASE!? It’s not their fault they’re beginners. It’s not their fault we have a problem with sandbaggers. Forcing beginners to sit through 5-6 losses before they can get a properly matched game is nonsense. And to do it because of a problem with sandbagging is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I know there are restrictions due to the use of the Glicko rating system that mean new accounts have to start on 12 kyu or whatever it is, but this issue keeps coming up so we obviously need some sort of work around such as:

  • allowing new accounts to declare a rank that is for display only in the user name, e.g. “newcomer [30k?]”

  • display and use of the Glicko rank even while the deviation is still high, e.g.

    1. Start on 12+/-18k, match against 12k
    2. Then 21k+/-9k, match against 21k
    3. Then 25k+/-5k, match against 25k
      Etc.
      Would still require some initial losses, but not as bad at least. Or does it already work like this?
  • Allowing established players to set a policy in options to accept or reject games with [?] accounts. Accept to help beginners but risk getting sandbagged. Reject to avoid [?] sandbagging (but not all sandbagging).

As for the OP, I would like to welcome our newcomer, @Old_dirty_feet , with the offer of a handicap game. I am ranked 6 kyu so please choose the number of handicap stones you think is appropriate for your level (usual is 1 stone per rank difference, absolute beginners start on 30k). If you would like to play, then please send me a challenge on the main site (search my username and click challenge). Any size, any correspondence time settings, any handicap. Or PM me on the forums or reply here if you need help setting it up and we can work it out. It won’t fix your rank / automatch issue but we can have some fun playing at least :slightly_smiling_face:

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I agree with this ^ 100% - I am seriously concerned that we are chasing away a lot of potential beginners : \

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We already discussed that a few times and i completly do agree too. That’s no good way with our beginners

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31 posts were merged into an existing topic: Glicko-2 does not require accounts to start at 12 kyu. So why do we do that?

I beleve if im not mistaken i changalled someone from the room chat room that had a ? Mark at the end of there name me being new asumed the ? Means beginer like me it says provisonal player come to find out they were like a dan6 mabe a little lower i know they turned out to be much stronger in the game room there rank was high not that im afraid to play them im not ready to play a high ranking player like that im sure you guys know im not ready either i ended canceling the game i just felt it was unfair i chose a person on the grounds that they wre of simler ranking only to find out the were way stronger

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I dont understand when i create a game people will accept make one move then quite
Do they not like me or something

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It might be that your opponents accept the game and only afterwards notice the title “beginner game”. Moreover, your games are unranked, which some players dislike (since they can’t be sure of your playing strength), and you’re still unranked (because you haven’t played any ranked games yet). Of course you’re not to blame for this, I personally think your opponents should’ve paid more attention before accepting, but this is a hard thing to change…

Finally, it seem that you’re playing games against pretty strong players, compared to a complete beginner. I’d try to restrict the rank of your open challenges to players around 25k-15k, which should be relatively the beginners. Ranking in Go works like that: high numbers with a “k” (for kyu) are beginners, low numbers with a “k” are intermediate players, numbers with a “d” (dan) are advanced amateurs, where higher numbers are stronger, and the strongest players are professionals (marked with “p”). So 25k is weaker than 10k is weaker than 2k is weaker than 2d is weaker than 5d is (usually) weaker than 3p.


It seems you had bad luck twice finding a game, but if this continues, then I advice to play a couple of ranked games (5 to 10 should do) to establish a rank. That should increase the chances of finding the right opponent, and decreases the chances that your opponent will resign the game.

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I’ve moved some of the discussion of the rating system and possible improvements to the thread that started, I believe due to this thread, because I believe they fit better there than to have two parallel discussions of the same things.

I think this can be kept on topic by suggesting answers to the OP

or related advice in the current system on how to find games for beginners.

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Okay, I started this and invited ~100 new players:

Think anyone will join? It’s set to Chinese rules since it’s nice to be able to tell beginners to just play on when they disagree about the scoring.

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In particular here’s a tournament that I moved without thinking, but better belongs here for example.

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a quick way for new players to get some ranked games.

starts in 6 days
Clock starts with 3 days and increments by 1 day per move up to a maximum of 1 week.

quick?

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I new to go I know the basic I am self taught with only the booklet the game has and what I found on you tube as my guide I still enjoy the game what few games I played I can tell that this is very addicted game I’m already hooked never was hell bent on winning any game I played I found all my go stones so I can play once again I think the cat had a lot to do with it she dissapered when the game came crashing down I seen her bolt out the room there was the go game stones among the shreaded tolite paper

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Hey Old Dirty Feet

I’ve been writing up a manual for beginners where I try to introduce various aspects of the game, and then link them together. Hopefully, this will help you understand some of these concepts better and apply them in your games:

Introduction: Making Sense of Go

Part 1: Sente and Gote

Part 2: Settling Your Stones

Part 3: Playing a Balanced Opening

If you like those, you will find the other 2 articles here. I’m currently working on the next article (Shape) and hope to have it finished in the next few weeks.

OGS Community Resources

I suggest you this topic

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I suggest this topic Rookie here and some punctuation :stuck_out_tongue:

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