Strong unranked players fooling others

A closely related phenomenon, hinted at another post, is that many players train by playing unranked games against stronger players or strong bots or in blitz mode. When they feel they have become stronger, they play a few ranked games to move up. Then they go back to the training regimen. This avoids the discouraging see-saw effect of playing all ranked games. I don’t think this is a problem, as real sandbaggers typically want more than a two-stone advantage.

I think the issue in this thread is trivial compared to the real sandbagger problem, involving rank manipulation and alt accounts.

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This post got a lot of likes, but I totally disagree with it, if I have correctly understood it (I have taken "If you play “UNRANKED” to mean “If you play a single unranked game, then considering that game” because that is the situation OP is talking about, but the statements of GreenAsJade are only logical if it actually means “if you play an opponent who ONLY plays unranked games”). So want to clarify. Playing a game unranked means exactly:

Often people think that playing unranked means they are saying “I don’t want this game to affect my rank”.

And only that, nothing more (except also not affecting rank of opponent). And definitely not an implied “I don’t care about the rank of my opponent”. You may or may not care about the rank of your opponent, it is a totally orthogonal issue.

The rank of your opponent is indicated by the rank shown next to their username, which the OGS ranking system works out from their game results in ranked games. If OGS says “3d” or “12k” then it is entirely reasonable to expect them to be 3d or 12k on the OGS scale (or more precisely, that the results of their ranked games make them appear to be that rank, they could be sandbaggers etc which is a separate issue). If you want to play an unranked game against a 12k then you seek out people with 12k ranks and expect them to be 12k. If they have a ? rank then it means OGS doesn’t know their rank. And so if you play such people then of course you can’t assume they are 12k or 3d or whatever you’d like (though you can do some detective work looking through their past results to try to figure out their true strength).

So if you play an unranked game against someone who only plays unranked games then that player should be a ? and that indicates you can’t assume anything about their rank. The same would be true if you played them in their very first ranked game. But it’s an entirely legitimate thing to want to play an unranked game against a player with a rank and expect that rank to be an accurate indicator of what OGS has determined their skill is from ranked games. And “12k”, “3d”, and “?” are all accurate ranks (but the last one is not precise).

All that being said, I agree some little orange warning icon or similar against ? ranked accounts with high winrates would be a useful little feature. But that doesn’t change the fact an unranked game is simply one which doesn’t affect your rank.

P.S. KGS has a special [-] for accounts who have disabled ranking. It can be voluntarily chosen by people who don’t want a rank, and also forced by the admins on the accounts of people doing naughty rank things like sandbagging (though they can see it, making it only visible to others and not themselves like a shadow ban is an interesting idea to avoid such forced [-] sandbaggers just making a new account). OGS doesn’t have this does it? I don’t think it even has the [12k?] which indicates a high uncertainty in the rank, but more knowledge of near a 12k than a total [?].

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TLDR.

Want to play people of a known strength?
Only play people with a rank, not ? players.

Want your next game to not affect your rank?
Play an unranked game.

Want your next game to affect your rank?
Play a ranked game.

Want to get a rank?
Play several ranked games. More games makes more accurate over time.

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I think you are correct, my quoted response was overcooked.

That’s the main point.

I got an idea, hear me out

Ogs ‘ranks’ are estimated ranges for players rating, and then than rating is turner into rank. Like rating of 1769 ± 68 cwill mean that their rating is (with 95% confidence?) somewhere between 1701 and 1837, which then means 2.0 ± 0.9k, or 'between 2.9 and 1.1k". This is shown in everyones profile, but the number after the name is shown as [2k].

How about having ranks shown as ranges as they are meant to be?
Instead having [2k] as rank how about having [3k-1k], this could help people to get a better feel of eachothers strengths.
(maybe round it up on high end and down on bottom end so that everyone will have the same format)

Also, have the ratio of unranked and ranked games increase the uncertainty. For those who play mostly/only unranked games that ± would go up a lot, so their ranks would end up looking something like [16k-4k]. For more accurate rank, play ranked games!

Handicaps and tournament macmahons could still be calculated like they are currently with the median value, but at least everyone would better understand that ranks are just rough estimates, thus the hc/macmahon being just educated guess (as it is in every rating system anyway)

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An interesting notion Koba but that’s as far as I’m going to go into the Rankings rabbit hole. :rabbit: :hole:

[Edit]:

Someone smarter than me (lots of available candidates :smiley: ) could probably test the validity of this statistically. ie. Does a higher percentage of unranked games reduce the predictive powers of the rank of otherwise identically ranked players?

and that’s as far as I’m going to go into the Rankings rabbit hole. :rabbit: :hole: v2

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It’s a nice idea, but I think that especially when your’re a dan, you want to say “I am 1d” not “OGS thinks I’m 1k-2d” even though the latter is more strictly correct.

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Having the range displayed as your primary rank is too ugly and overly emphasised “rating nerd maths” that most people don’t care about. Also you are forced to do a little arithmetic to find the midpoint which is probably what you want to know anyway. But appending a ? if the ± is > 100 say would be a good middle ground IMO.

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Go is game, rank should look simple.

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So maybe just three possibilities? eg:

  1. Kosh [Good]
  2. Kosh [Bad]
  3. Kosh [Ugly]
Cookie

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Yeah, rank manipulation seems an real issue here on OGS. Is like a mass hysteria. I just played 300+games in ten days, for WSC24. And I met a lot of these totally askew ranks. So, I play a dude of my rank, but I get wiped. I am fighting with bare fists against an concrete wall. I played Go for decades, I know how a shodan feels like. So yeah, instead of a an balanced game I got a lesson game. So, after opening when I see those strong moves. When I see thickness building around I change my attitude. I cannot win because this is not an even game. This is a lesson game. And I do not feel obfuscated but enjoy the lesson. Even more, I change the rules. I make it a reverse komi handicap, The sandbagger does not know, and maybe do not fight for a bigger score, but a safe win. And then he wins at a low score. But in my view I am the winner. I add the reverse komi. If he beats me badly, than that it is. He is really good, and I enjoy the game. .

Or it happens that I play against a player of similar strength, but I need to give 4 handicap. I have no chance, especially because I am really bad at handicap, giving or taking. And so, I just use the game to train myself at handicap.

Anyway, if there were one or two cases I would take them as in the range of normal occurrence. Out there are always few weirdos. But they are too many. Is a mass phenomenon. So it must be something wrong with this modern society? Why are so many obsessed with the win instead to be obsessed with playing better? What satisfaction is that winning a sure win: Imagine running a marathon on a stadium. Everybody runs lap after lap adding kilometer after kilometer, and you skip along ten times slower, and when you complete a lap you declare you a winner. Just so, because you decided that you can take 80 laps handicap. It is totally ridiculous.

Anyway, maybe not all underranked ones are giving away games in order to get easy games. Some may have bad days, because of health or other issues and lose a lot. Some other may meet a lot of sandbaggers and get sunk in rank. ăn those 300 games I got two swings from 5 kyu to 2 kyu. And I am a mere 4k, maybe 3 in a good day.

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