Stronger dan players on OGS?

[Gia]

I can’t know what would have happened, but I know handicap stones mess up my game.
Of course a stronger opponent will beat me, but I’ve noticed they have to be even less creative when I take handicap stones, like they know the few standard countermoves and there it goes.

[gennan]

@_KoBa

Also compared to other servers, OGS ranks are tough. People who can maintain 3-4d on some other servers may have only 1-2k ranks here, so their games simply won’t appear as strong ://

easy fix for that one, lets just bump everyones rank up few stones^

As far as I know, this was fixed 1 year ago: 2021 Rating and rank adjustments (matching with EGF/AGA)

Or are you comparing with Asian servers like Fox/Tygem?

[_KoBa]

@gennan

Or are you comparing with Asian servers like Fox/Tygem?

Yeah, those 2, wbaduk, igs… But also kgs seems to have bit easier ranks than ogs, so its not just the asian servers >__>

[jlt]

I think KGS is intermediate between OGS and Fox/Tygem.

[RGesh3]

I’d like to add (to my original post) that the reason I asked the question about stronger players is because it seems I can learn from them. I see stronger players making moves I wouldn’t imagine worthwhile. Generally, the stronger the player, the stranger and more interesting the move. Sure, I could go and look at other servers, but, uhh, I like OGS.

[martin3141]

Do you specifically want to watch live games? If you are happy with slow games, I believe there are plenty of high Dan players on OGS playing correspondence.

As for live games there are sometimes events where professionals or strong amateurs play each other, often advertised by a notification on the main site. You’d have to watch at the right time though.

[Groin]

Watching stronger and trying to guess their next move is indeed (very) fun and inspirational… As long as you can understand a bit of them ofc. When a bunch of players gather to watch (a kibbitz party) you can even get more understanding at times from the comments.

[BHydden]

@Gia

they know the few standard countermoves and there it goes.

There are no “countermoves” for white. You’re winning. They need to play trick moves and overplay. It’s you who needs to learn counter moves, and it will significantly increase your understanding of keeping your stones connected and staying strong and knowing what not to respond to. When to fight and when to reinforce.

[BHydden]

There is so so so much to learn playing handicap games as both black and white (remembering that that also includes 0 and 1 handicaps for practicing fuseki).

Our elegant handicap stone system is one of the most beautiful parts of go that lets almost anyone play a somewhat even game, and it truly is a shame that our live games don’t have a stronger handicap culture.

(I’ll admit even games make some sense in corr, since ranks already change a lot over the course of a corr game anyway)

[Samraku]

More elegant than reverse komi?

[BHydden]

Of course. Handicap stones are simple and intuitive, that’s why they existed before komi was even a thing. Plus reverse komi doesn’t really change your way of thinking, you’re just doing more of the same thing, so there is no stimulus to question your thought patterns.

Also, good luck getting universal consensus on how many points of komi to give.

[Civilian]

off topic - sorry:

@BHydden

(I’ll admit even games make some sense in corr, since ranks already change a lot over the course of a corr game anyway)

I’ve wondered about this for a while - if two 10k were to start a corr match which takes a year to finish. By the time the match is finished one player is 10k and one is 1d. Is the match rated as 10k vs 10k or 10k vs 1d?

[BHydden]

10k vs 1d, strength is assessed and compared at the time the game is ended.

[Uberdude]

Yes, because it means you get to put up a decent fight and can learn about attacking and killing. In a reverse komi game against a much stronger player you are never going to be attacking and killing, you are just going to be dying everywhere, but it’s okay to die some large amount and the question is do you cross that threshold.

[gennan]

@BHydden

good luck getting universal consensus on how many points of komi to give.

I would agree to 10-13 reverse komi per rank.

@BHydden

They need to play trick moves and overplay.

I don’t quite agree. Just taking advantage of black’s mistakes should come a long way. And ofcourse play actively.

[Samraku]

@BHydden

Plus reverse komi doesn’t really change your way of thinking, you’re just doing more of the same thing, so there is no stimulus to question your thought patterns.

I disagree. The higher the reverse komi, the more the stronger player must ask for and fight for, and the higher the reverse komi, the more the weaker player must choose their fights judiciously.

@BHydden

Handicap stones are simple and intuitive, that’s why they existed before komi was even a thing.

Yes, they are simple and intuitive. Free moves at the beginning of the game for the weaker player is about as simple and intuitive as it gets. But free points at the end of the game for the weaker player is also about as simple and intuitive as it gets.

@BHydden

Also, good luck getting universal consensus on how many points of komi to give.

I think twice komi per rank subtracted from the komi for an even game is fairly well supported.

[Uberdude]

@gennan

@BHydden

They need to play trick moves and overplay.

I don’t quite agree. Just taking advantage of black’s mistakes should come a long way. And ofcourse play actively

Indeed. Here’s a 9 stone game where I won without anything I’d call trick moves or overplay.

RandomChromics vs. Uberdude

[Samraku]

Yes, reverse komi and handicap stones have different strengths. I would not dismiss the opportunities large reverse komi games give the weaker player to attack, though. In a large reverse komi game, the stronger player will be playing very fast, leaving many weaknesses. If the weaker player let’s them have everything they ask for, the stronger player will win. So it is up to the weaker player to choose an opportune time to counterattack, at which point, locally, they will have something resembling a stone handicap, but far more organic.

That said, I wrote out today the specs of a utility I’ll probably make within the week to calculate reverse komi, and I’m absolutely including the option to specify handicap stones, or use handicap stones up to a given max, after which reverse komi is used, and maybe other options if I think of them, so I definitely don’t think handicap stones have no place.

[Jade_9000]

I could’ve sworn a couple weeks back, briefly on a Dwyrin vid, I saw OGS showing metric binloads of 4 & 5 dan live games. Definitely was OGS. I’ve never seen that myself so assumed that there’s a secret backroom for the A-listers. Yinno, kibitz-proofed and stuff. Maybe it’s timezone…

[aesalon]

OGS is the worst sever for blitz games. There are problems with time settings like complicated match settings (that divide the player pool) and bugs with countdown so playing in the last second is unreliable.

Strong players like fast games. There are too many adjustments players have to make from the status quo that other servers have established that deter players from OGS.

And as always been said, these problems have existed for a long time so OGS kind of missed the boat on appealing to the players who have Tygem/Fox so now it is exactly:

@BHydden

It’s a self fulfilling prophecy that we’ve always struggled with. Strong dans don’t often play here because “strong dans don’t play there”
As in, the primary reason a lot of them don’t play is because the others don’t. So they’re pretty much all on fox these days

The best thing OGS can do is make autopatch completely painless - pick a time setting style and blitz/fast/medium games… then fix the server/client side desyncs that happen all the time so that people can reliably play blitz games.