Why do we have to set both limits on rank when matching?

[taatelikakku]

Why is there a stupid limit on which ranks you can allow anyway? Sometimes I only want a lower limit but no upper limit. Yet I still have to block the highest rated players if I want to set a minimum rank

[Vsotvep]

You can just pick 25k as minimum or 9d+ as maximum if you don’t want limits. I believe that the maximum difference to play ranked games is 9 ranks, though…

[flovo]

The limit for ranked games is ±9 ranks even if you don’t limit the rank range.

[taatelikakku]

Didn’t even realize the restriction doesn’t apply in unranked. Didn’t consider if ranked has any meaning when playing vs someone 10 stones stronger than you either. Statistically sure but the game is meaningless

[shinuito]

I did mention it before the post was split

[shinuito]

I think I’m more confused now with the threads split.

You could still end up in a ranked game though with someone more than 9 ranks apart through a tournament.

Is it just that you can’t initiate an open ranked challenge with ranks restricted that far apart? Or genuinely without setting the restriction someone with that rank difference couldn’t accept your game anyway?

[flovo]

@shinuito

Or genuinely without setting the restriction someone with that rank difference couldn’t accept your game anyway?

Yes

[shinuito]

I guess I don’t look at the challenges page very often. The ‘?’ help even says that when I view ineligible challenges for some of them.

It is odd though that this is effectively discouraged, but aren’t the site ladder and sitewide tournaments ranked games, including title tournaments places where these ranked can still happen?

[Haze_with_a_Z]

I usually play tournament games and ladder challenges myself. If you look in my games, you will find that a large portion of my losses to stronger opponents come from SDKs in the auto sitewide tournaments. Many of these people I enjoy playing, but wouldn’t challenge to a normal game like some other people due to this rank issue. I have been in multiple tournaments that the closest person in rank to me will be 9 or 10 ranks away, without a handicap(as discussed in the other thread). I have played 25 games with one 2k because of tournaments. I really enjoy playing them, but I feel that even these games deserve to have an impact on my rank(Even if I have 1 win that should’ve been my loss(tried to get it annulled too late I think)). I am kind of disappointed that we are no longer playing any correspondence games together. I would challenge them to a game, but I like my games to be ranked if possible, and I feel others agree with this so they would rather ranked games too. I think if I am able to ladder challenge a 7d to a ranked game as a 19k, then I should be able to challenge a 2k to a ranked friendly match. I like playing some opponents that are SDKs in 9x9 games, although I would like to be able to freely ranked challenge them like I do with an 18k. They won’t effect either of our ratings that much if it ends as expected, and so I think that it would work. I know that I probably won’t beat a 2k in an even match. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to try though.

[flovo]

9 rank difference limit to rated games - necessary?

It doesn’t hurt to allow higher than 9 rank differences, it just doesn’t help either. People looking for a ranked game I feel tend to want a game that’s going to affect their rank, a 1d winning against a 15k though for instance is going to have a negligible effect, so it’s not worth playing a serious ranked game, better to play an unranked teaching game. For now yes, we are going to be implementing some stuff to better handle that scenario though.

[Haze_with_a_Z]

@9 rank difference limit to rated games - necessary? OGS Development

For now yes, we are going to be implementing some stuff to better handle that scenario though.

May I ask, what is this “stuff” that anoek is talking about? I didn’t play in 2014, so I don’t know all about the differences from now and back then. I would like to know what stuff he is talking about, and how they effected the site back then. It is a true scenario that happens; sometimes if you are low ranked, it is the best way to challenge high ranked opponents through these “back door” ranked game entrances. I am sure I am not the only low ranked person that plays more high ranked opponents like this(I might have 4-6 current unranked games, at least 4 of them are within the range I could challenge to ranked games. Most people that join live/blitz ASTs are 13k+, although I was lucky once and got one with mainly 18-25ks. I have probably played more opponents 10+ ranks away from me this way then unranked games not played against bots.). I am curious if this stuff he mentioned was implanted and if it affected what ranks you can challenge to ranked games. I admit I didn’t read more of the thread, but from the quote, that is what I took out of it.

[Haze_with_a_Z]

A perfect example of a tournament that the opponents are all 10+ ranks above me is the current live 9x9 ast. It is me, 2 7ks, a 5k and a 4k.

[Vsotvep]

The main difference between 2014 and now is that we switched to Glicko-2 instead of ELO:

OGS has a new Glicko-2 based rating system! [2017]

tl;dr We’re switching to a Glicko-2 rating system, which should be great for a lot of reasons. All of your past ranked games have been accounted for during this transition. Hello OGS! For the past several years we’ve been using a rating and ranking system based on Elo developed by the European Go Federation. It has served us reasonably well, but there have been some shortcomings when applying that system in an online setting. Most of the shortcomings can be traced back to the fact that the sy…

So the whole discussion is different under this new system (at least on a technical level).

[Haze_with_a_Z]

I didn’t know what the difference was, so I kind of just assumed they were either the same, or glicko was why we have the ranks for live/blitz/correspondence/all, and 9x9/13x13/19x19/all.