To get what fixed?!?

Do you think losing an occasional game to a weaker player will significantly lower your rating? If you have a solid rating (lots of rated games), then it won't. And even if it did, when they later improve, yours will too (without having played them again -- that's the way the KGS system works).

When your go server rating drops, it doesn't change who you are. You are still the same person you were 30 mins earlier. Maybe even a little better, because likely you've learned something from your loss.

Yes, of course more games will help your rank to become more solid. That is not the point I was addressing.

The discussion is about how hard it is to get games as a [?] rated player. If you have a [?] rating, you have played either no games, or very few.

Therefore, a single game can affect your rank a lot.

So let's say that you have 5 other accounts on KGS that you play on regularly that are all 1d. Then you want to make a new account, which starts out with a [?] rank.

I'm suggesting that, sometimes 1d players care about rank too much to play against a [?] player. It can be easier to get a game with a lower ranked player. Say an 8k player accepts a challenge from you. After this, your rank might be something like [4k?] or [6k?]. A lot of 1d players still won't play evenly with you when you have this rank. So you play a 5k player. Now, you are maybe [2k?] or [3k?]. Next, you play a 2k player.

You know you can usually give a 2k player 2 stones with your other accounts, but let's say that you make a mistake in a reading problem, and end up losing against him.

The server might set you to [3k] or so. You can still play more rated games to get a [1d] account, just like the other 5 that you have, but it will take a few more games, because you lost to a 2k early on.

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What I'm saying is that, one strategy to get a solid rank when you have a [?] rank is to play against people that are weaker, because they accept challenges more freely.

However, when you do this, if you lose to a player that is normally ranked weaker than you, it will take more games than usual to get back up to 1d where you are usually at.

The key point I was outlining is that, by using this method, it might take more games to get a 1d rank than if you just played a 1d to begin with.

It's not a problem or anything, and I know that it's how the system works. I was simply suggesting one method of dealing with a [?] rank when many higher ranked players are too concerned with rank to play anybody without one.

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be immersed

Exactly.

This is why I suggested, some time ago when the 'tilde' idea was just a twinkle in WMS's eye and he tossed it to the community for approval, that instead of punishing those who do not play enough weaker players, one should reward those who do. In practice, this would mean that players who play more than 1/3 of games against weaker players would receive a 'star' as a reqard - and to signify them as particularly 'beginner friendly' players. I never liked the idea of giving the 'tilde' as a punishment.

Other than that, I think that everybody should play a healthy portion of their games against weaker players... the exact proportions I am not sure of, however... this is also why I rather reward than punish.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

And again, we see rank obsession getting in the way of decent behavior...
I should collect all such sad examples for future reference.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

Did you allow many handicap stones? For every added stone your chances increases. But perhaps you set 9 stones and still waited 20 mins, I wouldn't know what it's like up there in the higher echelons.

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FusekiLibrary, an opening library.
SGF converter tools: Wbaduk NGF to SGF | 440 go problems | Fuseki made easy | Tesuji made easy | Elementary training & Dan level testing | Dan Tutor Shortcut To Dan

My statement was merely to point out the volatility of one's rank when they start off as a [?] player.

One method to use when starting out as a [?] player is to start off by playing those that are close in rank to you.

A second is to start off by playing weaker players that are more likely to accept your challenges.

Between the two methods, if you lose a game in the process, the second method will require more games to get somebody's rank at the level that they're used to.

I would not call this rank obsession. It is just how things work when you are a [?] player. Feel free to read my response to xed_over to understand my reasoning.

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be immersed

Play with proper handicaps, and your provisional rating will be [1d?]

That is another method, yes. But sometimes it is difficult to do when you are a [?] player.

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be immersed

I understand.
And you have a point - when your account is young and not yet established, there are things you need to do to get where you want.

However - since most of us spend relatively very little time in that phase, but a lot of time with established accounts, such blanket statements are questionable without further explanations. And easily misunderstood.

Flaky occasional players like me notwithstanding... they are excluded from the above and get what they deserve.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

I see. I should have elaborated more. I meant just to provide one method of getting rid of the [?] rank when nobody wants to play you.

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be immersed

And to pick on the evil RANK OBSESSION .

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Stay out of my territory! (W. White, aka Heisenberg)

The ? is easy to get rid of. Just play 3 or 4 games with an appropriately rated bot. They're not picky.

I always hate this advice. If I don't have time to play very much, I don't want to waste it playing against a bot. I come online to play people.

Everything has its price. The trick is determining what your price is, and then being satisfied after making the exchange.

i don't think you can see ~ from stongers even they have it.

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长考出臭棋.