Some players on IGS seem to have a truly enormous number of wins and losses on their account. I have seen several with thousands of wins and thousands of losses, ranked double-digit kyu.

One 12 kyu user had about fifteen thousand wins and approximately the same number of losses. Is it even humanly possible to play thirty thousand games and NOT learn to play stronger than double-digit kyu level?

Of course, at ten games a day, it would take a little over eight years to accumulate so many games!

Are these bots or diligent idiots?

It's possible that these accounts are used in asian go clubs. In club there are computers which are permanently logged in on IGS/Tygem/Wbaduk server, so anyone can come and play a game.

prob just diligent kyus

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This seems to have been imported to the US. In the Alhambra Go club ( L.A. area ), there are at least two computers which seem to be online all the time. Anybody can walk up to them and start playing online. Sometimes a group of players are clustered around them.
I've seen anyone from beginners to nearly pro strength players involved.

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I thought that those computers should be using guest accounts.

Although, I suppose everyone ignores guests and so Go clubs are forced to create sandbags instead.

I play mainly on IGS around 10-kyu and I played a lot of games against people with many wins (10K+++). Not even one of them was sandbagger. If it were an open account in a club, player's strength would be way off, but it isn't the case at all.

On IGS I have played 10k* that were probably very high d*... but it does not happen all the time.

If it does, then you have a bonus free teaching (learning for you) game, non-handicap, with a much stronger player. Save and review! It's valuable since weaknesses are made obvious, whereas playing on rank weaknesses may be not found at all.

There is a danger in only playing "on rank". That comes because you may never improve, since errors and omissions are not only not punished, but they are equal on both sides!

Welcome games with stronger players, even when unexpected.

_-_-bear

I have wondered this question from several different perspectives. Most of my games are on DGS, and many of them are against ddks that have thousands of games under their belts. A recent win was against a player who has 6k+ games, 51% wins, and is a 13-14k. Definitely not a go school, definitely not getting better. In fact, his rank graph shows that even though he has continued playing steadily, his rank has gone down.

In my own theory, the average human (or perhaps average go player) intellect is about a 13k, meaning that if you play thousands of games, and train yourself to avoid dumb mistakes, and punish those of others, you will perhaps plateau around there. For the average intellect to get better than that, one must "stand on the shoulders of giants" and study those truths about the game (fuseki, joseki, tsumego, yose, etc) that people have been discovering for thousands of years.

While my guess about the rank could be off, i think the theory stands to reason. Since there are so many people studying the game, and learning from those that came before, there must be an upper limit for the average player who doesn't.

Of course, there are the smarties that perhaps could reach dan with no help. I think only the truly gifted and bright can reach pro. Even if I studied all day every day, I would never be smart enough to approach pro. My goal is shodan, and I don't think my odds are that great.

Which is the other effect of this debate with myself. If the average player has a plateau, and I need extra materials to surpass that level, am I essentially using the game to prove to myself that I have average intellect? Its been interesting to note those things about my intelligence that go has showed me. For instance, it has reinforced that my brain is good at looking at the nuances of the big picture (fuseki), but rather crappy with details (tsumego). But the main effect has been dispelling the notion that if I keep playing, there is an inexorable march towards greatness.

It was a humbling day when I was at the go salon the other day, where most of the men are 5 and 6 dan, and they were asking me about my interest in the game. I told them I was probably 10 k. "Oh, how many games have you played? 50?"
"No, I've played hundreds of games!"
"oooh," they said, their voices conveying their real meaning, "poor little dimwitted american."

Now, I know that part of their reaction is that they have been dan so long they don't remember being beginners, but of course it raised the question again in my head, how good can I realistically be?

Also, for other members of the forum, isn't there a thread about how good you can be without studying?