Rating obsession

[tapir]

Ever since EGD turned to instant update I found that the Rating increasingly became the object of an obsession shared by many active tournament players. I believe this makes tournaments hard to stomach for newcomers when ratings are what most conversations turn around. Furthermore, we now increasingly see the player type who sees rating as an end in itself and not as a means to organize meaningful McMahon tournaments. This led to the phenomenon that rating-conscious players by believing they have to "earn" their rating make the whole system increasingly meaningless for its main purpose, which is to fix appropriate handicaps / to enable even games among players from different places, at least in the kyu range (look at EGC results of french players as a reference). The odd thing about this is, that the players in question might see their results in mismatched games as a personal success and not as the system failure it is thereby reinforcing this bad practice.

[amnal]

I have not observed this phenomenon. But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Isn't the French misgrading problem due to their official ratings-change process being unusually arduous, including before the gor website was improved? Whilst this has the same effect and is silly, it wouldn't reflect a lack of individual understanding, just a lack of forethought when they first implemented their system.

[tapir]

I have not observed this phenomenon. But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Isn't the French misgrading problem due to their official ratings-change process being unusually arduous, including before the gor website was improved? Whilst this has the same effect and is silly, it wouldn't reflect a lack of individual understanding, just a lack of forethought when they first implemented their system.

I am not french, so I don't really know what french people talk at tournaments. Their system might well be broken for a longer time. The tournament talk point is based on experience in Germany and Switzerland and it tires me endlessly, I mean just take a look on some European go blogs... there are blogs who seemingly don't talk anything else but rating, changes in rating and how others don't deserve their rank because of their rating.

[kivi]

I see more KGS residents talking about KGS ratings/ranks, rather than Europeans talking about EGD/GoR. I don't speak German though.

In Bordeaux something total opposite also happened. One Azerbaijani player registered as 6 dan even though he is more like 1k-1d (other's estimate, I didn't play him). This also messes up the system, though of course it is more of a concern when you have more players like this.

[aokun]

Ever since EGD turned to instant update I found that the Rating increasingly became the object of an obsession shared by many active tournament players. I believe this makes tournaments hard to stomach for newcomers when ratings are what most conversations turn around. Furthermore, we now increasingly see the player type who sees rating as an end in itself and not as a means to organize meaningful McMahon tournaments. This led to the phenomenon that rating-conscious players by believing they have to "earn" their rating make the whole system increasingly meaningless for its main purpose, which is to fix appropriate handicaps / to enable even games among players from different places, at least in the kyu range (look at EGC results of french players as a reference). The odd thing about this is, that the players in question might see their results in mismatched games as a personal success and not as the system failure it is thereby reinforcing this bad practice.

I don't know about instant update or its particular effects, but I would like to come to the defense of the "player type" who sees ratings as an end in itself, since I am one. While there are lots of players who aren't that fussed either way, there are a lot of us who do care about ratings not perhaps as an absolute goal but as a measure of long-term progress and accomplishment and there is another substantial bloc of players for whom that makes absolutely no logical sense whatever, since, logically, ratings are only meaningful as a way a creating fair handicaps and pairings, logically speaking. These two groups seem fundamentally incapable of communicating with each other. (Interestingly, they seem to overlap with people who collect things and people who don't, I don't know why.)

There may certainly be a system failure involved if ratings-based pairings persist in generating lopsided matches. That may be challenged by using pairing systems that rapidly promote (isn't that the Swiss system?), or encouraging self-promotion, or modifying the ratings algorithm in some way or the like. But what you describe above seems to be two things at odds with each other, players caring about an increase in their ratings and players caring about winning tournaments. One you want ratings to go up; the other (sandbagging) you want them to stay down. In limited my experience, most players who care about ratings much prefer promotion to a single tournament victory and will react well to being forced to play up. It is a soluble problem.

In any case, because of human nature, an important subset of your players are going to care about long-term accomplishment and are going to want a measure of it. They will care a lot about ratings, they are not wrong to do so and they should be catered to. It is a major goal of a ratings system to provide such a rewarding measure of accomplishment.

[Javaness2]

I have not observed this phenomenon. But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Isn't the French misgrading problem due to their official ratings-change process being unusually arduous, including before the gor website was improved? Whilst this has the same effect and is silly, it wouldn't reflect a lack of individual understanding, just a lack of forethought when they first implemented their system.

The French allow self promotion up until 4kyu. There is possibly a problem arising from the younger players not self promoting. I wouldn't describe their ratings change process as unusually arduous, is that really your feeling?

[amnal]

I have not observed this phenomenon. But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Isn't the French misgrading problem due to their official ratings-change process being unusually arduous, including before the gor website was improved? Whilst this has the same effect and is silly, it wouldn't reflect a lack of individual understanding, just a lack of forethought when they first implemented their system.

The French allow self promotion up until 4kyu. There is possibly a problem arising from the younger players not self promoting. I wouldn't describe their ratings change process as unusually arduous, is that really your feeling?

Perhaps instead of 'arduous' I should have said 'restrictive', which a 4k self promotion limit is to some extent, though I didn't know the specifics and thought it applied also to weaker players.

[tapir]

The French allow self promotion up until 4kyu. There is possibly a problem arising from the younger players not self promoting. I wouldn't describe their ratings change process as unusually arduous, is that really your feeling?

It probably isn't the rules but the culture of over-emphasising ratings which leads to this proud announcement "I will earn my rating." and then people who are dans on the servers play as middling SDK at the tournaments, the inevitable 9:1 result at the EGC is then really nothing to be proud of. But this is only one aspect, I am increasingly tired to listen (even if I have strong and profound opinions on all rating matters myself ) and I have the suspicion that the rating-awareness and rating-talk actively scares people off. (Disclosure: Before writing the entry I read two german go blogs and found rating humour on one of them, and another one which was ostensibly a tournament report but featured no diagram but more rating talk.)

[Javaness2]

I think there are definitely players who are obsessive about their ratings. The immediacy of the EGD isn't, for me, breeding that. Anyone who is too focused on improving Go, who loses their natural enjoyment of the game, is going to suffer from this. The game takes over their life, it represents achievement...

[Uberdude]

Talking about ratings is another popular obsession for Go players

[karaklis]

What is actually the problem? You say that the rating is intended to create useful pairings. I agree to that. But that implies that the rating is a good measure of go playing strength. However a prerequisite for this is that the very most part of the go players are ranked according to this rating. Now you are complaining about those who are actually doing this. What are you actually reproaching them with? Sandbagging? This doesn't seem consistent. Isn't the problem the other way around? It is those who rank themselves much above their actual ability who mess up the ranking system. Especially in Germany where self-ranking is effective, this bad habit is common, that's why German players in the kyu ranks are about half a stone weaker than the rest of Europe. I can give you tons of examples of players who are ranked much above their ability and their win ratio is very low, many of them below 25%. As for those who are ranked according to their rating, I don't know anyone who has a loss ratio below 25%. I don't see why it is bad, if someone thinks that he has to "earn" his rank, I also don't see why this leads to a meaningless system. The rating system actually allows a reset by jumping up to ranks. This is for those players who rapidly improve and should be an exception, but this feature is often misused. As for myself, I generally do rank myself according to the rating, however I had two jumps when I was still in the DDK ranges. These jumps were justified by improvements that I had on servers. For many who rank themselves up, it is not justified though, and that is what messes up the system. For me (who does not improve rapidly) the rating is a measurement of go playing strength, and that is why I use it to get ranked, and I don't have any problems with stating this in my blog as well.

[tapir]

What is actually the problem?

That people look at a registration list and think about their rating. Then they go to a tournament and talk about ratings. Then they come back and write a blog post about the rating of their opponents. Then they meet a beginner and tell him about the beauty of different rating systems. And in the evening they sit together and make rating humour.

[karaklis]

That people look at a registration list and think about their rating. Then they go to a tournament and talk about ratings. Then they come back and write a blog post about the rating of their opponents. Then they meet a beginner and tell him about the beauty of different rating systems. And in the evening they sit together and make rating humour.

Ah well, if it is only that, then it's their personal problem, right? We have the option to ignore their blogs
I thought you meant that it had a bad influence on the rating system. I guess we missunderstood then

[aokun]

What is actually the problem?

That people look at a registration list and think about their rating. Then they go to a tournament and talk about ratings. Then they come back and write a blog post about the rating of their opponents. Then they meet a beginner and tell him about the beauty of different rating systems. And in the evening they sit together and make rating humour.

If what you are saying is that a go tournament is a good place to find a high concentration of those prone to obsessional thinking, I quite agree. Not sure that is a soluble problem.

[Joaz Banbeck]

... These two groups seem fundamentally incapable of communicating with each other. (Interestingly, they seem to overlap with people who collect things and people who don't, I don't know why.)...

Some people need external validation, some do not.