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rank - absolute levels
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Absolute rank

No such thing. The only way to establish such a thing would be to have a massive tournament, with every player in the world playing many games against other players from around the world, with nobody's skill improving. (The tournament idea sounds like fun, but by the time it was over, i would hope to have improved a stone or three!)

There is not a single rank-setting authority. Rather, there are several rank repositories (each national or continental go association is one such, as is each Go server that tracks ranks), and they do not always quite agree. So one person may be regarded as a 1-kyu in Osaka and as a 1-dan in Tokyo, for example.

Within rank repositories, there may be variation such that a person with a weaker rank can easily beat a person with a stronger rank. This is because ranks do not always keep pace with changes in players' abilities. If a small group of players within a repository mostly play amongst themselves, their ranks may seem stagnant even though the group as a whole is getting stronger. When such a player contests someone from outside the group, s/he will be surprisingly strong for her/is declared rank (which the outsider might regard as sandbagging). The larger the repository, the higher is the chance of isolated pockets of players whose rank isn't accurately compared to the general level of strength.

Jasonred Sometimes, I wonder... are go players in general getting stronger, raising the bar, so to speak? So, a 20 kyu now was equivalent to a 17 kyu 80 years ago? (or whenever the system came into existence).

Someone mentioned to me that once, 25 kyu was the rank given to an absolute beginner who understood the basic rules, with no knowledge of techniques. Apparently, nowadays 25 kyu means you have a certain degree of skill as well. And 30 kyu is the lowest possible rank. Weird.

Possibly, once upon a time, a 1 dan really would have had to give a 25 stone handicap to a 25 kyu...


exswoo I don't think Go Theory could really progress if such a thing didn't happen...although I'm not sure how much difference this makes (I would venture to say that the differences in skill would be most evident for the top players but barely at all for the amateur levels). Of course, the relative nature of the rankings makes this point moot. ;)



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