IGS, the Internet Go Server, is a real-time go server.
Connect your Go client (or telnet) to igs.joyjoy.net port 6969 or port 7777 (port 6969 may not work sometimes).
ratingstats (This link seems to be broken --Tim Hunt) lists 22,000 users:
rank users --------- -------- 5+ dan 1,500 4-1 dan 6,500 1-9 kyu 10,000 10- kyu 4,000
What are IGS' conditions to increase the rated games counter of "stats <user ID>" ? I am not sure, if either a) only one (random) game within a 24h period counts (no matter how many games have been played within this period) or b) games against opponents below 26k do not count for the "rated game counter". Unfortunately IGS' help does not provide clear information about it. -- Frs, Jan 2003
Alex Weldon: The help files on IGS say that for a game to be rated, it must be played against someone who has a rank within 3 stones of one's own rank (or play with a handicap high enough to bring them within 3 ranks).
I have a question of my own, though. Does anyone know what criteria IGS uses for determining whether you go up a rank, down a rank or stay the same? It seems to update your rank every 24 hours, but I fail to find any pattern to how it decides whether to change your rank, or not.
Sometimes I've played 5 games on a day, won 4 and lost 1 and had no change. Other times I've played 2, won 1 and lost 1, and gone up (or down) a rank. Is it taking several days worth of results into account?
Is it randomized in some way in order to prevent people who are overly concerted with ratings from choosing to stop playing on a given day at a time favorable to their rating (ie, after winning enough games to go up, stop playing for the day, and if losing enough to go down, keep playing until you get into the "no change" bracket, then stop)?
Chris Hayashida: It's just a hunch, but I think that the ratings shown by the 'stats' command are rounded numbers. I currently have a rating of 5k* with a rating number of 25. According to 'help ranksupport', a rating number of 25 should be 4 kyu.
As for the "randomization" of the ratings moving up or down, I think it's the same as on KGS. Your rating is affected not only by the people you play, but the people they play, and the people that those people play, etc. It's the same affect that you might see on your rank graph on KGS (or fluctuations in your rating if you are near the border) but the IGS ratings are not updated in that near-realtime fashion. Note that your rating will only change once a day, when the cron job runs (currently 0400 IGS time, if I remember correctly.) This is also when the rated games counter is updated.
chtito: Everything is explained in this rating page of IGS.
To answer some of your questions: 1. the rating system is not randomized. It is the result of an optimization procedure and is thus completely deterministic. 2. games are taken into account during one cycle, which is said to be a week.
Chris Hayashida: 'help cycles' says that, as of 1994, the cycles are twice a week.
Nacho: I had an interesting (yeah, let's call it that) experience today on IGS. I sent match requests to two people, and both accepted!! I thought that it was not possible. Anyway, I had to play both games simultaneously (I didn't want to be rude to anyone), which obviously resulted in a 20 point loss in each game. Well, I think it was good practice, but my nerves can't resist another day like this. So, my question... how can avoid that happening again? Any tips? Thanks in advance! Well, now I think, I could add this to that page with the excuses for losing... what was the name?
Answer : Your command is: toggle singlegame on (or just resign one of the match, games within 30 moves won't count to your rating).
How do I play a handicap match on IGS? (At KGS the handicap stones are put on the board automatically.)
Answer : Use the 'handicap' command just after the game starts ('help handicap' for more info).