IGS
IGS, the Internet Go Server, is a real-time go server. IGS, the first Internet go server, was established in February 1992.
Connect your Go client (or telnet) to igs.joyjoy.net port 6969 or port 7777 (port 6969 may not work sometimes).
On April 1st, 2005, IGS changed its rating system to more accurate and more clearly defined. Several steps are being taken to achieve these goals.
- ratings will be calculated at the completion of each day rather than once a day
- ratings will have an indicator for strong players at each rating, signified by appending a '+' to the player's rating (3d+ vs 3d)
- unrated players will be indicated by having a '?' appended to their rating (3d? vs 3d or 3d+)
- ratings changes will be 'protected' by a guard band which introduces a measure of
hysteresis into the system
- the effect of a single game at the correct handicap on each of the players will be symmetrical, increasing the winner's rating by 100 points and decreasing the loser's rating by 100 points.
- ratings will have a lower bound of 22k
- players below 22k will be placed into a 'Beginners Class'
EdwardHammerbeck: Just to clarify a few points regarding the new rating system. If you have 20 rated games, but do not have 5 wins in rated games, then you will not have a numeric rank. You will have a 'BC' rating until you have 5 wins in go games. This was confusing to me until I experienced it myself. So if you have 20 rated games, and you have 5 wins among these rated games or other non-rated games, then you will have a rank of 20k or 20k+ or 3d or 3d+, or whatever your rank is. If you have 20 rated games but less than 5 wins out of all your rated and non-rated go games, then you will have a rank of BC. Wins in any type of standard go game count toward getting you out of the beginner class even if they come from smaller board sizes, e.g. 9x9, or from players with whom your game would otherwise not count as rated, e.g., ? or BC players. In terms of the Beginner Class win requirement, a win is a win.
If you have less than 20 rated games, you will be given a provisional rank based on what you entered using the "rank" command or the system's best guess as to your rank. These provisional ranks will be followed by a question mark, "?". In other words, your rank will look like this: 22k?.
To sum up, a typical newbie's progression might look like this:
- Register for a new account and use rank command to seed your rank at 22k. Rank shows as 22k?.
- Play 20 rated games and lose a lot. Your mentor lets you win a couple 9x9 games. BC win count goes up to 2. Rank = BC.
- Play some more. Win some, lose some more rated games. BC wins finally reach 5. Rank = 22k or whatever. Congratulations. You no longer have a provisional rank or a beginner's rank. You have a real, honest-to-goodness rank and now go up and down like everyone else on the server.
The whole point, from what I understand, is that the rating algorithm needs a certain minimal amount of data to get a good estimate of how you rank compared to your peers. Twenty rated games isn't good enough because you could (like me) lose all 20. You need to have some wins in there to say, "OK, she's better than this guy and this guy but not this guy.... She's 20k+."
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
- Short Help FAQ :
http://home.snafu.de/frs/go-igs-help.html -- by Frs
- Scoring Mode Tip -- by Scartol
Sponsor and main venue for the IGS World Rapid Championship.
Tips (wanted)
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
Nobody has answered Frs's question very well, and I disagree that the help files on IGS spell everything out clearly. Or to put it another way, IGS does not count games as 'rated' the way it is specified in the documentation. Right now (2005-03-01), I have played 19 games, and only six of them have been rated.
So does anybody know the magic formula? Do I only play with people with asterisks by their ranks (25K* for example)? Or is it just random chance whether or not a game 'counts'.
Incidentally, yes, I have my rank set to 26K. Many of the games I played were when I had my rank set at 28K. Still, after changing it to 26K, it is still a toss up as to whether a game will be rated or not. -- Edward Hammerbeck
(Edward Hammerbeck updates: I read on rec.games.go that the way it works is that if your opponent does not have a * next to his/her rank, then your games go into a sort of holding queue until that person gets a *. Also, your games can be queued up for other (unspecified) reasons, and suddenly you notice you have more rated games than you thought. 'Twould be nice if someone would actually spell this out in plain English in the user documentation. :/
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).
ilan: How many games does it take to move up a rank, on average? Since I got a definite rank, I have lost 3 games and have won more than 16, but am still not moving up.
Answer : Hard to say... It really depends on the totall number of games you have played, the strength of your opponent, and the correctness off the handycap. Im pretty sure that a 4k beating a 9D in a no handycap match is worth allot more for the 4k that it is if the 9d had won. What I mean is, the 4kuy is allot more likely to be moving up in rank from that game than the 9d is....