Winchester Go Club

The Winchester Go Club meets in a pub called The Black Boy in Winchester, England. Officially it's between 7pm and chucking-out time on Wednesdays. In practice most people don't arrive until 7:30pm or so.

Links

• British Go Association page - http://www.britgo.org/clubs/winch.html
• Google Group - http://groups.google.com/group/winchestergoclub?lnk=srg
• OGS Group - https://online-go.com/group/80

Ranks and Ratings

Winchester uses a ladder system devised by Mike Harvey?, which is also used at Purbrook?.

Format of the ladder

The empty ladder looks like this:

   |  1d |  2d |  3d |  4d |  5d |  6d |  7d |
++ |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+  |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
=  |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
-  |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
-- |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
   |  7k |  6k |  5k |  4k |  3k |  2k |  1k |
++ |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+  |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
=  |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
-  |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
   | 14k | 13k | 12k | 11k | 10k |  9k |  8k |
+  |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
=  |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
-  |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
   | 21k | 20k | 19k | 18k | 17k | 16k | 15k |
+  |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
=  |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
   | 28k | 27k | 26k | 25k | 24k | 23k | 22k |
=  |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
   | 35k | 34k | 33k | 32k | 31k | 30k | 29k |
=  |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |

Operating the ladder

Each player on the ladder is represented by a movable label.

If player A wins a match against player B, A moves up one slot and B moves down one slot. For instance if both A and B begin in slot 6k++, A moves to slot 5k- and B moves to slot 6k+.

Handicap is determined solely by the rank difference; if a 1d-- plays a 2d++ the handicap used is the same as when a 1d++ plays a 2d--.

Beginner?s start at 30k; no-one can be demoted below 35k.

Rank inflation and deflation

This ladder system should on average result in rank deflation as new improving players are added. In practice, several additional rules are used to combat this effect:

• If the rank difference for a given game is greater than 9 stones, the stronger player does not move as a result of the game.
• A stronger player may unilaterally promote a weaker player if they seem to be under-rated.
• If it seems from tournament play that the ladder has drifted, everyone can be moved to restore parity with an external rating system. This is rarely necessary.

General experience

WillerZ: In general, this ladder seems a sensible way of doing things. It reflects the reality of progression quite well, in that it is easier to get from 26k to 22k than from 1d to 2d. It is also very simple to use and maintain manually.

LukeNine45: This seemed like a good way of doing a ladder, so we've started using it at the Schaumburg Go Club a few weeks ago. So far it seems to do at least as good a job as the AGA rating system.

I'm thinking of adding a rule of what to do when players play with the wrong handicap: If the expected player wins, nothing happens. But if the underdog wins, then the loser is knocked down one notch, and the winner is bumped up one notch, plus an additional notch for each stone of handicap that wasn't used. Seem reasonable?

LukeNine45 (later): I've been applying my proposed rule on our ladder for some time now, and it seems to work well. I think it has the added benefit of minimizing deflation.