Alejo's Tenuki

We all know KGS, you may like it, you may dislike it. But we must all agree in how crazy his rating is.

Last September, KGS decided to modify its internal rating. Now, it is supposed to be more difficult to reach high levels while the lower levels are narrower; so lots of players concentrate at the 15k-1k zone. Everyone was affected by this change and players' rating grew about 5 stones by this procedure. Everyone was affected in the same way, so all your opponents also increased by 5 stones their level.

It is well-known that internet ratings are slightly higher than the real ones: as you can see KGS' ratings are always a few stones higher than AGA's or European's on the lowest levels which should be restored somewhere later to have a good equivalence on the higher ratings.

Where is that?

It's on the 9k. As you can see, a 9k KGS player varies up to 4 stones on each real scale.

 AGA   CHINA  EUROPE   JAPAN   KOREA  |  IGS  DGS  KGS
 ---   -----  ------   -----   -----  |  ---  ---  ---  
 26K    30K     28K     25K    32Gup  |  BC
 25K    29K     27K     24K    31Gup  |  BC
 24K    28K     26K     23K    30Gup  |  BC
 23K    27K     25K     22K    29Gup  |  BC   25K
 22K    26K     24K     21K    28Gup  |  BC   24K
 21K    25K     23K     20K    27Gup  |  22K  23K   15K
 20K    24K     22K     19K    26Gup  |  22K  22K   15K
 19K    23K     21K     18K    25Gup  |  21K  21K   14K
 18K    22K     20K     17K    24Gup  |  21K  20K   13K
 17K    21K     19K     16K    23Gup  |  20K  19K   13K
 16K    20K     18K     15K    22Gup  |  20K  18K   12K
 15K    19K     17K     14K    21Gup  |  19K  17K   12K
 14K    18K     16K     13K    20Gup  |  18K  16K   11K
 13K    17K     15K     12K    19Gup  |  17K  15K   11K
 12K    16K     14K     11K    18Gup  |  16K  14K   10K
 12K    15K     14K     11K    18Gup  |  15K  14K   10K
 11K    14K     13K     10K    17Gup  |  14K  13K    9K
 10K    13K     12K      9K    16Gup  |  13K  12K    9K
  9K    12K     11K      8K    15Gup  |  12K  11K    9K
  8K    11K     10K      7K    14Gup  |  10K  10K    9K
  7K    10K      9K      6K    13Gup  |  9K    9K    8K
  6K     9K      8K      5K    12Gup  |  8K    8K    7K
  5K     8K      7K      4K    11Gup  |  7K    7K    6K
  4K     7K      6K      3K    10Gup  |  6K    6K    5K
  3K     6K      5K      2K     9Gup  |  5K    5K    4K
  2K     5K      4K      1K     8Gup  |  4K    4K    3K
  1K     4K      3K     *1D     7Gup  |  3K    3K    2K
 *1D     3K      2K      2D     6Gup  |  2K    2K    1K
  2D     2K      1K      3D     5Gup  |  1K    1K   *1D
  3D     1K     *1D      4D     4Gup  | *1D   *1D    2D
  4D    *1D      2D    4-5D     3Gup  |  2D    2D    3D
  5D     2D      3D    5-6D     2Gup  |  3D    3D    4D
  6D     3D      4D    6-7D     1Gup  |  4D    4D    5D
  7D             5D                   |              6D
  8D             6D                   |              7D
  9D             7D                   |              8D
 10D                                  |              9D

This table is extracted from Sensei's Library: World Wide Comparison.

So, if KGS has to recovers this 4 stones at the 9k level... why didn't they leave the old system? Sincerely, I don't know the answer. I don't mean that KGS2 rating is better than KGS3, but it may have been more "real".

Talking about "better"... I think that none of the KGS rating systems are good. For example: how can you improve your level at KGS? By NOT playing.

In fact, my original account at KGS "alejo" showed this image today:

Which is something obviously wrong. I haven't played with this name for a couple of months and there are only 3 games listed for the last 6 months... As you can see, inactivity is the best way to increase your rating.

The real fact is that I'm at 9k. Yes, 9k at KGS, which means that I don't know where I'm at all.

Recently my life has been totally redirected in a new and unexpected direction.

This was my life until three months ago:

1. Study up to 12 hours per day. Fail the final exam.
2. Drive a dangerous car aged over 14 years.
3. Go is wonderful!!! Go is the best game in the world!! Learn and enjoy Go. Teach it to some friends.

Currently:

1. Work, up to 35 hours per week and study for the exam I didn't pass.
2. Buy this meravellous thing you can see on the right side.
3. Disappointed about internet go players. Don't play much go.
Moreover, don't play go for an entire week.

Obviously this is the natural sequence of modern life itself, but for the last statement. For some reasons I'm not aware of, I'm not playing go at all. Indeed, the last game I played I found an opponent who was so rude as to make me resign after the first 50 moves. And it made me think about why I play Go. Go is, at the end of the day, a game, a hobby for all of us but a few professional players.

You can say you are very interested in it, you may spend hours studying pro games... but Go will remain a game. Extracted from "Games" at Wikipedia.org: Acording to French sociologist Roger Caillois, in his book Les jeux et les hommes (Games and Men)(1957), defined a game as an activity that must have the following characteristics:

As we can see, one of the first characteristics for a game to have place is to be light-hearted, making the players have fun. Being rude, expressing hate... all these feelings and behaviours shouldn't take place on such scenaries.

If you feel you don't have fun on a game, resign.

You might think that you'll be losing a few points on your rating, but you should consider a couple thoughts here: having many "funless" games might your curiosity in Go, and do you really mind that much about points?

Sincerely, I just want to play decently well at Go, being a low 3k or a high 4k doesn't make any sense to me, being a 10k or a 20k represents quite a red line, one which you won't cross by just losing a game you are not enjoying. Finish it as soon as possible or resign, take a breath, empty your mind and prepare for the next joyful game.

Life goes on.

As some of you already know, I'm planning to do a comparison between three comercial products: The Many faces of Go, SmartGo and Moyo Go Studio. This comparison won't be made on a video, but each program will be reviewed separatedly. As you can imagine, this programs offer a great amount of features, so I just focus on a few of them.

In this case, I start with "The many faces of Go" in its 11th version, available at www.smart-games.com.

I've improved the quality and the compression of the videos to be at a 1024*700 resolution on the full version, which is available at my own server.

Here you have the first part of the videoreview:

And here's the second part of it: