Ladder for a small club?
Richard Rumley
Our club is kinda small, and meets about 2 times a week. I think it would
be fun to start some sort of Go ladder. I'm not sure how to do this, and
was wondering if anyone had some sort of "rules" printed up. Some of the
problems we face are a small number of people and a large spread in ranking,
so handicaps will have to be in use. I haven't been able to think of an
effective way to use handicaps in a Go ladder. Does anyone have any good
ideas from experience? ;-)
Thanks!
--Richard Rumley
rum...@sei.com
AGA 5 kyu : IGS rumley
evan behre
: I've got a question along the lines of the Go Club thread.
: Thanks!
we tried this at hocogo last year. the way we set it up was games were
handicapped based on the theory of one stone for every aga rating
difference. then, ladder position was based on the best winning
percentage of games with some minimum number of games by the end of the
quarter (say, 10).
before that, we had a simple ladder where all games were even. this gave
the weaker players a chance to try even games with the stronger players
(they liked that). the challenger would take black and give 5.5 points
compesation (komi). if the challenger won, he would trade places in the
ladder with the loser. and initial positions were based on time of entry.
for example, if a strong player joined late, he would have to start at
the bottom and work his way up. but, he could challenge anyone up the ladder.
this type of ladder leads to a lot of volatility, and players jumping
around wildly on the ladder. that can be fun. if you prefer more
stability, just have the winner insert, rather than trade places with the
loser, and entry position based losely on ratings of some sort.
now, we dont do the ladder, rather we just have a club rating system
using the same program the aga uses to calculate its official ratings
(matthews AcelRat 2.5). all club game results are entered. the players
decide who takes white/black, and handicap. every quarter when the aga
ratings come out with the newsletter, those club members who have been
rated that quarter get reseeded at their official aga rating. and it goes
from there. it is meant to establish informal, or "club" ratings, and
give a good guesstimate if a player is new to the aga tournament ratings
system, to help players establish correct handicaps between one another,
and to show improvement for those that dont play very often in rated
tournaments.
--
|--------------------------------------------------------O
Evan Behre of Dayton, MD, USA
the monk asked the master, "master, how can i achieve enlightenment?"
the master replied, "forget enlightenment. concentrate on the structure
of the protein molecule."
|--------------------------------------------------------O
David Artus
: I've got a question along the lines of the Go Club thread.
: Our club is kinda small, and meets about 2 times a week. I think it would
: be fun to start some sort of Go ladder. I'm not sure how to do this, and
: was wondering if anyone had some sort of "rules" printed up. Some of the
: problems we face are a small number of people and a large spread in ranking,
: so handicaps will have to be in use. I haven't been able to think of an
: effective way to use handicaps in a Go ladder. Does anyone have any good
: ideas from experience? ;-)
I see the purpose of a ladder in a small club being to keep track of
relative strengths of players so that sensible handicaps can be set.
It also allows people who are making progress to get some feedback. I
certainly don't see it as a vehicle for competition.
The North West London Go Club has had a sort of ladder for many years.
It's very simple, we just record the result of each game and adjust
each players rank according to the result. Handicaps are determined
by differences in grades with fractional differences being accommodated
by variations in komi. Where the difference in grades is more than 9
black gets additional komi - in a small club you may need some such
scheme.
The adjustment in grade for winners and losers varies depending upon
the player's strengths - we use fractional grades for strong players,
and whole kyus for beginners. The system is administered by our
secretary and he also factors in our players results in tournaments
as otherwise there is a tendency for grade inflation to creep in.
David Chapman
Issue all players a record card - so that they can keep track of their
current 'rating' - wallet sized for convenience.
All players are assigned initial estimated ratings.
10kyu -- 25
9kyu -- 30
8kyu -- 35
:
1kyu -- 70
1Dan -- 75 etc
After each game, the winner increments his score by 1 - the loser decrements
his score by one. Handicaps are decided based on the difference of
the players scores - based on 5 points = 1 handicap stone. Komis can
even be adjusted.
As you can see - this is a 'zero-sum' system (fixed-sum actually) - it
only reflects the relative strength of the players within the club - not
the actual ranks upon which the initial assignments were made.
djc
--
David Chapman cha...@adtaz.sps.mot.com
Senior Software Engineer
Low Power Design Technology Group
Steve Bailey
> Our club is kinda small, and meets about 2 times a week. I think it would
> be fun to start some sort of Go ladder. I'm not sure how to do this, and
> was wondering if anyone had some sort of "rules" printed up. Some of the
Try this:
This ladder is for use within the West Surrey Go Club for 'normal' games. It
has no relevance to lightning, teaching, league, external or tournament games.
What happens: Two players agree to play a ladder game. The handicap is as
determined by the scheme below. At the end of the game, the winner is promoted
one rung, the loser demoted one rung (regardless of grades). A draw leaves the
rungs unaltered. The rungs are not evenly spaced.
After a player has taken part in a tournament, they should modify their
strength on the ladder to be correct with respect to that tournament. All
players not having taken part in a tournament leave their strength alone. This
way the total club strength should gradually creep towards the tournament
levels.
The rungs:
40k 39k 38k 37k 36k 35k 34k 33k 32k 31k 30k 29k 28k 27k 26k 25k 24k 23k 22k
21k 20k 19.5k 19k 18.5k 18k 17.5k 17k 16.5k 16k 15.5k 15k 14.5k 14k 13.5k 13k
12.5k 12k 11.5k 11k 10.5k 10k 9.8k 9.6k 9.4k 9.2k 9k 8.8k 8.6k 8.4k 8.2k 8k
7.8k 7.6k 7.4k 7.2k 7k 6.8k 6.6k 6.4k 6.2k 6k 5.8k 5.6k 5.4k 5.2k 5k 4.8k 4.6k
4.4k 4.2k 4k 3.8k 3.6k 3.4k 3.2k 3k 2.8k 2.6k 2.4k 2.2k 2k 1.8k 1.6k 1.4k 1.2k
1k 0.8k 0.6k 0.4k 0.2k 1d 1.1d 1.2d 1.3d 1.4d 1.5d 1.6d 1.7d 1.8d 1.9d 2d 2.1d
2.2d 2.3d 2.4d 2.5d 2.6d 2.7d 2.8d 2.9d 3d 3.1d 3.2d 3.3d 3.4d 3.5d 3.6d 3.7d
3.8d 3.9d 4d 4.1d 4.2d 4.3d 4.4d 4.5d 4.6d 4.7d 4.8d 4.9d 5d 5.1d 5.2d 5.3d
5.4d 5.5d 5.6d 5.7d 5.8d 5.9d 6d 6.1d 6.2d 6.3d 6.4d 6.5d 6.6d 6.7d 6.8d 6.9d
7d 7.1d 7.2d 7.3d 7.4d 7.5d 7.6d 7.7d 7.8d 7.9d 8d 8.1d 8.2d 8.3d 8.4d 8.5d
8.6d 8.7d 8.8d 8.9d 9d 9.1d 9.2d 9.3d 9.4d 9.5d 9.6d 9.7d 9.8d 9.9d
Handicaps: The stronger player is white, the weaker is black. For handicap
calculations, treat 'x'kyu = -x; 'y'dan = y-1. Subtract the two strengths then
ignore any fractions to obtain the handicap. After the handicap is taken as
komi, stones or a mixture at black's discretion, it is then white's move. One
handicap stone is equivalent to 10 komi. The stones may be placed anywhere on
the board by black.
For a handicap of 1, either black starts with no komi or white starts with 10
komi to black. For a handicap of 0, white receives 6 komi and black starts.
Example: Fred (1.3d) plays Bert (14.5k).
Fred=0.3, Bert=-14.5. Fred - Bert = (0.3) - (-14.5) = 14.8.
Ignoring fractions gives 14 handicap levels which may be taken as any of:
14st 13st+10k 12st+20k 11st+30k 10st+40k 9st+50k 8st+60k
7st+70k 6st+80k 5st+90k 4st+100k 3st+110k 2st+120k
1st+130k 140k.
=== Steve Bailey
"These words are not my own, they only come when I'm alone" WS
Erik Ekholm
the West Surrey Go Club:
>What happens: Two players agree to play a ladder game. The handicap is as
>determined by the scheme below. At the end of the game, the winner is promoted
>one rung, the loser demoted one rung (regardless of grades). A draw leaves the>rungs unaltered. The rungs are not evenly spaced.
[ ... ]
At Stockholm's Go Club, we have used a similar scheme, with the main
difference being that only Black's rank is adjusted after a game.
This is based on the reasonable assumption that White's rank is
better established. Since weak players normally improve fast, it
would otherwise be a risk that those who play many games with weak
players suffer a drop in their rating, simple because their opponents
progress more rapidly.
The disadvantage is that the stronger players in the club will have few
opportunities to move on the ladder; the strongest will not move at all.
Erik Ekholm
Richard Rumley
>djc
>--
>David Chapman cha...@adtaz.sps.mot.com
How well does this work for high dan and low kyu players? I assume
that _most_ clubs have some sort of bell curve distribution of players,
with the peak being somewhere between 1k and 10k. With a one point
per victory across the board, it seems like a rapidly learning beginner
would be over-handicapped for several games. I was wondering if you had
run into a problem with this.
My thought would be to divide your linear scale into sections, and have
each section represent a handicap stone. A sample would be the following
10
11
12
13
14 15
16 17
18 19 20
20 21 22
23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31
32 33 34 35 36
37 38 39 40 41
42 43 44 45 46
47 48 49 50 51
52 53 54 55 56
57 58 59 60 61
.
.
.
I'm not sure about how to finish this for Dan players. I think the sections
should continue to get larger, because dan level players play more consistantly
than beginners.
I was wondering if you ran into the problems that this "solution" addresses.
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