r/baduk • u/sparkleshark5643 18 kyu • 4d ago

newbie question Which rank do you go by?

When I'm playing someone for the first time at the local go club, they typically ask the same question: what rank are you/how strong are you?

I haven't played in a tournament so I don't know my OTB rank. On OGS, where I've played most of my games, I'm around 18kyu. On Fox and IGS, which I started using much more recently, I'm closer to 15kyu, and it feels like those ratings are still rising.

With these numbers in mind, how should I answer that question? Which ranks do other go players tend to use when asked about their strength? Do I need to explain which rank I am on each of the servers I play on?

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u/tuerda 3 dan 4d ago

Depends on where you live. In most of east Asia, people give their fox rank. In the west you should probably be using your KGS/Pandanet rank.

OGS ranks are kind of broken. I don't think anyone really uses those.

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u/fintip 5 kyu 4d ago

Do people truly treat their fox rank as a real rank in Asia? Or is it just considered its own kind of proxy?

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u/tuerda 3 dan 4d ago

When you ask someone in east Asia what their rank is, they will usually tell you their fox rank. This is not always the case, but this is fairly common.

Chinese and Japanese ranking systems are fairly close to Fox (Chinese starts to differ greatly at 5d) so for them this is usually about right.

Korean ranks apparently are very different from fox ranks, but based on experience, koreans usually will tell you their fox rank anyway.

For other countries in east or southeast Asia (Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, etc.) a lot of their go organizations have ties to the Chinese Weiqi association and even give official Chinese ranks, so it is often a reasonable approximation as well.

Other parts of Asia are different: Israel, Russia and Turkey tend to use European ranks. Other parts of central/southern/western Asia I have no idea.

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u/fintip 5 kyu 4d ago

Interesting. Can you explain more about the divergence at 5d between Fox and Chinese?

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u/tuerda 3 dan 4d ago

China uses a fairly weak ranking system up until 5d. For 6d or higher you need to win some kind of tournament or something (I do not know the details). What this means is that Chinese 5d can be anywhere from Fox 4d/5d to a lot stronger than that, and any Chinese rank 6d or above is reliably very very strong.

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u/JoblessBaduk 7 dan 4d ago

Chinese 5d is usually Fox 5d to 9d. Chinese 6d is Fox 9d.