Editing Go ranks and ratings (section)

===Rating base===

The ratings of players are generally measured using the game results of Go competitions and [[tournament]]s. Most clubs and countries maintain their own ratings, as do Go playing servers. Go tournaments in Europe use the [http://gemma.ujf.cas.cz/~cieply/GO//gor.html EGF Official ratings]. <ref>{{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171226050729/http://gemma.ujf.cas.cz/~cieply/GO/gor.html |date=2017-12-26 }}</ref>

In a small club, ranks may be decided informally and adjusted manually when players consistently win or lose. In larger clubs or country wide rating systems, a mathematical ranking system is generally easier to maintain. Players can then be promoted or demoted based on their strength as calculated from their wins and losses.

Most Go playing servers use a mathematical rating system to keep track of the playing strength of their members. Such ratings may or may not be translated to kyu and dan ranks for the convenience of the players.

Player pools that do not regularly mix (such as different countries, or sub-groups on online servers) often result in divergent playing strengths compared to the same nominal rank level of other groups. Players asked to give their rank will therefore often qualify it with "in my country" or "on this Internet server".<ref name=RankCompare/>