Kyu and dan degrees have been switched

Public forum discussion.

#1 · Ger Hanssen

21 Jun 2025

For at least a year, but probably longer the conversion of ranking to dan/kyu degree seem to have been switched.
I have just been congratulated with my "promotion "to 4 kyu. I am officially a 3 dan in the Netherlands. The dan degrees are the master degrees, the kyu degrees are for the lower rankings.
For a long time I was wondering what was wrong, but now I see. Please correct this or give me a plausible reason why it is done backwards here.

#2 · William Fraser

21 Jun 2025

Actually, kyu and dan aren't reversed. It's just that kyu/dan titles on LittleGolem are calculated differently.

They are awarded based on having a high enough ELO rating and having won enough games:

https://docs.littlegolem.net/ratings/

Based on just your ELO, if you were to have won enough games, you'd be 4d on 19x19 and 1d on 9x9.

I see that, to make 1 dan, one needs 210 wins.

Looking at your page, I see that you have 211 wins on 19x19, but some of those games don't count as rated games.

Some of the factors which affect whether a game is rated:

If someone resigns (or runs out of time) on their first move, the game doesn't count as rated.
If a game is part of a tournament that was declared as not rated.
If a game is created by directly challenge a specific player.
There may be other factors.

Good luck!

#3 · Ger Hanssen

5 Feb 2026

Thanks for explaining.