If two players play several games with each other, there is a simple way to find a good handicap. Begin playing with no handicap at all, or just guess what the handicap should be. After that, if the same player has won the last two games, change the handicap by one stone. If enough games are played, each player should win about half of them. If there is a larger group of players, however, then any two of them will probably not play each other often enough, and a better way is needed.

There is a system for ranking go players which originated in Japan and is now used in most countries of the world. A beginner who has learned the rules in the last section, but has not played any games yet, would have a rank of 30-kyu (pronounced "cue") which is the lowest rank. As you improve, your rank rises to 29-kyu, 28-kyu, and so on. If you read the rest of this Introduction to Go, and play a dozen games or so, then you will likely be about 20-kyu. It is a little harder to reach 10-kyu: you will have to play a lot of games, and perhaps read a book or two about basic Go strategy. When you reach 5-kyu, you are getting quite good at the game, and when you reach 1-kyu, you are almost a master go player. The next rank after 1-kyu is 1-dan (or shodan in Japanese) which is a first-degree master player. (In sports like karate, a shodan wears a black belt.) Above 1-dan, there are 2-dan, 3-dan, and so on. The highest rank for an amateur is 6-dan (or, at times, 7-dan). The number of ranks between two players gives the number of handicap stones to use on a full-size 19x19 board. So if a 5-kyu player plays a 9-kyu player, they should use a handicap of 4 stones. A 2-dan player would give a 4-kyu player 5 stones. A 3-kyu player would use the white stones with no komi against a 4-kyu player, and two players with the same rank would play with a 5 point komi.

Players obtain dan rankings by playing in official tournaments run by Go Associations in countries all over the world. Players may obtain kyu rankings from such tournaments, too, but more often they will just guess their rank by playing better players and seeing how many handicap stones are needed to give an even game. If you need a 7-stone handicap before you can beat a 1-dan player about half the time, then you are probably a 7-kyu. If you are able to give a 5-stone handicap to a weaker player, then that player is probably about a 12-kyu, and so on. Some people take ranks very seriously, but their main purpose is to give a fair handicap so that the game will be interesting and enjoyable for both players.

There are also professional go players. They have ranks from 1-dan to 9-dan, but a 1-dan professional player is about 1 rank higher than an amateur 6-dan (in other words, about the same as an amateur 7-dan would be). The professional ranks are also closer together than the amateur ones. A difference of 4 professional ranks is about the same as a difference of 1 amateur rank. Below is a scale showing all of the ranks in Go. As you rise up the scale, it gets more and more difficult to reach the next rank. It is very easy to improve from 30-kyu to 29-kyu but much harder to improve from 1-dan to 2-dan. It usually takes many years of playing full-time for a professional player to reach pro 9-dan.