Tenhou uses the ranking system commonly seen in martial arts and some traditional games. 新人 denotes a rookie player with no rank. The
kyu (級) ranking is the lesser of the two main rank systems and is pretty much reserved for beginners only. The lowest rank is 9 kyu, with decreasing numbers signifying higher rank until the final rank of 1 kyu. You can tell the lower ranks apart because they use the Arabic numerals.
The
Dan (段) rankings are the opposite, starting from the lowest (1 Dan) to the highest (10 Dan). These ranks are written in kanji.
At the Dan level, you can go both up and down in rank. If you lose too many rate points, you will derank to a maximum of 1 kyu (a de-rank from Shodan). You start off with +200 points as a Shodan, +400 as a Niidan, but +600 as a Sandan. If you lose that many (-30/loss on Shodan, -40/loss on Niidan, -50/loss on Sandan, etc.) and derank once those are lost.
This also starts at the kyu level starting with 3 kyu, but only points and R-stat are lost, not rank itself.
Interestingly, my original account was never at 9 or 8 kyu. I started at 7 kyu because back when I signed up, the lower ranks hadn't been implemented yet.
