"Normal" Live time settings for 19x19

Hi,

I tried to play my first live 19x19 game yesterday, using 15 minutes main time +5x30s. I must say I felt totally overwhelmed, played extremely bad compared to my correspondence games and it felt more like a blitz to me. And this was all played at settings relaxed (!) compared to those suggested when you create a new game (10 minutes + 5x30s).

So how do you usually play? Now I’m thinking about using 30 minutes main time, or 15 minutes but with 3x1minute or something.

Why did they choose 10minutes with 5x30s as recommended default? Anyone likes this setting?

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For a serious game, I prefer 45 min. main time, 5 x 1 min. byo-yomi. For practice games (unranked), a faster control is fine: 15 or 10 + 5x30s.

Your experience is similar to mine. I also played only correspondence for a long time. And since you’re used to think as long as necessary to come up with the best move. Compared to that any live setting would seem rushed. Playing under pressure is just different, but very soon you’ll learn to play without thinking (although for now you’ll be playing a couple stones weaker than your correspondence rank).

In Russian tournaments usual time settings is somewhere around 45min+2x30s. For online games I prefer 20 minutes (many players don’t like long main time) and 1 minute byo-yomi so even when main time runs out we still can think comfortably