I am not sure if this is because I learned go over KGS…But I find it very hard to get honest, reasonable game on OGS. Sometime OGS make me feel like I am playing on tygem or somethings.
You know the kind…Generally poor fundamental and often quite wrong direction of play. Constantly make a “A for B” trade to instantly decide than B is too good after all and try to remove it from you right away (when they are the one who offered it to you in the first place).
So of course you punish them…and they get late in the game… and then turn it intro a greed and overplay mess… invading, cutting and so on everywhere trying to recover by turning the game intro a “kill/live or lose” situation. What do work sometime of course, they are pretty good at fighting overall (probably because it’s the only things they ever do).
I like a good fight from time to time…don’t get me wrong. But when this is basically the only style of game you get game after game, eventually you kinda miss playing theorical, reasonable Go.
Also, OGS seem to have disproportional amount of player who only ever play black. And because there is a quite low server population you often only see them as potential opposant. Seriously, one i played 5 game in a row again the same guy, who played black every single game and did the very same opening 5 time in a row (and lost like 4 out of 5 lol).
Anyway, that was my rant about OGS playstyle, feel good to ventilate lol. But seriously, anyone else have the same feeling?
Nah, People post challenge where they play black by force.
Of course, I don’t have to take those match, but sometime there is literally like only 1 game offer on my rank range…So yea I take if anyway if I feel like playing.
I mean, If they only want to play black so the only post game offer where they are black. It’s their personal decision I guess… But I just think than this is poor attitude overall because heh, Go is not about only playing again opponent on your own ground in the way you want the game to be played.
Same things with people who only want to play white in chess. At some point if you want to to be a decent player you have to learn to be black and to adapt to white opening.
I can see that this would be a factor as well. I don’t play enough live to experience that - I personally only get corre matches via ladders so it’s different
I think the broader jist of what you are saying - that servers have a type of player - is something that is recognised from time to time. You will from time to time hear people say “Oh, this is Tygem playstyle” or whatever.
This surely is variable by rank as well - I doubt whether the “OGS Dan style” is the same as the “OGS SDK style” for example.
So the style you experience is going to be determined by many things other than just “which server you chose”, but for sure this will be a factor.
I think it probably also is a factor that changes more often than would first be obvious. That’s because we exerience players that are bursty. I mean, at any given time, an disproportionate amount of the games being played will have one of a few “high intensity regulars” in them.
And who this is changes over time, and also with the time-of-the-day.
So your experience of “OGS play style” is perhaps not as broadly shared, nor as static, as one might first think.
Oh yea… of course this have the tendency to regulate itself on high Dan level. And for a very simple reason: At some point, just being good at one aspect of Go don’t cut it anymore.
For example, from my experience KGS have the tendency to have very solid, very conservative player. But at some point they stop progressing as they also have the tendency to avoid fight a little to much and being a little to slow, so they fall to players punishing them for being too passive…
While tygem is almost the opposite…you see up to high kyu player still make all kind of crazy “kick-pincer” nonsense and turn everythings intro a fight, but at some point they stop progressing due to being punished to much for their unreasonable plays.
Extreme playstyle eventually hit a wall at lowish dan and the only way they manage to break intro high dan in by learning to have a more balanced style.
But at least on the high kyu to low dan range…can guarantee from experience than some different server have radically different playstyle.
I do also agree than it change depending on the time of the day. OGS seem to have a fairly decent population of asian player (who are often the mains perpetuator of over-aggressiveness, especially korean), so of course you will get more aggressive player on prime time for Asia…while prime time for Ameria-Europe might lead to more balanced match tendancy (for some reason, they are a lot more “japan style” on average). Of course there is lot of exception and variance, but that the general tendency I have observed.
But heh, was just saying than most of the time, OGS tent to lean more toward one end than the other. Perhaps not everyone have the same experience/feeling than I do, an d that why I am curious to see how other perceive OGS playstyle
I don’t think OGS is like Tygem at all. People on Tygem make a lot more overplays. Anyway I wouldn’t complain about any of my opponents’ style. If they are weak in one aspect of the game and still manage to win, it means they are stronger than me in other aspects so it’s a good opportunity for me to pratice those.
I know from Tygem how annoying this playstyle can be but I would argue that having to deal with it makes one a better player. At least it always teaches me to be more patient and conservative because otherwise I get killed. And I need to be killed over and over again until I get annoyed and change my playstyle a little bit. This correlates very well with feedback I get from strong teachers such as In-Seong that even in serious league games I get distracted and try to “get a little more” which open the doors to hell if my opponent calls me out on my misdirected moves.
As for me personally, for me in Go the process is always (without exception) more important than the result. The opponent’s style and manner of play does not matter, because I believe that I must be ready for any development of events. Yes, I admit that sometimes (but not very often and less and less every day) I don’t like where my opponent places the stones, but this is only my problem, so I work on not feeling unnecessary emotions. I use my opponent’s “wrong” moves to train calmness and equanimity, these essential qualities that everyone needs in modern life.
Sounds like the opponent’s style does matter, and that ideally you want to face opponents with very many different styles, leading to very many different development of events, and that it would be disappointing if all opponents had the same style and led to the same types of games?
I can say there is a IGS style and a Korean style.
Especially more with intermediate strength players.
I haven’t yet met a KGS or OGS style, i find there are quite a variety of ways to play there.
Maybe a bit “bookish” although AI have changed that already
Even if all my opponents played the same game, I would accept it. I have been playing chess for many years and a lot of similar games can neither frighten nor surprise me.
I never understand the mentality of “my opponents don’t play the right way”. I haven’t seen complaints so much about OGS as Tygem or Fox, but IMO it’s very simple to have opponents who play more “reasonably”: play higher ranked opponents
I think that becasue this way they can get their favorite fuseki every single game. For example I seen of of those “black only” player who basically play sanreisei every single game…
I would say KGS is quite similar to IGS. Both have tendency to play with very solid shape, reasonable approaches and trade. Guess we can call it the “elegant” go…
OGS is kind of weird… It not quite a “korean” in style than tygem or fox (both are just so hyper-aggressive and focused on fighting). But it is not that far off a lot of time. Perhaps OGS sometime feel a little bit more “experimental”, seen more things like 4-5 3-5 on OGS than any other server… And quite afew wierd/rare opening. But if does have the tendency to have lot of unreasonable player as well. At least from my experience.
Oh, it’s not quite not “playing the right way”… One could say than trying to make the game complex and relying on outfighting your opponent can be a legit strategy, at least up to a certain point.
My point is than when you get this kind of playstyle too much, it does get boring after a while. Just like playing again super defensive player over and over and over get boring after a while too.
Pretty much why I stopped playing on Tygem and fox, I got bored of it. You might play 20 game again 20 different person, but it feel like you played the same person 20 time in a row anyway. They are that much almost a copy-paste of each other.
