Playing Team Go

Go Variants
1

I think it would be interesting to play a correspondence game where each “player” was made up of a team. Each team would have a captain that is responsible for leading the team and actually playing out the moves on the board, but each team would meet to discuss and decide their moves in private, either over a private demo board, or maybe via a private group message on this forum.

I think playing a game as a team could be interesting since one would get to see the thinking process of other players.

Would you be interested in playing?

  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

Teams could be split evenly by rank, with captains either elected or selected based on the two highest ranked players to sign up.

Please share any thoughts on logistics and organization, etc.

Games have started!

6 Likes
2

I vote yes in theory, but I expect knives and profanity.

4 Likes
3

Or a team game with 5 kyu’s trying to beat a dan, in the spirit of this game:

(fun game to watch by the way)

4 Likes
4

That’s an interesting idea too. I guess it would depend on who’s interested in playing. If only just one strong dan-level player signs up, maybe we could do that (and decide via another poll). Or maybe, we could all combine our wits and try to beat a strong AI?

1 Like
5

You missed a zero there :yum:

1 Like
7

I don’t think so, with 50 players it becomes more of a democratic choice, which automatically leads to mediocrity. You’ll have the worst of both timidity and greed.

6 Likes
8

I am actually playing something similar: 4 players, 2 teams, correspondence, 19x19.
It’s fun but it’s very slow.
You need time to discuss a move and then the other team too… we had to pause the game to avoid timeout. We had to setup 3 boards: one for the actual game plus one mirror for each team, for discussing moves in chat.
Not so smooth! :slightly_smiling_face:

2 Likes
9

I’m interested but my first thought was what @Lys said. Gonna be sllooowwwww.
I don’t mind that so much but I hope if I were on a team then others would be patient enough with me fitting discussions around work and kids and sleeping and that…

3 Likes
10

A variation of this was done in early 2017, as I recall, when I was new here. It was all of OGS versus Royal Leela, with one person making the moves for the OGS team. People could suggest moves or not. The final moves were chosen democratically, which led to a general lack of a plan. Eventually we ended up with about 10 or 12 regulars. OGS lost when the person making the moves pulled the plug. Consulting wasn’t an issue in that case becasue the opponent was a bot, but the chat got awfully long. I think this could be fun.

3 Likes
11

Organization is going to be very hard, isn’t it.

1 Like
12

The more players there are, the slower the process will be. If we feel there are too many players, maybe we could split into more than 2 teams. For example, if we split into 4 teams (A, B, C, and D) then A could play B and C could play D. One could even do a sort of tournament like that, I guess

1 Like
13

That way we can also group by rank, which makes it nicer for the weaker players in each group, since on average their input will become more valuable.

3 Likes
14

Maybe start small?

You could restrict teams to a few (two) players who can communicate through voice-chat. It would be fast and easy.

1 Like
15

Actually, we used to do this at a chess club. Two teams, usually various strengths on each team, with one leader. Each team had 45 minutes on their clock. The success/fun of this was really dependent on the “leader;” had one master who was so pushy that his team quit/gave up–he only got to play once. Other than that, it was a really good teaching method.

3 Likes
16

So, since the poll has closed, should we work this out? 15 people signed up, so I suggest 4 teams (4+4+4+3). How do we want to break up the teams, though?

I also made a list of all the ranks, though I didn’t associate them with given people for fear they would get angry with me :grinning::
4k
4k
5k
5k
6k
6k
7k
8k
8k
9k
12k
12k
13k
25k
25k

3 Likes
17

Thanks for bringing this thread back up. I kind of lost track of it among other things.

I’m okay with either doing 4 teams over several games or 2 teams for one game. However, I think that might get a few that drop out which would make it tougher to split up evenly into four teams.

Would anyone like to be a team captain? I think having captains for each team would make it a bit easier to organize. Each captain would be in the seat to represent their team in the game(s), and the time settings would just need to be slow enough for the captains to be able to play. That way, rather than slowing down the games for the slowest in the group, we can use a more typical game pace.

To coordinate within each team, I imagine that we could use a combination of private demo boards (on OGS) and/or private group messages (on these forums)

2 Likes
18

I’m fine with being a team captain. If others want to be captain, though, I’d also be happy to be a regular team member.

1 Like
19

I am about 9k in correspondence. Two teams (8 and 7) divide more evenly in strength and have a buffer if people drop out, but they are a bit large for discussions. Four teams are harder to balance, and the team of three could ill afford to lose a member, but the discussions would be more manageable. Possible distribution of strength for four teams (to be read as two alternatives in columns):
4,25,8,7 or …4,25,12,6
4,25,8,9 or …4,25,9,7
5,13,6,12 or …5,13,8,6
5,12,6,— or …5,12,8

Possible distribution in two teams:
4,5,6,7,9,12,25,13
4,5,6,8,8,12,25

2 Likes
20

Perhaps three teams that play a round robin?

eg.

Team 1: 4k, 6k, 7k, 13k, 25k
Team 2: 4k, 6k, 8k, 12k, 25k
Team 3: 5k, 5k, 8k, 9k, 12k

4 Likes
21

I like this idea most.

1 Like