I happen to like rengo very much. Most rengo participants tend to time out and/or disappear.
I also believe rengo is a great way to force ourselves to reevaluate the goban at each move and not play puppy Go, which both are great weaknesses of mine.
Would anyone be interested to form a 4-6 people group, to play rengo regularly? Forming teams and stuff? Analysing the games afterwards not mandatory, so not strictly a study group.
Probably close to my strength (13k on a good day) so we can mix and match, but even set groups with balanced rank difference could work.
All I ask for is being responsible; life happens, but if you know you tend to ghost people or let your games time out just because you didn’t feel like it, this would not be a good fit.
Please note, players are not allowed to communicate moves etc during the game.
I also like rengo and would like to play in some games where most of the players don’t melt away. (Just spend the better part of a year playing the second half of a 6v6 25x25 rengo as the only player on one side.) I wouldn’t want to overcommit but I think I could handle another reasonably paced rengo game. At 6kyu, not so far off, right?
You’re right that playing in this kind of game frees you up a little bit to really look for the best move. As well as the fun exercise of trying to figure out what your (stronger and weaker) teammates are thinking.
I’m in one now, in fact, created by @Conrad_Melville, I think he has a system for balancing the teams. (Lost a teammate right at the start, though, which also threw off the teams, although before departing said teammate passed two of our early moves creating a handicap which kind of rebalanced the game, ha ha.)
I’m also interested. I quit playing rengo because I was getting annoyed at players’ apparent inability to commit to playing more than 2 moves.
I do believe players should be able to communicate to coordinate on resignation, so that we aren’t forced to play out a game that’s already over.
I would only be up for correspondence. I’m around 3k, but rank differences in rengo are not such a problem as long as the teams are reasonably balanced.
We had this once, several years ago, called “Six-pack” games. These were games set up using the invitation function. I don’t know exactly how that works, but it prevents unknown players from joining the game in the challenge list. It worked very well, because the players were known, serious players active in the Forums. Most of us were friends. No one ever abandoned a game. If someone thought the game was lost and time to resign, they could communicate just that to their teammates (but not with any reasons stated). If the whole team agreed, then they would resign. We played a lot of games like this, but after a while people lost interest and it “dried up.” We had probably a dozen or more players who participated in this, via a dedicated Forum thread, so the 3v3 teams were not always the same.
Some general tips about rengo challenges: It is impossible to balance teams when there are players without rank. Similarly, it is important to check every player who joins an open challenge; some may have doubtful ranks for a variety of reasons. Weaker players (roughly above 18k) are more likely to drop out, or never even start. Therefore, a rank range should be used. Provisional players and players with dubious ranks can be excluded by the game creator by leaving them “unassigned” when the game begins. I block all players who escape from a rengo game I create.
Rank restriction (on open games) should be broad enough to attract players, but small enough to make balancing more accurate. If the range is too wide and a strong or weak player drops out early, it badly throws off the balance. I generally use a range of about 10-12 ranks.
Balancing: The system has an automatic balancing function, but I never use it. It doesn’t take into account that each team should have one of the two strongest players. This is because a strong player on the team can give direction of play just by his/her better moves. I have found this to be a great learning experience, and it keeps the two teams competitive. Manual balancing is done from the top down, comparing the average rank of each team. This is why a narrow restriction on ranks is important. An exceptionally strong or weak player is very hard to balance. IMHO, the best games have 6 or 8 players. 10 is okay, too, but more than that stretches out the time too much, even in a 2 days, Simple time game.
If someone is going to create a group, I will join.
Never played a rengo game here on OGS. Are Malkovich notes visible to teammates while the game is ongoing? If not, they might be useful for later review even if we don’t actually have time for a post-game discussion
