When playing a correspondence game with analysis disabled, is it forbidden to use a physical goban to recreate the position on the board and try variations? I’m explicitly not talking about AI help or the like.
In chess correspondence, that’s just accepted practice, so I’m a bit surprised that manual analysis can be disabled on this site, so is this different in go culture?
That’s an interesting question and I’d need to check the formal position but it seems to me that this is not forbidden. Not least because no one would ever even know!
The analysis disabled feature when used in correspondence games seems to me to be more of a polite request and a block to the the easiest way of analysing.
If there would be such a rule, it is a rule that never can be enforced.
So it would imho be a silly rule.
While I do agree, I also think you can’t enforce not using AI tools, unless it’s so egregious that you can easily tell and ban people for it. I still think AI tools should be forbidden (and I believe they are)
AI help is anyway prohibited along with any form of outside assistance except “The only type of computer assistance allowed is games databases for opening lines and joseki databases for corner patterns in correspondence Go.”
So joseki databases are forbidden in live games, even though the rule can’t be enforced because no one can check?
If analysis is disabled, you can not play out variations on the online board and aren’t allowed to circumvent this in any way. You are allowed to recreate the board though, as long as you don’t play out variations.
If the analysis board us enabled you are allowed to use other tools that give you the same features (e.g. a real goban). In any case you aren’t allowed to use features which you couldn’t access on the game.
According to the TOS you are allowed to use opening (seki) databases in correspondence games.
I find that strange, but sure, I’ll respect that. Follow up question:
How do I find out whether a challenge in the custom games list on Play Go at online-go.com! | OGS has analysis enabled or disabled?
That’s very impractical, because I look through the list usually and then I’d have to search the graph manually, correct?
Clicking on the “Accept” button pops up a dialog that gives game details, one of which is “In-game analysis”.
The “No” here indicates that it is disabled. If you don’t like having it disabled, please avoid joining such games or make games with it enabled.
The standard etiquette in online correspondence go games is that playing out variations yourself (no help from a friend or computer) on a side-board, whether real or virtual, is allowed. The standard etiquette in online live go games is that playing out variations yourself (no help from a friend or computer) on a side-board, whether real or virtual, is never allowed, and this is a stronger standard than the allowing in correspondence. If you told anyone who hasn’t played on OGS that side board analysis could be allowed in a live game they will react with incredulity (it has happened on reddit). So I think this is an example of OGS’s approach on merging a live and correspondence server of allowing usual behaviour in either mode in the other actually being a bad thing: analysis should never be allowed in live games, and always in correspondence. The choice creates more problems than it’s worth.
I find it strange as well, but you will find that “disable analysis” in fact disables the analysis functionality for the game. It just doesn’t make sense to disable it on the site, but allow anyone to do the analysis on another tool if they have the means to do so, leaving anyone else without analysis.
Btw.: I find analysis disabled in correspondence games strange as well. I think we could get rid of this option without much loss.
Curiously, I like it when my opponent sends me an analysis disabled correspondence game.
It means that I don’t have access to the score estimator, and when I reach to lazily read using the analysis tool I’m reminded that I need practice actually reading.
Yes I fully agree!
And also
Conditional moves??!
I think they meant that the behaviour should be that analysis and conditional moves should always be enabled in correspondence games
Yeah i guess the traditional way of playing correspondence games is to receive a game record by mail, re-create the board position on your own board, analyse it as much as you can, decide what move you want to play, write that move onto the game record, and mail it back to your opponent.
Corr game without analysing is bit weird consept imo, but i guess there are there are some people who prefer to play their games like that. So if the analysis is disabled, please dont use a real board or anything else to analyse it. Most corrs have the analysis enabled, so you can analyse the position and possible variations as much as you want.
Ah right, I read get rid of the option the other way round. Oops
I do get the history but but is that really how Correspondance games are played nowadays on OGS?
Isn’t it many times a list of games you just play in short sequences, after the breakfast, at the lunch time, in the bus and so on?
Very different from the history.
I mean it’s like a mix between corr and live, and that can bring the question of analysis or not.
How OGS players chose to play corr. games i think is mainly for time schedule convenience. And instead of analysing each move deeply they play like in a live game jumping from one game to the next.
Leaving analysis enabled may be some romantic and graceful spirit, in fact used scarcely if not at all. Or even denied like for a live game.
Of course that’s not all of them, but pretty common.
I disagree. I can’t prove it, but I suspect that lots of players prefer correspondence because of the opportunity for deeper reading. Even more important, it gives a greater chance for a better game, because it is less likely to end, whether in a win or a loss, due to a stupid reading blunder.
