I’ve been having little time or energy(mostly time) to play go for a while. Given that I love to ponder on my moves and the value in go for me lies in deep thinking and exploration instead of reflexive plays and memorisation I don’t find fast games (like on fox) meaningful nor I get any pleasure from it. Imo it might even be harmful by getting bad habits because you don’t think about your moves(or you don’t have time to think/read).
Mainly I’m just curious, since I never truly tried correspondence games. Last time I played correspondence is when I was 22-18k (2k now), which felt absurd given that I would rapidly improve in rankings while my opponent stayed in place.
My biggest concern would be that it’s kind of hard to sleep while always thinking about your next move until your opponent would respond in a matter of days. How do you deal with it? Would taking 20+ games at once solve it by dividing my attention, so I won’t be over-focused on one game? I’ve seen some people play hundreds of games at once, which seems insane to me and it’s something I can’t imagine doing myself. How do you treat them when you have 50+ games? Is it more of a tsumego on positional judgment at that point instead of a go game?
I was thinking I could just write down my moves and once I get a response - play them on the board manually. So maybe I can even drag on time when I don’t feel like playing by playing out prepared moves.
As an afterthought, having predict feature would be nice , so that ogs would play your moves automatically, if you predicted other player’s moves correctly.
To sum up:
What are your reasons behind playing correspondence?
What are benefits you personally get from it compared to other time settings?
OGS already has a condition moves feature. If the game allows you can use it.
Because I have no time for live games
Allows me to play many games at a time and satisfy my Go “cravings” without playing a full game
Like you said, because it takes so long you tend to forget what you were thinking. This is especially the case when you are playing many games. If you have this problem you can write down your thoughts in the chat. There’s an option to choose when writing down so that only you can see it.
Also based on my personal experience correspondence is not a good way to go if you want to improve. Playing live games is still better.
What are your reasons behind playing correspondence?
No time to sit down for 20m to an hour
My biggest concern would be that it’s kind of hard to sleep while always thinking about your next move until your opponent would respond in a matter of days. How do you deal with it? Would taking 20+ games at once solve it by dividing my attention, so I won’t be over-focused on one game?
I feel like you’ve hit it right on the head. Many games at once prevents me from caring too much about a single one (although it’s still possible to get sucked in to a good reading problem).
Is it more of a tsumego on positional judgment at that point instead of a go game?
It does kind of feel like that at times. Although, I think real tsumego would be a better use of my time if I wanted to improve >.<
Reasons: I have poor visual memory, which, according to a study some decades ago, is the only significant physical factor predicting success in chess. I suspect the same is true for go. In addition, I am very prone to blunders (gross oversights that have nothing to do with one’s level of knowledge). This may be the result of time pressure or other distractions. In old age now, these deficiencies are progressively magnified. Playing correspondence minimizes those factors. All that aside, however, I enjoy taking a lot of time to explore a position more thoroughly.
Benefits: In addition to the benefits already cited, correspondence is much better for a friendly game with a friend, because it allows time to chat. It’s like the untimed, weekend, IRL game where you and a friend tell one another what you did in the past week. Contrary to the suggestion that correspondence may reduce or slow down improvement, I think it is probably about the same or perhaps even better than live play. While live go enables one to see many more positions much more quickly, and to lose the first 50 games faster, it also might limit the scope of one’s imagination by encouraging routinized play due to the time pressure.
Drawbacks: The biggest drawback is the danger of losing interest in the game. Because fewer games end with blunders and even the mistakes may be smaller in nature, the games can begin to feel tedious. They seem more like a slow grind—grinding someone down or being ground down oneself. If you’re losing, then less hope exists of being saved by a blunder or by time pressure on your opponent. Hence, I think it is easier to get discouraged in a correspondence game or to feel less excitement about a win.
The best way to improve is to play slow live games (2 hours+) followed by review. However if you only play under ideal conditions, then you won’t get enough game experience. So I play mainly medium-speed internet games (~45 minutes) generally on other servers, and 5-30 correspondence games at a time on OGS.
Advantages of correspondence games:
Fewer blunders.
More time to explore complicated positions.
More time to count endgame values.
Even if you don’t have time for live games, at least you can play a few moves a day.
Disadvantages:
Can be a burden if you have too many games at a time.
Delayed feedback between your mistake, and punishment by the opponent and/or AI review.
I can play when I want to play, and I don’t have to play when I don’t want to.
Although it sounds contradictory, I don’t want to spend time waiting for my opponent.
Although it sounds contradictory, I don’t want my opponents to wait for me, which makes me feel pressured.
Although it sounds contradictory, I don’t want to read or think too much.
Regarding 1:
I would never want to sit in front of a computer for a long time, or hold my phone in my hands, concentrating solely on playing chess.
Come on, there’s so much I want to do.
I want to visit forums, watch videos, read novels, etc.
I also want to be able to eat and drink at any time.
I don’t even want to have a job later, or my family needs me, and I can’t leave while I’m still playing Go.
I play Go just for fun. If it’s going to take up my time and delay what I have to do, I don’t think it’s worth it.
Regarding 2:
Although I have to wait a long time for my opponent for the same game, if I play hundreds of games at the same time, I don’t need to wait and I can play at any time.
Regarding 3:
Although the opponent has to wait for me for a long time in the same game, I know that he does not need to wait here for me all the time. I can move as often as I want and I don’t have to worry about wasting other people’s time.
About 4:
Many people think that correspondence games should involve spending a lot of time reading and thinking, but this is not necessarily the case.
For me, I just casually observe and pick a position that suits my eyes and move without thinking too much.
Of course, this will definitely lead to a lot of bad moves. Oh my gosh, it must be embarrassing.
If this were a live game, my opponent would be like, “Dude, what are you doing?”
However, this is a correspondence game and I’m sure no one will realize that I did anything bad
I love corr games because i find it great to have multiple games waiting for my move at any time. There is always go to play, even if i dont have the time or energy for a full live game. I currently have 85 ongoing games, ~half of those are rengo games and few have been on pause for quite some time ://
Having a lot of those certainly help, altought there are some boards in my short-term memory, most of the times i need to go back few moves and check what has been played last. So yeah, i often approach those like tsumegos, as in i simply try to find the best possible move on the board and then carry on to the next game.
One drawback is that if/when i accidentally sleep late, the first thing i worry when waking up is whether i’ve lost by timeout, espesially if game has relatively short timesettings. Being on your last 24h byo-yomi is pretty dangerous in that regard, same goes for <24h fischer increments xD
For me the quickest corr settings that are still comfortable is the one ladders use, fischer with +1 day per and cap at 3 days without weekend pauses. Any faster than that and i start stressing about timing out
I play only correspondence games. Reason being Go is hard enough, even without any time pressure.
How do I approach them? Well, I try not to take more than 5 minutes or so for a move, because if I don´t see something within 5 minutes, I will usually never see it.
If I am really unsure, I sleep over it. Like I would do irl.
I like the flexibility you get on your time management but don’t think it helps for focusing, at reverse. To me there is never enough focus and I 'm better focused in live as in correspondance. Unless maybe if I play very few games simultaneously and use my time to study them (but I don’t)
I gave up correspondance now, I prefer live for that precise reason.
Um…
I think the nature of the correspondence game is to distract.
When you turn it on, look, think, make a move, then immediately forget about it, move on to the next game, or turn it off.
I think it probably trains intuition and quick thinking more.
Because there are so many games, you’re unlikely to remember what you’ve done before, especially when you have over 200 games.
Every time you open it, the situation will be new to you.
Don’t try to read everything.
Just read what you can read in a short amount of time.
Let me put it this way, how about playing it as 200 blitzes?
If you can’t read something in just a few seconds, don’t read it, go with your gut!
Another important point is not to be too concerned about gains and losses.
Since you’re only thinking for a few dozen seconds and playing the game like a blitz, you’re bound to make mistakes.
Since your opponent has plenty of time to think, he can always find your weakness.
You have to get used to this.
Don’t be afraid to be ugly.
Just relax and play, that’s enough.
By the way, maybe it would be better to prepare an account dedicated to correspondence.
Yes, don’t do that.
I find it painful to play with correspondence like this.
If you spend too much time thinking about the same game, you’ll start to get annoyed that you can’t remember what you wanted to do last time.
You will also worry that you will not remember your last plan when you come here next time.
We could agree we don’t have the same expectations. I’m not that interested in training my blitz abilities.
My pleasure is coming from something more solid where my intuition meet my reading as much as I can.
Playing without that goal not only annoys me but when I detect it by my opponent disappoint me too. I expect much better from us both.
You gave quite a detailed description of why I stopped playing correspondance. I respect your pov but honestly I am not interested.
Exactly. That’s where my reaction diverged from your advices. What happened is that between many blind moves I got interested in what decision to take and couldn’t decide so I kept that game aside, waiting for the help of a good night sleep or some more reading.
These moves enlightened my games, the pain coming not from these ones but from how many times I played others in a blind way. I couldn’t stand it. I am not saying it’s not enjoyable to take quick decision and go on the next game, I’m saying there is higher pleasure to me when you start to doubt at almost every move because obvious is so much a trap too.
In view of what interested me when playing, I found a greater solution against OGA is to open another account with hidden ratings. The system will match me with appropriate players, just don’t tell me how strong we are. So I can enjoy a live game, not commiting myself to play the correspondance way.
A boring point on OGS is that settings are the same for all your accounts so I have to switch back when I need the ratings (like for example when I want to watch games).
There are two simple solutions, respectively, for retaining plans and remembering the general situation in multiple games. Plans, variations, and analysis can be recorded under the Personal function of the Chat. Remembering the general situation is greatly aided by limiting the number of simultaneous games being played. My personal comfort zone is eight or nine games.
I started playing correspondence games on OGS back in 2007 after university when I got a job and thus didn’t have the time nor energy for a 1 hour+ live game on KGS as I used to do, so the few minutes here and there time commitment appealed. I took them seriously and put a lot of thought into them (doing offline analysis, pattern searching to study similar openings in pro games, precise endgame calculations), becoming the top player on OGS for some years. I usually had around 20-30 simultaneous games. But I ended up spending maybe 2 hours a day total on them, even though split up into little bits throughout the day, and because I’d let my time get low trying to find the best move in hard games they ended up having too much of an impact on my life like a needy girlfriend, so when I got a real human girlfriend I quit, helped by the fact the Nova merge ruined the title tournaments which I valued greatly.
, so that ogs would play your moves automatically, if you predicted other player’s moves correctly.
