Why do you play correspondence games? How do you approach them?

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 don’t think visual memory is a factor here. I did very poorly in memory tests a few years ago
https://forums.online-go.com/t/visual-memory-correlation-with-go/

and am not much worse at live games than at correspondence (was 1k after the 2024 “blitz” WSC, now back to 1d after 34 games, mostly correspondence).

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