I’ll open by admitting that I think very slowly, and I’m open to being told I’m simply unsuited to this game as it’s really played.
With that said, even the longest live game clock is much too fast for me personally to learn anything from playing on this site. 20m+5x30s means that in a 19x19 game with 100+ turns for each player, the majority of turns need to be played in 30s or less. I’m not getting anywhere trying to keep that pace. It would be awesome to have a default option like 30m+5x2m that would allow time for reflection.
Absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to take your time. We list the most common options at the top for quick pairing, but if you click “explore custom games” a new “create custom game” button will appear where you can precisely chose whatever time controls you prefer.
if your opponent will think for 2 minutes on every move for 100 moves, you would have to wait 200 minutes (3+ hours) and it not includes time needed for you to play.
Once you learn more about the game, you will learn there are several “forced moves”, josekis, and so on. I mean, it’s not fair to do an average and think you will need 30s per move, because soon when you learn more about the game you will see you will do a lot of moves/sequences in “auto mode”, and you will be able to take your 2 or 3 minutes (or more) to think about an specific move. As @space_defender said, your time settings requires a time commitment not so many people will accept. But you can always create a custom challenge and try. On the other side, you have correspondence games where you have days to take your move.
I guess I’d like to learn the game without needing to learn clock management at the same time. It’s frustrating that the vast majority of players on here want to play games with tight clocks that require snappy decision making. But if you’re new to the game and trying to figure out how to play, your decision making won’t be snappy! Okay, so I need to learn more about the game before I can play online. But online is the only place to find anyone to play! It’s a catch-22.
Your first option is to put a custom offer with the time setting you want. You will only lose the automatic anonymous pairing of the automatch.
The alternative is to search players in the real life (clubs or individuals). I played IRL games for decades without using any clocks.
Btw even if I do understand your wish, it’s a common mistake from beginners to ask for too much time to play, they don’t really have access yet to that much to think or if you prefer the experience and the tools needed to build something in the mind.
I get that a clockless game can be tedious for all but very new players, which makes it hard to find opponents. I categorically disagree with your assertion that nothing is gained from pondering moves when you don’t know what you’re doing. Here’s my argument:
Let’s suppose (a stretch, I know) that I have absolutely no idea how to play the game beyond a basic understanding of the rules. Okay, so if I’m presented with a game state and told “make a move in 30 seconds or you lose” then if I don’t have any intuition for what to play next, I must move at random.
However, almost every move is a terrible move. Otherwise, playing at random would be a successful strategy, but it demonstrably isn’t. Therefore, when I pick at random I expect to pick an awful move. But I don’t have any information about why it’s awful. I don’t have the time to craft any kind of reasoning about what I’m doing, so I’m not even wrong. I can’t look back at the game and say “oh, I thought x but really that wasn’t the right read” if I just picked at random.
I don’t want to stress you with time but still you better play quickly as pondering for hours when discovering the game. Trust and listen to your intuition, everyone has some.
I spent hours waiting for the moves of some beginners by respect and fairness but I don’t think this was a good idea. We both lost our time.
If you ask yourself about what is the biggest (the goal is asking you that) you’ll be surprised you may very often have the right answer in your head. The problem is you have first to learn to walk a bit like learning to ride a bicycle with the energy and involvement it requires. Very basic practice comes first like avoiding to be captured and counting the liberties. And connecting. Using the edge to your advantage.
There are a mountain of things to consider for each move but it’s ok if you only consider 1% of them. Of course you can feel not comfortable about it. You’ll be fine if you learn a bit more about not falling from the bike, I promise you we’ll look at the map later.
As a new player, you’re likely to learn much more playing 3+ games in a 3-hour period than a single 3-hour game. Sitting there deeply pondering each move when your problem is you have no intuition hits its limits very quickly.
As another slow player, i really feel what you’re saying. I started playing correspondence games soon after i started playing go, and i’ve had ongoing corr games non-stop ever since ^^
If you want, we can start a corr match with the timesettings you prefer, that way you can take as long as you want to think about your moves. Just send me a challenge on the main site!
ps. my profile is this one, its bit hard to find via the search tool due the emojis 💖 KoBa 💖
You can also use Fischer time. That allows you to maintain or accumulate a time buffer when you play most of your moves quicker than the increment, so you can intermittently ponder for a longer time, while still putting a soft cap on the total game duration (avoiding that the game potentially takes 8 hours to finish).
Agree, and this is coming from me, a famously slow player (it became a running joke at the London Open that I would still be playing when prizegiving was due to start, I also managed to lose British championship title matches (3 hours each) on time).
During my go learning journey I made a conscious decision to play more slowly around 15-10 kyu. Before then you should think, not blitz mindlessly (like dokbohm), but 30 seconds a move on average is the sort of ballpark, not multiple minutes per move (except occasionally).
I would definitely recommend playing correspondence. I also enjoy thinking slowly even at the beginner level, and people usually complained about me thinking too long at that time.
Correspondence gives me all the time I need and allows me to think deeply on each move, which opened ideas/strategies I could never have enough time to think of in live games. I contribute a lot of my growth to correspondence playing.
Correspondence is like watching 1 episode of TV series once in a month. Its easy to forget what’s going on.
To feel the animation, gif should not be too slow.
So I think it’s good to also play live games, there are some things that are more easy to learn when game is not too slow.
As you mention him I feel that I should mention that this is changing … we’ve begun playing correspondence games, and it seems he’s getting better (and more patient also)
First, I for one play at least one move every day or every two days, often more (moves, not days ), and second, it’s really easy if, before placing your stone, you go back a few moves
But of course you’re right in saying that it’s good to also play live games
While I recognize the value of live games. Correspondence is nothing like watching 1 episode per month. It literally is watching 1 episode each day (considering I spend basically the same amount of time as 1 TV episode each day for playing)
You can’t possibly forget everything you thought about just yesterday. After all, this game is kinda famous for curing Alzheimer
If you have absolutely no idea how to play the game, doesn’t matters how much time you take to think a move because you don’t know/understand the followups and can’t read all variations, you don’t know/understand if your move or your opponent plays are good or how to punish. You will think 10minutes what to do, without knowing exactly what to do, and anyways you will fall into the second line atari anyway.
I understand your point, but as others said, when you start learning, is better to play 3 or 4 games in 2 hours, than only 1 game. Go is easy to play, is not obvious and you can’t calculate everything. You need instinct, and to get instinct you need to play and learn from mistakes.
As the proverb say: “Loose your first 100 games as fast as possible”
On the other side, you will have hard time trying to find longer games (here, and in chess too for example), because players want to play, and move on. People don’t have all the afternoon to play, and if play want to play, review and another game and so on… Your option is to play correspondence then.
On Fox, I use 20min + 3x1min. Theoretically, if both players use 1 min/move for 240 moves, the game could last 4 hours. In practice, people don’t spend that much time and games never last more than 1 hour.
While I agree that thinking too long is a waste of time for a beginner, I can relate to the OP. The first months I played go, I mostly played on a real board and practiced life and death problems, playing online was too stressful due to time pressure.
If you don’t have access to a go club, I think that using 1 minute byo-yomi periods is a good alternative. Try to play faster and focus on one thing (like counting liberties), but if in some situation you need longer thinking time, then you have 1 minute to make your move, which is comfortable enough.
We list the most common options at the top for quick pairing, but if you click “explore custom games” a new “create custom game” button will appear where you can precisely chose whatever time controls you prefer.
And connecting. Using the edge to your advantage.
), and second, it’s really easy if, before placing your stone, you go back a few moves 