Almost all my recent Go activity has been on OGS. It is quite a different experience to play "turn-based" Go rather than "real time" play. Some points:
Anxiety: KGS gives me some anxiety - I have a hard time starting a game there. On OGS it is a lot easier. You can also join tournaments, so I quickly had around 30 games all going at the same time.
Focus: Having 30 games going at once can be problematic. You need to make 1 or more moves a day to make sure you don't lose on time. So, playing 30 moves in a day, all on different games feels a bit like tsumego (life and death practice problems). It doesn't allow you to get into the flow of the game. I often go into the Analysis window and roll the game back a few moves and then play it forward to remember what was going on. I guess the obvious point here is that it doesn't feel like playing a game in the traditional sense (sit down, set up the board, play through to the end, count the score).
Feeling of Progression: It is also a bit difficult to judge if you are improving. Starting 30 games at the same time and playing them in parallel to the end feels different than playing 30 games in a row, one at a time. If I feel my opening is lousy, I will play 30 lousy openings at the same time rather than have 30 chances to play a better opening and learn from mistakes if I play in a series.
Time Pressure: It seems silly to think that 1 move a day is tough and can lead to time pressure, but it does. Many days I have been in a situation where I wasn't in a Go mood. For whatever reason I wasn't really ready to play, but I felt I needed to so I didn't lose on time. Maybe I was really tired, distracted or had a few glasses of wine and even though I shouln't have moved in my "unready" state, I did. So, my games end up with a bunch of moves that were probably not the best I could have made.
Less interest in tsumego: It didn't really occur to me that the "one move per board" play style that OGS offers feels like doing tsumego until I wrote this. Each time you sit down to play you see a board and the question is "What is the best move?". It feels A LOT like tsumego. So much so that I stopped doing any real tsumego. I think that is a big reason I feel like I am not improving...I stopped doing tsumego!
Conclusion: Turn based online Go is just another tool out there. Like any tool it can be helpful or it can get misused. Having spent almost all my Go time on OGS lately, I can see that it isn't the perfect tool for helping me get better. It is one of many tools that I need to split my time on. I need to add more tsumego, books and real time play to my "Go diet" as well as adding some across the board play.
2 comments:
Hey Vultur ! I feel the exact opposite about turn-based servers. Right now, I'm 9k KGS and (hold your breath) 28.something kyu on OGS. I've lost games against people a lot weaker than I am, mostly because of time (I think about playing only rarely) and loss of focus - I'd tenuki right in the middle of a vital and interesting fight, just because I forgot one was going on !
I feel anxious, too, though, playing on KGS but I've learned to manage that anxiety and to kind of enjoy it. I feel that every game I play has a certain importance - a feeling I did not get playing on OGS.
Anyway, good luck and keep on posting interesting stuff, I'm always lurking around. :)
Hey SolarBear - I am trying to recognize the good and bad of all the tools and servers out there. I started on KGS, moved almost 1005 of my activity to OGS, and now I am starting to think I need to be on KGS more. Not sure which is "better" but both have their own feel. :)
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