[Welcome to Sensei's Library!]

RecentChanges
StartingPoints
About


Referenced by
LibraryLobby

 

Face To Face Vs Internet Go
   

Face to Face Go vs. Go over the Internet



Hiya. I wanted to see if people were interested in sharing their thoughts on the relative merits of playing go in person and over a computer.

I'll start out by saying that I personally prefer playing in person, and even that my playing is noticeably stonger in person, probably because it is not at easy to play impulsively as it is by pointing and clicking, and I generally feel more comfortable taking more time between moves when I am playing someone in person. Then there is the pleasure of being able to place the stone on the board, and observe the pleasant aesthetic of a partially populated goban. The sheer volume of games you can play on the internet at any time though seem to make it a valuable tool for learning and practice. I simply can't play five games in a row testing out a new strategy in person. With regards to improvement, I think internet go helps improve the mechanics more, and face to face is better at improving your overall feel of the game.

--BlueWyvern



Internet play implies mostly fast games. Fast games are good to test your reflexes, and your tactical evaluations "at a glance". For applying new concepts and deeper reading you can better do in slower paced games.

I also agree with your thoughts above.

--DieterVerhofstadt



Internet play completely changes the availability of Go. Twenty-four hours a day from almost anywhere in the world (except behind the company firewall :-). As I write this on a Monday evening Asian time there are 824 players and 247 games on IGS. There are 173 players within 1 rank difference of me. By contrast, a week ago I was at the Takadanobaba Go Club in Tokyo. It is a pretty big club with about 75 boards which are all in use on weekends. But out of the 150+ players there on a Sunday afternoon probably only 15 or so are within one stone of my rating. Worst of all, half of them smoke! In Japan at least that is the biggest negative side to playing over the board. The Go club population is aging in Japan. Most Go clubs are low-rent locations with poor ventilation and are absolutely full of smoke. When I go to the club here, I need a shower when I get home (literally :-). Nevertheless, I think face to face is a lot more fun than on the internet.

I do think that the internet (and the computer) is a better place/way to study games. I spend a lot of time watching high-d* games on IGS and have collected hundreds of games by various strong players for later study. Playing through the games using an sgf editor gives me a much better picture of the dynamics of the play than I can get from books. This is a pity in a way because I very much like the feel of the stones!

--DaveSigaty



1. Availability

Agree completely. Our club has only about 20 members, and only three of them are within one stone (but I take white all the time). If I stay away to play on the internet, that would hardly be an improvement to the situation.

2. Smoke

Fortunately, only 2 of those 20 are smokers (although in the late hours I don't refuse a cigarette myself). It is true however that one of the clubs in Brussels has its playing venue in a crowded pub. Last time I went, I had a dinner party at a friend's place afterwards. Before going to the club, I checked with him if I could take a shower at his place. No problem it was, but still a weird thing to ask.

--Dieter



Here's something I tried this weekend that I actually found nice/helpful. Make sure you have a client that can be set to beep with each move, and shows the last move. Next, set up a board next to your computer, and then challange someone to a game with long time limits. At least 30/10. Granted it's still not as good as being face to face with an opponent, but I find it much easier to think through variations and play on a real board. The down side is, some people will accept your matches then play speedy fast anyway, so you aren't sure if your opponent is putting as much thought into it as you are. Also, make sure you stay aware of the time!

--BlueWyvern



Okay, something is really frustrating me in this departement. I've started just recently to attend club nights and by everyones best estimation, I am around 8 kyu AGA. Yet for some reason, on IGS, I can't ever seem to bump my rating any higher then 18k* no matter how high I start. Any thoughts?

HolIgor: I recon that your friends from the club rate you more on the quality of your judgement than on the actual win/loss ratio. The number of games played in the club is not that big compared to the number of games on the Internet. I'd say that your understanding of the game in general is higher than your performance because either of come gaps that manifest themselves when the number of games is higher or a tendency to add some serious blunders to sound moves. Look through the records of the games you lost and try to find out where is the weakness. It might be a different mistake each time, but a mistake nevertherless. In that case you just have to learn to keep your concentration. It might be that the reasons of the losses are closely related. You might be blind to some tesuji that your opponents practice on you or you might miss your opportunities.

Improvement of the undestanding of the game will give you a lot too. Even AGA 8k is not that great, you know. But that improvement comes slowly. For me this means that the crutial moments of the game, the moments where the game is decided move closer and closer to the opening and ending. Fuseki moves start to acquire elasticity, become more forcing. At the same time the game becomes more and more the game of precision. The number of "good" moves goes down.

--Actually, they rate me 8k on account of my severe beating of 9k players, and close 4 handicap wins against a 5k. I can't possibly believe there is an 8 stone difference between AGA and IGS....

HolIgor: Do these guys do better than you on IGS? If so, then you are more comfortable with real stones and goban.

BillSpight: The IGS rating system is notoriously inaccurate at the double digit kyu level, as I have heard. As I understand it, there are a couple of reasons for this. First, there are relatively few handicap games, and the only standard is at the top. Thus, the further you get from the top of the ratings, the more room there is for your rating to float. A fairly large group of players can have their ratings based mainly on their games with each other, and can be, as a group, stronger than their ratings indicate. Second, the system makes insufficient provision for improvement, especially the rapid improvement that frequently occurs at lower levels. Third, the ratings are, by definition, not pegged to handicaps. This seems to have resulted in there being more levels between players of different strength than handicap stones. That is one reason that stronger players avoid giving handicaps on IGS. They are likely to lose. Also, players whose ratings have not kept up with their improvement start new accounts. Both of those human reactions tend to perpetuate the problems with the rating system.



This is a copy of the living page "Face To Face Vs Internet Go" at Sensei's Library.
(C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.