Recently I've been playing through Go Seigen's games, and while I may still be too weak to get a huge benefit from them I was surprised to read in First Kyu that the kid spent 2 hours replaying a game, is this typical? I usually spend about a half hour (which I'll admit is a pretty speedy play through), but how long should one devote to a single game? And do you think a 8kyu (or so) player would benefit from trying to do a thorough analysis, or should the bulk of my time be focused somewhere else?

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I came to go through Kawabata and was introduced to a whole new world.

It depends. people that are "First kyu" are almost as strong as pros, so they can understand the idea behind pros moves, and try to understand the decision making process, for a "real" kyu player (in the modern system) professional games are really more for getting an understanding of shape, so it makes much less sense to spend a really long time on the game. Once I analyzed a professional game in committee with a group of amateurs for a couple hours. The weakest was 5kyu, and the strongest was 5-dan. We had no idea what was going on, and it was mostly unproductive.

I've memorized a few games. Needless to say, I don't understand them. Even if I know a game by heat it takes 15-20 minutes to play out 200-250 moves (thoughtlessly, without analysis). If I had proper bowls, maybe it would be a bit quicker. Then, if i stop to study, I can easily spend 5-20 minutes thinking through any particular move (which might include counting, comparing the size of moves, reading out followups, doing tsumego). So I'm hardly surprised that an insei would spend 2 hours on a game... That implies that he only finds 3-12 moves to be as complex as I find every move.

I memorize the first 100 moves of a pro game. For that I need about 3-7 play-through's, altogether 30min. I suspect it's the repetition one benefits from, because you get a feeling for direction of play, joseki, fuseki and for general playing ideas (loose play, importance of taking care of your own stones, not to play overaggressively, patience, wholeboard-vision).

I'm 1k KGS and I don't think I can grasp the ideas of pro plays. I just go with the hope to get as many pro-patterns and ideas as possible. I think it helps, but only if you do about 1000 games altogether. The problem: You end up play pretty good fuseki, but when you are not the best reader or creative guy (like me ) you often lose because you can't deal with those non-pro moves properly^^.

I rarely seriously study pro games, I usually quickly just whiz through a game in maybe 10 minutes (yay for mouse wheel move scrolling). I'm not really doing any reading, just enjoying the game and building a feel for direction and shape.

1-4 hours

the time depends on your goals and whether game is commented

I would think that quality of time spent is more important than the amount of it. If you flick through a pro game mindlessly, then I doubt it would do any good at all. If you think about the moves, sincerely trying to understand them, then you should absorb much more. You might be completely offbeam with your explanation, but at least you would be practicising applying go concepts to your thinking, and that should help when you play. If the game has comments, that will guide you.

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Learn the "tea-stealing" tesuji! Cho Chikun demonstrates here:

I can usually replay a game in 10-30 min, while looking at some general ideas. But to explore complicated variations and such, it usually takes me 1-2 hours

Wasn't that about a Korean 1 gup player? If so, that could easily be as strong as 6d / 7d in western terms. Ranks get a bit funny at 1 gup and 2 gup from what I understand.

I very rarely replay pro games, and usually only do it if I have commentary to help me.
When I do, I do it placing stones on a physical board. If I do it on software it bores me, I can't concentrate as much, and want to do something else instead.

Last time I replayed one of the games in Treasure Chest Enigma, and it took me around 30-60 min if I recall correctly(didn't time it).

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a1h1 [1d]: You just need to curse the gods and defend.
Good Go = Shape.
Associação Portuguesa de Go

I haven't studied pro games in a while, but when I was studying them, I spent about 3 hours per game. I was about 2d when I spent the most time studying pro games.

Although many of the moves were well beyond my comprehension (either because I couldn't even get close to reading out whatever sequences the pros were considering, or because I don't understand some of their fuseki choices), I learned a lot about tenuki-ing, proper timing of kikashi, and kos. I think even if you are just SDK or something you could learn a lot by spending a long time studying a single game.

When a look at Go Seigen game it takes me 15 - 30 minutes to play the stones. If I have time i'll then have a brake and then try to replay much as I remember from memory. Sometimes I get a 170 moves game right.

I get lost and confused easily with lots of variation diagrams. So I'll play though the game a few times, mostly memorizing it (even if not on purpose). Then when I go back to read the text and follow the diagrams, they make more sense and trying to find the move(s) no longer distracts me from trying to learn something from the game. If I have the time, I could easily spend several hours studying one game.

But at my level, most of what I learn comes from just imitating good shape from the games, applying (or misapplying) them in my own games.

At your level as well as most of our levels, it's more productive to study pro games with commentary and go through them several times. First time go through slowly, following along with the commentary. Second time, play through all the moves without looking at the kifu, reminding yourself of the reasons why particular moves were played. If you fail to do so at any point, look up the kifu and corresponding commentary and proceed from there. Rinse and repeat until you can replay the whole game in this manner. This is the method that I'm currently using to go through the 'invincible' book.

But you shouldn't count out simply replaying modern pro games. I have gained lots of benefits from that activity. What I do is simply pick a game on gokifu and replay it on my board. Often I find hyper modern patterns like the '4-space pincer' and the new variation of playing enclosure with orthodox, white takes chinese and black takes another enclosure off of his 4-4, then white splits and black plays pincer from the 4-4, white side-attaches to blacks enclosure and black pincers/invades, white hane black block etc. (EDIT: Confusing right? I just picked a random game on gokifu to show off the pattern, but I got no time http://gokifu.com/s/13t2-gokifu-20121010-Chen_Yaoye(9p)-Lee_Sedol(9p).html )

You get nice inspiration for new ideas to try in your games, and you see lots of pro openings. I focus mainly on that, and shapes and when a pro plays some complex fighting moves I don't spend much time analyzing it. I just play through games in this manner for entertainment and to absorb new ideas and recent developments. It's interesting and useful (imo), but not as useful as studying pro games with commentary.

(Note, it's much easier to remember a game after you understand the reasons why someone played the way they did. Commentary actually helps you a great deal in memorizing a game. For example, today I replayed a game by Shusaku and on the second step described above I got the whole game right (171) despite fairly complicated fighting in the middle game.)

Regarding how much time it takes, I've never timed myself but it took me about 1h 30m to study my way through the above mentioned game of 171 moves. A game of 300 moves might take 3 hours or more.

i personally know a person who studied one kibo for two years.

it depends on how deep you want to study.
you can analyize it till you die if you go deep enough.

i usually study 30 minute per game for pleasure.
i study one full day for serious studying.

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"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

now I'm curious to know which game that was

The analysis of professional games is most helpful after one already possesses a great deal of knowledge about the game. There is so much more one can do that will greatly help their playing strength instead of replaying professional games. It doesn't hurt to read, either.