Hi all:

I wonder if anyone has shared my experience, which probably many of you will not believe. I play at least 4 and possibly 5 stones weaker online than in my over the board games. This not related to timing either, as I own and regularly use a digital clock in my over the board games.

The disparity has been validated to such an extent that I am convinced there is no self-deception at work. I regularly play and beat 2 and 3 kyu kgs players over the board and win. I play my 2 dan kgs friend over the board with 2 stones competitively. In the local go club I attend in Beijing, I play the (self described )1 dans even and do win games. I play the 2 and 3 dans even as well, and lose, but not embarassingly.

On KGS I am 7k.

At my local go club, I give my friend, a well established KGS 7k, 3 stones without much difficulty.

This is a familiar pattern for me. When I was a teenager studying chess, I was around 1950 - 2000 USCF, battle tested in many tournaments, and my ICC blitz rating would hover around 1700. I have never been able to concentrate on the online game; I feel I can't or don't read well on the 2D screen, and of course it is much easier to be impulsive. In my KGS games, I am often amassing overwhelming positions, 30 - 40+ point leads in the middlegame, and then playing long strings of serious tactical howlers that would be absolutely unthinkable over the board. Reviewing the games is worthless because it is not a strength issue; I am very aware that I am playing horrible moves as I play them or shortly after.

Has anyone ever had a similar problem? I believe it is primarily psychological and then partially related to 2D / 3D perception and the differing stimuli of playing with stones and goban vs playing on a computer.

Everyone suffers from this. It's just the lack of "pressure" from online games. There is really no benefit for playing seriously online right now. They are not worth anything. So I think it's normal for you to be this way. In all honesty, it's just a lot more enjoyable in person anyways. I think once you get used to it(people like to overplay a lot more online), you'll probably get stronger overall. I would say that you should not worry about it too much.

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I know nothing.

I'm the opposite. It seems with opponents over the board with enough time to think things through they don't fall for my bullying. Online I get away with overplays a lot more. I believe the solution for me would be to find a way to get away with overplay over the board too.

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FusekiLibrary, an opening library.
SGF converter tools: Wbaduk NGF to SGF | 440 go problems | Fuseki made easy | Tesuji made easy | Elementary training & Dan level testing | Dan Tutor Shortcut To Dan

For me it's the same as for CarlJung. I see the shapes better and read faster online. In addition the timesettings I play with online are usually significantly shorter than in offline games, and in slow games my opponents don't fall for my attacks.

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Sanity is for the weak.

Everybody is different in that regard. I know an EGF-1d-player who is only 9k on DGS (i.e. around my strength), so over the board he could probably give me six stones. On DGS and OGS I could beat two other players that have beaten me on tournaments. You're not alone, so don't worry too much.

I ahev opposite. I can concentrate from the begining to the end at kgs, but in serious tournament I tend to make blunders when I am far ahead.

Last torunament I've killed 6 goups of much weaker enemy, and then made several blunders wchich made his 4 groups live. I won by 15 points, but you see the scale of it o_0.

There are many reasons why this can be the case between OTB and turn based servers, but I have never understood it for real time. I'm not saying it isn't true, I know a lot of people it is true for in both directions, and it must really suck, it just doesn't seem to happen to me. The 2d / 3d thing makes some sense - maybe play with longer time controls online and have a real board next to you that you use to actually play the game, simply using the screen as a relay - I know some people find this useful.

If you're used to playing slowly online, then there's probably not a difference. For most people - me included - online games are faster.

I have no possibilities of playing F2F games, and enjoy playing online with a board, playing games of roughly 45 min per player. I look at the board, place my stone, then click, and so on.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

I cringe at the thought of such slow play.

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FusekiLibrary, an opening library.
SGF converter tools: Wbaduk NGF to SGF | 440 go problems | Fuseki made easy | Tesuji made easy | Elementary training & Dan level testing | Dan Tutor Shortcut To Dan

Such a long time investment against a complete stranger does seem rather weird, I would never play such games, unless it was in a KGS tournament. In OTB games, especially tournament games, long time settings are great. I have not yet played games with more than one hour main time, but in those, I usually go into byoyomi.

I do find this useful, but not so much from the 2d/3d thing, I do it because it slows me down, and helps me concentrate on the opening and middle game, rather than clicking the first likely spot. Unfortunately, one cannot really play a full game in this way, and ultimately, you'll be playing on the screen (unless you're very patient, and have very long time controls), so if you really have 2d/3d problems, you may still struggle.

I also do it because getting stronger at OTB is my real goal, so if there really are 2d/3d specializations, then I wouldn't want to focus on the 2d side.

Wow, really? It's so much more interesting.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

I don't play "strangers" like that - I play those games with a few friends I have on KGS who like playing slow games too.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

Sounds good to me. It would be nice to have some rivals like that on KGS. But that's not the typical model, where people put up a game for anyone to challenge (or are themselves challengers).

cdybeijing,

It could be that when you play face-to-face, you gain some information by reading your opponent's body language? That's a real skill too, but unfortunately can't be used online.

A while back, when I was really into poker, I used to look for tells in my opponents, and look at the positions their eyes where focused on, as to double-check for some important tenuki's. To be honest: this strategy was utter rubbish and the time spent looking at my opponents was time not spent reading. I usually lost those games and now I don't do it at all. If I do look up at my opponent in real-life games it's only after I've killed something big enough to ensure a win. Never ever, before that, my eyes stay fixed on the goban now.

Either he's sandbagging or DGS rating is funny. I cannot think any other explanation.
No matter how careless you play, you won't drop 8 stones.

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长考出臭棋.

I'm one or two stones weaker on kgs. I play rather carelessly online. And it's very easy to click 'resign' when playing online, e.g. when my internet connection suddenly becomes bad, or i made a move that i don't like later, or my opponent plays bad or my opponent plays too slow/multi tasking, etc... I mean it's rarely be the case in real world that i'll resign for those reasons.

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长考出臭棋.

I have the opposite impression; in real life, there's no pressure because the game is ephemeral, once the stones are put away the only thing that remains is you and your opponent's memories of the game. Online, the game is stored for perpetuity, and I know lots of people who regularly check out their friends' past games. Not to mention that the amount of observers in an online game is typically much higher than a random game at the club.

I feel much more free to make mistakes in real life -- who cares, nobody will remember by next week anyway -- whereas online you have to suffer through the post-game review and people asking you "What were you thinking with S3 here?! It clearly doesn't work"

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The road to wisdom? Well, it's plain, and simple to express: Err, and err, and err again; but less, and less, and less!

I personally find that online (real-time) play puts a lot more pressure on me to not screw up. I actually get very stressed out when I want to start an online game and the pressure often stops me from playing altogether. Once I'm in a game though, I feel relieved of that pressure. However, if I play an opponent who makes bad moves yet still ends up beating me, I feel even worse. Or, if I play an opponent who just doesn't know when to give up, I get agitated much easier online. Offline though, it's totally different. I look forward to playing over-the-board games, and I find it easier both to shrug off my mistakes and to learn new things.

However, despite this difference in attitude, I haven't noticed myself being particularly stronger or weaker online or offline. I do feel, however, that my games end up feeling like a different style of play offline than online, but maybe that's just my imagination.

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Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
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