How quick do you play relative to your opponent?

[hailthorn011]

I used to play like every game was blitz, and people pointed that out as a major flaw in my game. Since then, I've been playing slower. Generally, if I'm playing online, I'll also play the sequences on an actual board. This has helped remedy my playing too fast, and helped make me a better player. So, I play slow. Normally I reach byo-yomi before my opponent has even spent 10 minutes of their time.

[Shaddy]

In ranked games and games against weaker players, I play very fast with less reading than I would in a tournament game, going mostly off instinct.. In a tournament game, I'll usually spend more time reading but often I'll play faster than my opponent anyway.

[DrStraw]

I play go for fun. I have better thing to utilize my time on. I mostly play on DGS and usually use less time that the opponent. On the rare time I play on KGS I usually set or accept very short time limits and almost always use less time than my opponent. There are way more important things in life than go.

[dfan]

I am more used to time management in chess than in go. In a tournament chess game, I am always very aware of the clock and generally try to stay ahead of my opponent. I have certainly won games largely because I managed my time better. This has carried over to some extent to my go games; I also try to stay ahead on the clock there.

[CSamurai]

I almost always use up more of my time than my opponent. And it often surprises me that people don't utilize the time given (if they want to play a quicker game why not choose appropriate time settings?).

I play fast. Crazy fast. Silly fast. It leads to mistakes, and errors, and all around poor play.

I play fast when I choose slow time settings.

I play fast when I sit on my hands.

I even play fast when I am trying like hell to play slow and think about every move.

And I almost always choose slow time settings, because once in a great while, my opponent will play a move I didn't expect. And because just because I play fast about as well as I do slow (unfortunately true) doesn't mean I want to exclude slower players from playing against me. I like having the time. I often use 10 minutes or so of my own time, but a great deal of my time thinking is done on the opponent's clock, particularly if they make the move I expect.

I really should learn to slow down and think more.

Instead, I've focused on learning to play better fast (tsumego, tsumego, more tsumego.)

But then, I'm crazy.

[Liisa]

I play go for fun. I have better thing to utilize my time on... On the rare time I play on KGS I usually set or accept very short time limits and almost always use less time than my opponent. There are way more important things in life than go.

Yeah sure, like telling in L19x19 that there are more important things than go. I think that this is so far lamest excuse that I have heard to justify ones inability to concentrate. Poor you, if you need to do in your life something that is not fun.

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I play mostly with Fischer timing and I usually tend to use my time well, but I do not end up in time trouble very often. Many people however have in the end more time left than in the beginning, so I guess that I am slower player than average, but not the slowest player.

Also concentrating is getting more and more difficult when I get more experience from go. This is bad sign, because most often cases that means that person does not have talent for go. This is sad, because lots of mistakes can be avoided and good moves can be noticed by careful thinking. And why go is fun, is that it gives excuses for concentrating deeply. That is fun! But although I have grown weaker in concentration ability, I do not have lost hope yet. Perhaps that means only that I have played blitz too much lately and I have neglected studying theory. If you do not have anything to think, of course there is no point for thinking!

[RedStick]

I play go for fun. I have better thing to utilize my time on... There are way more important things in life than go.

I pulled DrStarw's quote here but it could have been any number of others.

I'm confused by this notion of fun=fast.

I play go for fun, think there are more important things etc...

yes, go is a game.

I will sometimes play fast games but I do not find them nearly as fun as slow ones.

Does playing slow games make go less fun for some people? what is it? do you get bored? Does the game not offer you enough to think about? Or are you just busy busy people who feel guilty for being away from your serious lives?

Edit: looks like Liisa beat me to my point.

[Redundant]

I tend to play pretty quickly, because I play largely from my gut. I'll take what my first instinct is, read a bit to see if it's completely retarded, and then play it. However, if I see something interesting, I'm well able to spend a good deal of time analyzing it. Even then, I'm trying to get into the habit of reading things only once, and not second guessing myself.

Also, if my opponent plays slowly, I'll look like a speed demon in comparison, I'll read out what I think is coming during my opponent's time, and then I'll play my response quickly after my opponent's play. In fact, this reading often takes less time than my opponent takes to read his move. In that case, I'll usually do something else online.

[Marcus]

@RedStick

There are many ways to focus on a game of Go, in my opinion:

The Competitive Focus - This is how I focus when I really care about playing the best possible game I can play ... tournaments or serious games. I tend to play slower in these games, trying to evaluate more and gain whatever advantage I can find. This can be fun, but tends to take a lot out of me.

The Social Focus - These games are played because it's a social interaction. I don't really care about the end score, or who wins. It's fun to just see how your style interacts with your opponent's. Likely my opponent and I could have a nice chat over the board. When I play like this, I don't care to read deeply, I'm just going to play what looks good. These games are messy, wracked with mistakes that I should know not to play by now, but I still have fun, because I'm interacting with my opponent, not just staring at the board. I could play dozens of these games in a day, but I won't learn anything from them. Does it mean they are any less enjoyable? I don't think so ...

The Meditative Side - When your focus on the game falls into this aspect of the game, you can feel the flow of what you're doing. This is the most relaxing way to play Go, as you are not forcing yourself to evaluate positions, but you are not rushing the game either. Likely, regardless of the outcome, when I can find this state of mind during a game I get more out of it than I do from being competitive. Things jump out at me, and I better remember positions for later study.

I'm sure there are other aspects that could make up the focal spectrum of Go, but those three jump out at me from the majority of my games.

[Liisa]

Also I love to think on opponent's time, because it does not make much difference on whom time I think, but I do not need to find a move where to go as quickly as possible, if I am thinking on opponent's time. Due to this I find it uncomfortable to play with opponents who play fast, because time, that is reserved for whole board thinking, is greatly reduced.

This is the reason also why I do like to play with 20 sec delay rather than Fischer, because I need to get punished if I play too fast.

[noodley]

I usually play very slow. Part of it is that I don't yet have a good intuition to rely on and I spend a lot of time scanning the board trying to figure out what to do. In general though, I just enjoy the extra time I spend.

I view each move as a problem to solve and figuring out a good solution is one of the main reasons I enjoy the game.

[Sverre]

I almost always play faster than my opponent. In a normal tournament match I very rarely reach byoyomi. For me the added distraction of having to deal with the clock when I am short on time is worse than the benefit of spending more time thinking.

[Liisa]

For me the added distraction of having to deal with the clock when I am short on time is worse than the benefit of spending more time thinking.

Good point! Have you considered Fischer timing? There is no forcing to overtime since there is no overtime. But you can just keep smooth about 10 minute distance to the end of time.

[daal]

I play go for fun. I have better thing to utilize my time on... On the rare time I play on KGS I usually set or accept very short time limits and almost always use less time than my opponent. There are way more important things in life than go.

Yeah sure, like telling in L19x19 that there are more important things than go. I think that this is so far lamest excuse that I have heard to justify ones inability to concentrate. Poor you, if you need to do in your life something that is not fun.

Inability to concentrate? What makes you jump to such a spiteful conclusion? The man said he had more important things to do - some of which may in fact be more fun for him than than playing yet another game of go. I doubt that anyone could reach 5d without an ability to concentrate. Lucky you, if you never have to do something more important than playing a game of go (but maybe not so lucky, if you don't have anything more fun).

[Sverre]

For me the added distraction of having to deal with the clock when I am short on time is worse than the benefit of spending more time thinking.

Good point! Have you considered Fischer timing? There is no forcing to overtime since there is no overtime. But you can just keep smooth about 10 minute distance to the end of time.

I get distracted when my clock is close to 0, no matter what timing system it used. I doubt Fischer timing would help much.