Life In 19x19

I find it funny that anyone would even bother with "clients" and all that nonsense when there are sites that dont require interfaces and work great on tablets/phones. in fact, kicks ass. Compared to KGS or any other site, there are so many games for easy review on mainland China. A big applause to the guy in Guangdong that implemented this Chinese site and was courteous enough to also include English on it. This free site blows me away each time I visit it! And no client needed!

Admin: This thread is about Tygem and not about other go sites so those references have been deleted from this post. Please keep your post relevant to the topic and do not inappropriately advertise other sites as per forum rules. You already have another thread in announcement which discusses the free go site so references to that site will not be entertained on this thread as it has been reported by other members as follows: "The reported message has the only purpose to advertise for a website or another product."

Quote from TOS

5. Advertising
Posting or private messaging advertisement is not allowed. However, if the advertisement is for your own product, it is Go-related, and it's not intrusive to the forums, then it is allowable to have it in your signature and brought up in threads only when appropriate (e.g: someone asks for places to buy Go bowls, and you have a site that sells Go bowls. In this case, it's allowable to post a link to your site).

You really gotta advertise that wuzheng site in every thread, huh.

I don't know about those websites, but thanks for sharing them.

About Tygem, I think every serious kyu player should play there because the playing style is a lot different.
(Although I would recommend 7-8 kyu on KGS and higher, anything lower than that and you might just get discouraged. )

I'm 3k on KGS and 2k on Tygem at the moment, and feel that every game on Tygem is a good learning opportunity - especially when it comes to fighting.

- If you want to work on your openings, then KGS/IGS are probably better (at the kyu level) because you won't get try tradional fuseki and joseki on Tygem - your opponent will very likely force you to diverge from them very quickly.
- If you want a more thrilling challenge where experienced players force you to read so that you do not die, then definitely try Tygem. I typically lose because of very simple reading mistakes.

I have been playing on tygem since I was about EGF 14kyu and I really like it. In my opinion it is one of the best servers out there for exciting games. Usualy I play on the chinese servers, big fun. Last night I had 2 of the same type games.

It started with me building a way too big framework, then of course my oponent invades. I start chasing the group without killing it and build lots of influence. With this influence I start to build a big area so that they will invade it and I can kill it. And so I did.

I'm ahead with 60 points because of the kill. Now its yosé and my oponent is sneaky sneaky filling all kinds of liberties to make its center group back alive by killing my side because it had bad shape. And oooo from a 60 points lead I go to my opponent winning with 1.5 point. So frustrating, but it did teach me lots of stuff.

Also if you want lots of tsumego without doing actual tsumego, then tygem is the place to go because you have to read a lot!

One very important thing is to register as a 10kyu. (if you are lower than lets say kgs 4kyu) Around this level I get lots of good fighting matches without being sandbagged like hell.

Have fun!
Otenki

otenki wrote:One very important thing is to register as a 10kyu. (if you are lower than lets say kgs 4kyu) Around this level I get lots of good fighting matches without being sandbagged like hell.

For those who like it to get sandbagged and get a good teaching game, registering at 18k would be helpful. Be sure to play it to the end to get everything out of the teaching games, so that you can also improve your endgame.

karaklis wrote:

otenki wrote:One very important thing is to register as a 10kyu. (if you are lower than lets say kgs 4kyu) Around this level I get lots of good fighting matches without being sandbagged like hell.

For those who like it to get sandbagged and get a good teaching game, registering at 18k would be helpful. Be sure to play it to the end to get everything out of the teaching games, so that you can also improve your endgame.

I can't tell if this post is being serious or not.

I would play on Tygem more if the ranks weren't all roughly identical .

I use tygem to watch pro's play, because there are a lot of them that play there. I also like tygem's escape policy better than the one from KGS. What I do not like are the ranks. KGS ranks are already soft, but tygem's are even softer and I don't like that rank pimping. The betting tool is nonsense, one should be able to bet for 5 cents or for free pro lectures. The client of KGS is just more intuitive and looks prettier, but tygem is not far away.

I think you need to play on different servers and play accord to what do you want, for example now I changed to Tygem because I wanted to play against stronger players, since when playing on KGS sometimes I do bad things, but I don't get punished because of them

Also in Tygem you really improve your ability to kill things

Because nobody greets? I did it for like 40 games and then gave up since maybe only one or two did greet back.

Pippen wrote:Because nobody greets? I did it for like 40 games and then gave up since maybe only one or two did greet back.

Hm, for me maybe 1 in 3 doesn't greet. Anyway, because of the language barrier I generally assume no ill will.

Just to make sure: you are using the "Greeting" button presets, right?

Take in account that you may be playing with a child (really) or someone that isn't very familiar with computers.

With presets most people greets but still I don't find it so necessary to play a game (taking in account that most games aren't serious anyway)

I had an amusing moment on Tygem during a lunch match today.

The game was more or less over and my opponent, sensing victory, called for auto-scoring.

I accepted and Tygem calculated a 4.5 moku win for me. My opponent immediately rejected the results.

I made the last move of any consequence, he needlessly filled a dame, and I again requested scoring. He accepted and, surprise!, still 4.5 moku win for me.

My opponent immediately rejected the results.

He thought for several minutes, obviously looking for an opening (there were none), then finally passed. I passed immediately. For the third time the score came up with a 4.5 pt win for me.

Finally, it was over! I understand his frustration, he had pushed me around all game and probably expected a win, but I couldn't help but chuckle over his complete denial of the board in front of him.

I registered on Tygem a few months ago but did not play much. The deal breaker for me was the fact that you had to reset the time settings each time you offer a game (at least I didn't find how not to). Looks like nothing but the players there do not wait for too long for the offer to come, so after a few times when my potential opponent left while I was clicking on main time/byo-yomi/replay/estimate, I got tired of it.

Plus, the server doesn't offer anything more than WBaduk, so I didn't see the point in playing there when I already play on WBaduk.

@leichtloeslich: Yes, I did use the prepared greet formulas, basically always "nice to meet you".

@drew: The good thing about tygem is: no more escapers.

Right now I like Tygem more and I have abandoned KGS for good. It's not only the escaper policy. It's the stone clicking problem at KGS, the simple rank system and it's the fact that Tygem players are helluva fighters that find spots to send me shivers I never got at KGS^^. The real problems are: 1. it's impersonal - you cannot upload personal info or a picture and therefore chats are very seldom, 2. there is no thorough information page about tygem and all its details, e.g. I still have no idea how to get see use the buttons "opening" or "lecture", I still have no idea what the "points" are for and why I should "charge" it....