Taking your time...

[Anzu]

What's the longest time you've taken on a move?

I was browsing Sensei's Library (http://senseis.xmp.net) idly, and came across an interesting tidbit -

Apparently, Takemiya Masaki once thought for five hours before making a move. Unbelievable, isn't it?

What a complicated game Go is..

For myself, the longest time I ever spent on a move was about three minutes.

[Uberdude]

In a casual online game, maybe 5 minutes. In a 1 hour main time tournament, it's not uncommon for me to spend 10 minutes, maybe even 15 on a key move. That's probably not a good idea given how badly I play in byo-yomi, indeed I just lost the Cambridge tournament yesterday like this! In the 3-hour British Championship games I think I spent 20-30 minutes on some moves. On OGS the move can take days or weeks, but how much of that is thinking time? In my game against breakfast I spent over 1 hour studying variations on some moves. There was also a game on OGS I played against Prodigious many years ago which I paused to go on a holiday around the Balkans, which included a long train journey from Serbia to Montengro (beautiful scenery, highly recommended!). During this journey (and other times sitting on buses etc.) I drew the game position (which was in early endgame but still with some fighting and trades potential) and counted and planned the rest of the game for a total of probably more than 8 hours, so that's my record.

[Anzu]

According to http://senseis.xmp.net/?LongestTimeSpen ... AboutAMove

..the longest time taken by a professional on a move was eight hours, by Honinbo Shusai. Unbelievable!

[Bill Spight]

When I was a shodan I had a 2 dan friend who was a slow player. My games typically lasted about one hour, but a game against him would last about two and a half hours. Once we played a ten game match and we agreed to play without time limits. Not that we used clocks, but I wanted to use about as much time as he did, which could mean four or five hour games. In one game I saw an unusual sacrifice in the center of the board that would allow me to cut his groups in two, but without a clear advantage. I took two and a half hours on that move.

[singular]

I love to take my time to make a move I think is good. But I don't, usually. No matter what time settings I offer in online games, even if just 20 minutes each, I always feel that my opponent is exasperated with how long I take to play. I'm pretty sure I just play at a kind of normal pace, but when my opponent consistently places his or her stone right after I've place mine, it makes me feel on edge. Against my better judgement, I hurry up a little.

Sometimes I get a comment, like "play", or "pls hurry up", or sometimes it's just a dreaded question mark "?". Bearing in mind, these are games where the opponent has accepted the time limit.

I recently had a teaching game where the teacher urged me to slow down. That was nice to hear.

I've never taken longer than three minutes to make a move.

[DrStraw]

I don't know the answer, but I doubt I have taken more than a couple of minutes over a move in the last twenty years. Maybe in the previous twenty I reached ten minutes once or twice, but I don't actually recall doing so.

The longest time it took me to make a move was the first one I ever made. It took me all of 21 year and 4 months to get round to playing that first ever move.

[Fedya]

love to take my time to make a move I think is good. But I don't, usually. No matter what time settings I offer in online games, even if just 20 minutes each, I always feel that my opponent is exasperated with how long I take to play.

If my opponent complains about how long I'm taking to play, I remind him that he accepted the time settings I put up, and I'm going to use that time if I feel I need to.

That having been said, unless I'm trying to read out a ladder/L&D position or count score, if I can't find anything good to play after 60-90 seconds, all the time in the world isn't going to help me.

[hyperpape]

I've played a few 3 minute moves in tournaments. Online, I often play blitz in slow motion, but will slow down for particular moves. Sometimes I will come back to the same move day after day. On those occasions, I might end up taking 30 minutes, but it's not consecutive, and I probably end up revisiting the same versions.

[quantumf]

I always feel that my opponent is exasperated with how long I take to play.
...
I've never taken longer than three minutes to make a move.

If you haven't gone into byoyomi by the end of the game, you're playing too fast. It's difficult, I know, but you have to ignore those "?" comments.

Personally, in general I find it quite hard to play long/serious games on the Internet. I find reading hard/effortful, so am generally not motivated to put in this effort for games where little is at stake. I thus avoid long game offers, and stick to games with main time < 10 minutes.