On Wed, 2007-06-27 at 17:25 +0100, Nick Wedd wrote: > In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Don > Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes > > >I believe humans play much stronger too at those time controls. Unless > >of course they are playing many games and are not really focused on any > >particular game. > > The "unless" above is very important. > > When I play on a turn-based server (LittleGolem, Dragon, OGS) I > generally spend _less_ time on each move than I would at medium time > limits of 25 moves in 10 minutes. And judging by the moves my opponents > make, so do some of them.
Yes, I think there is an important difference between casual play and competitive play. I don't know if there is anything like correspondence play in GO, but serious correspondence players in Chess put a huge amount of energy into each game. Of course there is reputation, money and status usually on the line. I don't know if this is very popular any longer due to the Internet but I'm going back a few years. I played 2 games with a friend from another state by mail (not email) using postcards many many years ago, well before I became a tournament player. That's part of the reason I know something about it. I also know one of the top correspondence players of a few years ago and have many conversations about this with other correspondence players. When I played those 2 games, I probably spent at least 30 minutes on every move. But I spent much more on some of the move. When I sensed that a move was game-changing critical to winning or losing I spent many hours on it. I found a way to draw a game I was losing (due to an earlier speculative sacrifice) that without question I would not have found if this had been a long tournament games. I wish I had those games because I am hundreds of ELO stronger than I was back then - I might laugh but I'm guessing the game was played at a higher level than I would play a game today over the board, despite my greater skill now. - Don > Nick _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
