Malkovich: The flood is coming

Jonas · #1

Hey folks,
recently I'm noticing an increasing number of malkovich-games popping up. While more well elaborated and played games are of course a great thing for the community I see a dangerous developement: The number of games in increasing while the commentary in most of the games in decreasing/non-existent.

On the first glance just using the L19-Board as an substitute for a turnbased-server is fine, but I'm afraid that really high quality games with good commentary like the Joaz or Solomon games get buried under the quantity of games.

If I remember correctly the intention when creating the first malkovichgame was to help weaker players to get 'inside the head' of a stronger player, this purpose seems to get washed away recently.

What do you think?

dfan · #2

Hmm, I thought it had actually slowed down a little recently, although some more have just popped up.

I agree that the amount of annotation has decreased over time, and it would be nice to see it come back up again. Even one-sentence comments are better than none, because it gives us something and can act as a catalyst for asking followup questions.

I do find that even the low-annotation players are pretty good about answering questions from outsiders when they are asked. So another request I would add is: observers, don't be shy about asking questions! In fact, comments in response to questions are the most useful comments of all, since we know that someone really wants to see the answer.

Chew Terr · #3

If I ever get lazy with my comments, please tell me. I would like for my games to be useful to at least DDK players. I'll try to work harder on defining terms and showing diagrams of plans. I do understand your concern. I also much prefer the well-commented games because they're a wealth of information to be mined by lower-level players (like me, in most cases) as well as entertaining to read. Not sure of the best way to improve things, besides just trying to increase commentary in my own games and continue asking questions in others'.

gaius · #4

I'm probably kind of an outlier, but I really don't mind short commentaries. If they are too long I often don't get around to reading them anyways, and following a short-commentary game is fun too.

So far, my favourite Malkovich game is probably Violence vs. Magicwand. Interestingly, that game also happens to be one of the lowest-commentary games ever.

freegame · #5

Jonas wrote:

Hey folks,
recently I'm noticing an increasing number of malkovich-games popping up.

I also noticed this. This is also the reason that I did not start one myself.
There are too many already. I wonder how much people will follow yet another one.
It's also hard to decide which one to follow (I only follow the batoo ones)

finding a balance between writing not enough thoughts and too much thoughts is very hard. specially because some people prefer to read long explanation and some prefer just a few lines.
this is why it is good to have several different people playing a Malkovich game. However the number of games that is being played now is too much in my opinion.

I suggests create an Turn Based sub forum for people who want to play without having to write long explanations (they can still add (hidden) comments for spectators, but it's not required and not the main goal of the games.)
Furthermore I suggest to have only 2 real fully commented Malkivich games per rank window. this allows people to easily select the game(s) they want to follow.
(I get the impression that there are a whole bunch of games between single digit kyu's)
no sub forums are needed for each rank window, just a topic to keep track of things (like there is now).

for example allow only 2 Malkovich games in each of the following devisions, only start a new one when another is ready.
maybe the dan window needs to be split again because in general most people will be able to profit from those games.
20+ kyu
20-15 kyu
15-10 kyu
9-5 kyu
4-1 kyu
1-5 dan
5+ dan

2-4 handy
4-6 handy
6+ handy

Joaz Banbeck · #6

freegame wrote:

I suggests create an Turn Based sub forum for people who want to play without having to write long explanations (they can still add (hidden) comments for spectators, but it's not required and not the main goal of the games.)...

I think that this is a great idea, and if nobody objects strongly in the next several days, I'm going to do it.

Marcus · #7

Joaz Banbeck wrote:

freegame wrote:

I suggests create an Turn Based sub forum for people who want to play without having to write long explanations (they can still add (hidden) comments for spectators, but it's not required and not the main goal of the games.)...

I think that this is a great idea, and if nobody objects strongly in the next several days, I'm going to do it.

I believe this is a great idea, and support Joaz fully in making such a sub-forum.

Kirby · #8

I disagree with limiting the games - I think that they're more interesting posts than most of the others.

I agree with making a link that doesn't show Malkovich games. Then, only those that are interested can follow updates.

I will try to add more commentary to my games.

Anyway, I think a filter option is good, but limiting is bad. Playing a Malkovich game is probably more instructive than game reviews, and improvement at go is a primary reason for this forum, imho.

k43r · #9

Actuall these games are 5 of 7 topics I am reading every day.

Chew Terr · **#10**

The downside I see with limits is that commented malkovich games can be useful to the players themselves, even if no one watches. If I played, say, Loons, I would learn afterwards from all he was thinking (perhaps we would learn even more if our comments were open). While this may not be interesting to the majority of the observers, it would help us. For this reason, I'm leery of limiting the number of allowed Malkovich games. Observer comments are certainly helpful and useful, but they are not the only benefit to Malkovich games for the players.

From an observer standpoint, yes it is hard to keep up with everything, but perhaps each observer should pick a few games at a time to follow, and just catch up on the others later if it is convenient.

Phelan · **#11**

I disagree with limiting the number of games in total, but wouldn't mind if we only called Malkovich games to those that had better commentary, and limited only the amount of the ones that would be called that. That would allow anyone who wants to play and follow to do so.

Therefore, I wouldn't mind Joaz's idea.

Magicwand · **#12**

i think we should have a poll and findout what percentage of people prefer more comment.
i for one dont want video commentary or 10 different variations.
many times i tried to comeup with variations in short time and later realized that it was a bad variation. it takes deep thought and asking the players to input that much time and effort is unresonable. if it is easy and has definite answer to it then i try my best..but game of go is not that simple. i withnessed many professionals comment during the game that is wrong because they only think for few second.

my personal opinion: let the people who enjoys deep commentary make subforum and move.

daniel_the_smith · **#13**

I think as long as the players make an attempt to communicate their thoughts the game doesn't deserve to be relegated to second-class status

I actually prefer somewhat limited comments; I end up skimming when there's pages and pages of diagrams for a move. (Especially when the players are below my level by three or four stones and the diagrams don't make any sense.)

fwiffo · **#14**

I always try to put myself in the shoes of weaker players. "Back when I was two stones weaker, how would I have played? And why was that wrong? And what about when I was five stones weaker?" Sometimes I'll think of moves that I didn't even consider because they're so wrong, but they might be considered by weaker players.

It gets harder as the difference between your own rank and the audience's rank grows. One example when I was teaching a beginner IRL. This is more or less the actual conversation:

DDK: "So, how do I prevent a 3-3 invasion?"
Me: "Well, you usually don't want to do that right away, because early in the game it's actually good for you if they invade." (show sequence and resulting wall) "See, this wall is worth more, unless the outside is somewhat settled. If it gets to be later in the game, and you just want to take the corner territory, usually this move is fine."

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$B $$ -------------- $$ | . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . . $$ | . . . 1 . . . $$ | . . . X . . . $$ | . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . .[/go]

DDK: "Huh? That prevents the invasion?"
Me: "Well, of course!"
DDK: "But if they play..."

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$W $$ -------------- $$ | . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . . $$ | . . 1 X . . . $$ | . . . X . . . $$ | . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . .[/go]

Me: "That's dead of course!"
DDK: "How that's different from..."

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$W $$ -------------- $$ | . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . . $$ | . . 1 2 . . . $$ | . . . X . . . $$ | . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . .[/go]

Me: "..."

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$W $$ -------------- $$ | . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . . $$ | . . 1 X . . . $$ | . . 2 X . . . $$ | . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . .[/go]

Me: "Obviously this is dead."
DDK: "Is it really that much different from..."

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$W $$ -------------- $$ | . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . . $$ | . . 1 2 . . . $$ | . . 3 X . . . $$ | . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . .[/go]

Me: "Yes!"
DDK: "So how do you kill..."

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$W $$ -------------- $$ | . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . . $$ | . . O X . . . $$ | . . X X . . . $$ | . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . .[/go]

Me: "Well, it's white's move."
DDK: "What would white play?"
Me: "Somewhere else. He can't live there. He doesn't even have much aji there."
DDK: "What's aji?"
Me: "Nevermind. The point is that there isn't a living move there. I don't even know what you'd try."

This wasn't a slow student! He was actually advancing quite quickly. But go is hard! As you get stronger you lose almost as many ideas as you gain. I've lost the ability to imagine a move for white in that position, so I had a hard time proving to my student that white is really dead there. I had him try to make white live, but that doesn't really prove that a strong player couldn't figure it out without exhausting every possibility. So he kinda just had to take my word for it.

Solomon · **#15**

Lately I've been trying to stay away from both the shallow and deep ends of the pool. If you're going to write very little, you will frequently end up thinking very little and, as a result, make more mistakes. On the other hand, if you write too much then not many people will want to read it and furthermore you run into the temptation of trying to exhaust too many variations and give intuition, which is very valuable, too little credit (this is a problem I ran into time and time again in my first MG). You also run into the danger of over-thinking as a result.

However, I'd like to throw out that Magicwand's suggestion for moving the people who write deeper commentary is ridiculous. It's crucial that one distinguishes Malkovich games from forum turn-based games. One is a learning experience for not only the observers but for the players, the other is closer to a casual game.

My personal opinion: Magicwand games go to a turn-based server such as OGS since their message box feature is ideal for the amount of commentary that he writes. Observers can watch his games there and this will also clutter the forum less from posts with nothing but a single diagram. Malkovich games stay here because posts actually have content.

daniel_the_smith · **#16**

I doubt people will follow games as much if they are played on ogs or somewhere.

Marcus · **#17**

daniel_the_smith wrote:

I doubt people will follow games as much if they are played on ogs or somewhere.

I agree. I follow the games mostly because they are IN the forum.

Kirby · **#18**

I think that:
1.) The current setup is fine as it is (my personal opinion).
2.) If not everyone agrees with #1, and there are enough people that dislike the "clutter", the games should still be held here on the forum, but with an option to filter for those that care so much about filtering.

Phelan · **#19**

Even though I like the games, they do clutter a bit. Filtering would be welcome.

fwiffo · **#20**

I have been looking into a filtering mod for PHPbb, and the only one I found so far was for older versions. It might take some work.

Malkovich: The flood is coming

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