Hopefully this is in the right forum. I'm looking to know what the best Go servers to play on are that aren't KGS. Long story, short, I was recently IP banned for breaking a rule on KGS. I was on a guest account and have just started playing Go again after 10 years of not playing Go at all. Didn't realize I was breaking a rule by going off topic in English Game Room, stopped immediately when asked, but was IP banned when asking a question about how long my ban in the English Game Room would be. This seems par for the course as when several people came to my defense because I was just a guest, someone said "it was another innocent guest banned" or something similarly. I guess they are pretty totalitarian over there. So I'm looking for a good server maybe with more people on it so I don't have to wait so long to get a game. English speaking would be nice as well so I can talk with people about Go and make friends, but if there are better non English speaking servers let me know. I just want to play go and get better. Thanks

The top servers are IGS, OGS, Tygem, Wbaduk. Not counting KGS.

Thanks could you elaborate on which one is best and why? I'm looking them up right now to see which is English. Which server has the friendliest or best community?

I can't speak for the others, but while IGS is great for getting a game it has basically no community connection.

You might like OGS. The community is pretty friendly, although sometimes it can get a bit out of hand. It's browser-based which is convenient, but if you are a dan-level player then you will have a pretty hard time finding even-level games. IGS has a much smaller English-speaking community, but if you are a dan-level player you will have a much easier time finding a game at your level. Tygem and WBaduk has a non-existent English-speaking community, but you will have no difficulty finding a game (unless it's off-hours in Asia). So personally, I use OGS and KGS to chat and banter, but to get games in I play on Tygem.

Is one better in the strength department than others? Like have stronger players than the others and more well rounded in the different aspects of the games?

In the strength department, it would have to be Tygem. Not just as a player, but also as a spectator. Most of the Korean and Chinese professionals play on Tygem, and as of me writing this message I can choose to watch any of 7 9d vs. 9d matches going on right now. On KGS, the highest level game going on right now is a 4d vs. a 3d who are at my level. It is, however, the most inconvenient server if you are not a Windows user, so for me I have to use a VM just to use Tygem. But even then, it's still worth it.

I'm around 3kyu KGS, what should I register for on Tygem? Are all the servers equal in rankings? My strength seems to fluctuate a lot. I was beating 3-4 Kyus pretty easy, but then 1 kyu would destroy me easy, Didn't make sense to me. I also seem to mess up a lot in the beginning with joseki and a lot of times I'm playing from behind due to screwing up the first corner. But they say don't study Joseki. I do go to Josekipedia to see the mistake I made, but I'm not sure it's sticking since I don't study it. Not even sure how to study it without attempting to memorize it.

I would try 1d on Tygem. All servers are not equal in rankings, but Tygem seems to be around 2-3 stones inflated than KGS.

Don't memorize joseki. Studying it is fine if you're attempting to understand why the moves are played. I think it's safe to say that almost all of us do have some joseki memorized though.

I've found that "Whole Board Thinking in Joseki" is a good series of books for learning joseki not in terms of the memorized patterns, but in terms of "what am I trying to do here and why?"

I do kind of know what I'm trying to do, it just never works out. I can never read what my opponent will do, or far enough ahead to know where my moves will work or not. Most of the time a pincer is always involved and some of those josekis are 20+ moves long and there's a lot of empty space inside the corners. It's not like life and death problems where there are only a few possibilities. I do have those books though. I'm currently going through some basic tesujis and shape stuff right now though. So many different aspects to study. It's a bit overwhelming and I'm a bit of a perfectionist. That's why I get so frustrated.

I'm sorry to hear you had such a bad experience on KGS. I'm an admin there. If you tell me the guest name you were using (there's no record of a recent block of "temp" in our log), I could investigate. We've had some problems with repeat-guest-account users making trouble, and it's possible you got caught up in such an episode and it can be difficult for admins to sort out which guests are newcomers and which are repeat visitors.

Please note that if you are told to do or not do something, you can discuss it with the admin in private (just click on hir name in the list of names on the right).

OGS is not such a haven of bliss anymore (if it ever was), as they also have some abrasive and argumentative admins now. I wonder if that's a universal feature of internet communities, once they get to a certain size you end up with trigger-happy admins on power trips. There's probably sociology papers about it.

While I have to agree with Uberdude that the admins at OGS are not what they were some time ago, it is still my favourite server. The community is nice and it is easy to find games for my ranking (1k EGF) for slow games with several weeks of thinking time and normal games. Besidies it is still developed and improved while the most other servers I visit stayed the same for several years now.

BigDoug was the admin that did it. I thought it was just an overzealous mod but when I emailed to complain about him abusing his powers, he responded to my email and probably buried the whole thing, as I haven't received a response to my reply email to talk to someone else. I just kind of feel pretty humiliated and embarrassed about the whole thing. I'm not sure about trying to rejoin KGS and supporting that draconian behavior. I was just getting ready to spend probably $100 on some of the dan series and get strong series of books, and I won't be now. Not sure if this guy has a habit of doing this stuff or not. I acknowledge I broke a rule, but after I realized it I stopped going off topic to get a list of the rules and rectify it. I was directed to talk in the English Chat Room after being banned from the English Game Room. I was going to go but I just asked the mod since he was the only one who could see my chat in the English Game Room, how long my ban would last and he IP banned me immediately for that. In the email he said I should have PMed him to ask that question instead of still posting in the English Game Room, but I don't see how it's any different considering he's the only one who can see my chat or why he didn't PM me in the first place. He also didn't try to answer my questions about asking where the room rules were as someone told me to read the room rules and I was asking about it in chat and being pretty reasonable. I think the real reason I was IP banned was because a few people were complaining and sticking up for me after he posted that no one could see my chat and that I was banned from the room. To scare people into silence he made an example out of me by banning me.
I can't help not taking it personally. I'm a person, I should be treated with some sort of respect and not like this. I feel sort of bullied by that guy. It all happened so fast and I was just trying to understand what was going on and I ended up IP banned. This is why I hate the internet. No face to face, no phone numbers to call and talk to someone. Someone can just treat you like crap and there is no recourse as your emails can just be deleted or ignored. I don't understand why the user base puts up with heavy handed admins. Why not complain and get some leniency for Guests or a bit relaxed on banning people so easily? It's not like I broke the rules and started cussing this admin out. It just seems so senseless. I was just trying to kill time in chat while waiting to get a game.

I suspected it was he when you first made this post. He is well-known as a trigger-happy bully who expects genuflection, instant obedience and reverence from us pond scum (aka normal KGS users).


Indeed other people coming to your defence and criticizing BigDoug's actions are a common prelude to his use of the ban hammer.


I don't put up with it, I have by and large quit KGS (or at least the social aspects of chatting/kibitzing/reviewing) because of it. Many others have too, though I did see XY0908 (a well known chatty user and great guy who sponsored some tournaments some years ago and quit over the admins stopping chat) had returned when I logged on recently.

P.S. Can admins on KGS now "shadow-ban" users so that they chat in a room but no one (except admins) sees their text? I wasn't aware of such a feature (or maybe Temp misunderstood what was going on?).

I am also an admin on KGS.

If you tell us what your nickname was, and when this happened, then we can look in the logs and try to find out more about what happened.

I already pmed Nyanjilla my info. I just want to move on at this point. I will probably use a different user name for other servers and maybe for this website because I don't want to be associated with this incident anymore.

You said that there were pros on Tygem. Are the people with (P) after their name and 9dan pros? Or is that just a stone stronger than 9 dan because of the rank difference?

Ah.... now that I know the name you used, things become a bit clearer. Trouble is, you weren't registered and you used a guest name that has attracted our attention in the past. Like I said, we've had problesm with people using guest accounts repeatedly, and some of them have used them to test the boundaries. And it's not easy for admins to check names fast---we have to log into a different site and go through a rather cumbersome process to do so.

Once a guest logs out, that name is available for use again and you must have been unlucky in picking it. That doesn't happen with a registered name (at least until that name expires and someone else registers it, of course).

So please feel free to come back to KGS, it's a great place to get teaching games too, but please register to avoid such problems in the future. There are plenty of other rooms there if you want to chat---explore the Rooms menu.