I see a lot of blitz games on KGS. I haven't played any yet. I've been using the default settings (30mins plus byo) and making a lot of use of the available time to think, ... and think, ... and think before I make a lousy move.

Is there something to be gained by playing blitz or is it just a recreational outlet when one is short on time?

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When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. - John Muir

Sure, there is plenty that can be gained from playing blitz. However, a lot of people don't really play blitz for the sake of improvement, but rather just for enjoyment (which is what Go is all about, yes?).

You might find this article useful: http://361points.com/playalot/

IMHO If you want to be good player you need to be flexible, you need to able to read deep or wide. You need to be familiar with huge moyos or 7 weak groups, you neeed to know how to play honte and hamete. You need to have good instinct and good "raw" reading.

Playing different games will make you more flexible and also stronger, but personally i think that blitzes are waste of time.

I agree with sol's article and believe that improving is more about playing many fast games than a few well-thought out ones. Playing more games lets you try lots of different moves so you can see which ones work well and which ones fail. I barely played any slow games (slower than 1 min + 5x 10 seconds) on my way to 1d- instead, I played a mountain of blitz games.

edit: of course, you might not get much out of it if you're not used to it, but if you play enough you'll learn to read fast

So blitz games can be a good idea.

Should I go ahead and just dive into them or does it make sense to first cultivate more experience in carefully thought-out slower games? I imagine myself mindlessly throwing down stones at points that "look" right. I don't feel that my sense of "shape" is yet well-developed.

Maybe I should just experiment by cutting my usual core time down a little first? Trim it from 30 minutes to 20 or 15 minutes once every five games?

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When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. - John Muir

Give it a try initially, play 10 or so games of blitz and see if you can get comfortable at it by then (worked for me, although my comfortable settings were 10:00/30(3), which isn't slow but casual). If not, then start from the time settings you were most used to, then chisel it down as you play more games.

I think there is nothing wrong with blitz games as long as you review them honestly: "it was blitz" is never an excuse.

I feel that the common 10 sec blitz is too fast for me, but I found a reasonable middle ground with 20 sec per move ("japanese" byoyomi) for fast games.

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A good system naturally covers all corner cases without further effort.

For improvement:

1 serious game = 10 blitz games

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If you just want to play a blitz game then play them. On the other hand if you are looking to improve, then play 30+ minute games. In my opinion, if you are under 3k, blitz will not do you much good. Most games under 3k are about reading; there are few (if any) players under that level that know enough so they don't have to read every other move. If you play blitz, you don't have much time to read, so chances are you will simply be playing moves that you wouldn't have played if you thought about it. Most blitz games like this are reading mistakes on reading mistakes, so reviewing them isn't much good either. Reading mistakes are just that: reading. It doesn't do much correcting if you just see it.

Interesting thread - I just started playing 'blitz' games on KGS this month for the first time ever. Ok I'm not a dan player so I can't comment on whether it'll stop me improving but I started playing blitz because I felt I wasn't playing enough games (maybe 180 in 2 years all KGS automatch slow). In the last two weeks I've played 32 blitz games - not a huge number but more than I'd have gotten playing slow ones.

With the standard KGS blitz time setting I think you will have some time to think, not as crazy as some settings. I do consider them serious games. The interesting thing for me has been the fact that I'm playing more aggressively - starting capturing races, invading and killing groups etc that just never seemed to come up in my slower games. I guess I was avoiding getting into situations that seemed too complicated. Most importantly playing blitz games has turned out to be more enjoyable and I'm enjoying Go more now (which can only be a good thing). I'm also finding blitz much less tiring than slow games.

I'm also playing around 10 games on the turn-based server, DGS. Hopefully to balance out the effects of blitz.


p.s. hardly a major insight but I found changing the chime alarm in blitz to sound when there's only 3 seconds on the clock very handy for not running out of time.

p.p.s. it took me about 10 games to get used to blitz.

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I am John. John-I-Am.

Not just SDK players, but for all levels I think your first statement holds true...

...however I think 8s x 3 is pushing it. Not really a matter of avoiding unnecessary thinking, but a matter of being able to think at all .

If you are worriede about overthinking give yourself 1 min main time and 30/3. But I find it much more enjoyable to have 1 hour on my clock so it can last untill some 200th move An, tournament games are always slow, so feel free to make your conclusions

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I wouldn't say you don't improve from blitz, but you probably improve faster with slower games. Just the process of looking at all the moves and figuring out the best ones is more rich. In blitz you have to make do and read lightly with the time you have, so it makes you better at figuring out the kinds of reading that are more beneficial when low on time. It can also help you speed up the pace of your reading. Just because you're playing a 2 hr game doesn't mean you shouldn't be reading as fast as possible.

I'm not much of a blitzer to say the least, but its fun to do every once in a while.

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Or does it perhaps further cement the bad habits?

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