Go is a very personal experience, and many people play it simply for fun. Some people have more fun to play fast(er) games. Maybe most people, from what you say.

As for improving...
I think there are various aspects of Go, some of which can maybe be better trained at blitz than in slow games. But to improve at other certain things you need slow games. A healthy mix is best, I would assume.

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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

Same boat as Shaddy, never really played slow games at all.

With respect to kids - I don't know whether people are speaking from experience or repeating "what everyone knows", but the two children I've played with (5 and 10) play very slowly.

I played in a Tournament once entered as a 15kyu. One of my opponents was supposedly the same strength, and was no more than 8-10 years old. A Chinese girl taught by a Chinese Go instructor. This is what her mother told me after the game. I could tell her mother pushed her to do her best in this, and to all extents, the girl was very good already. She played moves far over her strength and tricked me into simple plays many times. The game time was set at a 30 minutes for both sides and though I used nearly 27 minutes of my own time by the end of the game, she had used no more than 5 minutes of her own time. The result however was me winning by a great deal from simple, avoidable mistakes. I know, based on her ability, she could have easily prevented them had she patiently read them out. I would have said she was better then me at Go, but lost to her haphazard speed. We managed to play two more games while we waited for the next round, and I tried to match her speed just to see what happened. The first game, was close, but i won again and sped up further. The last we didnt quite finish, but though close, she might have won. I agree with the above statements, speed is only good once the majority of your fundamentals are habitual, and even then, I feel blitz is more of a sub-category of true Go one should only play once in a while, just to change it up. Not something to be relied upon for study purpouses. Go was, is and always should be a calm, patient conversation between two people and a board, as they share the board to agree upon who get what in negotiation. Not an all out battle to trick one another or hope one makes a few more mistakes than you for the soul satisfaction of a victory. Some of my best games ever played were ones I lost. Blitz is one of the reasons, among many (worst being purely resource based of course. ie not enough professional teachers etc.), I feel that Western Go players aren't getting as strong as Eastern Countries. Nearly all "pure" or "majorly blitz" oriented players that I've asked the question..."why do you think Blitz is so popular on American and European KGS and the like?" tell me the same answer. "I just don't have the time or patience in my schedule to spend an hour on a single game." This is an interesting response given many of the same people will gladly set aside three or more hours a day to play a video game, and have no quarrels with it. Its all in the mentality. Luckily there are many exceptions to this, and they are the people I would like to play. Course, this is purely my own opinion. Blitz players, don't stop doing what your doing. Just don't pick on us for not playing within five seconds if you do have to settle into a "regular" game.

Shaddy, thanks.

Some kids play fast, some slow. It may depend on how they were taught? I don't know.

I've taught (taught may not be the right word, maybe introduced) a lot of random people, and TD'ed several tournaments : adults, teens and kids. Typically the kids I've seen, play much faster.

So I've seen exactly one pro (a high-dan Korean) that clearly recommended blitz rather than just tolerating it. It was one of those cases where a pro shows up at a U.S. Go Congress for the 1st time, sees the time settings in the U.S. Open, assumes those are typical, and wonders what we thinking in the West. (To be fair, the U.S. Open time settings are slower than many Korean pro tournament settings.)

Anyway, he said that, say, a 5 kyu should play 10 minutes absolute. Shoot for 10 games in 3 hours. (It should be possible considering that in absolute time most of those games won't take up the whole 20 minutes.) He did not say he recommended it for stronger players (though he did not say he did not.)

I actually tried those settings and found them easier than intermediate settings like Canadian 1 minute + 25 stones in 5 minutes that I used to use on IGS a lot. Around that time I decided to drop intermediate settings. Then later I found this interesting comment from one of Dan Heisman's articles on chesscafe.com:



So I thought, hmm. Similar idea. It's not the fastest blitz that's the problem. It's the stuff that's in between your tournament-length games and the fastest blitz that gets people confused. Unfortunately, his comment on consistent increment seems weak, as he immediately pulls back on it.

In favor of blitz, it's definitely one way of testing new openings.

Most of my opponents play much faster than I do, and I still fall badly behind in most of my games.

But you've played almost 2000 turn-based games on OGS. Do you play your moves there really quickly?

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I've been playing a bunch of blitz games recently and I have learned something really amazing that I didn't know before.
Since in blitz it's easy to die and hard to kill (for me at least) I find that killing is not necessary. I can just keep attacking their shape, get loads of influence on the outside of the group and the points come naturally. I don't even have to actively try to use my influence.

I always knew that sealing in a group is something that both players should try, but with the blitz game, my opponents don't have enough time to read how to cut through that influence and they just end up making loads and loads of cuts that I have to quickly read out and defend the best way I can.

So in a sense, it did help me get better a little bit because you can see how certain things develop very very fast.

Yes, blitz in slow motion. I have horrible patience (though it seems to be getting a bit better recently).

I've always shied away from blitz because of a lousy internet connection, and play all my games as minimum 20 minutes plus 5 x 30s, and longer if on KGS. My connection has improved recently, and so the possibility now exists. I'm tempted to try after reading this thread, but the thought of 10 seconds a move gives me the absolute willies, I have to say!

You might try Canadian time. The blitz setting is 1 + 3mins / 25 moves. This is still quite quick, but allows you to partition your time better, so that you can spend a bit more time on critical situations.

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