Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Dragon Go Server

Last year, I took a break from Dragon go server (turn based) for a while, because of personal reasons. In January, I came back to it and have tremendously enjoyed it so far. One thing I am noticing though, is that I don't play my best games there. Even although theoretically, I have 'infinite' time to think, most of my games seem to be 'Glance at board, click first, think later' kind of moves.

I talked about this with a friend, and he agreed with me on it, he said that 'Dragon games are like KGS blitz in slow motion.' Heck, he is soooooooo right! That is exactly what it feels like. And yes, both he and I have managed to self-atari a group of stones.

I guess I will have to change my attitude towards those games and start thinking. Some of them, I actually do some thinking, but looking back at my games, I see too many spots where I lost focus during the game.

Tidbit about the dragon they use. My good friend wutu told me "Do you notice the two dragons on the homepage of this server? Dragon picture with five claws only could be used by emperor in ancient China and the one with three or four claws for others. Anyone who used it would get killed in that period, not only himself but also all the family. This is an interesting knowledge, even most of people in China don't know it."

2 comments:

David L. Bowman said...

I have a hard time understanding a Go game after leaving it alone for awhile. I tend to forget my strategy or plan.

Old professional game that were played in months (such as Dragon Go Server) were constantly thought of, because the reason for these long games were to play beautiful games.

The idea behind Dragon Go Server for most is to play a game without spending too much time on it at a time. (I have heard this from some)

Interesting info on the dragons. Thank you :)

Anonymous said...

Personally, I simply don't have a 1-2 hour block of time to devote to a Go game. DGS works for me because I can play in a few minute blocks.

As for the "slow motion blitz" problem, downloading the sgf of the game and playing through a few variations helps me "get back into" the game.