OGS - Frequently Asked Questions - Main FAQ

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1. What is "Go", and how do I play?
2. What is www.online-go.com (OGS) all about?
3. Who runs OGS?
4. Why can't I log in?
5. What are gamepoints?
6. How do I find or start a game?
7. What timing systems does OGS use?
8. What are holiday days?
9. What are subscriptions for?
10. Can I close my account?
11. What browsers do you support?
12. Any other questions?

1. What is "Go", and how do I play?

Please take the time to read through our full introduction and tutorial as this will cover those points and give some very handy pointers for getting to grips with the game.

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2. What is www.online-go.com (OGS) all about?

First, and very importantly, OGS is a turn based / correspondence server. This means that the expectation is of making anywhere between one move every few days to a few moves a day -- games almost never get completed in one sitting. If you wish to play Go in real time, then your best bet is to try out KGS or IGS.

What we are trying to do with OGS is to create a site with a heavy focus on organised tournament and competitive play, with a fully integrated coaching and game reviewing system coming in the future to help players improve their ability. We also have some features that are unique to our Go server such as "conditional moves" (the ability to set up pre-programmed responses to your opponent's moves, thus speeding up the flow of the game).

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3. Who runs OGS?

The current administrators of OGS are dmg and apoplexy.
The current developers of OGS are topazg, Arathalion, MatCauthon*, orbitaleccentric, zealot and orivej.
The current moderators of OGS are maproom, ModBot, Uberdude*, xela, illluck, Meepsie and Aloril.

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4. Why can't I log in?

OGS uses cookies to record whether or not you are logged in, so you will need to have cookies enabled to use this site. If you have cookies enables and you still cannot login, try removing all your OGS cookies and logging in again. If this still does not work, then please report the problem and we will do our best to help.

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5. What are gamepoints?

Gamepoints determine how many games you can have running at any one time. A 9x9 board is 1 point, a 13x13 board is 2 points, and a 19x19 board is 4 points. These points are returned upon completion of a game and can then be used on more games.
This limitation is designed to help limit the load that boards put on our server, thus not going over our bandwidth limitations or stressing out the processor on our shared server.
If you wish to increase this limit, and increase the number of minitournaments you can participate in, you can support OGS by becoming a Site Subscriber. This will increase your gamepoint limit to 160 and your minitournament limit to 10.
As we wish to encourage competitive play on this site, all tournament and minitournament games do not count towards your gamepoint limit.

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6. How do I find or start a game?

There are three ways to do so:

1.) Directly challenging a player. This can be done by visiting a player's profile, then clicking on "Challenge this user to a game" under the Actions section.

2.) Joining a game in the open games list (essentially the waiting room). You can visit it by clicking on "Join Open Games" under the Games section on the left side navigation bar.

3.) Listing a game in the open games list. This can be done by clicking "Start New Game", which is directly below "Join Open Games".

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7. What timing systems does OGS use?

OGS uses two timing systems: (Capped) Fischer Timing and Long Blitz. All times are in days.

Fischer Timing:

- Each player starts with a set amount of time ("initial time").
- When you make a move, a set amount of time is added to your clock. The amount is decided while choosing the game settings, and is known as the "increment per move".
- A maximum time cap prevents players' clocks from going beyond a specified limit. This limit is also decided while choosing the game settings.

Example: F:3+1<7

F: Fischer Timing
3: 3 days initial time
+1: 1 day increment per move. 1 day is added to a player's clock after making a move.
<7: 7 day maximum time cap. The players' clocks cannot go higher than 7 days.

Long Blitz:

- Each player is given a fixed amount of time per move.

Example: B:3d

B: Long Blitz
3d: 3 days per move.

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8. What are holiday days?

To allow people to take real-life holidays with such long term games, we have set up a holiday system. You start with 20 days, and this goes up by 1 every 8 days (5 days for subscribers) to a maximum of 30 days (50 for subscribers).

You can cancel holiday days at any time during the holiday, with unused days returned to your total. For example, if you go on holiday for y days and immediately cancel, y-1 days will be returned.

You can continue to play games whilst on holiday. The holiday time will be added to your time remaining move time (non-cumulatively) after each move. When it is not your turn, only your remaining move time will show. For example, say you simultaneously begin a 7-day game and a 10-day holiday. If it is your turn to move first, you will have 17 days on the clock. If it is your opponents move first, the clock will show 7 days &mdash; after your opponent's first move, however your clock will show 17 days.

Users on holiday may be recognized with this icon.

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9. What are subscriptions for?

We have some big plans for the future of this site, both in growing into a larger community and having a number of features that will make it both useful and unique. However, at the moment, running OGS is costing us a lot of money. While we have both happily put enormous amounts of time and effort into developing this site, we cannot afford to run this purely out of our own pockets.

Therefore, we have brought in an optional yearly subscription of 18.50 EUR. Subscribing is OPTIONAL. You can continue to play for free, just as you currently are, and there is no obligation to join. However, for those that choose to subscribe, we will be offering

- Extended gamepoints (160 instead of 32)
- You will be allowed to join up to 10 mini-tournaments (instead of 3) and start up to 3 (instead of 1).
- Your holiday day max increases to 50 (from 30), and they restore at a rate of 1 every 5 days (from 8).
- Your profile will show your last 10 minitournament results rather than the last 5
- Your rating graph will display the last 500 games rather than the last 100.

You will also have an icon in your profile and on the player list highlighting that you are a supporting OGS in this way. Of course, you also can have the satisfaction of helping to support this Go community :)

If you wish to support us by subscribing, click here.

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10. Can I close my account?

We're sorry to hear that you'd like to close your account. There is no way to do this, however. That being said, if you are not playing any games, you will never receive emails from the site.

If you're having trouble starting games, you can ask for assistance in the forums.

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11. What browsers do you support?

Our system requires javascript-enabled browsers. In particular, we have begun converting the site's javascript to use the jQuery library, which may break compatibility on older mobile phones (Android phones and Apple products are fully supported, see http://docs.jquery.com/Browser_compatibility for more information). Please note that Internet Explorer versions 6 and below are NOT supported.

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12. Any other questions?

If you have any other suggestions, comments or other feedback, please feel free to post in the forums. If you wish to report a bug, or you are having difficulties with some part of the site (including understanding rules, scoring, or why something is happening), please raise a support ticket.

For minor questions, you may also check the real-time chat, as it is often monitored by a staff member. Please be aware that there may be a delay in receiving a response to your question.

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