etiquitte question

So, what do you do when you find yourself engaged with someone who quite obviously doesn't know either the rules of the game or really the endgoals of the game (e.g. making territory), and yet, when you offer up advice, URL's, etc, take it as an insult and begin, albeit with plenty of spelling errors, to insult you and berate you - and when you again offer a game with them, to maybe see some of their strengths, the same pattern repeats itself - I mean, one can not play with them, which will happen in the future, but when one is engaged in a particularly long game, and wants it just to be over (and I admit, I got a bit testy), what is a good strategy to guide someone to somewhere for help or just deal with their poor play and keep the game enjoyable for yourself?

1. Make your moves.

2. Leave the comment window blank.

If this someone is who I think it is, your current game against her is unrated, so you can just resign without any consequences. Strong players have even resigned to her (in frustration) in monthly cups as soon as they were certain to win the tournament anyway. Or you can follow David's advice. I can't think of any other solutions. :-)

well mr. jearbear, i guess you must be playing hot sync karen; your experience very much matches my own. currently i am reduced to passing each move and waiting till my opponent has no moves left. its long winded, but we are only at move 325, and not too long to go. the trick is not to waste time capturing dead groups - this merely opens up space for her to play back into!

Follow Huw Rees and make it to Your task to let a less moves to remain as possible.

FC: ...and keep the game enjoyable for yourself?

Liso:

Try to see ->

http://dragontest.wz.cz/tenpoints.htm

:)

Well, I know who you're talking about. Lately, after being quite courteous, offering to help improve her game and generally being cooperative, I have have taken to disparaging her in the comments. This hasn't successfully gotten her to resign (she has not 1 living stone on the board), so I'm going to stop this tack and follow the advice from above - keep passing. I've been passing for the past 40 moves or so and agree that capturing her groups is a waste of effort that, indeed, only opens up more space for her to move in.

And, yes, I'm refering to the person in this post

oy.

What are the challenges when playing her in amazons or twixt? She definitely plays those games without any hope in winning except from timeouts and resigns (or hoping som hotsynckatryn might arrive to the site :-) )

I don't really see the problem with playing with poor players.

Ratings in all the games here, except in GO, are between 900 to 2000+ something. Playing with people at all levels makes it not less exciting. In my view it just spices up the game playing.

When I play games here, I play for fun, not to become an expert player. Winning or losing is of less importance. The way a game develops is what counts the most to me, wether it's for the good or bad. And if I'm doing very well in a game, good for me.

My problem is not the poor players. What annoys me the most are those who start a game or join a tournament, make a move or 2 and then let the games time out. And those who resign for no reason at all.

To make a comparison, football would be boring if every team in the world were the level of the European/Brazilian top clubs. I enjoy watching a division 7 match just as much as I would enjoy Brazil vs. Holland.

I have resigned games for no reason at all. What I write below is not intended to justify this, just to explain why it can happen.

When Dots & Boxes was introduced here, I thought I knew something about the strategy, and signed up for a rating tournament, a monthly cup, and the championship. The first two started soon, and I lost almost all my games. I realised that the knowledge I thought had was useless.

Later, the championship, which I had forgotten all about, started. Realising that I had no hope against any serious player, I resigned all my games. I am sure this was better than just letting them time out. And I think it was better than forcing good players to spend their time refuting my useless play.

this topic is not about playing against poor player that try their best to learn, it is about playing people that force you to play trivial moves all the time, because they are unwilling to learn.

bump