I came here as a result of something in the American Go Association’s electronic newsletter. I’m not sure if it was an ad, or what. But, it said something like “Is playing Tetris interfering with your playing go? Now you can do both. …” I don’t know when that was. Maybe 2 or 3 years ago???

Back then, the only way to remove a string (”group”) was to capture it. Leaving an eye could mean your group (string) was unremovable.

Here is another example in which a group which is living in Go, but not removed as a living group in Go-Tetris:

If this example is in the lower left corner, it is not removed. The group consists of two strings of the same color.

+++++
OOO++
++O++
++OOO
O+O+O

In this case, the stone in the lower left corner is not necessary for life in Go but having it there doesn’t hurt, while in Go-Tetris, it prevents immediate removal of the group. By contrast, the corner stone in my example from December 15, the single stone is necessary to “make life” in Go, but prevents immediate removal of the group.

I said “immediate removal” because, in both cases, removal of the larger string is possible by adding to it to form a third eye.

Has anyone had an experience like this?

It is possible that inconsistency of the speed of the falling tiles has to do with other processes on your computer. If your CPU is suddenly busy, it could give less attention to handling Go-Tetris. Then, when your CPU “catches up”, Go-Tetris goes back to normal. This might also delay moving keyboard inputs to the Go-Tetris process, resulting in something like the other problem.