Not resigning when one is 30 points behind opens the dam for accusations that one is speculating on some weird fail on the part of one's opponent.

This is particularly enticing, because just such a weird fail took place. But it's certainly not the first time someone has blundered.

I certainly understand accepting a win due to an opponent's blunder, and I daresay that few of Robert's detractors would allow an undo for a blunder in a real tournament. Most would not accept it even if offered. In this game, Robert saw that his opponent's failure to remove the dead stones before passing would cause them to be counted in his favor, and presumably viewed this as a blunder. It was in the passing stage of the game, but a blunder nonetheless.

He who would allow an undo for a blunder should cast the first ... well too late for that.

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Patience, grasshopper.

I think this question as flawed. On what basis you claim that concept of sportsmanship is incomprehensible to me and how incomprehensible do you cali it is?

Fine.

Just for the record: I would.

Methinks the question here is whether an undo would be offered before the opponent asked for it.

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“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?

Yes, I would.

You have provided your general view on sportsmanship, but not explained how it breaks down to the dispute. I.e., in a next game, I would not know how to behave so as to comply with your view on sportsmanship. (If I applied my view to your general view, then probably still a different sense of sportsmanship would be revealed.)



You could explain why and suggest better questions.

No. Such does not occur for other games with similar positional judgements.(*) Related accusations occur only because a dispute in such a game has already occurred.

(*) With the exception of a very few server games, where leading players start bad language and random accusations when their opponent does not resign when THEY think he should resign. In real games, without anonymity, I have not seen such during a game. (Besides, real games do not have the rather frequent scores of 50 - 110, which can occur in server games; half of them resigned after removing all dead stones instead of pressing Done. Too many players do not do positional judgement at all.)

If you generalise it like that, of course. But this follows the same path Robert is taking which is trying to formulate some sort of rule. Which is the wrong way to go about things like sportsmanship imho.

There will always be a gray area. And situations will fall somewhere between black and white. And in my opinion trying to claim a win in a game, where one is behind by about 30 points, on the base of the opponent not understanding some of the technicalities of the rarely used rules is very dark gray.

Would it have been me, I would have resigned after exhausting all possibilities on the board for a comeback. And if it was a close game, and we would have gotten to the counting phase, I would have pointed it out to my opponent, that dead stones are required to be taken from the board. After counting, I would have shaken his hand and asked if we could go over the game.


I don't really understand what you are saying. Could you retype that question?

RE Your questions:



Different questions:

1) When realising your opponent was unaware his conduct would result in a loss by the precise interpretation of the rules, do you feel that explaining them to him would have been sportsmanlike (and not explaining them would have been unsportsmanlike)?

2) When the game had completed, your opponent lost on a strict rules interpretation. Do you think it would have been sportsmanlike to have realised that the outcome based on the spirit of the rules were contrary to the outcome based on the strict interpretation of the rules, and thus allowed your opponent to remove your positionally dead stones and therefore win the game (and that not allowing this would have been unsportsmanlike)?

To me, these are the only two questions on which you are likely to differ with the majority of the people here, and are the crux of the big fuss that has surrounded this game since.

The more points the darker? This, however, is no good concept for arbitration. Arbitration can say nothing about sportsmanship, declare "sportsmanlike" or declare "unsportsmanlike". There is no grey area for an abitration body's declared decision.

The rules were not rarely used but were used in EGCs, IIRC, in most of the years 1994 - 2002; either on all board or on all except the first 16 boards. They were used also in a few other EGF or Ing tournaments in Europe.

I could not know my opponent's rules understanding until the fourth pass in succession. Sure, I did not change my rules understanding just because I then learned that my opponent had a different one. But your words "on the base" sound like I would have desparately sought a win of the grounds of knowing for sure my opponent's different understanding during the game; I expected to lose the game until my opponent's third successive pass.

Why do you mention a grey area for me related to my opponent's by you supposed missing understanding of rules technicalities, but do not also mention a grey area for my opponent and his by you supposed missing understanding of rules technicalities? Do you consider rules knowledge more unsportsmanlike than missing rules knowledge? IMO, rules knowledge is in principle a duty of all players. Not bothering with the technicalities of applied rules is in the grey area of unsportsmanlike because it drives players who know the rules better to a position in which people with about your sense of sportsmanship then perceive "unsportsmanlike" behaviour for them.

No of course not. I was referring to the specific situation. Duh. Again it is not about formulating a rule or guideline!

I can not make myself anymore clear than in the post you quoted from. There is really not much to, why you drag all that unnecessary stuff into the matter eludes me.

At which point, it would have been sportsmanlike to have said "Are you sure you want to pass again? You do realise that you will then lose the game?"

All of which is moot if you don't consider sportsmanship to be important, but under the apparent reality that the rules commission as a whole do feel that it is important, it may be something you at least want to consider in the future.

It is sportsmanlike because a) resignation is a right and not a duty and b) I do not consider millions of players (including many professionals) unsportsmanlike just because they have had a number of games with high score losses.



For the players until the appeals committee's decision, I agree. Now, that we have this precedental decision (not modified by the next instance) for EGF tournaments, there appears to be a sort of duty to agree on still not executed removals in between second and third successive passes. So, when playing under Ing 1991 Rules, I seek such an agreement (often to the great surprise of my opponents...).



As before. In particular, the third successsive pass would now be considered an attempt to deny the player a possibility to comply with his apparent duty of seeking agreement.



Also you (and p2501, who "likes" your post) show a very one-sided understanding of sportsmanship. When holding up this your opinion, then you should also have the opinion that my opponent should have asked me for my motivation for removing his removable stones by approaching liberties - especially instead of greatly slowing down the game during that stage.



It was sportsmanlike.



Intentionally bending the rules is unsportsmanlike because the players have a duty to apply the rules. Rather than bending rules, players should call referees to verify whether the assumed interpretation holds. (We called the referee.)



A bit unsportsmanlike (justifying a referee's warning), because players should respect their opponents by being prepared for a tournament with (also) knowing rules and because players have a duty to apply the rules, which presumes their knowledge; careless knowledge is insufficient.



When he made the third successive pass, it was a stronger possibility that he was unaware, but I could not know yet. At that moment, I only knew that my fourth pass in succession would ensure me a win according to my interpretation of the rules.

Pointing out the rules to him during the game without his question for such would be unsportsmanlike for reasons epxplained earlier in this thread.

Asking him to take back his move and probable blunder would have violated his right to make moves and mistakes, violated the rules, treated him like a stupid child who cannot even bear having made a blunder, and so would be unsportsmanlike.



The spirit of the rules, according to my interpretation and comparing it also with the spirit of other Ing rules booklets (see especially the Ing 1996 rules booklet) and versions, agrees to the strict interpretation of the rules, according to my interpretation. Therefore, you question needs to be reworded.

But you are able to envision the same case, with 29, 20, or 10 points instead of 30, aren't you?

See my other message.



Sportsmanship is important, but not in the senses suggested by others in this thread or related threads. In particular, I do not consider pairgo gentlemen-like resignations to be part of a regular sportsmanship sense in go. Rather, the aim of the game is and remains to win it according to the rules, and striving wholeheatedly to win is very sportsmanlike. To let this be as clear as possible, rules of play must be unambiguous.

Politicians should not just set sportsmanship as a good aim but should realise this aim by setting rules that are so clear to allow sportsmanship easily.

This is might work in a perfect world, but it can go wrong in so many different ways. What if your interpretation of the rules was a wrong and your opponent heeding them led to you winning? Would it possibly be insulting to some people to have their lack of knowledge pointed out to them? How can you tell? I can see the good intentions in your thoughts (and others), who clearly are very nice people, but I see them as good intentions with many pitfalls.

This is a red herring of sorts. Every game is won or lost based on a strict interpretation of the rules. Go is not like figure skating. The rules determine which stones are dead at the end. Jasiek is arguing that the stones were dead assuming ideal play on the opponent's part. I am not sure if I agree with that since I don't know the rules, but I do think that he should be free to make that argument without being accused of poor sportsmanship.
Again, I remind people that there are many pros, especially older ones, who play out 15-20 point losses. There are many more that resign when they think that they will lose by half a point, but that is not the point. Also, what if people want to learn from other parts of a lost game? Some people have even expressed to me the opinion that it is rude to resign when most of the game has been played out and that resigning is some cowardly way of escaping the embarrassment of the score difference. I think that opinion is balderdash, but more than a handful of people I've met in the past have that opinion. Again, once we start judging actions that take place within the rules, we head down a slippery slope with countless special cases. Tournament players have already have more than enough to think about on the board.

That, along with a display of hypocrisy

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be immersed

"It requires two to create a dispute."

One to throw the punch and one to get hurt?

Even so, raising it would at least give the opportunity to clear it up. Being in a situation where it's clear the game would be decided on who had the most accurate interpretation of the rules strikes me as a poor enough end that it would be worth some possible embarrassment / insult to make sure the game was settled on the board (which I personally consider preferable to being settled on technical application of rarely applied rules).

The fact that after two passes, Robert proceeded to play stones in his own territory to capture all of his opponent's stones after two passes, and knowing the detail of the 4 passes rule, strikes me as the action of trying to win on the basis his opponent wasn't clearly enough aware of the letter of the rules.

At the end of a game, even an area scoring one, I have never spent a number of extra moves capturing every enemy stone in my territory before passing, and I suspect most other people don't sit there doing this either. I struggle to see a single reason for doing it after each player has passed other than to play on rule technicalities.



I don't know how anyone who has seen the board can consider this argument a red herring ... The video of the debate is on the 'net with a clear view of the board (and it's been nicely recreated at http://senseis.xmp.net/?DisputeMeroJasiek too) - which groups do you think might have been debatable?

The whole point was all the black stones are alive, including H2 on that board image, and thus the surrounding area is worth 0 points to White (as well as the lack of prisoners). How could two players at 5d/6d level be in any question as to the status of the groups and score?

EDIT: TO CLARIFY

1) Both players "finished" yose.
2) Both players passed.
3) Robert then resumed play, capturing all White stone in his territory.
4) Both players passed.
5) Robert claimed the win on the basis that, with a strict adherence to Ing rules, Csaba failing to capture Robert's stones in phase 3 meant that all his stones (including those involved in dead groups in White territory) were unconditionally alive, therefore leaving White without enough points to win.

Please explain to me your interpretation of 3) in an attempt to provide the benefit of doubt to Robert in good faith. It obviously wasn't practising yose technique, so what reason could he _possibly_ have had other than rules technicalities (which it was very clear that he understood extremely well)?

Look, it is very simple to define sportsmanship:

1. Start with a complete, simple and accurate definition of all of human morality.