According to https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/kc7VsGMiWU__bng5zE8VzQ, the Chinese association banned a 19-year old player for 8 years and revoked her professional license? Seems very harsh compared to the Korean's penalties for a similar offense. I don't speak Chinese, so I relied on google translation. Also, I don't know much about her (don't even know her rank).

According to bingoweiqi she was a 3 dan and received two promotions in 2024, but I saw somewhere that she was said to be 2 dan. http://bingoweiqi.com/pwdo/players.php?name_cn=qin+siyue&sub1=%E6%9F%A5%E8%AF%A2

It is one of those situations where it is hard to get the full picture, but according to the statement by CWA and media reporting it is a case of the following:
* Entering the venue early in the morning and hid a mobile phone.
* Retrieving the phone during the tournament.
* Being caught with the phone during her game in the ninth round.
* Using (or having?) a Go playing program on the phone. (This point is unclear to me.)
* It does not say that there were previous instances of cheating or if there is suspicion. (But suspicions have been voiced after the fact.)

If we assume that this information, the only official information that is available so far, is correct, then a heavy penalty appears unavoidable.

I recall two cases in South Korea. In one case a player in an amateur tournament was convicted in a criminal court and sent to prison for cheating. In another case a teenage professional was caught using a computer program in an online competition, there were proctors and/or video monitoring. In this case it was, apparently, accepted that it was a mistake to open the program (or window, it seems to have been something built into the program used for the competition) and maybe it was a second mistake not to close it again. I think the penalty was 6 months suspension.

There was a case in China a few years ago when a pro was caught cheating in an online/covid tournament. In this case it was stated that there were proctors and that they failed in their duties. The penalty was, I think, a one year suspension, but I have not found any record of this player competing at a later date.

Also, a Bulgarian Go official got a 5 year suspension for cheating in an online tournament.

My summary:
I don’t think this measure from CWA is out of line with what others have done when faced with a similar problem. While it may be possible to question any decision for whatever reason, we should keep the big picture in mind. The big picture is that removing the threat posed from this player to our game is a perfectly reasonable step to take. In my view, it is largely a question of if CWA, and others in the Go community, should believe that someone will not cheat when they have been caught hiding a phone in the venue and using it to cheat. There are other considerations too. For example, is someone that did this the right person to teach a children’s class or to be a referee? And maybe cheating is destructive enough and become so common that it warrants a deterrent. It is also important to notice that the possibility that something can change is left open with a time limit on this suspension.

Pardon my ignorance on this topic, but I'm wondering why, when caught violating the most basic premise of competition, there is anything other than a lifetime disqualification?

(If there was actual doubt about intentional violation of the rules, then 8 years would be too harsh, but if was dead-to-rights cheating?)

To draw a sports parallel. Pete Rose was banned for life from baseball and made ineligible for the hall of fame for gambling on baseball. I doubt anyone believed that Pete ever bet against his own team or threw a game. But he was banned permanently for allowing the possibility to be called into question.

In general, the most severe penalties are reserved for repeat offenders and especially egregious situations. In this case the professional status was revoked, this is something permanent. The suspension from CWA activities is limited to 8 years and affects a lot more than just the ability to enter professional tournaments. She will not be able to have any role in CWA events, she will not be able to volunteer or work for CWA, she can not teach in CWA institutions, and so forth. It is not clear if this time limit is because this is the timeframe considered sufficient, or necessary, to protect against a threat or if it is punitive.

Another consideration is the standard of proof. Contrary to first impressions the standard of proof in sport is not ‘reasonable doubt’. The standard is usually ‘comfortable satisfaction’. What that means is that it is necessary and also sufficient if the evidence allows the decision making body to be comfortably satisfied that the facts are proven. A complete absence of doubt is not necessary. This standard varies according to the gravity of the offence and the proposed sanctions. This means that the evidence must be more substantial if the penalty is a lifetime suspension than if it is a shorter suspension. It is possible that the length of the suspension in this case hinges on the available evidence.

In Europe there is something called the Council of Europe that among other things publishes Good Practice handbooks about Human Rights. I think the following quote explains particularly well why it is legitimate to apply this standard of proof. (CAS is Court of Arbitration for Sport)

This makes more sense than how I first understood it, thanks.



Those 8 years are weird. If they don't imply a return to professional competition, they make some more sense, but they're still weird. I keep thinking that one of the reasons for the penalty is the loss of face of having such a basic cheat discovered. You mentioned in a previous message a case of proctors failing on their duties. Having a phone found in this way feels like someone got lax and only later on someone said, "wait, what!? Oh, come on..." and the hammer dropped. Still, I don't think master Yoda would agree with those 8 years: "Do, or do not."

In any case, I find it revealing that the first lifetime ban (AFAIK) happens to be a young girl. I'm not exactly against it, but I do have to wonder if the same standard would be applied to a 50-yr oldtimer.



I don't even know if the Chinese legal tradition has that idea. I had to translate a paper some... heh... decades ago on the differences between continental and English law traditions, and there were some puzzling ideas, there. At least for someone who's not remotely anything even resembling a lawyer. I can't suppose there aren't even bigger differences between Western and Chinese traditions. And, as you mentioned, CWA would be another fish entirely.

Now... sorry if this rubs the wrong way, but I'm throwing the idea... What would happen if someone else, some other country, invited her? Possibly (heh, probably) not for competitions, but as a teacher, or for a conference cycle? Right now, she seems to have her calendar free. Anyone from the Thai, or the Malaysians, to someone in Europe.

Take care.

_________________
一碁一会

As a referee in first, second or third instances, my principle has always been ‘reasonable doubt’. In every trial, finding out the truth has been reasonably possible before the AI age and the questions would rather be how to apply the rules and which player(s) to judge how.

In the AI age, establishing the truth can be much harder or impossible. Nevertheless, my principle remains ‘reasonable doubt’. Punishing an innocent person must be avoided by all means - the harsher the possible judgement the more important. This is even more important in (mind) sports rulings because it is harder for them to proceed to regular courts and then even get a fair judgement by them.

For me, integrity of sports is integrity of truth - not "integrity" of suspicion.

Reasonable doubt is a reasonable principle to apply but what is reasonable can vary according to language, culture and legal codes. I think the sports authorities try to overcome these variations in part by using the "comfortable satisfaction" criterion. It's still vague, but as it's not already entrenched in the various legal codes, they can define it as they wish it to be taken. They combine this with an arguably lower level of sanctions, which palliates the possibility of convicting innocent people. They have to act this way because normally they are supranational organisations who have to deal with varying languages, cultures and codes. Go is not yet governed by a supranational body, and so local standards still apply.

Chinese standards seem to have been applied here. I believe they attach more weight than we do to another common principle of law: "ignorance of the law is no excuse". I can't easily believe the player here did not know about anti-cheating regulations, and if we rely on that way of thinking we can argue that even if she turns out to have been innocent, she should not, through carelessness or ignorance, have put referees, authorities or whomever in an invidious position by taking a phone with her in the first place.

Harshness of the sentence is a separate issue but it, too, depends on local practice. The Koreans banned Kim Eun-chi for a year in 2020 as a 2-dan and she is now a 9-dan (the youngest female 9-dan ever). Presumably now a well-behaved one, which suggests she didn't need to cheat with AI to become a 9-dan. Maybe that's the most important lesson. The Koreans had no structure in place to deal with that incident properly, but they have now uprated their systems and I believe the penalty for AI cheating is now a 3-year ban, plus, I gather, they also have the power to issue 30-day bans for some "reasonable doubt" or "comfortable satisfaction" cases.

All the Oriental organisations seem, incidentally, to put more weight than we do on the roles of parents, teachers and coaches than we do. The punishments therefore can be said to spread wider.

And what a joke sentence that was! A 40+ year old, chairman of the Bulgarian go association cheating for more than 2 years, being sentenced lighter than a teenager basically. And that was after 6 months of back and forth, trying to convince officials for what every captain of league C already knew. It's just not worth trying to find cheaters.

There is generally no hard proof for online cheating, while a phone in the playing room is a clear evidence. And punishments for professionals should be harsher than for amateurs.

A few years ago, Kim Eunji got another penalty for cheating. I don't remember the details (surely, someone here remembers pretty well), but she got away with a one year sanction, and her professional status like nothing had happened.

Many people don't forget this, and some fans don't want to see her again. But the truth is, she is competing with everybody else.

In that time, many people thought "she is young, child's mistake", "promising player, don't kill her career", and so on. But the image of baduk in Korea (and the Kiin) was under the spotlight. Probably, in China they want to avoid something like this.

Question...

I'm only, fuzzily, aware of the Japanese ratio, but... what's the ratio of male/female pros in China and Korea?

Take care.

_________________
一碁一会

One factor that seems to weigh heavily in the minds of these associations is whether the person who is cheating has the potential to develop into a top-level champion. I sympathize more with the zero-tolerance policy, but there seems to be a serious reluctance in many nations/sports to lower the level of championship play by giving a promising competitor a lifetime ban.

They also seem to be... I won't say gullible, but the line of argument "Why would I cheat? This is a really minor tournament, I'm a player who gets top result in closely monitored live tournaments, I wouldn't ruin my reputation over something so trivial, this is all a misunderstanding" seems to be more convincing to the arbiters and professionals than to the fanbase.

Additionally: I don't know if this is realistically a factor for baduk sportsmanship, but IIUC the reason Korea's athletics/e-sports federations are all governed by national law rather than merely being self-governing is the gambling factor. Basically they're concerned not only with competitors cheating to win high-profile tournaments and prizes, but also cheating (or more often throwing) in obscure minor games in exchange for payoffs from gamblers.