I believe everyone is so heated because of lack of clarity/information/explanations.


edit: I meant "motives for the appeal". Explanation below
Yes. And the lack of information naturally implies speculations, then mistrust, finally anger. Then Hajin Lee is shocked and horrified, but she is guilty too, IMHO. She could reveal for example the text of the AGA appeal, but she didn't.

This is another reason why I say the organizers should be more open towards the public (Also Justin Teng should be more concrete.). I am afraid the case might end with an impression that either Mateusz Surma or Justin Teng are liars,
although most likely it was just misunderstanding.


The AGA appeal was about "we don't want to resume the game". I see no logical reason in this first appeal.

(I guess all AGA players prefer a rematch. I believe all AGA and EGF players are unhappy with the Myungwan's decision.)

But again, I have only partial information, unfortunately. This is why I said

I think TCP uses exponential backoff. Retransmissions occur e.g. after 0.75s, 1.5s, 3s, 6s.
If so, then a slight worsening of the connection can cause a large increase in delay.

As a third-party observer, it's not my right to speak for the players/organizers involved or leak information that they have communicated to each other in private. If they want to do so (as Hajin, Gansheng, and Ryan have), they can do so themselves. I don't believe Mateusz intentionally lied about anything, but rather it's more likely that he was just not told the complete picture to begin with (I don't know how the communication on his side happened). I can imagine it was a game of telephone where somewhere along the line the original message transformed into something else.

From my understanding though (now that Gansheng and Ryan themselves have spoken), the AGA appeal was primarily about the implications (precedent) of the initial decision rather than anything about the proctors' role (I don't know why that got spun into being the main argument of the appeal). There was a consensus that the ruling should be objective, and thus be independent of the board position (in terms of who is leading and by how much). Otherwise, where does one draw the line on which board positions can be adjudicated with a result and which can't? Of course in this case, it's obvious to most players what the end result would have been had the game continued, but it's difficult and subjective to make a ruling based on that that can be consistently applied to future cases (all else besides the board state being equal). Also to the point about the proctors, while it's evident (assuming the proctors are trusted) that Mateusz played a move before his time ran out, the time it took for the referee to make the initial decision to continue the game (due to not being available at the time of the game) disrupted the natural course of the game (as Gansheng said). Again, we know that in this case the board state was already pretty clear-cut, but in future cases it might not be and as I said before, it's difficult to make a consistent ruling based on that. People have also argued about sportsmanship, but as Ryan said, it's a competitive mind sport and rules are supposed to be in place to ease the burden on the player. Of course in the end, it's up to the referee that both teams agreed upon to make a final decision. Hopefully this brings some clarity to the information in Gansheng's email and the crux of the AGA appeal (although it is my own interpretation of it). In my opinion, it is in stark contrast to "they said I should lose by time because of this proctor role reason."

To me, the most disappointing outcome of this whole situation has been seeing how quickly people (regardless of affiliation) blitz to make crude judgments and personal attacks based on limited information without taking the time to patiently understand the whole picture first (perhaps that's unfortunately too much to expect in this day and age). I've always held the Go community in high esteem though, so it was heartbreaking to see. Of course the decision took way longer than it should have to be made, but the volunteers involved are not professional organizers or professional referees, they are Go enthusiasts who live across the globe doing what they can to enrich the Go community. Effective communication is a difficult skill that is often taken for granted. Oversights happen (I doubt Myungwan considered the implications of his first decision at all before making it), and we review them and improve for next time, just like we do with our Go.

I think the main conclusions that should be drawn from this whole situation are that detailed tournament rules should be in place from the beginning, and a referee should be present/on call while the game is in progress. As to what the rules about lag should be given the difference in internet quality around the globe, hopefully the organizers can come up with something reasonable because I have no idea. The EGF pros are clearly more well-practiced and in better condition than the AGA pros right now (but this match isn't over yet!), but I hope we will continue to have this tournament and see the development of both pro systems for years to come.

Well said. What we are seeing are the growing pains associated with a new Western professional system. Something unfortunate happened that wasn't planned for, but we need to move on. I don't think there was a good decision to be made here, although purely for the selfish reason of wanting an extra game I was hoping for a no result and rematch.

Like it or not, Western go is in large part Internet go. That's the easiest (often only) way for pros to meet on a regular basis without crippling costs. It's also the way that go fans are going to get to watch the games. That's particularly important to remember, because if we're ever going to have a self-sustaining professional go system those go fans are going to be the ones providing the financial support.

No doubt we'll start seeing discussions about the proper venue and technical support for such a tournament. That's correct and proper, and we'll all benefit in the long run.

Hmmm ... why the ruling should be applied to future cases?
1) Now we were in an unfortunate situation, that will never be reproduced: Organizers made mistakes (missing rules, choice of KGS that didn't manage lags as organizers expected ...). A special remedy measure was needed, which would rectify as much damage as possible.
2) For next rounds the tournament needs at least some basic rules about lags. But still these rules needn't be final. Online tournament go is a new concept and better rules may develop after more experience is accumulated.
3) Well thought and detailed rules may be prepared for next year.
Thank you for your reaction ... but still, could you be more concrete?
In past you wrote:
"What Mateusz wrote about the protest by the AGA pros (both their opinions and reasoning for the protest) is mostly untrue."
Could you explain what was true and what was untrue? I see you don't want to "leak" any private information, but all the information in Mateusz's post is public already.
Exactly. As an observer who has no direct contact with AGA/EGF pro players, in public area I see only monologues from both sides (monologue of Surma - monologue of 3rd-party observer Teng is a good example ) . These monologues indicate disagreement and discrepancies between teams/players. But among go fans they are transformed into rumors, speculations, exagerations ... then into "crude judgements and personal attacks".

Couldn't monologues in public area be replaced by dialogues in public area, which would explain things
a) reciprocally between teams
and simultaneously
b) to public
?

Monologues are good for politicians, and I hope go is not politics yet, but we are just friends with a common hobby/profession.

To me, this is a very expected outcome.
How long shall go public wait for the "whole picture"? The game Eric-Mateusz has been played 13 days ago. So far the only output is one brief verdict, no detailed explanation of the verdict, and some partial, mostly vague unofficial statements.
(For example the original wording of official appeals is unknown to public, except the content of the e-mail of William Gansheng Shi... Until now and your post above we weren't sure whether any detailed tournament rules were in place or not...)
People have no information, and so rumors, speculations, exaggerations take their place. This is natural.

Just one more note before I say good night. I feel like I have said too much in this thread, I also feel like I have not said enough. So to repeat myself:

Go is fortunate in that serious irregularities occur infrequently. It got along with professional players but no written rules for centuries. (!) Only on rare occasions did problems arise. One dispute (in a team event) arose in 1928, and took a number of weeks to resolve; the result was a peculiar ruling, perhaps because of the politics involved. But it took over 20 years for rules to be written. (!)

As a result, nobody, neither players, nor organizers, nor referees, has much experience with serious irregularities or knows exactly what to do about them. It seems like all three were unprepared in this case. In addition, it is an international team event, so politics is involved. So, yes, when everybody is a noob, it is going to take time to resolve the matter. It could have taken longer. Give people some slack.

The referee, before making his final decision, got input from the players and organizers, and consulted with people who have experience running professional online go tournaments. (IMHO, the "professional" makes a difference. They have different standards from amateurs.) He may have muddled through, because nobody had told him that the first thing to do is to ascertain what had happened, but in the end he made an impartial ruling in line with both basic principles and the conditions of contest. There may have been peculiar political rulings that would have been more satisfactory, but he ruled "by the book." Give him some slack.

The organizers, no longer noobs, are writing rules to take care of net lag and perhaps other problems that may arise. Yes, their inexperience led them to make a hash of things. Give them some slack.

This tournament is a good will event. Let's revive the good will.

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Everything with love. Stay safe.

It's standard tournament practice for rulings to be applied consistently and objectively. We don't know for certain that a similar situation will never be reproduced because we don't even know what the rules are. Maybe next time, Windows Update lags someone's computer (who knows, that could have happened this time and it had nothing to do with KGS) and we're in a similar situation again because the rules only accommodated for KGS lag. I'm not saying that this is the best or only way to approach the situation, but I think it's a valid perspective.



Mateusz wrote, "Then, three players from the AGA pros team (William Gansheng Shi, Calvin Sun and Eric Lui) made an official protest - in their opinion I should lose by time. They wrote that the proctor's job is only to check if the player doesn't cheat."

That was not their general consensus (as Ryan/Gansheng stated in their statements) and they said nothing about the proctor's job (which Ryan/Gansheng also said). I'm not sure what else you're looking for.



Rumors and speculations are not excuses to make crude judgments and personal attacks. They should remain rumors and speculations and nothing more. Let's note that there is a difference between criticism (organizers should be more transparent and communicative), constructive opinions (I think abc should have happened for this reason), and flaming (xyz is a slimy disgrace and should be ashamed!). The first two are civil while the third is not.

I suppose such an outcome might be expected (I guess it's the nature of the Internet), but that doesn't make it appropriate. This is also why I said that effective communication is a difficult and overlooked skill. I agree that there wasn't much transparency or communication by the organizers, but that does not mean people should publicly flame them and other innocent parties.

The organization dropped the ball, pure and simple. This was something absolutely trivial that should have been handled in 20 minutes or less. Cases on the level with this, chess clocks breaking or timeouts occurring in online play happen at least daily in a Go Congress.

Since the organizers decided to take on the weight of 'who wins' instead of letting either the board position or existing rules and precedents cover it, they must also accept the responsibility that comes with that choice. However, I find it appalling that instead of acknowledging their mistakes and taking critique, the organizers are instead attacking the people offering the critique.

I mean seriously, some memes ridiculing the decision and people congratulating AGA on the "well-deserved win and show of sportsmanship" are not personal attacks, this is nothing compared to other international sports when judges make bad calls. Some level of public scrutiny should be expected and for that reason it is also reasonable to expect some level of professionalism in communication, commitment to sportsmanship and standards as well as fair play.

What we got, however, was a double standard -- the organizers are saying Surma should have figured out that a single prior lag spike must be reported or he would be punished, but on the other hand they are also saying that they should not be criticized because there was no way they could have seen lag being a serious problem. It's perfectly valid to call this out, especially since it effectively ended a winning streak in a major international tournament because of a rule that was invented on the spot. No one who appreciates Go can be satisfied with the result and the organizers need to accept this when they decide to call a game loss based on something outside the game.

Please stop repeating the lie that there were "personal attacks." There is critique against the decision and professionals, as public figures, sometimes will get negative public commentary as well. The organizers being unpaid volunteers does not excuse them of the responsibility they chose to bear or the bad choices they have made.

Edit: Added some emphasis because for some reason I'm having a hard time reading the font on the forum.

This is the first confirmation I've seen of what I suspected. The argument that resuming the game allows players to consult a friend/AI/calm down after the stress of byo-yomi would be much weaker if the referee was present as he/she should be. Or at the very least there should be a deputy referee present with the authority to make an interim ruling and instruct the players to continue the game there and then so that the result of "resume play immediately without a pause to ask AI" is available. The chief referee can then wake up 5 hours later and the players may appeal that the interim decision of the deputy referee was incorrect, at which point the chief referee can either accept the resumed game result or make another ruling*. The absence of a referee to make this call clearly disadvantaged Mateusz.

Also I think it's perfectly reasonable for a referee to judge the weight of the "pausing game lets you ask an AI" argument based on the board position. After all, if we are taking a lead from referee behaviour in Asia to be strict about time losses, referee decisions there have also been made about board positions. Indeed one of the main motivations for AGA / BGA rules is that referees in the West are often not strong players so we prefer the "players play it out on the board to resolve disputes" philosophy to "ask your 9p3k referee".

* IIRC this is what happened with the Dinerstein vs van Zeijst dispute at Tampere EGC. van Zeijst lost on time because his clock was silent. They resumed play at direction of referee/TD present and he won on the board, various appeals and counter-appeals to senior EGF referees bounced the result between them, can't remember who it ended up with.

This black PR will not be forget soon, i hope so. AGA is losing more and more respect. I dont want to wish anybody bad things, but karma always strikes back. Sometimes lag might be counted in years, but still punishment will be delivered.

Even I am not a noob in dealing with lag. Yesterday my opponent ran out of time on KGS, or so it seemed, to return later and continue with the clock suddenly going up again. I'm quite used to this. I asked my opponent "lag?" and was prepared to give more time.



I do.



I do.

I find the whole discussion here targeting the wrong people. There's one actor whom I'm not inclined to give some slack. It was perfectly possible for that party to gracefully get out of this, but they chose not to. So the opposite party gets out with grace and presumably with victory too.

Let's be clear. Nobody said it was the job of the referee to watch the game.

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Question: Do you not find it hypocritical that they are asking for slack and you are asking for slack for them when they themselves decided that no slack was to be given to Surma? Why should Surma have realized lag was a big thing when now the organizers are saying they could not have seen it coming?

Why do only some people get slack? Because we like them better?

A rematch is a worse decision if it must be applied consistently when "all else besides the board state being equal". Compare the impact on this game :

Resume "Surma timeout" / Resume "Lui timeout"
New game "Surma timeout" / New game "Lui timeout"


In my opinion, the correct ruling would have been to continue the game right away. The laging player signal it to the proctor, and give him his move, the proctor confirm the situation, the clock is restarted and the player play the announced move, That's how you get minimal disturbance.

This is flawed in many ways.

The ruling to resume the game is just as independent of the board position as the ruling to play a new game.

Also, the ruling should not focus on potential future cases but on the case at hand. The sensible thing to do is to restore the conditions such that the continuation resembles an uninterrupted continuation.

Future cases should be avoided by using better equipment and modified rules to take failing equipment into account.

Of the board position, yes, but not of the other external factors, such as the delay between the pausing of the game and the ruling being published. People seem to underestimate the 'but you've ruled X in the so-and-so's game' argument.

Absolutely agree, I don't see them moving forward with the next game without presenting official measures to prevent this from happening again.

I don't understand how can rematch be more independant from external factors.
If in a next game the guy far behind disconnect he san say"now its rematch"

Watching it is different than being available for refereeing. Obviously a referee in a tournament is not watching all the games. But he's readily available should any dispute arise.

I was reacting to "There was a consensus that the ruling should be objective, and thus be independent of the board position"

Of course the ruling cannot be independent of the external factors, since the ruling called for was precisely due to external factors, not due to the board position.

Conversely, if the referee was called in to rule a board position (say some weird superko beast) then you cannot ask the ruling to be independent of the board position.

The players were not at fault. They did nothing wrong. No need to give them slack.

Earlier I laid the most blame on the organizers. This mess is the result of their incompetence. Netlag was predictable, and they even talked about losing connection, but assumed that that would be no problem, since the player could simply reconnect to KGS. So they let KGS be the official timekeeper for the event. The referee consulted people who ran professional online go tournaments before making his final ruling. The organizers should have consulted such people while planning the event. They should have known that they did not know what they were doing.

But we have a ruling, and the organizers are working on new rules for the event, sadder but wiser, now. It is time to move on and support the event. It would be sad for this event to disappear because of recriminations and ill will.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Banana Republic. It's not just a store anymore.

Everything with love. Stay safe.