EGF vs AGA pros win-and-continue match

[Aram]

Rather good then that apparantly two proctors at the location to monitor no cheating can confirm it was due to lag?

From my understanding, that was not their role in the tournament, their job was not to keep local time. If that's a role we would like them to have going forward, I do think that changing the rules and their role responsibility is a good idea, but for this situation, taking their word when timekeeping isn't their purpose doesn't seem, at least to me, like a good idea either.

I still would like to hear from the referee to get their reasoning as to why the decisions changed so many times, and why they came to this final decision, but my stance is still that if you want to accept player and eyewitness accounts to overturn the result of the game, that has to be written into policy first, not come up with as a solution when one player objects to the result.

Are you seriously suggesting you can not trust two individual persons whos job was to constantly monitor the game on-site to make sure that no cheating happened?
You do realize that to monitor the "no cheating with bots" they have to constantly watch the screen and as such would also be aware of time, specially since there was 10 seconds remaining...
You seriously think that the player played at 10 seconds and didnt say a single word or swearword when the move was not registering?

If you cant trust the two people monitoring the "no bot cheating" then throw all the results out of the window and cancel the tournament, since in that case you couldnt trust them on bot monitoring either...

[Joaz Banbeck]

...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.

Assuming that Surma's recollection is informed and accurate...

EDIT: *** I removed the rest of this post, because I'm starting to have doubts about the accuracy of Serma's post. It has been in the wild for 7+ hours, and neither the AGA nor the EGF has confirmed it.
There have been posts on other sites refuting parts of it. ***

[Javaness2]

From my understanding, that was not their role in the tournament, their job was not to keep local time. If that's a role we would like them to have going forward, I do think that changing the rules and their role responsibility is a good idea, but for this situation, taking their word when timekeeping isn't their purpose doesn't seem, at least to me, like a good idea either.

I still would like to hear from the referee to get their reasoning as to why the decisions changed so many times, and why they came to this final decision, but my stance is still that if you want to accept player and eyewitness accounts to overturn the result of the game, that has to be written into policy first, not come up with as a solution when one player objects to the result.

Yes, their role is not to check the time. They are though a trustworthy person who is there to attest that no cheating went on. When you have an incident, you generally get the opinion of both players, then find out if anybody else saw something. Here you have 2 witnesses who are supposedly reliable. It isn't a question of policy for me, it is a question of standard refereeing practice. Anyway... we have 1 side of the story from Facebook, we have to wait for the other side.

From reading Reddit I seem to have the impression that part of the refereeing team was absent at the crucial moment. That's sad +2. A protest from the NA side was perfectly natural. For me that big delay in making an initial decision only adds to the merit of choosing a rematch as the best solution.

[HKA]

Are you seriously suggesting you can not trust two individual persons whos job was to constantly monitor the game on-site to make sure that no cheating happened?
You do realize that to monitor the "no cheating with bots" they have to constantly watch the screen and as such would also be aware of time, specially since there was 10 seconds remaining...
You seriously think that the player played at 10 seconds and didnt say a single word or swearword when the move was not registering?

If you cant trust the two people monitoring the "no bot cheating" then throw all the results out of the window and cancel the tournament, since in that case you couldnt trust them on bot monitoring either...

I am not in any way disputing what Mr. Surma and his proctor, or proctors said. I can confirm that the proctor is not responsible for monitoring the clock, simply to prevent cheating and maintain communications with the broadcast team. It seems to me you could provide that function from the other side of the room. From a distance, without getting in the players space, you can make sure he is not looking at anything or cheating, but not be able to see his time remaining.

Now, that does not mean that Mr. Surma's proctor's did not see what they said they saw, but you are incorrect to maintain that you could not properly proctor the match without seeing Mr. Surma's clock.

[k0n0]

From my understanding, that was not their role in the tournament, their job was not to keep local time. If that's a role we would like them to have going forward, I do think that changing the rules and their role responsibility is a good idea, but for this situation, taking their word when timekeeping isn't their purpose doesn't seem, at least to me, like a good idea either.

It seems there were no rules regarding lags.
In case we are in a situation of a lack of rules, we are in a somewhat unfortunate situation. Therefore we should accept any provisional means, including any trustworthy witnesses.

(Still we are theoreticizing, we don't know what happened exactly and what kind of rules/agreements sides agreed on)

[Laman]

by the way, Mateusz venting his frustration on Facebook before an official statement is not the best style. but issuing a ruling frustrating players without an official statement is also not the best style. and i am afraid neither player is as much at fault as the organizing team did a rather poor job of resolving this issue (in terms of speed, clear reasoning and publicity)

[Joaz Banbeck]

...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.

Assuming that Surma's recollecion is informed and accurate...

What Mateusz wrote about the protest by the AGA pros (both their opinions and reasoning for the protest) is mostly untrue...

Another Redditor asks how he knows this, and Odnihs says that he knows several of the players.

[k0n0]

and i am afraid neither player is as much at fault as the organizing team did a rather poor job of resolving this issue (in terms of speed, clear reasoning and publicity)

IMHO the main fault of the organizing team was not to foresee problems with lags and not to create clear rules concerning lags.
Partially I would blame players too, for not to insist on these rules. (At least those players who knew kgs counted time at server side.)

[Knotwilg]

I apologize for using strong words when we have only partial information. I may be rushing to conclusions.

I am emotional about this, not because Mateusz is European, but because I sympathize with the essence of his cause, which is "I lost on time, while I played my move well within time limits, and apparently my opponent is okay with that"

I have played online, with lag and against people who were suffering from lag. If my opponent sends me a message "could you give me an extra minute please I'm suffering from lag" I do that without questioning. I'm assuming my opponent is of good faith.

If I happen to *know* my opponent and he's in trouble with his network connection, I'm even happier to give him more time. As much as he wants, as long as he doesn't have to worry about his connection and we can play a true game of Go.

So if I were part of this prestigious event and my opponent is a fellow Western professional, just happens to be an opponent because he's born on the old or new continent, I wouldn't want to have it otherwise than resuming the game where it went wrong for my unfortunate opponent, a fellow go player who went through the same hardships to pursue the same passion. And if I lost because he played better, I would be sad for my loss, but I'd feel great to be part of such a wonderful event and proud of my courtesy. And if I won because of internet lag, I would feel embarrassed and miserable and I would go to great lengths to restore the injustice. And even if it would turn out that my opponent had lied about it, I'd be disappointed in my opponent and mankind but still proud that I stuck to my code of honor, which is to trust people and give them the benefit of the doubt and win merits based on merits, not misfortune.

I feel and speak strongly about it, not because of Go, or - Go Seigen forbid - being European, but because my faith in humanity.

[Joaz Banbeck]

...if I won because of internet lag, I would feel embarrassed and miserable and I would go to great lengths to restore the injustice...

I agree with this, and I've been an AGA member for years.

Speaking of restoring injustice...I've known Andy Okun, the AGA president, for years, encountering him in both go and non-go situations. My gut feel about him is that he is an honorable man and he would agree with this also. I doubt that he will let the AGA accept a Lui victory.

[k0n0]

I apologize for using strong words when we have only partial information. I may be rushing to conclusions.

Please, stop it! Now, international go really doesn't need peace and friendship.

_____________________________________________
Let us look on this case more positively:
The appeal to CAS Lausanne might increase the knowledge about go in the world.
Of course, an ideal outcome of this affair would be an emergency special session of United Nations Security Council.

And all this depends also upon us: let's not placate ourselves.

[HKA]

Speaking of restoring injustice...I've known Andy Okun, the AGA president, for years, encountering him in both go and non-go situations. My gut feel about him is that he is an honorable man and he would agree with this also. I doubt that he will let the AGA accept a Lui victory.

I certainly agree with your assessment of Andy Okun. I would also point out that he is on the ground at the MindSports where this decision has been made. I suspect he was part of the discussion all along.

[Kirby]

I have played online, with lag and against people who were suffering from lag. If my opponent sends me a message "could you give me an extra minute please I'm suffering from lag" I do that without questioning. I'm assuming my opponent is of good faith.

Just out of curiosity, if you are the one lagging, do you insist that your opponent should add an extra minute to your clock?

I see your perspective, and sympathize with it. But I also think that it's only one side of the story.

[Kirby]

Here is the official statement I see on the Transatlantic Go Championship Facebook page:

Final Decision for the Round 4 of the Transatlantic Team Championship

After several days of intense discussions, Myungwan Kim 9P, the referee of the tournament has made a final call, announcing Eric Lui 1P has won the game on time. Two key facts on the matter were:

- Mateusz's proctor has witnessed Mateusz's efforts to make a move (clicking his mouse several times) starting 10 seconds before the timeout
- Mateusz was aware of the continuing several seconds' delay between his clicking on the client and his move appearing on the screen, during this game, and also in previous games

The options discussed were (a) to continue the game from where it stopped, (b) to have a re-match, and (c) to follow the tournament clock and announce timeout.

Myungwan Kim explains the main reasons for choosing option (c) are:
- The proctor's job did not include checking player's moves (they were only instructed to make sure the players do not use an AI tool during the game).
- Mateusz was aware of the technical issue for some time, but never reported the issue to the tournament organizers.

The next round of the Transatlantic Team Championship, between Eric Lui and Ali Jabarin will take place on May 26, from 14:00 US EDT or 20:00 CEST.

When I heard Mateusz's account, I was confused about the change of opinion from rematch to a loss by time. Based on what I read here, I suspect that this is the strongest reason for the change in ruling:

Mateusz was aware of the technical issue for some time, but never reported the issue to the tournament organizers.

Presumably, when Mateusz was contesting the repeal, it became clear that the repeated lag on his end was something that he knew about before it was game deciding - and maybe if it had been brought up prior to game #4, they could have worked together to come to a way to mitigate the lag problem (or maybe clarify what should happen in the case of lag).

I should be clear, I know nothing about the reasoning behind Myungwan's decision - I'm simply reading what was given on the FB page.

[Bill Spight]

Speaking of restoring injustice...I've known Andy Okun, the AGA president, for years, encountering him in both go and non-go situations. My gut feel about him is that he is an honorable man and he would agree with this also. I doubt that he will let the AGA accept a Lui victory.

I certainly agree with your assessment of Andy Okun. I would also point out that he is on the ground at the MindSports where this decision has been made. I suspect he was part of the discussion all along.

IMHO, it is best, given that there are two organizations involved, for them to leave the ruling to the impartial referee. Otherwise, even with the best intentions, not accepting a favorable ruling can lead to future discord. E.g., "Well, last time we did not accept an unfair ruling, so this time you shouldn't, either."