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)

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I might be wrong, but probably not.

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

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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.)

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.

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.

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

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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.

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.

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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.

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




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:



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.

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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."

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I don't understand. How does "being aware of the issue" mean he should lose by timeout? It seems clear that he wanted to make a move on time. And he tried to make a move on time. But the client/server connection prevented him from making a move on time. That shouldn't be his fault.

Anyone who has ever played on KGS is aware of this issue.

I think to continue, or replay -- either one -- would have been the most fair.

My interpretation was that Mateusz understood a risk of timing out more than the average participant, perhaps, since he claims to have experienced similar lag in earlier games from the same tournament. Maybe it's the city he's playing from or his ISP or something similar - who knows?

In this case, he could have brought it up, and maybe they could have arranged for a lag rule or something before the next game, as would have been ideal.

This is actual aligned with the AGA tournament guidelines I posted earlier. See page 75 of this document:



In this scenario, it was initially unclear whether Mateusz was unaware of his "malfunctioning clock". But in his discussion with Myungwan, it became clear that he was having more of a problem with lag than usual. It seems consistent, according to this guideline, that he cannot "escape the consequences of running out of time by claiming a clock malfunction", given that he didn't bring it to the TD's attention as soon as he became aware of it.

Again, I haven't discussed this with Myungwan, but this seems like a possible explanation.

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be immersed

ok... if that's the guidelines they were playing under...then I can understand.

were the rules/guidelines for this event ever published (publicly)?

Earlier I mentioned that the guiding principle of rulings was to restore equity, if possible. There is a subsidiary principle, which on its face seems to go against that, and that is that players have a duty to protect themselves. Kim's decision is in line with that second principle.

Surma had noticed a problem with lag both in this game and in previous games. From his own account, in a previous game he had accepted the loss of a byoyomi period because of net lag. He could have called on the referee for relief at any time, both during and between games, but failed to do so.

The ruling seems harsh, and I sympathize with Surma. In the contentious arena of tournament bridge, players are aware of their duty to call the director when an irregularity occurs, but there are so few significant irregularities in go (netlag aside) that players are usually happily unaware of the tournament director or referee. The downside is that accepting irregularities can mean that you can't complain about them later. If you accept the loss of a byoyomi period because of netlag, why not accept the loss of a game? Everyone involved is a professional, which means that they are held to higher standards than amateurs.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

NO - sorry, I did not mean to make things more confusing. What I posted are NOT official rules for this tournament. They are AGA tournament guidelines, which seem to be one possible type of policy you could adopt.

The big problem with all of this is that there were not detailed guidelines or rules for the tournament. I'll repeat: the AGA guidelines that I posted are NOT for this tournament.

The reason I bring them up, is because by understanding existing rules and guidelines that are in effect for tournaments, we may have some insight into decisions a referee may make in the absence of more specific rules.

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be immersed

Because finally only game results are important
Mateusz wanted to win that game, and he probably thought accepting that loss of one period would be the best way towards his win (no distraction, no possibility the game would be annulled etc.)

But I agree with the rest of your post.

Now the organizers are aware of a lag problem in Kazan. What will happen if another player (e.g. Ilya Shikshin) plays from there?

Not only in Kazan. I hope now they are aware that a similar problem may arise anywhere and anytime, with lesser or higher probability.

Had he lost that game, he would have had no valid appeal, either. He took his chances. After the game, he could have raised the issue, but he did not. He took his chances in subsequent games, as well. Kim made a reasoned, principled judgement. When you are a pro, this is the kind of thing you have to live with.

I may have ruled differently, because I think that netlag is a known problem, and so I doubt if it was up to Surma to point it out.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

If you accept the loss of 40 cents from rounding, why not accept the loss of 400 dollars?

Maybe he just acted in the spirit of good sportmanship, trying to cope with the awkward conditions while he could. And to play a good game.