I am one of the organizers of the Transatlantic Match, but this is NOT an official tournament statement. I am writing this with a heavy heart, as an individual Go player and a volunteer organizer.

I can't describe how hard this situation has become. I am shocked and horrified that some Go fans are making hateful messages/comments to some AGA pros, and I am sad that Mateusz lost his game due to something outside the game, that Myungwan's decision as a referee is not getting the respect it deserves, and that some fans consider this whole tournament has become a "joke".

I admit that we were very poorly prepared for this situation. We thought if internet connection is lost, the player would be able to reconnect and continue the game. We didn't discuss the possibility of this technical problem causing timeout. For this I really apologize as an organizer.

It took us over a week to come up with an official result, because the people involved were all over the globe, and we wanted to make sure everyone involved had a chance to speak out. As Mateusz explained, we had the first decision, but there was an appeal. We had the second decision, and we had an appeal again. The referee had to make the final call at this point. When the referee made the final decision, there was an appeal again. We discussed again, there were more consultations, and finally the referee didn't change the decision from there.

For the referee, his main goal was to "decide as other reputable professional tournaments would". Although we are nowhere close to the major professional tournaments level in terms of the budget or experience, he believed we should try to act like one. For this reason, he consulted other Go associations for their advice/experience, and then he also consulted people with a long experience of organizing major online Go tournaments with a big prize pool.

The reason why the decision changed every time was that each appeal came with new information. With the first appeal, he learned that Eric's proctor was not paying attention to Eric's moves because this part was not included in the proctor's written job description. The second appeal came with the information that Mateusz was aware of this technical issue from a previous game.

Personally I understand why Mateusz didn't report this issue to us. But, there were several things we could do to try to prevent this situation if we knew about this, and we couldn't do it because we had no clue.

Please please do not attack the AGA players. You can offer constructive feedback, but don't question their integrity or ethics. All they did was to ask the referee to reconsider the decision to continue the game. They each had decent reasons for the appeal, and all they wanted was to be heard of their opinions on this matter. I was once a professional player myself, and I do not believe making this appeal was in any way wrong. Suppose two professional players are playing in tournaments. One is clearly winning, but then presses the clock 1 second later than intended and lose on time. At this point, would you expect the other pro to resign because he/she was losing on the board? (this would be a noble act, but you can't blame one because they didn't make this choice)

Lastly, this tournament is being financed by the AGA and EGF without sponsors, with minimum budget. You probably all know that both organizations are non-profit and do not have much money like some other professional organizations. We have prize money (small for a professional standard), small payment for the commentators and proctors. That's it. All the organizers, like myself, are working on this event with absolutely no pay in our free time only because we love Go, we enjoying working with / for other Go players, and we believe this event can be exciting for the Western Go communities. In this environment, it's inevitable that you will find somethings missing and not quite up to the standard.

We are currently working on writing new rules that can cover this situation and potentially others. Thank you for your interests and support for this tournament, and I would really appreciate if you would be more understanding with what happened around the 4th game.

Oh, and welcome back to L19, Violence.

Personally I understand why Mateusz didn't report this issue to us. But, there were several things we could do to try to prevent this situation if we knew about this, and we couldn't do it because we had no clue.

My personal view is that maybe it’s a bit harsh to say the discussion is Mateusz’s responsibility to initiate. But it sure would have been a lot clearer if he had.

Please please do not attack the AGA players. You can offer constructive feedback, but don't question their integrity or ethics. All they did was to ask the referee to reconsider the decision to continue the game.

There seems to be a HUGE gap in (un)sportsmanship between
1: continuing a lost game where only outside disturbance can change the result, and
2: actively protesting a referee decision that tries to mitigate such outside disturbances

The whole thing seems to be a way to deflect responsibility for the debacle from the organisers with the insufficient rules to deal with a predictable problem of internet play onto one of the players.

A post from Hajin Lee:

I am one of the organizers of the Transatlantic Match, but this is NOT an official tournament statement. I am writing this with a heavy heart, as an individual Go player and a volunteer organizer.

I can't describe how hard this situation has become. I am shocked and horrified that some Go fans are making hateful messages/comments to some AGA pros, and I am sad that Mateusz lost his game due to something outside the game, that Myungwan's decision as a referee is not getting the respect it deserves, and that some fans consider this whole tournament has become a "joke".

I admit that we were very poorly prepared for this situation. We thought if internet connection is lost, the player would be able to reconnect and continue the game. We didn't discuss the possibility of this technical problem causing timeout. For this I really apologize as an organizer.

It took us over a week to come up with an official result, because the people involved were all over the globe, and we wanted to make sure everyone involved had a chance to speak out. As Mateusz explained, we had the first decision, but there was an appeal. We had the second decision, and we had an appeal again. The referee had to make the final call at this point. When the referee made the final decision, there was an appeal again. We discussed again, there were more consultations, and finally the referee didn't change the decision from there.

For the referee, his main goal was to "decide as other reputable professional tournaments would". Although we are nowhere close to the major professional tournaments level in terms of the budget or experience, he believed we should try to act like one. For this reason, he consulted other Go associations for their advice/experience, and then he also consulted people with a long experience of organizing major online Go tournaments with a big prize pool.

The reason why the decision changed every time was that each appeal came with new information.

With the first appeal, he learned that Eric's proctor was not paying attention to Eric's moves because this part was not included in the proctor's written job description. The second appeal came with the information that Mateusz was aware of this technical issue from a previous game.

Personally I understand why Mateusz didn't report this issue to us. But, there were several things we could do to try to prevent this situation if we knew about this, and we couldn't do it because we had no clue.

Please please do not attack the AGA players. You can offer constructive feedback, but don't question their integrity or ethics. All they did was to ask the referee to reconsider the decision to continue the game. They each had decent reasons for the appeal, and all they wanted was to be heard of their opinions on this matter. I was once a professional player myself, and I do not believe making this appeal was in any way wrong.

We are currently working on writing new rules that can cover this situation and potentially others.

You want regulation and bureaucracy? Because this is how you get regulation and bureaucracy!

On the situation with the Transatlantic match:

Mateusz lagged out on a sure win against Eric Lui in the 4th round. The referees then took a lot of time and came to the decision to award the win to Eric and team AGA.

I want to address some of the frquent complaints/questions I saw many people have:

“Why have a serious tournament online?”
There have been talks about having this tournament ever since EGF and AGA started their professional systems about 5 years ago. For years the organizations were trying to come up with the funds to have this tournament live in Iceland, but there was never a budget to fly the players and staff over there and still have anything left over for decent prize money. So finally, after 5 years it was decided to do what can be done and have the tournament online.

"Why the delay?"
I think the reason they chose to delay until now was that both team leaders (Hajin and Natalia) EGF and AGA presidents (Martin and Andy) and even the players themselves were all meeting in China for the IMSA tournament (AGA vs EGF was today BTW ). so with such a chance to have everyone discuss it together in person, they decided to delay.

We also need to recognize that the organizers are mostly volunteers and even though it's just online, this tournament still took a lot of work by them and ultimately their goal is just to support the Go community, even if mistakes like not having extra-clear rules for lag situations were made we need to be encouraging the organizers to hold more and better tournaments, not flame them.

Naming&Shaming AGA pros or referees is pointless, I cant say I understand AGA players’ appeal but I do know them personally and they are not dishonorable people, every go player who saw a clock dispute in a tournament knows that sometimes irrational things are said/done.

As for the decision,I would have liked to see a rematch, or even having both players lose, not because I think it's the most fair or logical, but because it would keep the least amount of people frustrated with the situation.
as for the decision which was taken, I don't agree with it and think its unfair, if I was in Mateusz's place I would probably react much more angrily, but it's important we don't miss the big picture and destroy the tournament over this incident, that's why our team will most probably not counter-appeal this decision, there are also discussions on making it up for Mateusz in terms of prize money.

TL;DR:
In future years this could evolve to be Europe/America’s Nongshim cup (hopefully moved to live games by then) or we could destroy it now over freaking KGS lag…
Well played 4 games Mateusz, the team will take care of the rest.

I am one of the organizers of the Transatlantic Match, but this is NOT an official tournament statement. I am writing this with a heavy heart...

The reason why the decision changed every time was that each appeal came with new information. With the first appeal, he learned that Eric's proctor was not paying attention to Eric's moves because this part was not included in the proctor's written job description.

Kim's final decision was akin to rulings made in other games and sports. I would not be surprised if he could point to similar rulings in professional go games. The onus on players is harsh for amateurs, but pro organizations hold their players to high standards.

i wonder why i thought go would be diffrent than football

The focus of my criticism was not the result "Eric wins on time", but the reasons given for it and the style/history of the announcement.

{snip}

Hajin's (personal, not offical) post included a welcome apology, the first I've seen. If the referee's decision had been more of a "Sorry to the players and the fans, we messed up by not being clear about lag beforehand, there's no good outcome, but we went for Eric time win, please forgive us and be nice to each other" then I expect it wouldn't have provoked such a reaction.

By comparing to other instances from pro play in Asia I would expect him to edge towards the "stricter" and less "forgiving and sportsmanship" decision

With the first appeal, he learned that Eric's proctor was not paying attention to Eric's moves because this part was not included in the proctor's written job description.

We also need to recognize that the organizers are mostly volunteers and even though it's just online, this tournament still took a lot of work by them and ultimately their goal is just to support the Go community, even if mistakes like not having extra-clear rules for lag situations were made we need to be encouraging the organizers to hold more and better tournaments, not flame them.

Why did AGA players appeal? I can understand that in case it was Eric who had a lag problem then he wouldn't be so lucky like Mateusz, because Eric's proctor was not paying attention to Eric's moves. So theoretically Eric would be in disadvantage.

But in reality Eric had no lag problems, only Mateusz had them. The organizers didn't foresee this problem, they didn't create rules solving lags, and this one unique situation had to be solved. Fortunately the proctor noticed when Mateusz tried to play. So the game could be resumed without any suspicion that Mateusz cheated.
I don't see the role of Eric's proctor here.

In other words, if Myungwan was in train of creation of rules that should be valid in future, and those rules included "if the proctor wants and has spare time, he can check whether KGS lags", and proctors of AGA didn't want to do this job, then AGA would be in disavantage and I would understand why AGA would protest against such rules. But this is not our case.