Life In 19x19

Amelia wrote:

If I knocked two stones out of my bowl somehow and they landed on the board they would not end the game

Yeah but it's easier to make that difference sitting in front of a real board face to face, than when there is a computer interface in the middle. What I was pointing at is that it's possible to cheat using the undo function. It may or may not be clear from context whether someone who asks for undo misclicked or changed his mind after seeing his move on the board. So I understand why some servers don't implement it and some players don't like it.

I agree completely but there are moves which can only be misclicks where there is little ambiguity which is what I think people get upset about. You'll often see "No Undos except obvious misclicks" up on KGS custom games, most people have no problem with undo in that context. You can't really use undo as implemented on KGS to cheat, I don't have to grant you an undo if I don't want to and it'll be your clock ticking down after I move not mine. You can harass a player over it but for instance on a server where there is no undo a custom might arise where if I make an obvious misclick you make an equally bad move and we get back to the game. One could easily imagine certain kinds of players harassing someone to do this where they'd made a bad read and tenuki'd or whatever.


I suppose, when I play someone at a certain handicap or even I want to play at that handicap or even, if someone made a gross misclick in the fuseki that put them at a serious disadvantage I'd be the one asking for them to undo it. I don't want to play a game and gain an advantage due to some technical glitch or bad luck on my opponent's side. Similar to how in a tournament I played last year my hands started shaking very badly due to the Lithium and I was having trouble placing a stone without disturbing the stones on the board, my opponent offered to freeze the clocks for a couple of minutes to give me a chance to recover. I've no idea if it would have been legal to do it, I refused anyway because it doesn't tend to stay that bad that long, so it wasn't an issue.

It is a bit ironic that the server doesn't implement undo, but enables score estimation and offline pre-play by default.

snorri wrote:It is a bit ironic that the server doesn't implement undo, but enables score estimation and offline pre-play by default.

Probably they have nothig against undo in principle. Just did not get implemented. Yes, pre-thingy is stupid

speedchase wrote:

Amelia wrote:The rules of go forbid undo, and they do it for a reason. They were not made for computers, true, but the reasons for forbidding undo do not disappear when playing on a computer. Which is why undo in any case should remain exceptional.

The rules of go forbid playing on a computer all together. You need a board and stones to play go, not just pixels. The purpose of playing on the computer is to play a game as close to go as possible, except over the internet. The game we play over the internet is most similar to go when we don't punish misclicks, but don't allow undo's for other mistakes.

Actually Tromp-Taylor rules only require a grid that can be colored! AGA is pretty close to that (it requires a grid and tokens).

Boidhre wrote:In the rules of go a move is a stone I place on the board in a legal position. If I knocked two stones out of my bowl somehow and they landed on the board they would not end the game, whereas if I placed two stones on the board it would (illegal move, forfeit the game etc).

Similarly, is dropping a stone on the board while attempt to make a move making a play, or is it "disrupting the board position"? If you consider it the latter, it is perfectly acceptable to restore the game to its previous state (making an undo).

Even then I think it's perfectly fine for go servers to acknowledge the differences that exist between online and offline play. I would find it quite odd if my opponent forfeited for accidentally clicking on the board during my turn.

Amusingly, I think one way to avoid this completely (that I'm sure many people would hate, but hey that's how it goes) would be to replicate a real life "feature" that is typically left out in online play: Punching a clock (or at least pressing a confirm button). Anyone can sympathize with misclicking, but both misclicking and still punching the clock is much harder to forgive.

snorri wrote:It is a bit ironic that the server doesn't implement undo, but enables score estimation and offline pre-play by default.

Indeed that's weird

Mef wrote:Actually Tromp-Taylor rules only require a grid that can be colored! AGA is pretty close to that (it requires a grid and tokens).

But I selected Japanese rules...