Life In 19x19

Maybe we can take a break from this to appreciate that both EGF and AGA pros are currently playing in the IMSA event in China, and Ryan Li just played a great game against Japanese Judan title holder Murukawa Daisuke, though unfortunately he stumbled at the end: viewtopic.php?p=243993#p243993.

I sympathize with Surma, because a loss on time was not the decision I'd have preferred.

I think it's also a poor choice to write a Facebook post before the official decision was announced, even assuming every word he wrote was true. It would have been appropriate to let there be a joint statement, or failing that, official statements from each team.

Uberdude wrote:Referee (in)decision: Mateusz lost on time

Mateusz Surma at https://www.facebook.com/mateusz.surma.77/posts/2278925745693456 wrote:Information about the 4th game... I lost by time. This is the final decision.

I haven't seen any official announcement of this yet, on the AGA page, the EGF page, or the tournament page.

It is quite possible that there is a language problem here. Or someone could have hacked/impersonated Surma.

I urge that everyone wait for an official announcement. ( There could be a fourth ruling )

HKA wrote:

Knotwilg wrote:We, amateurs, can take consolation in the fact that meeting obnoxious trolls online is not a privilege of mediocrity.

Your level of tolerance for bad behavior online must be far lower than mine.

Essentially, your position is that Eric Lui is an "obnoxious troll".

I missed that part of what Knotwilg said.

HKA wrote:

Knotwilg wrote:We, amateurs, can take consolation in the fact that meeting obnoxious trolls online is not a privilege of mediocrity.

Essentially, your position is that Eric Lui is an "obnoxious troll".

Cannot we agree that two players of good and unblemished standing and strong fighting spirit have been put in a truly unfortunate position?

I could, until I learnt the American team complained about the decision to resume the game where it was unfortunately stopped by conditions outside either control.

With "meeting obnoxious trolls online is not a privilege of mediocrity" I meant that, the experience of losing a game due to people taking advantage of deficiencies in the playing system, is apparently not restricted to us, amateurs. Whether Eric or Mateusz is the troll here, I leave for anyone to decide. Mateusz may have lied and actually carelessly lost on time, after which he tried to take advantage of the system to still get an undeserved win. Or Eric may have realized Mateusz was speaking the truth, but thought he could still squeeze a win out of the situation.

There is unfortunately no middle ground. Either Mateusz lied or he didn't.

Even if Mateusz is not lying, in the absence of a lag policy, it is subjective to assume this implies he won.

I really hope the referee didnt actually change his mind twice in a row, and in both cases to benefit the AGA (while also being connected to the aga and aga pro system if i havent misunderstood?).

First decision to restart play sounds logical and something that would happen in any pro tournament when outside circumstances outside the players control intervene.

Replay the game after AGA protest.. ok.. fine, i can understand. I dont agree, but i can understand.

And then directly changing the result to a EGF loss after an EGF protest.. what the ****?

How did that happen?


(And no, the player cant control how their packets are routed around the world.. thats not how the internet works)

Knotwilg wrote:There is unfortunately no middle ground. Either Mateusz lied or he didn't.

And when it comes to tournament policy, it is generally a poor decision to take a competitor at their word, especially to overturn a game result.

Violence wrote:

Knotwilg wrote:There is unfortunately no middle ground. Either Mateusz lied or he didn't.

And when it comes to tournament policy, it is generally a poor decision to take a competitor at their word, especially to overturn a game result.

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

Joaz Banbeck wrote:I urge that everyone wait for an official announcement.

dfan wrote:

Joaz Banbeck wrote:I urge that everyone wait for an official announcement.

There may be some lag.

Joaz Banbeck wrote:

dfan wrote:

Joaz Banbeck wrote:I urge that everyone wait for an official announcement.

There may be some lag.

And who knows, maybe we will also see some changes to the content of it later on.

Aram wrote: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.

One thing that Mateusz's post has brought us for sure is people jumping to conclusions and adding fuel to the fire by sharing gossip. A lot of people are saying how unprofessional it is for the referee to change his mind multiple times, but he has not made his mind up yet, otherwise we'd see evidence to the contrary coming from them in person. Judging from experience up until now, it seems that it's better to observe and wait rather than speculate; the latter helps nobody.

I agree that no one came out of this looking good, but there doesn't have to be a bad guy. Certainly not an obnoxious troll.