Life In 19x19

Quick question: how can I disagree with the scoring? My opponent marked some of my alive groups as dead, and I only have "Done" "Pass" and "Resign" buttons?

I am black, and expected to win with some 150 points. Before scoring and after scoring attached.

Don't you just click on the stones in question to change their status?

I have had the same experience/question. If you click the toolbox at the bottom right, you get a menu. If you choose the "request undo" option when scoring, it will reset the scoring process. But this won't prevent your opponent from messing things up again. If so, then you can request that IGS admin score the game. That option is also in the menu accessed through the tool icons.

Final note, the IGS admin are super responsive in my experience with these sorts of questions. You can contact them through the main website.

Drew, thanks for the reply. Tried that but that only resulted in a non-sensical popup about not being able to add remove liberties (or so).

BlindGroup, thanks! Will try that next time. Would not have expected admins to be responsive ...

Just to let anyone with similar issues know:
- If your opponent keeps messing with scoring, reset it a few times (3?) and then report the game.
- If the scoring is reset five times, the game is a draw. At least this happened in one of my games.

Reported a game, and it took less than 24h to get my win. Opponent either lost a stone on that game or got penalised with loss of a stone.

Tapani wrote:- If the scoring is reset five times, the game is a draw. At least this happened in one of my games.

That's very good to know! Thanks!

It seems to be possible to misuse the let admins score the game too.

This happened to me the other day:

We were in the late endgame, me low on time (a few stones to play in seconds), so I play some stupid ko threats just to get ten more minutes to do a territory count, and contemplate my options.
Counting the territory indicated that my opponent appears to be winning with a few points. One of his groups has a big eye with some weaknesses, and some juicy looking spots to throw in a stone. I read out the alternatives, and decided to go for one of them.

So I play that move, to be met by a message that the game no longer exists.

My opponent has reported the game. Maybe s/he thought I was stalling, since counting the territory and reading out the options took 3-4 minutes.

The admins scored the game as a loss (which it probably was), and I inexplicably lost a stone of rating (actually half a stone, but going from 8k --> 9k+ feels like a lost stone ).

Did you try explaining this to the admins? If so, what did they say?

Tapani wrote:It seems to be possible to misuse the let admins score the game too.

This happened to me the other day:

We were in the late endgame, me low on time (a few stones to play in seconds), so I play some stupid ko threats just to get ten more minutes to do a territory count, and contemplate my options.
Counting the territory indicated that my opponent appears to be winning with a few points. One of his groups has a big eye with some weaknesses, and some juicy looking spots to throw in a stone. I read out the alternatives, and decided to go for one of them.

So I play that move, to be met by a message that the game no longer exists.

My opponent has reported the game. Maybe s/he thought I was stalling, since counting the territory and reading out the options took 3-4 minutes.

The admins scored the game as a loss (which it probably was), and I inexplicably lost a stone of rating (actually half a stone, but going from 8k --> 9k+ feels like a lost stone ).

I am aghast the the admins scored an unfinished game, where you had not escaped. It is worth raising cain about that, IMHO.

No I did not protest. Maybe it is a mal-adaptation to Asian culture.

The lost stone - I already ranked up again. Apart from that, I do not know what I would expect the admin to do. The game is probably lost for me. It cannot be resumed. Scoring it seems like the only option the admin has.


@Bill,

the game was almost over, on a first glance it looks like the game might only lack a few stones to be finished. The invasion I had in mind would not work (analysed it on a board afterwards). Maybe this was blatantly obvious to my opponent and the admin, but just not to me.

---------------------

And a side note about my (mis-?)understanding about Asian culture, why protesting would not always be useful. It can, at least around here, make things worse.

This type of cultural observations are interesting to me, hence I go on a longish pointless tangential explanation below .
So, no need to read further.

The over simplified explanation involves the concepts of face and peace.

1. In order to change the decision, someone has to admit wrongdoing. That person would lose face, and would rather be inclined to defend his/her decision in absurdum.

2. With correct play, the game is lost for me. Appealing would not change that.

3. The maybe less known concept of peace is also central to (at least) Chinese culture. For instance the central square of Beijing is called Tian-an-men square, the square of the gate to heavenly peace. Disturbing the peace is a great offense, maybe bigger than treating someone unfairly. By complaining I would be disturbing the peace and by default being a bad person. Possibly a worse person than an actual staller - and be deserving the punishment.

4. In my experience, Chinese people have less scruples about not telling the truth than people in west. To the point that people around here assume that everything is bullshit used to further an agenda. If I really was stalling (which I was not!), it would not be unexpected that I would also claim I was just reading/counting whatever. Hence that explanation from my side is not worth anything.

5. What should the admin do? The game is there in front of him. One player has (clearly?) won the game.

Thanks for the cultural background, Tapani. I had forgotten that IGS is now part of Pandanet.