I found the result very baffling. The two games won by Byun Sangil 9p were fouled? I am not very convinced the rule about putting the pieces in the lid is reasonable. I think there should be a big asterisk next to Byun Sangil's win.

Here is a video of the incident that caused Ke Jie to lose the 2nd game due to forfeit: https://mpvideo.qpic.cn/0bc3p4aaiaaaz4aicbmqpjtva76dar7qabaa.f10002.mp4?dis_k=7bbb4f97577a1dfaa5968eaa9ee24658&dis_t=1737808120&play_scene=10120&auth_info=Avrz9OIFaVEb0LbvlRwjZF9IJnBgWGgbEW9PezcgHxAkZh5geAs0PnlHb0YDOzReVQ==&auth_key=ed5d61052abd8fa333964afcfc753d53&vid=wxv_3824070864127131649&format_id=10002&support_redirect=0&mmversion=false

And a chinese article of the incident in 3rd and last game: http://www.eweiqi.com/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=show&catid=77&id=35769.

If it was up to me, I order do a rematch starting from 0-0.

No single party (in this case the KBA) should have unchecked power to alter rules, especially when such changes fundamentally impact other parties. By that, I mean professionals using Chinese rules have developed a decades-long habit of not worrying about captured stones. This rule change discriminates against that group of players. It's akin to mandating that one must dine with a knife and fork, while punishing those using chopsticks.

I don't know what inspired the rule change, but there has been previous "form". In particular, in a Samsung Cup game in November, Ke Jie found an enemy stone in his bowl and assumed it was a prisoner, so he transferred it to his bowl. The referee realised it was a stray stone (a de-ishi as it is called in the Japanese rules) and removed it (without penalty). Rather than any fault by Ke Jie, we could argue that the organisers were at fault for not checking the bowls properly before the game. But at least it shows that Ke Jie knew where prisoners were supposed to go.

There have been other incidents where equipment such as clocks and mice has been faulty and these were settled by the compromise of replays (e.g. a couple of examples in the Nongshim Cup), so the principle of compromise is well established and possibly should have been invoked here (for reasons such as the one macelee has expounded - though all international tournaments already discriminate against large groups of players who routinely play under different rules).

My own view is that rules such as the one here were probably drawn up not to discriminate against anyone but simply to avoid arguments over cheating. However, in cases such as major title matches, cheating by messing around with prisoners is surely impossible. The games are televised and recorded, so the result can be independently verified in cases of doubt.

I suspect the rule was meant for preliminaries in tournaments where many games are not formally recorded. The Samsung Integrated Preliminary is a case in point, as there have been messy disputes there.

There was already a topic about this. https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=19570

I think I said there that the rules don't seem unreasonable. (I try to read what others write not what I wrote myself) In the rules there are things that the referee will give the players instructions about before any penalties, things were they will need to go directly to this two point penalty and then there are things that immediately forfeit the game. This thing about putting the stones in the lid is specifically in the category of things that get a two point penalty.

Even if it was in the other category it would still mean that doing it three times in the same game would forfeit that game. As far as I can tell there is no discretion for the referees to not give the penalty. Allowing the referees to not give penalties if they see some special circumstances would potentially help avoid acrimonious disputes but the Koreans must have had other problems in mind, when drafting these rules, that they thought of as being more important.

In the third game there was the special circumstance that Ke Jie did put the stones back himself. Maybe it can be argued that it is unfair to punish the player when they have corrected the error. It could be said that it is hard to see what the harm was. What seems more difficult, to me, is arguing that it is unfair to have to put the captured stones in the lid.

Let's have a look how damaging this new rule can be, even more so for a low level tournament

https://home.yikeweiqi.com/#/gonews/detail/75965?type=1

This article was written by Shao Guang, a veteran Chinese amateur player who participated in the preliminary tournament of the Blitz International Seniors Cup. I am translating the relevant portions below:

The tournament took place shortly after the controversial LG Cup incident. Out of habit, I would always return captured stones politely to my opponent. However, given the newly enforced rule and the high-pressure nature of a blitz tournament, I found myself feeling quite anxious.

Before the games began, the referees handed out a notice to all players. A photograph of the note read: “Captured stones must be kept on the lid.” I raised a question: What if the lid isn’t big enough to hold a large number of stones? The response was curt: “Ask the referee.”

In my first-round game, a ko fight broke out. After capturing a stone, I placed it beside the lid instead of on it. Within seconds, my opponent raised his hand and called for the referee. As a result, I was penalized two points.

Later in the game, another ko fight occurred. This time, I once again placed a captured stone by the side of the lid, but immediately realized my mistake and returned it to the lid. Unfortunately, my opponent had already called the referee again. The situation became tense. We had to communicate with broken English. The referee explained that captured stones must be placed on the lid without delay. Despite the awkwardness, we reached a conclusion: the game would continue, but I needed to strictly adhere to the rule moving forward.

My opponent, however, was visibly upset. In protest, he attempted to leave the playing area, but the referee managed to persuade him to stay.

I think we can all agree that some sort of rule is needed. Anyone who has played in an amateur tournament under territory rules will have encountered situations where your prisoners get mixed up with those of the person next to you - especially common when a left-hander sits next to a right-hander. There are also cases where the lid gets tipped over when a coffee cup is misplaced beside the board as a player gazes intently at the board. Even without that, it is very common to find stray stones on the floor, typically from a review session between rounds. People are apt to assume they have dropped prisoners and just retrieve them. And, let's admit it, there have been cheaters who bring in extra enemy stones and hide them behind the edge of the board. It's an abiding problem. In long-ago Edo times, poets wrote comical or sarcastic senryu about such situations. Even many centuries before that, possibly the first international game featured (probably mythically) a dispute between a Japanese player and a Chinese player in which the Japanese player was accused of swallowing a stone, and had to have his excrement examined to find the stone! (Maybe this is a rule we should re-introduce?)

Modern pros are also not exempt from making booboos, blurring rules, or even cheating (in all nationalities; see my book The Incident Room, for example).

But where there is always scope is in the framing or application of rules. So we can ask questions such as: why a 2-point penalty and not a 1-point penalty (or 5!)? Why not a penalty-free warning first? Why not seek international agreement first? And we can also make a case for allowing the players to make compromises or to show sportsmanship. Not all players will compromise or act in a sportsman-like way, but plenty will if given the opportunity.

I have in mind a case from 2020, in an online game, when a trailing mouse wire activated Sin Chin-seo's touchpad and made a false (and stupid) move. After some thought Sin decided not to appeal. Possibly this was because there had been a similar incident earlier in the same Nongshim Cup in which the Korean technology set-up was also at fault. But his opponent, Ke Jie (again!), was, as I recall it, distraught at winning the game in this manner, and wanted some sort of compromise, but the referees refused to allow a take-back.

Maybe there should be an over-riding rule that says referees are allowed to exercise discretion, especially where both players are willing. It might be noted in that connection that go referees seem not be trained or qualified in any way (unlike their chess counterparts). In Japan, at least, the usual practice has been for a referee to pass awkward cases up to the sponsor for guidance or, failing that, to the Nihon Ki-in. That does not guarantee a good or swift resolution but it can help in some cases.

There is referee training and certification in Korea but having certification might not be required to be a referee in a professional tournament.

Referee training is a good thing but maybe there is a chicken and egg problem if you expect the training and rules to differ in emphasis when it comes to what the role of the referee is and what are the problems being solved.

There does, after all, seem to be some interpretation that is needed.

The condition for the penalty in the rules is:
"사석을 통의 뚜껑에 보관하지 않는 경우"
which Google renders as
"If you do not store the stones in the lid of the container"

The original could be very different from the translation but, using the translation anyway, it would appear impromptu to rule that it is a violation simply if the captured stones were ever on the table. When it comes to a player being too slow to put the stones on the lid this seems to become a question of degree.

Possibly the only solution that is not open to endless interpretation is to require the player to make the move, remove captures and place the captured stones in the lid before pressing the clock. Which is not what was happening in the LG cup. A clearer condition, like this, would probably be much stricter in practice, but it could be easier to follow correctly.

What I read online is that earlier this year, there were a few cases where a Chinese player didn’t place some of their captured stones on the lid. Because of this, a Korean opponent mistakenly thought they were leading by X points. So, they played safer than they should have, and as a result, they ended up losing by 0.5 points (or something similar). The Korean players felt this was almost like cheating, so they protested, which led to the rule change.

I think something needs to be done, but the current rule and its implementation are really bad! Maybe they could instead display the number of captured stones on a digital screen or something similar.

Anyway, some people might get mad at this speculation... But I don’t find it impossible that Ke Jie thought he was losing the 3rd game and purposefully misplaced a captured stone in the last game to cause the situation. I mean... he was probably still furious about the second game, but losing the third game fair and square would make protesting look silly. So he saw a chance to highlight that the current rules are discriminatory towards Chinese players.. (Anyway. Just silly speculation. Don't get mad.)

I don't think there is a need for us to get mad over something like that.

Anything is possible like they say. However, I don't think there is really a remote chance that he did it on purpose What happened in the third game was that he did pick up the stones from the table and put them in the lid before anyone had raised it. I'm not going to check again right now but the stones were on the table for something like a 20 minutes and the referee didn't come until something like 10 minutes after he had put them in the lid himself. This is what I think is strangest about the whole thing, it is like they referees had either already seen this and not acted or only noticed after he corrected the mistake. Anyway, I don't think these events are consistent with someone doing this on purpose.

So far, we’ve only been addressing part of the issue. From my understanding, in the final game, Ke Jie wasn’t upset about the penalty rule itself but rather about the timing of the referee’s intervention. Someone has already mentioned that he corrected the error on his own.

There was no doubt that Byun held a significant lead on the board, both according to AI assessments and the perspective of experienced players. However, the game had reached a critical juncture: Byun was about to face a very difficult decision — either connect, risking the entire dragon's safety, or sacrifice half of the weaker group, which would make the game quite close.

Adding to the tension, Byun was under time pressure - Ke Jie has always been a quick player. He had about 1.5 hours left in this game while Byun had only 40 minutes or so left. Ke Jie was furious because the timing of the referee's intervention effectively gave Byan extra time to deliberate over this crucial decision.

There are also concerns about the referees' consistency in applying the new rule. The rule, introduced in early November 2024, has raised questions following the emergence of video evidence from several Samsung Cup games. In those games, multiple players violated the new rule but faced no penalties.

This isn't the first bad decision by a referee, and it won't be the last. Unfortunately in go, there is no governing body, and thus there is nobody you can turn to in order to get things sorted out. You can be sad about what happened, but in reality you should have expected something like this to happen.

Of course, even when you have governing bodies to manage regulation, it is no guarantee that things will be universally improved. There is an obvious danger that those in charge will draft rules to make things easier for themselves, and in the sister world of chess, we have seen FIDE introduce horrors like vertical castling through its carefully managed system. It's worth noting that chess has very precise rules about how certain things need to be done - castling , pawn promotion, claiming a draw , and those making a mistake with them receive no mercy, nor sympathy. Everyone accepts what happens because it is written.

The EGF currently has two commissions related to rules/refereeing. I'm not sure that the first('Main Task: to arrange new tournament system') does anything, I haven't been able to find any report on its work in any recent AGM's minutes. Whilst the second ('Task: to handle/define appeals process (as defined in the constitution)') is just an arbitration of last resort.

_________________
North Lecale

Although referees are in the line of fire here, we must remember that players have responsibilities, too.

I remember Takemiya saying that any player worth his salt didn't need to know how many prisoners were off the board. You just counted 2 points instead of 1 point for each point where a stone had been captured (with ko captures cancelling out) when doing a count of the board. Of course, young pros in Korea are brought up on a diet of fast games and so may not be as used to counting accurately as Japanese players.

Japanese players used to be trained to memorise games, too (mainly in the old teacher-pupil system when pupils would tour clubs with their teacher and play patrons - they had to be able to replay the game as part of the expected review.

There was a nice example I gave in Eminence Grise where Hashimoto, playing simultaneous games in Austria, inadvertently picked up some prisoners from an adjacent game when doing the final count-up. Pros don't normally count during simultaneous games, but are good at knowing who is ahead. He ended with a victory by 10 points and moved on. But his surprised opponent lodged a complaint (via the Ambassador), and so Hashimoto settled the problem by replaying the game from memory while keeping firm track of the prisoners. He had really won by 4 points.

But are pro memories good? In the early days of the Japan-China exchanges, games were not usually recorded at the time. Pros produced game records after the event from memory. But these game records as published in magazines in Japan and China often differed vastly in each country.

Here in Australia, most of our amateur tournaments are played with Japanese rules. Once in a while, an opponent used to Chinese counting will capture one of my stones and drop it in my bowl. I just take it out again and put it in their lid, they look momentarily embarrassed or confused, and then we get on with the rest of the game. No harm done. And no need for a referee to intervene after the mistake has been corrected. I don't think anyone is trying to cheat: they just do this on autopilot because they've done it thousands of times before. By all means have a rule spelling out the correct behaviour for tournaments with Japanese or Korean rules. But I'm struggling to see why such harsh penalties are needed.

And as for "mistakenly thought they were leading" --


I learned this fairly early in my go career. I just assumed everyone does it? (At least past a certain level, once you're strong enough for accurate counting to make a difference.)

Is the method really 100% accurate? I mean, do you know for sure whether you are winning by +1.5 or by +0.5?



For example, which ones are the points where stones were captured here?

Ps. I am not supporting the current rules. I think they are stupid. Especially the punishments. I just told you what were the reasons for why they were implemented (according to the internet elsewhere). Don't shoot the messenger etc.

If you followed the game, then you can tell where stones are buried. I am not confident that I can avoid off-by-one errors with that, though.

But at the end of the game, you can do button scoring: remember whether White passed first, then do area scoring, and if White passed first, add 1 to White's score.
This is in most cases equivalent to territory scoring (exceptions are clearly identifiable, e. g. one-sided dame in seki).

I used this in at least one tournament game where we found a stone that we were unsure was a captured one.

Anyway, I find the commotion about stones off the board a bad look. If you have a game record, you can score it. Game punishments for such trivialities is not the way to make Go seem more professional.

_________________
A good system naturally covers all corner cases without further effort.

But this completely misses the point. The issue is not whether we can determine the winner after the game is over, but whether seeing an incorrect count of captured stones during the game can mislead you into thinking you are ahead by X points, making you give up more points than you otherwise would during the rest of the game and thus possibly losing the game.

I guess the habit argument applies here as well: When you’ve played thousands of games trusting that the captured stones in your opponent’s lid reflect the correct count, it’s hard to suddenly realize that you shouldn’t trust something you’ve always relied on. It’s difficult to question something that has been so consistent for so long, let alone all the sudden switch to mentally tracking every single capture while you’re playing

In shogi, captured pieces have to be placed on a highly visible komadai beside the board, so the principle of expecting to be able to see "prisoners", even in go, is well entrenched in Japan - and Korean pro go has always been most influenced by Japan.

But there are problems in relying on this. What if there are too many prisoners in a lid to count visually? Six or seven is the usual limit to take in at a quick glance, so even a lid that is not overflowing can be problematic. If it is overflowing, are you allowed to take the lid and count the stones - risking a charge of filching a stone or two by sleight of hand? The rules don't say. And very few games outside of title matches are directly supervised by a referee.

The Japanese and Korean approach has always been to put the responsibilities on the players themselves, where the rules do not suffice. This is not ideal and tends to rely on non-go behaviour such as deferring to a senior.

This can fail, too, of course. In 2011, Han Zenki thought he had won by 0.5 in a game that was counted up to show a win for Kobayashi Koichi by 1.5. But out of politeness to a major player, Han did not ask for a recount. Still, he replayed the game when he got home and confirmed his win, so he lodged an appeal. The Nihon Ki-in refused it on the grounds that a result can't be changed once the players have agreed it and left the board. Even when Han pointed out the game had been broadcast on the internet and had many witnesses, he was refused.

In Europe, if there is a rule, it says something like "prisoners must be visible". Prisoners in the lid are as accepted as prisoners ordered well (e.g., as multiples of 10, AFAP) beneath the lid or board. (A few players like to form and constantly rearrange pyramids, but this is another topic.)

Such a combination of clarity and tolerance accomodates for both area and territory scoring occurences in European tournaments and players from all over the world.

I watched the relevant parts of the live feed again. This time there was automatic translation available, this helped me understand more about what happened in the third game.


When Ke Jie puts the first stone on the table it ends up close to the clock. He just puts it down right after pressing the clock.

The commentators were showing a variation as this happened and, after quickly finishing what they were saying, they go on to talk about the misplaced stone.

It is not long before the next stone is misplaced. This time it is simply pushed off the edge of the board.

The commentators continued to talk about the misplaced stones and all the related circumstances, then they said something about what was taking place in the room at this time.

What the commentators say (among other things) that may provide more insight:

1. There is referee training and certification in Korea that need to be renewed every single year. It appears to be suggested that the referee might risk losing his certification or be penalized in some way if he ignores the mistake.
2. The referee is already in conference with the players’ representatives.
3. That the referee has already communicated his decision to the representatives.
4. Yu Bin who is Ke Jie’s representative or CWA representative has protested.

When the game is finally suspended to communicate the penalty to the players it looks like it is left to Yu Bin to communicate with Ke Jie. Possibly there is a language barrier, but this kind of indirect communication is also something that is considered respectful and polite in China. Then there is what some have called an “outburst” by Ke Jie, which to me seems like a poor choice of words or an exaggeration.


Based on this and other information my conclusions are as follows:
1. The root of the problem is that Ke Jie makes the same mistake repeatedly despite heavy penalties.
2. There is nothing wrong with the rule that the players must put the stones in the lid. The penalties for not doing this aren’t different from the penalties for other errors that could be made.
3. It is still unclear why the referee consulted other people in the room instead of immediately stopping the game to give the penalty.
4. When the game was eventually stopped it is after the error was corrected and it is unclear why the penalty is still given.
5. It is possible that the referee had already communicated to the officials that he intended to give the penalty when the error was corrected.
6. It may have been possible for the referee not to give a penalty and instead rule that it isn’t his role to stop the game to give penalties after an error has been corrected if this error didn’t cause any problem and the player is making effort to follow the rules.
7. Arguments about the game having been stopped at a critical junction can go both ways. It could give Byun Sangil more time to think about his move but it is also the case that the prisoners went missing at a point when Byun Sangil needed to be precise about his chances in an endgame.

I think my ultimate conclusion is that this was more unfortunate than it was unfair.

My conclusions are undoubtedly contentious. I’m relying on machine translated rules but more importantly I don’t have the Korean perspective on why the rules are the way they are.

I’ll add a general observation. In international sports it is usually mandatory to have referees that are not from the countries that are competing. This (usually simple) step is often enough to avoid accusation that the referees favored one or the other side. Maybe this is something that should also be seen as being necessary in Go.