Life In 19x19

In some games (happened about 2 times to me on KGS) my opponent resigns after counting the game, when I clicked on confirm, even if he is leading by about 15 pts. In such cases, I ask myself:

- if my opponent accidentially misclicked the wrong button with the mouse (rather unlikely...)
- or if he misred the numbers (very unlikely...)
- if he is sandbagging (unlikely because playing out the whole game seems rather cumbersome, then)
- or if he got bored by my play and wants to put some kind of pedagogical example on me

Around my level there are still plenty of games which I win by more than ~30 pts, and I have no problem at all with that. Also a 15pts loss is not always clear to see - especially in byoyomi - so sometimes I just play quickly the remaining endgames to see the count. Maybe, if I eventually would become a dan after a couple of more years ( ) I would try resigning earlier but at 5k level a +/- 20pts difference in counting feels quite usual to me(?). What is your opinion on that?

Sandbagging seems more likely to me.

I certainly don't think you're being rude in this case. You can even find pro games played to the end with nearly that difference.

Bottom line is, learn to count.

Here are two recent meijin league games with a 10 point gap:





I'm sure in these cases both players knew who had won the game, but I doubt Iyama Yuta thought his opponents were being rude.

No, it is not rude to play out a loss, unless you are playing slowly or playing it out would cost your opponent money. Sakata once played out a lost game because, as he put it, he wanted to see how costly his six mistakes in a row were.

If the result is not clear to you, then you are not actually playing out a ~15 point loss and it can't possibly be rude.

If the result is clear to you and there are no longer any contestible areas that might reverse the score, then IMHO you are being rude in that you are wasting your opponent's time. You are also being foolish in that you are wasting your own! Sometimes we see people write that they play such games out to the end in order to practice their yose. This is wrong. I had a game a couple of years ago against a guy who could give me three stones. I won by a few points and in the analysis I asked him whether he hadn't made a mistake in the yose at one point, losing a couple more points. His reply struck me as words to live by and has stuck with me ever since. He said that correct yose could not generate any chance to reverse the course of the game and therefore was wrong (his emphasis) even if it was a couple of points better. If you're no longer playing for a win, you are no longer playing Go.

Well depends on the game, if you are playing blitz, you could be losing by 100 points and still win on time.

tchan001 wrote:Well depends on the game, if you are playing blitz, you could be losing by 100 points and still win on time.

I have demonstrated time and again that my opponents still have the opportunity to turn the game around via the clock at almost any time setting, not just blitz!

Why are go players so obsessed with this fear of not resigning a lost game?

You should be thinking about ways to win, not spend your thinking time wondering when it's a good time to resign.

Both opponents agreed to play a game, they agreed to the time limits, there is nothing wrong with playing to the end. Resigning is a right but it's not an obligation. You resign once the game has reached a point where you feel you have been defeated and it's no longer fun to continue playing. Even if you're a bit behind, as long as you feel the game is still interesting why should you resign?

If your opponent is the type that gets bored easily when they feel they are ahead that's their problem not yours. They are still playing go (and winning), not mining coal it can't be that excruciatingly painful. Yes, there will always be a few people who are going to complain but they are clearly putting their own enjoyment ahead of yours, they are the ones being rude. Don't be afraid of them.

I'm not saying never resign, resign when you feel that resigning is the only thing you can do. But never resign a game out of fear of being rude.

Codexus wrote:Why are go players so obsessed with this fear of not resigning a lost game?

You should be thinking about ways to win, not spend your thinking time wondering when it's a good time to resign.

Both opponents agreed to play a game, they agreed to the time limits, there is nothing wrong with playing to the end. Resigning is a right but it's not an obligation. You resign once the game has reached a point where you feel you have been defeated and it's no longer fun to continue playing. Even if you're a bit behind, as long as you feel the game is still interesting why should you resign?

If your opponent is the type that gets bored easily when they feel they are ahead that's their problem not yours. They are still playing go (and winning), not mining coal it can't be that excruciatingly painful. Yes, there will always be a few people who are going to complain but they are clearly putting their own enjoyment ahead of yours, they are the ones being rude. Don't be afraid of them.

I'm not saying never resign, resign when you feel that resigning is the only thing you can do. But never resign a game out of fear of being rude.

I think this post shows a mentality completely opposite to the spirit of the game. That is the problem with almost everyone playing an anonymous person on the internet. If all your games were over the board I don't think you would feel this way - or at least I hope you would not.

Thanks for all of the controverse comments and thanks @emeraldemon for the interesting game examples (quite difficult for me to count ... )! I see that - as always in go - there is not an easy answer. An important idea is that I could try to improve my counting (which especially feels difficult when I play later in the evening and am already a bit tired).

To conclude with my personal feeling: If my opponent plays out the endgame even if behind by maybe ~20 pts, I would have no problem with that. I'm starting to get annoyed with opponents prolonging the game with obviously useless moves. The most extreme case was a game, which I was winning by more than 30 pts, however my opponent continued to play inside my territory until no legal move inside my territory was remaining at all. The subsequent counting procedure became cumbersome and error-prone since a large number of single dead stones had to be clicked (I'm not going to post this game, it is just a torture). That would probably not happen in an OTB game.

schawipp wrote:[..] I was winning by more than 30 pts, however my opponent continued to play inside my territory until no legal move inside my territory was remaining at all. The subsequent counting procedure became cumbersome and error-prone since a large number of single dead stones had to be clicked [..]

Well, this happens to me all the time OTB when I teach beginners and I even have to explain why their stones are dead. And often they want me to prove it, so … I tell them to play as they please and that I’d only place stones there in reply if I thought they were necessary, otherwise I’d just say “thank you” and either play elsewhere or, at the end of the game, pass. And thus, with beginners, these small skirmishes are often played out. Not really boring to me since I have to be aware in order not to miss vital moves, and sometimes those beginners catch me asleep I guess it’s small L&D and tesuji training for both sides.

DrStraw wrote:If all your games were over the board I don't think you would feel this way - or at least I hope you would not.

Over the board is a bit different. For one thing, people are usually more relaxed and I've never met the kind of impatient player that seems more obsessed about playing the largest possible number of games rather than enjoying the current one.

Also in real life, you get feedback from your opponent through body language and context. So if your opponent seems in a hurry, there is nothing wrong with resigning a casual game a bit early out of courtesy. But in my experience people enjoy playing the end of a game when they are a bit ahead and they were disappointed when I resigned too early. (At some point I even resigned a game right after a bad fuseki)

Now I think the correct time to resign should be when I know I have lost, not when I think I might be losing and I'm afraid I'm being rude. I believe it's my right to play until I'm convinced there is nothing in the game I can do anymore. So if I play a game trying to win until the end and it turns out the score was not really as close as I thought, have I committed such a terrible offense?

Why even play go if winning a game is such a drag that an opponent who doesn't resign early enough is considered that badly?

Yeah, I just hope that I come over like a dweeb rather than like an impolite person when I play stuff that I can’t yet recognize as impossible And I often add in chat that I can’t really count … have to take off my shoes to count to twenty <shrug>

I once saw a guy in a club play his first ever game of go. He played against a 4k and insisted on an even game...

Two hours later, the board was still mostly empty, all the black stones were completely dead and the guy took minutes on every move, thinking really hard and clearly not realizing the situation on the board. I left the club at that point so I don't know how long it took them to finish the game, probably a few more hours or at least until the club closed.

Next time someone doesn't resign a 15 pt loss just think how much worse it could get