I came across a this in my last tournament. My opponent captured my seat. Was this illegal, could I have called the referee?
I had clearly marked it out as my seat before the game commenced, and when I returned from double checking the pairing, it had been captured.

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North Lecale

To claim the seat you have to play a stone there legally. Apparently you neglected to do that.

You might have distracted the player who captured the seat and taken it back. That could lead to ko, however.

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Is it legal to play a stone on the seat (chair), and if so, at which location can it be placed. Would you have a diagram?

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North Lecale

if you surround chairs with guards all four direction and penuki then your opponent can not play that chair.

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"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

Usually, a marked seat is respected by opponents. Sometimes, an opponent does not recognise a mark and puts also his own mark. There is no rule. In principle, you could call a referee, but... has anybody ever done that for a seat in tournaments other than those few with seats determined by the organisers?

The simple way to avoid this is to use area seating. This way any and all captured seats may be returned to their original owner without affecting the score. Territory seating leads to much more complicated dispute resolution. You could suggest using "pass chairs" where your opponent must give up a seat at the end of the game, however this has met criticism because it potentially requires white to bring an additional seat (causing space concerns at large tournaments).

if nothing gets resolved after 5 min, you should get help from Rober J.
He is known to be an expert in complicated go rules and will fight till he die.
only negative about that solution is that you will need additional chairs for the ppl watching that rare and amusing phenomenon.

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"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

I was wondering when the first personal attack will occur. Thanks for spoiling the fun I had in this thread until now... unbelievable...


On my last tournament I decided the first time to "mark" a seat with placing my coffee jar at the desired side of the table. This worked out fine but maybe the higher level meta-game players knew a neat tesuji for removing my jar threat.

Well, good players can estimate the relative values of the seat and jar with great precision. If they determine that the seat is bigger than the jar, they'll just ignore the jar threat and settle (on) the seat right away. This is called to "seattle". Proper reading (of the seat and jar's manufacturer labels) is crucial to avoid starting a seat fight that you cannot possibly win. It's a common beginner's mistake to start a seat fight with ridiculously small jars (typically smaller than 500 cc).