Quite contrarily, it is a purpose of their design to provide a last moment when removals are still possible, so that scoring can start at some time "without adjudication".



The "only" is very wrong. - A rule change was secondary. More important was to seek an official interpretation of the rules at all.

Let's just leave it, you obviously have no idea what I am talking about.

rule doesnt force them to resign but that doesnt justify playing meaningless moves to make the game longer.
it is not a rule but it is eetiquette to resign if there is no chance to win.

if your opponent fills his own territory at the last second of each buyomi... that is within the rule but it isnt right.

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

(The moves were not meaningless, but what you mean is probably: they did not increase the chances of winning in terms of positional judgement.)

(The etiquette is not generally shared, see the many server games with gigantic scores or such if there would not be resignation at the last second.)

Apart from these points, what you say is right. Like many players, I have gone through a development of finding an adjustment of personal balance of when to resign a hopeless game. Probably for a couple of years now, I would have resigned such a game. Not because of discussion about the dispute but because an increasing strategic understanding has led to an on average better insight allowing resignations with on average smaller positional judgement scores. However, PJ scores are only an indicator and not an important decision criterion. What matters for me is rather options, aji, strategic choices, expectations of still possible opposing mistakes and the implied winning probability. If it then happens that the probability drops below my threshold just a few moves before the end, then I still score the game because I find it ridiculous to resign only a few moments before the end.

In 2002, all these fine considerations were not so developed yet. Go has so much to learn, and resignation tuning was not an early years priority for me. So I calibrated it very slowly.

I agree with the thinking behind this, but intriguingly this and similar sentiments can be said to be both correct and incorrect. It is important to know why.

The Japanese rules in particular come with a preamble that is actually part of the rules. But even without a specific preamble, all Oriental rules as published come with an introduction explaining the intent of the rules. The Japanese 1989 rules, for example (though other rulesets are similar), begin with an explanation that these rules "must be applied on the basis of the good sense and mutual trust of the players". This is in the very first paragraph of the body of the rules and so cannot be ignored. It is the very first instruction (the first sentence simply says the rules were established by the Nihon Ki-in and Ki-in). You may fairly argue that "good sense" and "mutual trust" are not defined, but they are there, in first place, and so cannot be ignored.

Therefore, it can be said that silly actions such as filling in one's own territory without good cause go against the rules, i.e this preamble, because the preamble overrides everything else. Morality does not have to be called upon to support this. In that sense, the quote above could therefore be said to be technically incorrect. Of course, if you do call upon morality, in the very limited sense of applying commonly accepted norms of sportsmanship, then the statement is correct.

Now I may easily be wrong about this, because I am relying on memory, but the rules mavens usually ignore such preambles. Of course they have every right to produce their own rule sets that do not use a preamble, but if they are using, criticising or adapting rulesets that do have either such a preamble or a context that explains the spirit behind those specific rules, they are surely honour bound to acknowledge such (con)texts. To repeat, these (cont)texts can be fairly criticised, but they cannot be ignored.

Yet they often are, and not just by Jasiek.

If they are ignored by one player, as seems to be the case in the Mero-Jasiek game, that player, surely, is in effect inventing new rules on the fly. Which is of course unfair to the opponent. If the wording of a game-specific rule appears to be inconsistent with the preamble or context, all the player who spots the inconsistency can honourably do is to point it out. He cannot claim to win on the basis of this unilateral interpretation where the preamble or context gives sufficient grounds to suggest there was a higher intent. He cannot just ignore the preamble.

New readers may need to be reminded that Jasiek likes to repeat that he is a rules expert, but he does not read any of the Oriental languages and so he appears to be largely unfamiliar with the vast context created by Oriental writers who do write fairly extensively on rules themselves. I am presently able to see five books on rules on a bookshelf opposite me, and I have others somewhere else, and of course the number of articles on rules in magazines is enormous (there have been a lot, in particular, in Chinese over the past few years). I hasten to add that this does not mean that Jasiek's research and his criticisms of specific items are in any way worthless, but I do think it means that he should refrain from making unilateral rules changes that ignore this very large context. In my interpretation of the event, this is precisely what he did in his game with Mero. Even in the west there had been plenty of material to indicate that Ing was not primarily concerned with the issue this game threw up. His context was ignored.

This is not intended to attempt to prove that Jasiek's interpretation of the particular rule minus the context was wrong. It is just that there appear to be some new faces in this thread who may find it useful to know that there is indeed a wider context.

For the dispute in question, the preamble can be found here: http://files.usgo.org/usgo/interface/in ... index.html

The SST Laws of Wei-chi are based on four principles:

No special cases.
No restraints on placement of stones. (Suicide is legal, handicap stones can be placed anywhere.)
No endlessly repeating situations -- all games should have definite result.
Simplified counting.

I wonder if that year's EGF report to the Ing Foundation mentioned the dispute.

_________________
North Lecale

I believe this is a common sentiment, and one that's perfectly sporting.

_________________
Occupy Babel!

i also agree with robert on that
BUT..
one should try to win and create a chance to lose by resign.
i believe that is correct etiquette.

"creating a chance to resign" is very common phrase koreans use.

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

John,

1) There is a difference between denying existence of a preamble or similar context and their validity of application in specific tournaments. The EGF has and that time had tournament rules with the specification or implication that the EGF's tournament rules override those tournament rules contained in rulesets mixed of rules of play and of tournament rules. E.g., the Japanese 1989 Rules' rule $14 "Violation of the above rules causes immediate loss of the game" does NOT apply in EGF tournaments, which used and use a much more generous rule for, e.g., illegal moves. Under J1989, a recapture of a ko leads to an immediate loss. When J1989 Rules were still used in EGF tournaments, then recapture to a ko did NOT lead to an immediate loss (I would need to look up whether the EGF tournament rules at that time considered it a pass or whether the move was taken back and replaced by a legal move). The J1989 preamble is a tournament rule and was overridden by EGF tournament rules' sportsmanship concept.

2) I have never denied existence of preambles or contexts, but have tried to provide interpretations for them. Also see the other points.

3) For EGF tournaments and tournament rules, it was clarified several times that only Chapter 1 Rules of Competition with its articles 1 to 4 applied and that everything else of the Ing 1991 Rules booklet did not apply. In particular, my attempts to nevertheless use the remainder of the Ing 1991 Rules booklet and of various other Ing rules information sources at least as interpretation aids consistently met serious opposition around the time of the dispute. Maybe nowadays you consider it fine to warm up discussion again by trying to support my view of "at least used as interpretation aid" I tried to promote around the time of the dispute and also used as part of my justification during the dispute. But what nowadays seems to be a more easily accepted idea (judging from the quickly received amount of Likes of your post) was an idea of mine of that I could not convince relevant people around the time of the dispute. In public discussions around that time, my arguments in that direction were mostly criticised as yet more too strict fine print lawyerism. Well, it is nice that a decade later my attempts to convince people bear some fruits:)

4) A central part of Ing rules context is: a) the design CONTRARY to Japanese rules design with its exceptions and hypothetical status assessments, b) the intention of achieving "no adjudication", c) the good possibility of allowing players to resolve life and death by alternate play, approaching breaths and actually removing breathless stones, d) the concept that each game must come to an end. I have held up this context before, during and after the dispute and did so while about everybody else was DENYING its existence and / or validity in EGF tournaments.

5) A preamble such as the J1989 preamble, if we assume its validity for a tournament or if we use it for extended interpretation of the rules of play in the same text, can have a few different functions: a) sportsmanship [such as not filling one's two-eye-formation, which is always bad because the rules do not use superko until the game stop], b) [I guess] an expression "the rules writers were unable to create flawless rules, so be reasonable according to their most likely intention about any gaps or contradictions", c) the implied hypothetical analysis for status assessment is not described accurately by the rules of play, but one must apply it in the spirit of perfect play (determine dead stones as dead, alive stones as alive, not vice versa, etc.). - A problem with the preamble's interpretation is: The rules are very technical (ko-pass rule, in-seki condition etc.) and very strict (see §14), so the rules convey a very technical and strict interpretation, and the preamble's good spirit and will can as well be interpreted to support rather than to deny that kind of interpretation. I guess that you would like to prefer the "deny" kind, but we simply cannot know from the preamble itself. Therefore, the preamble gives no reliable hint on whether the rules of play are expected to be interpreted in a strict or relaxed manner.

6) It is all fine and well to point out Asian books about rules, but what the heck is their contents? Do they even come close to the Japanese 2003 Rules, the New Ko Rules and my ko research papers or are they way behind? Very likely, they are much better about Asian tournament rules; no surprise; much has not been translated to English yet.

7) That preambles come first in a text does not alter what I say.

8) Morality again? It is simpler to stick to sportsmanship.

9) As a consequence of other points above, I did not invent rules on the fly during the dispute. I had studied the rules booklet and other Ing rules context meticulously before. In particular, I did consider context while everybody else tended to deny it.

10) Asian language context was and is not available for interpretation by EGF players and abitration bodies because translation is missing. Even not every newer insight in English is used. E.g., I suggested to use Ing1996 instead of Ing1991, but this idea was rejected by the rules commission because the Ing1996 rules booklet was considered too rare (it was and still is).

11) Ing's context was NOT ignored in the West because I considered it, but, at that time, I was pretty much the only one to consider it carefully (Ing 1991 rules booklet) or at all (every other Ing rules related text). You can find dispute-related interpretations --- by me --- in the web.

12) Unfortunately, all that Ing context is as difficult to interpret as the rules themselves.

EDIT: minor corrections.

Sportsmanship is the application of morality to competitive sports. To talk about sportsmanship without talking about morality is nonsense, it is impossible to do so.

Before calling the referee I asked my opponent to move the stone back. After he refused I called the referee.

Some people mistakenly think that calling the referee is just an attempt to win the game in another way. For me to call a referee is to sort out a problem. It would be good to think of other solutions than just always declare one player as winner and the other as a loser. If my opponent violates the rules, but I don't think I have deserved a win, we both could be given a loss.

It is not the application because sports and games can involve some competition and fighting (e.g., boxing or warfare in wargames) that contradict plain application of morality. Instead of simply applying morality, extra assumptions (such as "fighting according to the rules is considered sportsmanlike") are made and then morality is re-evaluated in that context.



Talking about sportsmanship without talking about morality is a simplification, which makes discussion possible much more easily.

Your implication "unsportsmanlike, therefore amoral" is by far too general and misleading. Even an implication "declared unsportsmanlike and therefore having some dubious moral" would be an overinterpretation, because different referees judge differently to contrarily on whether some particular behaviour is sportsmanlike.

In your post neither in your link I found anything resembling the preambule mentioned by JF " rules must be applied on the basis of the good sense and mutual trust of the players" . So I am unsure such preambule was in force and hence what the relevance of your post and JF's post is to RF's dispute.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wjh/go/rules/SST.html

The preface starts with remarks such as "(1) there must be absolutely no special rulings" and "(1) Life and death of stones must be determined by removal". The rules summary says: "Breathless stones are removed. Life and death are determined by removal." Article 9: Conduct of the rules are more of the kind John has been looking for with the J1989 preamble, but did not apply during the dispute.

So it seems the dispute is solved. Thx, Robert.