While I agree with Joaz on there being some penalty, his suggestion is a slippery sufficiency.

As applied to double digit kyu games, and people new to tournaments, the rule applied in this case makes sense.

As applied to two very strong veterans like this, I am not so sure.

Joaz's suggestion would keep Mr. Silt the winner in this instance.

The AGA rule of a 3 pt penalty would make the game pretty close - 2 or 3 pts I think, but Mr. Silt would still be ahead.

The problem with the loss of move penalty is that it would often be game ending, the equivalent of forfeit for many kos in the middle of the game - the ko is lost with NO compensation. Clearly in many instances, this would lead to lost games for what Joaz calls "honest mistakes".

The stronger the player, the less comfortable I am with no penalty, the weaker the players, the more I agree.

The AGA rule is somewhat arbitrary, but at least it is something - not game ending in a middle game major ko, a stinging slap in a tight endgame ko and almost undetectable by a double digit kyu player.

I certainly prefer this to Joaz's suggestion - where the impact of the rule varies widely with the game position.

EDIT Ok, so I appear to be talking nonsense. I just checked the AGA rule, in fact it is Joaz's suggestion +. An Illegal move is removed and treated as a pass (both moves if you play twice in a row) which results in an additional one point penalty for a pass stone.

I don't understand under this rule what happens in this case.

Player A takes ko directly without finding a threat, and it is considered a pass. Then what can player B do? Can he take ko back, which is illegal but will be considered another pass? and B again and A again?...If he can not, he will need to find a ko threat somewhere else? But then later player A can do this again, so player B is in an endless finding ko threat position?

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求而不得
舍而不能

OK you are right about everything, you can correct other people sentence by sentence, impressive!(not)

the biggest flaw in your long essay is that
how is Alex the only person who doesn't have sportsmanship?
tell me how do you know Ondrej is not deliberately cheating? According to your ridiculous theory

I believe that in this case, the illegal move is undone, so the ko is not actually taken, and White now has the opportunity to just fill the ko with impunity.

An illegal move registering as a pass MIGHT be game-ending, but at least it's not CERTAINLY game-ending.

Right now I see a lot of folks (softbanks I'm looking at you), referring to the asian ruleset.

There are two problems:

1) No one has actually linked to the asian ruleset, so everyone seems to be arguing with anecdotal evidence of it.

2) It doesn't matter what the asian ruleset is, both players agreed to play in a tournament under the European ruleset. The only thing that matters is how THAT ruleset governs illegal moves.



As far as the argument regarding the time, Does any ruleset make judgements based on the time remaining?

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

You don't know that Ondrej is not deliberately cheating, How can you?

But the odds that he WAS cheating are pretty small if you apply occam's razor.

Which is more likely?

1) He was frazzled by the time controls and made an illegal move without thinking it through?

2) He recognized that he wanted more time, which he'd get in a lengthy referee review and in the subsequent drama-fest.

Is 2) possible? Sure, if this situation happened a thousand times, I'd bet this was cheating in 100 cases.

But am I willing to punish the other 900 people who made an honest mistake? no, not really.

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

I'd be interested in this too, as in byo-yomi it becomes very relevant. In main time, I presume if a person takes 11 minutes of their remaining 17, and are asked to take back their move as it was illegal, they'll still have 6 minutes remaining - it's very unlikely either player will remember exactly what was left on the clock before the move. As a result, consistently, one would expect to see 1 second remaining if there was 1 second remaining at the point of playing the illegal move, in which case, as Alex says, the realistic outcome is that Ondrej would time out. Unfair perhaps, but leaving byo-yomi to the final second and then playing an illegal move makes it hard to protest too loudly. Understanding how timing should be handled in this situation seems rather important?

PS Shapenaji, "frazzled" by 1 minute byo-yomi - seriously?

hey there
you really look like a nice guy..finally someone that isnt saying "Alex is cheap bastard"

in this page, http://senseis.xmp.net/?Suicide
there is an example of forfeit by illegal move of Chohunhyun 9p

"A very unusual incident occurred in the first round of the 15th Korean Kiseong tournament (2003-10-02). Cho Hunhyun 9p was forced to lose a game (against Choi Cheolhan) because of an illegal move. You can see the game record at the time of the infraction at [ext] go4go. Cho obviously intended to take the ko at a in the lower left corner when he made an illegal one stone suicide play instead (on the lower edge). Such a mistake is extremely rare in professional tournaments. "

hence such rule do exist, im not sure if they had changed it though

I am OK with either automatic forfeit or loses his turn when a players plays a illegal move

but the EGC rule which is the move being taken back unconditionally is unreasonable..it's dumb

deleted by myself

I agree, the EGC rule is a bit too kind, and can create this kind of problem. I think that if a player makes an illegal move, the move is invalid and the turn passes. Seems simple.

That being said, this was the accepted rule. Given the drama that has resulted I think it might be worth petitioning the EGF to change this rule to prevent the possibility of using it to gain time. But I think that, in this case, the case is pretty clear given the laws on the books.

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

right on! I support you!
I'm not debating anymore I will just follow whatever you say..

So here we have an example in the Korean ruleset, the Chinese and Japanese rulesets are likely to be different though. (In fact, In the Chinese ruleset, I believe they ruled against a pair-go team playing under sudden-death who ran the chinese team out of time with random moves, showing that the Chinese at least are not willing to let a technicality get in the way of the game result)

I happen to believe both Alex and Ondrej were acting honorably,

I think Ondrej made a silly mistake, and the confusion with the rules created the problem.

If I see anyone at fault here, it's the referee who didn't know the rules for the tournament he was referee'ing. That's what created the problem, not Ondrej or Alex.

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

Nice! I support you!

In conclusion:

-Players were not at fault
-EGC should modify the rules in the future to a more strict manner
-To all Alex haters: I can't use swear words here..

Don't be childish.



I have, not once, accused Alex of unsportsmanlike behaviour. I think he acted honorably, and according to his understanding of the rules.



Ondrej was comfortably ahead, the ko was about 1 point, anyone who thinks that he deliberately made this illegal recapture needs to have their head examined.

@softbank

I wish you would stop attacking other people for what I said. And, for the record, I don't think Alex's appeal to the referees during the match was unsportsmanlike but rather his declaration after the match.

The EGF has clear tournament rules. They say that if an accidental illegal move is noticed within three moves, the game is rewound. Also, the clock may be adjusted (!).

So, it is correct to rewind the game, and the clock should be set so that Ondrej does not gain any time through this, and Alex does not lose any.

This kind of rule rests on the presumption that it is usually really an accident.

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

so, two wrongs do make a right?

Quote from EGF General Tournament Rules page:

there is no word "accidental" in it.