A Dispute Again

[RobertJasiek]

We settled the case of the result of the game

So which rules did you quote?

As has been said many times before, the rules commission did not provide explanation.

[Splatted]

@Herman: In the video, the referee that first judged the case quoted the rules as saying something along the lines of:

The game is over once all dead stones have been removed from the board.

He said that since it doesn't mention anything about the number of sequential passes, play should resume and continue until both players agree that all remaining stones are dead.

lemmataIn my opinion rules are here to ensure good games for everyone, not that a good game is any played according to the rules. I leave definition of a 'good game' opened.

I completely agree with this, but for some people a good game is a very competitive one, and I can't see why so many here can't seem to see that. You're not being sportsmanlike if you try and force others to adhere to your way of playing, you're just coming up with your own rules.

And to everyone who's saying that Robert should have explained things to his opponent when it became aparrant he didn't understand the rules: Why are you just criticizing one player? When one player is continuing to remove dead stones while the other passes, it must be pretty obvious to both players that they do not share the same understanding of the rules.

[RobertJasiek]

When one player is continuing to remove dead stones while the other passes, it must be pretty obvious to both players that they do not share the same understanding of the rules.

Not yet. The rules allow more than one way of removing stones, e.g., one player can remove, the other passes, when the one player has taken off the last interesting stone(s), then the other can start to play and remove. It became obvious (to me) only due to the executed third successive pass.

[Splatted]

Fair enough, but I expect it was obvious to your opponent.

[RobertJasiek]

My opponent seemed surprised when I hinted at my rules view after the 4th pass.

[lemmata]

as for pursuing any legal way to win, there come terms like sportsmanship or honour into play and i don't really know how to explain what they are and why i value them (even at expense of victory). in my opinion rules are here to ensure good games for everyone, not that a good game is any played according to the rules. i leave definition of a 'good game' opened.

For a friendly game at the local club, I would think that it is bad form to win by such disputes. However, the EGF is a more serious organization that serves a greater population.

Don't you think that it is extremely unfair to burden tournament players with the task of determining which legal lines of winning play are moral (and in the spirit of good sportsmanship) and which ones are contemptuous? Are some moves moral depending on the level of the participants involved? How do we decide that? Do you want to ask players to make such decisions on top of reading out variations? This is the burden that we will be imposing on players if we tell them that the morality of their legal moves will now be judged by the community at large.

[Ortho]

as for pursuing any legal way to win, there come terms like sportsmanship or honour into play and i don't really know how to explain what they are and why i value them (even at expense of victory). in my opinion rules are here to ensure good games for everyone, not that a good game is any played according to the rules. i leave definition of a 'good game' opened.

For a friendly game at the local club, I would think that it is bad form to win by such disputes. However, the EGF is a more serious organization that serves a greater population.

Don't you think that it is extremely unfair to burden tournament players with the task of determining which legal lines of winning play are moral (and in the spirit of good sportsmanship) and which ones are contemptuous? Are some moves moral depending on the level of the participants involved? How do we decide that? Do you want to ask players to make such decisions on top of reading out variations? This is the burden that we will be imposing on players if we tell them that the morality of their legal moves will now be judged by the community at large.

Do you feel that this kind of unfathomable burden is raised by the example that is being talked about in this thread?

[jts]

If you're a good sport, you never need to have second thoughts, because you wouldn't consider something dishonest in the first place.

[hyperpape]

It's a good thing most tournament venues prevent smoking already, otherwise our poor players might have the difficulty of deciding whether it's good sportsmanship to blow smoke in their opponents' faces (an old chess book actually recommended this as a way of gaining an advantage).

[Laman]

For a friendly game at the local club, I would think that it is bad form to win by such disputes. However, the EGF is a more serious organization that serves a greater population.

Don't you think that it is extremely unfair to burden tournament players with the task of determining which legal lines of winning play are moral (and in the spirit of good sportsmanship) and which ones are contemptuous? Are some moves moral depending on the level of the participants involved? How do we decide that? Do you want to ask players to make such decisions on top of reading out variations? This is the burden that we will be imposing on players if we tell them that the morality of their legal moves will now be judged by the community at large.

um, politeness is also a criterion in the evaluation function i judge my moves with. and even if you pose it as something new and undesirable, politeness of others' play influences my view of them. i can only guess i am not the only one thinking so.

just as i don't base my real life decisions on what is legal, but more on what i perceive right, i don't act at tournaments strictly according to the borders of the rules, but let myself be lead by a common sense. i realize that if everyone followed the same principle, not everyone would do what i would, and i can't persecute them for that, but i can dislike them if our values are too divergent

[Kirby]

This again?

[RobertJasiek]

wouldn't consider something dishonest in the first place.

Dishonesty was involved, but not by the persons involved in the dispute. Rather it was a cause why the dispute occurred: the pretence by politicians of understanding the rules bought for money and Ing playing material.

[Splatted]

My opponent seemed surprised when I hinted at my rules view after the 4th pass.

I'm sure he was surprised that you thought you'd won, but if he thought dead stones didn't need to be removed I would think he would have wondered why you were doing so. That's beside the point though; I'm not trying to assassinate his character, or even imply that he did anything wrong, I'm just saying that when both players are acting in a way that doesn't fit with the other's understanding of the rules, it seems unfair to say the responsibility for explaining those rules and avoiding a dispute lies with just one of them. Whether or not you actually did know in advance is a separate issue; I was just responding to the people that said it was your responsibility, and not your opponents, to explain the rules.

[lemmata]

Do you feel that this kind of unfathomable burden is raised by the example that is being talked about in this thread?

If we start judging the morality of various attempts to win by legal lines of play, then yes. There was a Korean Baduk League dispute not so long ago... Lee versus Hong Sungji. I forget Lee's full name. Lee was in byo-yomi and the timekeeper said "10" as Lee placed his stone. This meant that Lee had lost on time. There was a some silence and the timekeeper said that she made a mistake and said "10" too fast. She then asked the two players if they would be okay with continuing play. More silence. Assuming that the player's agreed to those terms, she started counting out loud Hong's byo-yomi time, at which point Hong asked for the game to be stopped and claimed that he had won on time. There was a big brouhaha over this. While the coaches for the two teams were conferring, Hong placed a stone on the board, after which Lee's coach said that this amounted to an acceptance of the offer to continue the game. After some more dispute, the game was continued and Hong lost. Hong and his coach lodged a complaint with the Hanguk Kiwon.

Lee was off by 1/10 of a second. Was it immoral for Hong to try to win because of 1/10 of a second? Do you think that it's fair to ask Hong to make that decision as his byo-yomi is counting down? What if the timekeeper did not say anything but Hong thought that Lee had lost on time? Is there a reasonable way for him to stop the clock and ask for some time to make this important decision? He may be accused of abusing the dispute to gain more time for himself. Is it fair to postpone all protests until the game is concluded? He may be accused of being a sore loser if he protests the result of a game he lost. By making moral judgments about trying to win by means described in the rules, I don't see how we are not putting such extra burdens on the players.

um, politeness is also a criterion in the evaluation function i judge my moves with. and even if you pose it as something new and undesirable, politeness of others' play influences my view of them. i can only guess i am not the only one thinking so.

just as i don't base my real life decisions on what is legal, but more on what i perceive right, i don't act at tournaments strictly according to the borders of the rules, but let myself be lead by a common sense. i realize that if everyone followed the same principle, not everyone would do what i would, and i can't persecute them for that, but i can dislike them if our values are too divergent

People who try to win within the rules are also doing what they think is right and polite. Common sense is a fairly strange thing in that everyone believes that their common sense is obvious but everyone has a different view of what is common sense. For example, there are many crazy people who believe that opening on tengen or playing mirror go is impolite.

That said, I don't mean to suggest that you are not allowed to have an opinion. Your opinion is certainly a valid one and I am very sympathetic to it from certain idealistic angles. It's worthy of debate. However, it also feels like Robert Jasiek is being singled out (once again), and that just doesn't sit well with my own moral views on ganging up on people.

[Kirby]

Is it possible that there's a reason he has the tendency of being "singled out"?