Handling of "no-result" game in a tournament?

[jug]

Hi,

assume there's a round-robin tournament with 5 players playing in one pool, so that each play with each other simultaneously (e.g. on a turn-based server). If you win a players gains 1 point, on jigo both players gain 0.5 points, a loss is no points. In the end the player with the most points wins the tournament (let's forget about tie-breakers for simplicity).

Then one game ends with "no-result" (let's assume the rules wouldn't prevent that). Now normally one solution is to let the game be replayed, but let's say this is not possible due to time-constraints of the tournament and you have to count this games somehow.

What would the fairest / best possibility to do that in relation to the possible point-situation of the other players?
... both players win/lose, or treat it as jigo, or give both players a win? ... or could you do something differently entirely in the tournament-setup?

Any thoughts ?

[RBerenguel]

I guess the only sane thing is either to choose between jigo (like in chess and zugzwang situations) or a loss for both players (since neither of them won... Of course, neither of them lost either)

[DrStraw]

I don't think there is really any choice. Nether player won, so neither deserves credit for a win. Neither player lost, no neither deserve credit for that either. Half a win each is the only rational outcome.

[moyoaji]

I thought "no result" matches (triple-ko, eternal life, etc.) were the modern-day equivalent to jigo since komi always has either a half-point attached or states that one player wins ties (Ing rules have 8 point komi where black wins ties, basically the same as 7.5 komi).

I understand that "no result" is not the same as a tie, but it seems about as close as you can get with modern rules.

[ez4u]

Hi,

assume there's a round-robin tournament with 5 players playing in one pool, so that each play with each other simultaneously (e.g. on a turn-based server). If you win a players gains 1 point, on jigo both players gain 0.5 points, a loss is no points. In the end the player with the most points wins the tournament (let's forget about tie-breakers for simplicity).

Then one game ends with "no-result" (let's assume the rules wouldn't prevent that). Now normally one solution is to let the game be replayed, but let's say this is not possible due to time-constraints of the tournament and you have to count this games somehow.

What would the fairest / best possibility to do that in relation to the possible point-situation of the other players?
... both players win/lose, or treat it as jigo, or give both players a win? ... or could you do something differently entirely in the tournament-setup?

Any thoughts ?

No-result is just what it says - no result. Your league is unfinished. Most of all, no-result is not a tie game. Of course you can get around the problem by suddenly declaring it a draw, but that smells a bit bad if you are imposing that decision on the players.

You do not have time to just replay the game. So what to do instead? One choice is to play a new game at a faster time control if the players are able to do so. That is what happened in last year's Ryusei-sen in Japan. When the finals ended in a triple ko, Yamashita and Kono Rin played a second game without the ten minutes of extra thinking time.

But before deciding anything it is worth asking, "So what?" Is the missing game going to decide the tournament? Is it going to affect prizes? Or is it just about bragging rights?

[RobertJasiek]

A tournament should specify the tournament rules for handling a No Result before the start of the tournament. Otherwise, some rather arbitrary decision needs to be made after an incident. Options are: treat like a jigo, replay (with possibly shorter times), interpret the tournament outcome with specifications how to evaluate No Result in relation to other game results. If a replay is chosen and the players create a series of arbitrarily many No Result games, then uh admit your failure as a tournament organiser.

[jug]

Well, the background for my question is, that I'm currently implementing round-robin/pooled-tournaments for the Dragon Go Server and wanted to explore what actions a tournament-director could need in cases like "no-result".
Setting Jigo or awarding no points to the players is easy to do.

However, replaying a game is much more difficult to incorporate ... I wonder how tournament-software out there is handling this?

On a turn-based server where games can take months, a replay may not be the best way, though it would be worth a thought adding at least some functionality to allow a "replay" by means of the regular game-interface and adding some extra-points/results manually (to keep it simple at first).
After all the outcome of a game with no-result is not such a common occurrence anyway. Has this happened in some live-tournament (some large McMahon for example) and if so, how was it handled?

Thanks for the input so far.

[Matti]

In the European Go Congress 2012 in a game I was careless and let my opponent to save his group by triple ko. I counted the the situation and decided that I can win without the it. I think if we would have finished the game as triple ko and no result, I would have been disappointed, if I had scored no points having played 5 hours.

Suppose you set a rule that no result is counted as jigo. This is reasonably fair. However, if this is announced in advance players might decide that thay want a jigo from their game and aim for no result. If you accept this, then everything works.

If you prefer the players to have a result, then you should make them play another game with shorter times. If games usually take months, I expect that the replay could be finished within a week, if players anticipate the rematch. If the players fail to play the rematch, then give points according to how good effort they made to play the game. The points should add up no more than one win, but may add up less. You might also state that no result from rematch give no points to players or possibly 1/4 point each.