"...The AGA and EGF pros both have sat down and agreed that we would all prefer to have a rematch..."

I can support this. I'd like to see the organizers respect the players wishes.

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It must be clearly stated that lag even if can be foreseeable is sth beyond player control.Exactly same as earthquake, rain etc. Punishing player for things beyond his control is strongly against spirit of game.

For everybody who is OK with decision some similar situation to think:

Game between A and B, there is scorer who is noting game. Player A leaves table, player B is in last period of Byo-yomi and he made a move on board however when trying to press clock he is forcefully stoped by someone (C), then C leaves room and cant be caught. The clock stops indicating loss on time. Player A was outside room when incident occured but now got back and declare loss by B by time. B protest and call referee.Referee comes in, scorer and B who both noticed whole incident tells same story. Referee calls lost on time, cuz scorer job was not to observe if game is not interrupted by outside circumastances but just note game moves.

Also, several ppl commented that state on board should not be considered when delivering ruling.Lets assume that this principle stands.Suppose if in game Lui-Surma, it was Lui who had irreversable huge lead (and same as in real Surma lagged).How now looks decision to declare game void and rematch? AGA pros said that they are sure that rematch would be fair decision, but how the hell i am pretty sure in that situation they would protest strongly every other decision than Lui+time or resume game (maybe with additional time for someone)?

More - rules of match are not japanese rules of KGS server, but japanese rules (no mention if 1949 or 1989).Its clearly stated that KGS is only a venue, and nothing more.Frankly japanese 1989 rules says nothing about clock malfunctioning.But says sth about spirit of game, and mutual trust.Those rules had been severly broken.

Btw, if there will be blackout in one of players cities, i guess player will default cuz he should have engine+generator combo (or move to city with better electricity)?

That's why the initial ruling was not a loss by time. But I don't think it's as straightforward as you're suggesting.

I probably have less sympathy for Mateusz than the average person, mostly since he mentioned losing a byo-yomi period in an earlier game. While lag cannot be avoided, it can be mitigated. This is obvious to me, because I've tried playing KGS games at my parent's house in rural Michigan - it doesn't work.

Fact: It's much riskier for me to play a game there than at my home, where the lag is much less common.
Fact: Mateusz saw the risk of losing byo-yomi periods when it happened to him in his earlier game.

Had Mateusz brought up the lag issue and/or tried to play in an area with a better internet connection, was this situation preventable? This is the part where I have to resort to my own opinion - I think it probably was, and I know a lot of people think it probably wasn't.

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Did sides agree on any rules for this tournament, besides the very brief principles on the main tournament page?

An example:
EGF tournaments are based on EGF General Tournament Rules
These rules may be overruled by "Particular Tournament Rules", that are specific for a concrete tournament.
These rules include also "Rules of Play" (Ing rules, verbal European-Japanese rules...)

Are there any equivalents of EGF General Tournament Rules or Particular tournament rules determined for Transatlantic tournament?

Situation would be easily preventable if referee would be present during the game and tournament rules had anti-lag/crash/disruption policy.Basically if we assume its Surma fault (sth you are suggesting on many pages), the only option for EGF now is cancel match, because they are handicapped.

Also suggesting that Mateusz should play in area with better connctivity assumes that lag occured in Kazan or near.What if lag occured in NY server?Would that change your mind?

You try to suggest that its Matuesz job to prevent lag, but its not.Its organizers job, exactly same as provide functioning clock.

@k0n0
On event side only thing about rules is that they play under japanese rules with 6,5 komi.Nothing more.

Situation would be easily preventable if referee would be present during the game and tournament rules had anti-lag/crash/disruption policy.Basically if we assume its Surma fault (sth you are suggesting on many pages), the only option for EGF now is cancel match, because they are handicapped.

Also suggesting that Mateusz should play in area with better connctivity assumes that lag occured in Kazan or near.What if lag occured in NY server?Would that change your mind?

You try to suggest that its Matuesz job to prevent lag, but its not.Its organizers job, exactly same as provide functioning clock.

@k0n0
On event side only thing about rules is that they play under japanese rules with 6,5 komi.Nothing more.

This is an attack on the motives of the AGA team based on a hypothetical about what they would have done in a situation that didn't happen. You could make the same attack on the European team, with equal (i.e. zero) justification.

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Thats how the 3rd law of Newton works. Action is followed by reaction. There would be no case if they would not protest 1st ruling ( based on hypothetical assumption which does not occured). However they wanted to win at all cost, so they protested. That is justification - they showed will to win at all costs, so my reaction ( you call it attack which is plainly invalid) is fully justified.

Anyway i could rewrite my paragraph to this:
"Also, several ppl commented that state on board should not be considered when delivering ruling.Lets assume that this principle stands.Suppose if in game Lui-Surma, it was Lui who had irreversable huge lead (and same as in real Surma lagged).How now looks decision to declare game void and rematch? "

And this argument still stands.If we does not look at board when winning side lagged (or anything beyond his control interrupted game), we should not look at the board when losing side lagged.

The organizers made several mistakes:

• They chose KGS which counts time on the server's side
• They were aware of possible lags, but they didn't know a lag may cause kgs timeout (see post of Hajin Lee)
• They didn't determine any rules concerning lags

You are saying that Mateusz should anticipate organizers' mistakes, and that it was correct that organizers(!) penalized him for not to do it.
I don't think so. In Mateusz's situation it was very natural to suppose that there was no organizers' mistake. It was unlikely organizers would not know how kgs worked. Mateusz could easily suppose organizers wanted to remedy possible problems individually.

Yes, Mateusz could anticipate organizers' mistakes, and "better safe than sorry" is also valid here. He and other players should ask how lags would be solved, before the whole match started. I would load 10% share of the guilt to players, so in this case to both Mateusz and Eric. But this is not enough for any punishment IMHO.

(Also the analogy with a table clock doesn't work: if you get partially non-functional clocks, you know it was not intended by organizers but it was their mistake.)

I know, but there might be some rules that are not public.
You can see this tournament doesn't share too much information - see the dispute. Most information is revealed only unofficially.

I agree with AloneAgainstAll: so far the motives of the AGA team's appeal seem to be clear: to win at any costs (edit: not "any", better is "high costs" ).
I am respecting it, it is not sportmanlike, but it is an absolutely legal stance of very competitively oriented players:


I may be mistaken and I am ready to change my view. But so far I didn't read any logical reason for their appeal. It looks their appeal is based on rigid formalism and goes against common sense and sportsmanship.

(I don't say European players are less competitive. We don't know what they would do if sides were reversed)

edit: the motives of the AGA team's appeal

If we write and use simple rules, they should be used blindly.

If we want more precise decisions, we must examine all aspects.
Was Mateusz in need of time to calculate at this point? No. His failure to play is probably accidental.

What if at this point Lui was leading by 0,5 point?
Mateusz could try something in lower left corner to make ko, and possibly win some points.
In that case he would need more time to think of some possibility to interrupt opponent's lead.

-----

Overall, I think it would be better to have a referee who could make precedent decisions.
In reality, we are struggling even with ordinary rules, and precedent needs highly skilled referees, and entire referee system of appeal, none of which now exists...

The position of the AGA and its team members is not at all clear. At least one of them has said that 'all' pros - both AGA and EGF - were now in favor of a rematch.

Again, it is not clear: Surma said that three AGA pros protested for certain reasons, and in less than 24 hours an AGA organizer was posting that Surma's recollection was "mostly untrue".

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Nothing is clear about this situation because everyone is so heated about it. Outrage never leads to clarity and while you can't blame some people for it, you should most definitely not expect them to be clear about the matter.

I believe everyone is so heated because of lack of clarity/information/explanations.


edit: I meant "motives for the appeal". Explanation below
Yes. And the lack of information naturally implies speculations, then mistrust, finally anger. Then Hajin Lee is shocked and horrified, but she is guilty too, IMHO. She could reveal for example the text of the AGA appeal, but she didn't.

This is another reason why I say the organizers should be more open towards the public (Also Justin Teng should be more concrete.). I am afraid the case might end with an impression that either Mateusz Surma or Justin Teng are liars,
although most likely it was just misunderstanding.


The AGA appeal was about "we don't want to resume the game". I see no logical reason in this first appeal.

(I guess all AGA players prefer a rematch. I believe all AGA and EGF players are unhappy with the Myungwan's decision.)

But again, I have only partial information, unfortunately. This is why I said

I think TCP uses exponential backoff. Retransmissions occur e.g. after 0.75s, 1.5s, 3s, 6s.
If so, then a slight worsening of the connection can cause a large increase in delay.

As a third-party observer, it's not my right to speak for the players/organizers involved or leak information that they have communicated to each other in private. If they want to do so (as Hajin, Gansheng, and Ryan have), they can do so themselves. I don't believe Mateusz intentionally lied about anything, but rather it's more likely that he was just not told the complete picture to begin with (I don't know how the communication on his side happened). I can imagine it was a game of telephone where somewhere along the line the original message transformed into something else.

From my understanding though (now that Gansheng and Ryan themselves have spoken), the AGA appeal was primarily about the implications (precedent) of the initial decision rather than anything about the proctors' role (I don't know why that got spun into being the main argument of the appeal). There was a consensus that the ruling should be objective, and thus be independent of the board position (in terms of who is leading and by how much). Otherwise, where does one draw the line on which board positions can be adjudicated with a result and which can't? Of course in this case, it's obvious to most players what the end result would have been had the game continued, but it's difficult and subjective to make a ruling based on that that can be consistently applied to future cases (all else besides the board state being equal). Also to the point about the proctors, while it's evident (assuming the proctors are trusted) that Mateusz played a move before his time ran out, the time it took for the referee to make the initial decision to continue the game (due to not being available at the time of the game) disrupted the natural course of the game (as Gansheng said). Again, we know that in this case the board state was already pretty clear-cut, but in future cases it might not be and as I said before, it's difficult to make a consistent ruling based on that. People have also argued about sportsmanship, but as Ryan said, it's a competitive mind sport and rules are supposed to be in place to ease the burden on the player. Of course in the end, it's up to the referee that both teams agreed upon to make a final decision. Hopefully this brings some clarity to the information in Gansheng's email and the crux of the AGA appeal (although it is my own interpretation of it). In my opinion, it is in stark contrast to "they said I should lose by time because of this proctor role reason."

To me, the most disappointing outcome of this whole situation has been seeing how quickly people (regardless of affiliation) blitz to make crude judgments and personal attacks based on limited information without taking the time to patiently understand the whole picture first (perhaps that's unfortunately too much to expect in this day and age). I've always held the Go community in high esteem though, so it was heartbreaking to see. Of course the decision took way longer than it should have to be made, but the volunteers involved are not professional organizers or professional referees, they are Go enthusiasts who live across the globe doing what they can to enrich the Go community. Effective communication is a difficult skill that is often taken for granted. Oversights happen (I doubt Myungwan considered the implications of his first decision at all before making it), and we review them and improve for next time, just like we do with our Go.

I think the main conclusions that should be drawn from this whole situation are that detailed tournament rules should be in place from the beginning, and a referee should be present/on call while the game is in progress. As to what the rules about lag should be given the difference in internet quality around the globe, hopefully the organizers can come up with something reasonable because I have no idea. The EGF pros are clearly more well-practiced and in better condition than the AGA pros right now (but this match isn't over yet!), but I hope we will continue to have this tournament and see the development of both pro systems for years to come.

Well said. What we are seeing are the growing pains associated with a new Western professional system. Something unfortunate happened that wasn't planned for, but we need to move on. I don't think there was a good decision to be made here, although purely for the selfish reason of wanting an extra game I was hoping for a no result and rematch.

Like it or not, Western go is in large part Internet go. That's the easiest (often only) way for pros to meet on a regular basis without crippling costs. It's also the way that go fans are going to get to watch the games. That's particularly important to remember, because if we're ever going to have a self-sustaining professional go system those go fans are going to be the ones providing the financial support.

No doubt we'll start seeing discussions about the proper venue and technical support for such a tournament. That's correct and proper, and we'll all benefit in the long run.

Hmmm ... why the ruling should be applied to future cases?
1) Now we were in an unfortunate situation, that will never be reproduced: Organizers made mistakes (missing rules, choice of KGS that didn't manage lags as organizers expected ...). A special remedy measure was needed, which would rectify as much damage as possible.
2) For next rounds the tournament needs at least some basic rules about lags. But still these rules needn't be final. Online tournament go is a new concept and better rules may develop after more experience is accumulated.
3) Well thought and detailed rules may be prepared for next year.
Thank you for your reaction ... but still, could you be more concrete?
In past you wrote:
"What Mateusz wrote about the protest by the AGA pros (both their opinions and reasoning for the protest) is mostly untrue."
Could you explain what was true and what was untrue? I see you don't want to "leak" any private information, but all the information in Mateusz's post is public already.
Exactly. As an observer who has no direct contact with AGA/EGF pro players, in public area I see only monologues from both sides (monologue of Surma - monologue of 3rd-party observer Teng is a good example ) . These monologues indicate disagreement and discrepancies between teams/players. But among go fans they are transformed into rumors, speculations, exagerations ... then into "crude judgements and personal attacks".

Couldn't monologues in public area be replaced by dialogues in public area, which would explain things
a) reciprocally between teams
and simultaneously
b) to public
?

Monologues are good for politicians, and I hope go is not politics yet, but we are just friends with a common hobby/profession.

To me, this is a very expected outcome.
How long shall go public wait for the "whole picture"? The game Eric-Mateusz has been played 13 days ago. So far the only output is one brief verdict, no detailed explanation of the verdict, and some partial, mostly vague unofficial statements.
(For example the original wording of official appeals is unknown to public, except the content of the e-mail of William Gansheng Shi... Until now and your post above we weren't sure whether any detailed tournament rules were in place or not...)
People have no information, and so rumors, speculations, exaggerations take their place. This is natural.

Just one more note before I say good night. I feel like I have said too much in this thread, I also feel like I have not said enough. So to repeat myself:

Go is fortunate in that serious irregularities occur infrequently. It got along with professional players but no written rules for centuries. (!) Only on rare occasions did problems arise. One dispute (in a team event) arose in 1928, and took a number of weeks to resolve; the result was a peculiar ruling, perhaps because of the politics involved. But it took over 20 years for rules to be written. (!)

As a result, nobody, neither players, nor organizers, nor referees, has much experience with serious irregularities or knows exactly what to do about them. It seems like all three were unprepared in this case. In addition, it is an international team event, so politics is involved. So, yes, when everybody is a noob, it is going to take time to resolve the matter. It could have taken longer. Give people some slack.

The referee, before making his final decision, got input from the players and organizers, and consulted with people who have experience running professional online go tournaments. (IMHO, the "professional" makes a difference. They have different standards from amateurs.) He may have muddled through, because nobody had told him that the first thing to do is to ascertain what had happened, but in the end he made an impartial ruling in line with both basic principles and the conditions of contest. There may have been peculiar political rulings that would have been more satisfactory, but he ruled "by the book." Give him some slack.

The organizers, no longer noobs, are writing rules to take care of net lag and perhaps other problems that may arise. Yes, their inexperience led them to make a hash of things. Give them some slack.

This tournament is a good will event. Let's revive the good will.

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