EGF vs AGA pros win-and-continue match

[Kirby]

FWIW, lag has been an issue sometimes for first person shooter games, and different semantics are sometimes adopted. For example, you can give advantage to the shooter’s side so if that guy’s client says he got the opponent, it’s true. Or you can give advantage to the other guy so that if it doesn’t seem he was shot on his client, then he wasn’t. Or you can play with lag metrics on the server and have different rules.

This isn’t my field of expertise, so i don’t have all of the details, but i do recall there being various options you c an adopt to make rulings in the face of lag for these real time games.

If either client has priority then that opens up cheating so if that route would be here then rather than issues about lag you could easily have issues about cheating accusations. There's a reason why smart clients are discouraged heavily in favour of smart server.

Yup, I agree that adding rules to client makes cheating easier. Though, cheating is already possible on client side via computer assistance.

Anyway, what’s your idea for a smart server that addresses the lag problem?

[jeromie]

Anyway, what’s your idea for a smart server that addresses the lag problem?

It seems like you could easily have the client send a timestamp along with the move, not as a replacement for allowing the server time to be definitive, but as a way to offer the player feedback about the health of their connection. You could even quietly allow some very limited number of "grace" moves played late without affecting 99% of matches, and I don't think that's a policy that would be likely to be abused. I mean, it's certainly no worse than "pausing" a game by escaping and then immediately coming back to it to resume, and I don't think that I've ever had someone do that on KGS.

At the very least, if you recorded client vs server timestamp data a third party who had to make a decision about how to handle a claim of lag in an important match would have better data to do so.

[munster]

After doing some research, I believe Kim Myungwan's final decision, although unfair to Mateusz and not in the "spirit of the game", is in fact, the correct decision, given the difficulty of the situation and the details of what had transpired. I still believe that Eric should have come out to resign the game in order to save the tournament from controversy, but again, it may be an unfair burden to Eric.

I also want to reference the rules here from chess.com's speed chess tournament with a prize of 10000 USD, a tournament with similar stakes and where the time control is even more important:

"No mouseslips or takebacks. There will be no rulings made to allow for "mouseslips," "takebacks" or the reversal of any move or result that happens due to loss on time because of "lagging connections," disconnections or any other online-chess-specific glitches that may occur. The player is acknowledging to be comfortable with Chess.com's online board and piece play format, and guaranteeing his/her own stable connection.

Accidental draw offers, resignations, or losses by flag via disconnection will count and the result will not be reversed. Any game results incurred due to user error by the player with the Chess.com board, pieces, buttons, or any other part of the interface are final, including but not limited to draw offers, draw acceptance, resignations, premoves, autoqueen, accidental underpromotion, any and all mouseslips, accidental clicks, or accidentally losing on time. Players are responsible for being familiar with the Chess.com interface."

[Bill Spight]

After doing some research, I believe Kim Myungwan's final decision, although unfair to Mateusz and not in the "spirit of the game", is in fact, the correct decision, given the difficulty of the situation and the details of what had transpired. I still believe that Eric should have come out to resign the game in order to save the tournament from controversy, but again, it may be an unfair burden to Eric.

I also want to reference the rules here from chess.com's speed chess tournament with a prize of 10000 USD, a tournament with similar stakes and where the time control is even more important:

"No mouseslips or takebacks. There will be no rulings made to allow for "mouseslips," "takebacks" or the reversal of any move or result that happens due to loss on time because of "lagging connections," disconnections or any other online-chess-specific glitches that may occur. The player is acknowledging to be comfortable with Chess.com's online board and piece play format, and guaranteeing his/her own stable connection.

Accidental draw offers, resignations, or losses by flag via disconnection will count and the result will not be reversed. Any game results incurred due to user error by the player with the Chess.com board, pieces, buttons, or any other part of the interface are final, including but not limited to draw offers, draw acceptance, resignations, premoves, autoqueen, accidental underpromotion, any and all mouseslips, accidental clicks, or accidentally losing on time. Players are responsible for being familiar with the Chess.com interface."

Had the organizers written down such tournament rules or conditions of contest, there would have been no controversy. They are currently drafting at least temporary rules for the rest of this tournament, which should satisfy all concerned.

[Javaness2]

If you have to rule out a resumption because you were not there to administer it, then it is difficult to see how a referee could place the adjective correct in any subsequent decision they make.

[Bill Spight]

If you have to rule out a resumption because you were not there to administer it, then it is difficult to see how a referee could place the adjective correct in any subsequent decision they make.

Fortunately, that is not necessary.

[jlt]

In the menu File > Server stats, a "Response Time" is indicated. I wonder if its variations are slow enough to predict lag problems?

Capture.JPG (30.28 KiB) Viewed 8685 times

[Tryss]

I also want to reference the rules here from chess.com's speed chess tournament with a prize of 10000 USD, a tournament with similar stakes and where the time control is even more important:

Actually, that make much sense in the chess.com tournament, because a single match is played in 3 hours over ~30 games. That's it, a match has about the same duration than in our tournament, but each individual game is much (much) shorter.

And as you said, time control is much much more impactfull.

[jlt]

I notice the new rules have been posted on https://transatlanticgo.org/.

Next match is on Sunday!

Dispute Resolution:

(a) Proctors will serve as local referees. Myungwan remains as our Chief Referee. When players are on the last byo-yomi, local referees are required to observe players as they play. When a player notices a delay, the player communicates his last move to the local referee, and this move becomes a sealed move in the case of timeout. The local referee should instantly contact the organizers. The game is to continue as soon as possible with the sealed move.

(b) When the Chief Referee makes a decision, only the team captain of the AGA or the EGF team can make an official appeal (not individual players). An appeal should be in a written form and must include date, reasons, and any additional relevant factual information.

(c) When an official appeal is submitted, an appeal panel should be called and discuss the issue. Appeal panel shall be consist of four people (AGA and EGF each recommends two people for the panel). The members of the appeal panel are to be confirmed.

[quantumf]

and on OGS rather than KGS

[Javaness2]

I wonder what made them switch to OGS. I imagine it was the lag. Can players use the score estimator during the game.
On an important note though, it is good to see that they have updated the rules to something practical.

[Uberdude]

So they've decided to use the proctor/local referee to avoid lag causing a loss on time in the final byo-yomi period, but that lag can cause loss of prior byo-yomi periods. OGS has the following 'feature': when lag or potentially other issues prevent successful submission of your move a message pops up "Error Submitting Move". This blocks user interaction with the board so you cannot attempt to play again, even if your network connection has recovered. It used to be that the user had to then manually refresh the page, which for me would often take between 30 seconds and a minute (when playing on my phone, I think it reloads lots of heavy javascript libraries), but in the last year or so OGS has changed that after this error message it forces a page refresh. So if this "Error Submitting Move" detector is over eager it can easily cause loss of byo-yomi periods.

Also, the facebook post has a-d not a-c:

We have some changes starting from the next round on June 2:

- The games will be played on OGS instead of KGS
- New rules have been applied:

(a) Proctors will now serve as local referees. Myungwan Kim 9P remains as the Chief Referee. When players are on the last byo-yomi, local referees are required to observe players as they play. When a player notices a delay, the player communicates his last move to the local referee, and this move becomes a sealed move in the case of timeout. The local referee should instantly contact the organizers. The game is to continue as soon as possible with the sealed move.

(b) Players should make best efforts to ensure stable internet connection. Players should ask for help/advice to the organizing team prior to their games if there are concerns regarding technical issues.

(c) When the Chief Referee makes a decision, only the team captain of the AGA or the EGF team can make an official appeal (not individual players). An appeal should be in a written form and must include date, reasons, and any additional relevant factual information.

(d) When an official appeal is submitted, an appeal panel should be called and discuss the issue. Appeal panel shall be consist of four people (AGA and EGF each recommends two people for the panel). The members of the appeal panel are to be confirmed.

So if Ali tells them there is a non-zero possibility of lag what next? He should go play in his local university with a beefy connection instead of at home? Or simply stating this fact earns him more lenient treatment in the case of lag?

[Javaness2]

I have had the same annoying experience with OGS when it was having a major lag session. Refresh often just meant I saw a loss on time pop up. Recently it didn't see anything like that, so I kind of assumed that they had fixed that killer feature.

How will they handle the big issue of guests logging in with handles like AtariAtO5 ?

[Javaness2]

(b) Players should make best efforts to ensure stable internet connection. Players should ask for help/advice to the organizing team prior to their games if there are concerns regarding technical issues.

So if Ali tells them there is a non-zero possibility of lag what next? He should go play in his local university with a beefy connection instead of at home? Or simply stating this fact earns him more lenient treatment in the case of lag?

On reflection rule (b) does look a bit comical. Ali will presumably still be in Amsterdam for the match, let's hope the connection there is reasonable, and that he hasn't been on a bender after the tournament.

[jlt]

Also, the facebook post has a-d not a-c

Facebook a, c, d have become a, b, c on the website, while facebook b is in the "requirements" paragraph of the website.