Shake, rattle and rule

[Kirby]

Time limits are part of the game, and managing time is a dimension of skill in professional go - whether you are a disney fan, or not.

It's not like amateur go. Time, sleep, and general health are all legitimate aspects of professional go.

Getting a good night's rest before a big game is in the same category.

[kvasir]

Ehh... I don't know about that. For sake of comparison let's look at 2 forums that I frequent.

I fail to grasp the significance of this comparison. You can find many things that are much bigger than Go, especially something bigger than Go outside of Asia. There are also much bigger Go forums on facebook, redit and ogs if you prefer.

You have a screenshot of "Who is online" at the bottom of the front page and actually if you follow this every now and then over a few days or even weeks you will see a lot of recently registered users and lurkers. I think you will be surprised how many people scan the topics here every now and then.

I suppose "thriving" means growing much of the time but if I said an elderly person was thriving you would understand it to mean they are doing very well, I think.

[botija]

My take is that Yang Dinxin is a World-Class top player so being able to pull out an upset against him, even in byo-yomi, is a remarkable feat.Let's not forget that he got to a better position by using all his time. If the situation were reversed maybe Shin could have parried Yang's attack or even had it read out beforehand. On his prime Lee Changho pulled out dozens of half-point wins through his superior endgame. Is that any shame? Also, let's not forget that top players are also humans and can do things like taking the wrong ko with plenty of time on the clock. So, if we prefer human play to AI let's stick with human nature!

[CDavis7M]

Ehh... I don't know about that. For sake of comparison let's look at 2 forums that I frequent.

I fail to grasp the significance of this comparison.

You said "There is no "necrosis" or lack of "attendance" in this forum." I showed that there is a lack of attendance on this forum compared to a much lesser known game that has higher attendance. And the Wayback Machine shows that there is necrosis. So while it's a bit mean for someone to point it out, they aren't wrong.

You have a screenshot of "Who is online" at the bottom of the front page and actually if you follow this every now and then over a few days or even weeks you will see a lot of recently registered users and lurkers. I think you will be surprised how many people scan the topics here every now and then.

OK. But still less people than in years past.

[pajaro]

In my opinion, the clock is not part of the game. But it's part of the competition.

In the same position, in a casual situation, would he play the same move because he thought it was the best move? Or just expecting a mistake from your opponent?
Some people think that the result is everything and such tricks are ok. Fine.
Some other people think that the game should be played properly, doing your best and expecting also the best from your opponent. Fine too.

I don't follow only players who always win. I find other things valuable. I would find disgusting to see that a player I like wins because of a cheap trick.

Hamete vs. joseki, playing a forcing move as a sealed move, or an obvious ko threat... the rules say what moves are legal. What is legitimate, is another thing.

[John Fairbairn]

It's been interesting to see a range of opinions. It's been more or less what I expected. In particular, I would expect many people to be ambivalent about such questions (as I am).

My own view can be explained, in simplified form, by reference to the Age of Chivalry and the Age of Reason. Or gentleman and sportsman. In reality, both impulses co-exist, not just in time but within each of us - but in differing proportions, again over time and according to the individual. In some cases, one impulse is much stronger then the other. That can lead to problems. Personally I believe the extreme rationalists are much more dangerous - they start off at a wrong point and then follow the treadmill of logic to some doom-laden scenario. I don't want to follow that argument any further here. I just mention it as a way of explaining why I consider myself more drawn to the Age of Chivalry side of things.

Which side is prominent in each of us can be assessed (at least at parlour-game level) by a simple experiment to see how we react at moments of unexpected stress.

Try, for example, to put yourself in the position of Ke Jie when Sin Chin-seo made (was it?) a first-line move in the opening because a trailing mouse wire had accidentally activated his keyboard. From what I saw and read, Sin did not ask for a take-back (kudos for that, in my view). But more interesting to me was Ke's reaction. He was agitated and instinctively knew there was something wrong and unfair about this, but just didn't know what to do in these strange circumstances. My heart warmed to him. I would have been even happier if he had gentlemanly called for a take-back, but I can understand why he didn't, and he had already done enough to win my approval by showing his instinct was in the right place.

What would have been your instinct - gentleman or sportsman? I imagine this question comes up almost daily for many people here, especially if they play online. What do you do when your opponent asks to take his move back and it's obvious it's not a clicko? If you say yes, what do you do if he asks a second time?

My own reaction in the past has normally been to say, "OK, but just this once." But at the same time it may flash across my mind that he is not being gentlemanly and so doesn't deserve mercy. I am influenced by things like the opponent's prior behaviour, or what I had for lunch. In other words, I can be inconsistent, but essentially I am giving the answer I personally am most comfortable with, which in turn feeds off my own personal experiences.

That, I imagine, would apply just as much to Sin Chin-seo. If (pure speculation) he felt hard done by in the mouse incident against a top Chinese player, could that feed into prompting a particular response when playing another top Chinese player? If it did, I would empathise. Or did he feel it was Korea's reputation on the line, not just his own. The LG Cup is, after all, a Korean event.

I don't think there is any sort of clear right or wrong answer about these things, and I certainly don't know it if there is one. I was prompted in my thoughts, as it happens, by the book Kamakura, which I recently finished revising. In Game 1, Kitani collapsed with a nosebleed while under time pressure. Go Seigen appeared to show no concern and did not offer to postpone play. He was heavily criticised for his "heartless" behaviour, even by people he might consider his friends. In fact he just kept thinking in his own time, so that Kitani didn't lose on time, so he was not being entirely unresponsive. It was more that he didn't show concern. Was he just being manly? There was a war on and gushy emotions were certainly not normal in those days, even when war was not raging. Or was he perhaps influenced by Shusai's bad behaviour towards him by abusing the privilege of White taking time-outs (we know Go detested Shusai). No doubt there were a hundred other possible influences, possibly all wide of the mark?

But if you had been Go when this incident happened, what do you think you would have done in the heat of the moment? Gentleman or sportsman? I think I would have stopped the game at once, but wouldn't have considered myself a gentleman. I would have just regarded myself as a "normal" person. But that's with my own range of experiences, not Go's.

I think it's all tied up, in our brains, with regrettably a now topical question: if war was declared, would you join up or emigrate? The Vietnam question for a certain generation of Americans. I like to think I'd join up. On the other hand, when I was a student in Czechoslovakia, I was taught horse-riding by an ex-cavalry officer who was famous for having belonged to a squadron that had charged German tanks in WWII on horseback. I thought that was sheer lunacy. It was an extreme case where even the Age of Chivalry was just too dangerous!

[mumps]

I thought it used to be quite common when in Japanese 30/60 second byoyomi to play a forcing move or two so that you had enough time to count up the score accurately.

Is this not another example of using the clock as part of the game?

Jon

[Mike Novack]

John,how about precedent? This will show I have read some of your books, but wouldn't also the precedent of the ruling when both players reached an accommodation (outside the rules) that seemed fair and reasonable but were both declared to have lost? Wouldn't that precedent have been on their minds?

[John Fairbairn]

Mike, That never crossed my mind, but I can see where you are coming from. However, I think it unlikely because (a) Kitani didn’t ask for a postponement, (b) it was a Yomiuri match, not a NK one, and (c) a postponement was made in the middle of a later game when Go caught a cold.

[Polama]

Aesthetically, I prefer the sportsmanship mindset. "Two competitors met on the field of the goban and one exited victorious" is just a more pleasing narrative to my ear then "sure, so-and-so technically won, but they won in the incorrect manner! This other player is not at the top of the go world, but I think they're the best player around because they lose with class"

Which is not to say the small generosities can't be celebrated. But I prefer to view them as exceptional circumstances where the basic humanity involved shines through the facade of the game, rather than an obligation for players to meet.

I also like the view that games and sports at the top level are about striving to improve ourselves, and that the opponent is an adversary trying his hardest to demonstrate the flaws in your approach, whatever they are. Again, just aesthetics. There's a view that a game of go is fundamentally collaborative, that we're working together to find a beautiful path through these rules. I just find the former more interesting.

[kvasir]

Ehh... I don't know about that. For sake of comparison let's look at 2 forums that I frequent.

I fail to grasp the significance of this comparison.

You said "There is no "necrosis" or lack of "attendance" in this forum." I showed that there is a lack of attendance on this forum compared to a much lesser known game that has higher attendance. And the Wayback Machine shows that there is necrosis. So while it's a bit mean for someone to point it out, they aren't wrong.

Maybe there are many things, places and people you think is not "wrong" to describe as being infested with death in one way or other. You only have to make up your own mind if you think it is OK to go around in life telling people they are infested with death or not.

There is no arguing that there was sometimes more and sometimes less activity in the past. There are plenty of people here these days and you already know my view on constantly lamenting it is otherwise.

[Kirby]

"sure, so-and-so technically won, but they won in the incorrect manner!"

Tournaments have rules for a reason, and good rules should clearly indicate who won. Someone who wins accordingly wins in the "correct manner". If there is a problem with the method of winning, then the sponsor and/or organizers should consider making adjustments to the rules before the next tournament. A player who wins according to the rules is a player who won in the correct manner for that tournament. Maybe some go fans aren't happy about the particular ruleset and/or nuances that a tournament has; tournament sponsors and organizers can take that into consideration if they want their tournament to be popular among fans.

The Ke Jie vs. Shin Jinseo misclick is a good example. There is nothing dishonorable about Ke Jie not offering a take-back. The move was played, and it's up to the tournament organizers to consider what should happen for this scenario beforehand.

Some people are of a different opinion and are talking about being a "gentleman". Maybe this makes sense to amateurs - we play games for fun, and want to have a good feeling of mutual sportsmanship while we are playing. But professionals are in a different situation. Playing go is their job, and they're playing not only for themselves, but for those who support them, their families, and for the patriotic among them, for their countries. To sidestep the rules and give the opponent a better chance to win because of "sportsmanship" would be selfish. On the surface, it may seem like good sportsmanship. But in reality, they are disrespecting those who support them. In effect, they are doing their jobs poorly.

Yes, it's unfortunate when there seems to be a win that happens in an "incorrect manner". But this is a task for the tournament organizers to solve - not for professionals who are paid to compete and win for those who need and support them.

Amateurs have a different go life than professionals in this regard.

[gowan]

In Japanese go, when games might take more than one day to finish, the stronger player (white) had the privilege of determining when adjournment would happen. Apparently it occasionally (often?) happened that the player choosing the adjournment point would to give himself an advantage in analysing the position during the adjournment. I think Shusai, in particular, was accused of this. Wouldn't this be an example of using a time maneuver to benefit a player? FWIW I think Shusai was criticized for his behavior.

[Polama]

...But professionals are in a different situation. Playing go is their job, and they're playing not only for themselves, but for those who support them, their families, and for the patriotic among them, for their countries. To sidestep the rules and give the opponent a better chance to win because of "sportsmanship" would be selfish. On the surface, it may seem like good sportsmanship. But in reality, they are disrespecting those who support them. In effect, they are doing their jobs poorly...

Professional courtesies can exist within games. In the early era of professional baseball there were no called strikes: the pitcher threw the ball and you had three swings to make contact. Eventually people started taking 30 or 40 pitches, waiting until the pitcher was tired and happened to lob the perfect ball to hit. Stealing bases with a big lead is still sometimes looked askance at. It is considered sporting to not run up the score in American Football if you already have a mostly insurmountable lead. Flopping - feigning injury to draw a penalty - is highly besmirched in sports until it becomes so commonplace it seems quixotic to abstain.

It's like a prisoner's dilemma - if everyone offers take-backs to misclicks, it's just part of the game (even if the rule is unwritten). But eventually somebody starts declining (as is technically their prerogative), or asking for take-backs to any move they regret, and the culture shifts.

[Kirby]

Professional courtesies can exist within games.

In professional go, it's not just about that individual. As such, being lighthearted about the result is not a courtesy - it is disrespectful to those who are supporting you.

Besides - once you start being casual about who clicks where, who can have take-backs in byo-yomi, and the like... There's no solid line of who should actually be winning. That's what the rules are for. Amateur go can be more casual. Maybe western sports can be, too. But somehow, I don't think it's a coincidence that the example given is from the "early era". Being casual like that doesn't work for serious competition.