Life In 19x19

It wasn't even a misclick in that Shin's finger did not click the mouse when it was in the wrong place. He was using a wired external mouse with a laptop and the wire trailed over the keyboard and touchpad of the laptop which evidently did not have the tap to click feature disabled, so the wire movement on the touchpad registered as a click.

Shambolic organisation and refereeing.

One more reason why i absolute hate online tournaments even with absolute cheating control.

Online tournaments could be run a LOT more professionally than this. I work for a company which makes project management software. One of the features customers use a lot is the "Risk Register", which is basically a big table for each project where you enter things that could go wrong with the project, the probability of them happening (not exactly, usually just a 1-5 low to high scale), the impact if said bad thing happens (again usually just a rough 1-5 though sometimes more quantified), mitigation steps, whose job it is, mitigated probability/impact, manager sign off etc. Here's a few brainstormed entries for a risk register of a "let's hold a big international tournament online" project:
1. Power cut
2. Internet down
3. Wifi outage
4. Windows update during game
5. Mouse failure
6. Computer crash
7. Lag, leading to loss of byo-yomi period
8. Toilet break
9. Cheating with bot from on-person device
10. Cheating via signals from accomplice
11. Server downtime
12. Misclick from user error
13. Misclick from hardware error
14. Battery run out (e.g. wireless mouse)
15. Lag leading to loss of game
16. Technical failure e.g. internet connection lag from hack/DDOS from malign parties

Great list. The thing that went through my head yesterday was that talking to established esports figures would be a good idea. A big tournament like the Samsung Cup could probably afford to pay someone for a short "consulting" engagement, but smaller events and organizations could probably just talk to someone over virtual coffee and come away with a ton of ideas. I'd wager someone in that community has a blog post that runs through disabling tap to click, and a great many other things.

Do the organizers have no protocols for these kinds of situations? Or is it something like the player is responsible for their own hardware, which does not fall under the organizer's responsibility?

What a shame for both players—I'm sure Ke Jie didn't want to win like that.

Online tournaments have been a thing for awhile, but in the scope of things are still relatively new. I guess the coronavirus has aided in the increase of serious tournaments held over the Internet.

I'm confident organizational improvements will come. In the meantime, it's unfortunate that these types of incidents happen.

It's a pity that the move was not corrected, is this a contender for the most bizarre professional game record ever?

I believe this kind of situation in online games should be managed the same way as the dropping of a stone on board during in-person games. What are the rules for this kind of incident in professional tournaments in Asia?

In Europe I can see that the relevant provisions (https://www.eurogofed.org/egf/tourrules.htm) are:

2.Making a move A stone is played quickly as near as possible to its intended intersection. Once the stone touches the board, there should be minimal physical movement required to place the stone on its intended intersection, and then it should be released straightaway. Once the stone is played, any removal of the opponent's stones is carried out. A move is completed by pressing the clock with the same hand that played the move. Once the clock is pressed, the hand used must promptly be removed from the clock.

4: Position disturbance If the position is disturbed accidently, or if a position was recorded incorrectly during an adjournment, and the players cannot simply correct it, then the referee can apply the following procedures, in order:
correct the position.
continue with the position as is.
unwind the game to a previous agreed position.
award a loss to the player who disturbed the position.
cancel the game and start afresh with possibly reduced time limits.

In an online game some of them are not relevant (e.g. Once the stone is played, any removal of the opponent's stones is carried out. A move is completed by pressing the clock with the same hand that played the move. Once the clock is pressed, the hand used must promptly be removed from the clock.) Probably pressing the clock may be interpreted as "player validates his move".

I believe during today's game it should have been judged as "Position disturbance" and then the referee could have corrected the position.

In future important on-line games maybe a solution will be to introduce an additional "press the clock" step which will make it more similar with in-person play and should help with these contentious situations.

Lucian wrote: In future important on-line games maybe a solution will be to introduce an additional "press the clock" step which will make it more similar with in-person play and should help with these contentious situations.

I'd have them play on a real board with a real local clock, and another human (behind a screen wearing a mask if needed for covid) transmits their move to the server, and plays the opponent's move on the real board. This would eliminate many of the problems of online play around misclicks, lag and technical faults. Once the player has placed his stone and pressed his clock on time his job is done and he can't lose on time or otherwise be disadvantaged by technical problems. If there is a 10 second lag that just means both players get 10 extra seconds to think, much better than spoiling a game with a lag loss on time or misclick. The scribes would need to practice their important job to reduce chance of them making a mistake (and being a strong go player will help), but if they do other people watching will notice and correct, without either player losing.

Just coming to this thread and reading about another online tournament problem, let me thank Uberdude and Lucian for their brainstorming of what to consider! More reflection of possibilities and solutions will be necessary but yours is a good start.

Poor shin jinseo, losing by half point the second game. He had a good lead but he made a mistake with 210(better on the right of 210). Ke jie saw the mistake and after he played well. It was so close but it was too late. After the mouse-pad problem losing by 0.5 is painful.
Shin is still very busy with games coming, hope it will not affect his mind.
Fighting shin jinseo !!!

Ke Jie won Samsung Cup for the 4th time and 8th international title overall. It's really unfortunate what happened in game 1, but he still proved himself on the biggest stage again.

Ke jie played a very territorial game, it was very interesting ^^

It's not often you see stones captured in a cranes nest in a professional game. This was an interesting position where Shin made a slight mistake, according to my phone AI. There's some interesting pros and cons. Shin captured at a, which sets up a follow-up at b to reduce the corner. Bot prefers c, which means nlack can capture some stones on the side, which is not small and connects his groups, but means white gets extra thick in the centre. Judging which is better is a tough call now, but Ke Jie DID very nicely use the aji of escaping with the cranes nest stones to get some forcing moves in the centre which worked very nicely with making his centre group live later after he'd taken lots of territory.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O X . . |
$$ | . . . . X . . . . . . . . . O X X . . |
$$ | . . X , X O . . . , . . . . . O X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O X . . |
$$ | . . . . . O . . . . . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O X X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . . . |
$$ | . . X X . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . B O X O O . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O O X c . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . O O X X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | a X O O X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | O O X X O O . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X . X X O . . . , . . . O O O O . . |
$$ | . b . O X O . . . . . . X O X X X X . |
$$ | . . . . X . . . . . . . . X . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

The mouse-issue was unfortunate. In a way, it's good for Shin Jinseo to lose in the end, because maybe it could help lead to better preparation for these kinds of issues.

Anyway, we are still somewhat new to Internet tournaments, so hopefully they continue to improve.

It's nice to see Ke Jie still having some good results, too.

Kirby wrote:The mouse-issue was unfortunate. In a way, it's good for Shin Jinseo to lose in the end, because maybe it could help lead to better preparation for these kinds of issues.

We said this a few months ago with Park Junghwan's mouse problems and timeout in the Nongshim cup!