Life In 19x19

Before the EGF tournament rules were put in effect in 1989 the were some other tournament rules used. I remember that in some rule set timing out in byoyomi was considered as a pass. It felt as too easy to be implemented in the EGF rules.

However, can you think of ay case where a forced pass would be an appropriate penalty? It could be combined with a warning.

AGA rules touch on this with respect to illegal moves.

From https://www.usgo.org/aga-concise-rules-go: Illegal Moves: An illegal move is one violating the rules. If a player makes an illegal move, it shall be taken back, treated as a pass, and a pass stone exchanged.

Can be a very harsh penalty depending on when it happens. I've seen it happen in a US Open game where a small child just spaced out and made some illegal move - like taking a ko without playing a threat. His adult opponent chose to enforce the penalty.

(and you can think of a pass stone as a capture stone - it is part of the weird AGA counting process)

Clearly a pass instead of a played move could be as severe as loss of the game or it could have almost no effect. Severe if, in byoyomi a player rushes to play a move that saves a big group, preserving a small but iron-clad advantage in points, but plays the stone on an illegal point; no effect if the player timing out was 50 points behind on the board and all groups were alive.

Matti wrote:Before the EGF tournament rules were put in effect in 1989 the were some other tournament rules used. I remember that in some rule set timing out in byoyomi was considered as a pass. It felt as too easy to be implemented in the EGF rules.

However, can you think of ay case where a forced pass would be an appropriate penalty? It could be combined with a warning.

As gowan says, a forced pass can have various effects. Moi, I think it should be the most severe penalty for amateurs, except for ethics violations, which I trust are quite rare. However, a pass by the opponent immediately after a forced pass should not stop play or end the game. To avoid confusion call it a lost move instead of some kind of pass.

Bill Spight wrote:However, a pass by the opponent immediately after a forced pass should not stop play or end the game. To avoid confusion call it a lost move instead of some kind of pass.

I agree.

Bill Spight wrote:However, a pass by the opponent immediately after a forced pass should not stop play or end the game. To avoid confusion call it a lost move instead of some kind of pass.

I'm not sure that is needed. It seems better to have decent rules about resumption of stopped games as that is necessary in many other special cases as well. Having accidental two passes in a row should not have serious consequences.

Under Dutch rules:
Failure to move on time in byo-yomi is a forced pass.
An illegal move must be retracted, and another move played (if noticed within 3 moves).

In BGA (which are essentially AGA) rules an illegal move, if noticed immediately, is rewound and replaced with a pass. This happened in a game I played in the British Open a few years ago. During a huge middle game ko I made an illegal 0-liberty move as a ko threat (I hallucinated it was a 1-liberty self atari). After some discussion of what to do (that I would resign if pass and move, but that he could pass too and game continues as we don't agree on status for counting) it was undone and I had to pass, and my opponent chose to pass too rather than claiming the win. A fine display of sportsmanship by Dutch 5d Koen Pomstra .

http://britgo.org/files/rules/rulesofplay.pdf

HermanHiddema wrote:Under Dutch rules:
Failure to move on time in byo-yomi is a forced pass.

Does this also apply to Canadian byoyomi? If you have two stoes unplayed when your time runs out, does it make two passes?

Matti wrote: Does this also apply to Canadian byoyomi? If you have two stoes unplayed when your time runs out, does it make two passes?

Canadian is rarely if ever used, but theoretically yes. It would consist of a series of "failure to move on time" events.

In practice, as I've seen it, it is generally treated as a loss, because it allows the opponent to make their next move knowing a pass is coming, which is devastating in almost any position.

Do you use the Dutch rules in your national tournaments, but not in international ones?