I’m not sure it makes sense to say that the staller is the person refusing to defend really. In your example white doesn’t need to defend until F11 is played, and it’s Japanese rules so one player could fill all the dame and it wouldn’t matter to the score.
Like if you want to break the current situation, that is three consecutive passes by the opponent you can, play the g15 atari, they will connect and you get to play the teire. Except you don’t want to play the atari, because you hope to trick the opponent
One can debate if they want whether you really expect the 4d to fall for it, or are you really just prolonging the game. (This is not said as a moderator of course, this is just speculation as a go player).
It’s probably unlucky in this game that you don’t just have some other ko threats you can play, some tigers mouth to throw a stone into, to break the three passes so you can play the dame you want to.
I understand this as well, and understand the point @frolag is mentioning.
Of course I had a similar situation in a correspondence game not long ago
where for a few moves white didn’t fix any aji in the upper left corner so I clamp atari, peep, and with mistakes probably from both sides I get a ko, which only really worked with the outside liberties filled. White resigned when they lost the ko.
I suppose it’s not exactly the same, because there’s still some small endgame to play also, but just an example of aji in corners that even a 1d opponent (in this case) can miss when the dame are filled.
Yeah personally I like to do this also in online games with Japanese rules. If I know I need to defend and there’s lots of dame to fill, I’ll just play the defensive move and if my opponent wants to fill dame that’s fine and if they don’t we don’t need to.
Also though I’ve blundered by filling in the wrong “dame” in a tournament (I’d lost on points anyway so it didn’t matter), so sometimes it’s just better to clean up the aji when there’s no point gaining moves left and you know you have to defend anyway.
Yep, it’s a good example for sure. And if I were in this position, I would have played until scoring.
However, I think @frolag is asking that games NEVER be ended by server decision before dame is filled. I am in favor of keeping pre-dame server decisions. If a game is decisively* over then I think it’s great that the person who is ahead now has the agency to finish the game.
* the three pass rule is a decent, if imperfect, proxy
But is a game decisively over if a player has no clue a protective play will still be required after dame are filled? I’d say no. And there is no way to find out if the player knows that, other than letting them play it.
Hmm, this discussion makes me wonder about 9 stone handicap games. Is passing 3 times all it takes now to win those as black? Or am I missing something?
Edit: I was missing something, there is a minimal move number involved.
Right, I’m not trying to argue the game frolag shared is decisive. I’ll trust the dans in this thread when they say it’s not decisive.
However, there are cases at my own level that I would be comfortable calling “decisive”, and I’m glad they can be finished before scoring now. A couple examples:
Even with the move limit there may be a problem with handicap games. In this one Tournament Game: Mingren Handicap Title Tournament 2019 (48045) R:2 (Sadaharu vs richyfourtytwo) I was still ahead by 53 points after 120 moves. I possibly could have afforded to give my opponent 2 free moves and still have a theoretically winning position. (Not 100% sure, but I’m sure we could find such games.)
I agree with richfourtytwo’s “checking if the pass move lost a point with chinese rules” suggestion.
I also think the “99% sure that one of the players has won” should have to be the same player for
each of the up-to-3 board colorings and each of the 2 possibilities for who’s turn it is .
handicap games are often won in endgame, so this minimal move limit is surely not enough measure.
So, if this new anti-stalling feature works in handicap: right now a lot of handicap games going to have very incorrect result. @anoek !
Note that in addition to handling the teire that requires removing several
liberties to force issue, the checking if the pass move lost a point with
Chinese rules suggestion would also handle the handicap games issue.
I don’t think it’s considered normal, but it seems to be a consequence of the new system which is currently under discussion.
My feeling is that there’s quite a lot of mid game situations where even if you’re behind by 20 points your opponent probably can’t afford to pass 3 times, there’s probably going to be sizeable endgame moves or ataris where they’re shooting themselves in the foot and they probably won’t stay at 99.7%.
But I guess if you’re 50+ points ahead maybe you can get away with three passes.
Again I’m not sure it’s being said it should be normalised just that it seems to be a current consequence of the implementation.
I think a good definition of stalling is “playing a move when there is no valuable move on the board to pointlessly prolong the game from being scored” so comparing to pass in Chinese rules should detect that. This could be a move in your opponent’s territory that either they need to answer (so they do and no change in score in Japanese rules), or is so bad death-in-gote they can pass (lose 1 point, but as your goal is being annoying you don’t mind), or a move inside your territory (minus 1 point).
With that definition of stalling, I can get behind an anti-stalling system with AI adjudication. Problem is the current one is an anti-not-resigning-when-you-are-behind system, and there’s plenty of situations that is a perfectly decent thing to do. So I am against it. Indeed in frolag’s case if you were to score the board at that state following Japanese rules strictly the dame would mean loads of stones are in seki.
I agree, but it’s just “pass three times in a row”, not “pass three times in a row with your eyes closed”. If your opponent plays an atari or a sente move you can answer. Only when you believe they will play 3 gote moves in a row, you pass. And especially at beginner level, players very often play gote or small moves even when there are bigger moves available. If you’re ahead by 20 points you can probably afford to pass three times while your opponent plays three 6-points-or-less moves.
In fact, your opponent might be even more likely to play small moves if you pass.
Consider this example
Maybe there are still big moves available on the board, but White is likely to assume that a first-line hane in this area is sente, and play it even if there is a bigger move on the board.
So Black passes, White plays hane, Black passes a second time, White destroys a bit of Black’s territory, Black passes for the third time and wins the game by the anti-stall decision.
I believe there might even be provision for that, but my feeling is that no-one on any server wants a strict version of Japanese rules like that. Pandanet and KGS with their manual scoring allows you to score with groups possessing dame still on the board, so it would be strange to enforce something like that.
Even the EGF has provisions in tournament rules to allow players to fill in forgotten dame after passes.
Any player with a modicum of endgame knowledge knows the “right” moves to play as black in that example. If black is able to give up the corner and still win, then the endgame isn’t that interesting…
But this feature was announced as an anti-stalling feature, not as an anti-boring-endgame feature. Personally I’d support the former, but not the latter.
