BFC: Biggest Fish Challenge 2026 on OGS

Announcements
21

I think one straightforward definition that might work for this challenge it’s that a catch is a set of chains that share at least one liberty between between pairs of chains. So kosumi and bamboo joint and tiger mouth etc would all count, even a 1 space jump. And I think it would be very obvious for a player of any level to count this.

The drawback of chains only is that you could effectively kill a huge dragon, it’s super obvious to anyone it’s a dragon and you’ve definitely captured it but it’s worth 8 stones as a catch because it’s not all solidly connected, so would be quite disappointing I think.

I think beyond tpk people are increasingly less likely to just play super long chains.

2 Likes
22

I agree with this. It can easily get complicated if we open ourselves to the case of lose groups; and as you have said above, a straight-forward definition would make this thread friendly for all ranks, especially so for high-kyus who still struggle with the concept of a connected group.

For many chains, you can only determine if they are definitely dead at the end of the game because there could be there some KO that will impact their situation. And for some games, it doesn’t matter because the chain is still there at the end of the game. That was where my confusion. Thank you for the explanation.

Well, by ‘word salad’ I rather meant that it’s un-understandable as a metaphor. Not really anything personal against you. I am sorry. English is not my native language either; but a clearer way I could phrase it is this:

  • … including the position of the group and the capture move number if the chain was captured in the middle of the game [, otherwise it would still be present at the end of the game].

(I have to learn how to sugar coat my words)

2 Likes
24

:fire::tada: PRIZE POOL ANNOUNCEMENT — THIS JUST GOT REAL :tada::fire:

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5 Likes
25

I’ll submit this game: billsaltman vs. GoodGameGuys . If I am understanding the rules correctly, this should be a catch of 11 of the top black chain.

2 Likes
26

Wow, nice price.
Let me start a game with dokbohm.

27

I really have to thank you for this because this finally made me take the time and study all the different connections there are on sensei’s library. I’ve looked at all of them from First Line Ogeima Connection to Trumpet Connection.

I think your suggestion would indeed be quite easy to use for most players BUT it also seems to have the flaw that in case of the one space jump it would be cuttable, see Cutting the one-point jump.

Yes, that is the main flaw of the current rule. But for 2026 I suggest we just stick with this the way we started while parallelly working on a rule that could work for the BFC 2027.

Also it can be seen as an additional facet to this challenge. If there is a very large dragon that happens to not be solidly connected everywhere then try to make/force the opponent to connect it. That’s now part of this challenge.

I think this might be true. But it still happens, look at this pro game for example.

But yeah I guess lower ranked players might have a small advantage in a Go challenge for once :wink:

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28

Submitting my own game to the challenge. Board Size 13x13, Catch of 17 on E12.

1 Like
29

15 stones on 9x9; F+D6

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30

Prediction miai:

Prediction 1, with 80% certainty: the biggest fish captured will be 6 kyu ± 2. Stronger than that usually don’t run things that will die, they sacrifice like a dan. Weaker than that often won’t realize soon enough that the group is in danger, or else they trip while running so the capture doesn’t grow too large.

Prediction 2, with 20% certainty: prediction 1 will not come to pass.

1 Like
31

They do it less. But you can still see huge dragons killed in pro games.

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32

That is huge! Wow, Catch of 15 on a 9x9 is pretty big and also you’re now first place in two of the three categories! Good job!

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33

This implies we can submit other peoples games, so on behalf of min_max…

35 capture, move 297-ish.

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34

How does it imply that?

That’s not possible:

Why doesn’t min_max post it himself? :smiley:

35

This detail had in fact eluded me :thinking:

36

The idea behind this is that people should consent to being a part of the leaderboard and conversation. And also that this is a Challenge for a prize and it would be weird to give someone a prize for a Challenge he didn’t even know he competed in. One more thing is that everyone who submits a game to the challenge will be scrutinized for match fixing and sandbagging by me.

But I’m sure that if you write min_max a message that he could claim the current top spot in the challenge and might even end up getting 6-months Tenuki Supporter then he might be interested.

1 Like
37

submitting for 19x19, can i also submit a game were my OWN dragon was captured? ( not rigged)Or only games where the submitting player did the capture?

If yes, id like to submit this game for 19x19: 35 stone dragon capture :-((

NOTE TO SELF: RTFM.

Sorry, retracting my submission as it is invalid. there will be more though!

1 Like
38

Under New Zealand rules you could capture your own chain and claim the catch, I think. And then I suppose you would even get an extra point for the capturing stone. But watch out for the “no sandbagging” rule!

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39

Looking forward to it! If you want you can inform your opponent from the game about the challenge maybe he is interested.

That’s a funny thought :grin:
But that wouldn’t count towards the challenge.

40

Submitting this game: Ladder Challenge: GoodGameGuys(#178) vs IvannBlizzi(#121)
The black chain on the right would be a catch size of 25 if I counted correctly.

1 Like
41

submitting this game: player_piano vs. the19x19king . black chain 17 will be captured.

1 Like