Can we rework policy around conditional moves so that it becomes a popular part of OGS?

This is precisely the problem. OGS links a player’s ability to use conditional moves with both player’s willingness to allow “game analysis” - in other words, by default, you will never see the conditional move tool.

The argument here is that separating the two tools (and automatically allowing conditional play) can only benefit players who play correspondence go.
Tool 1) Game Analysis (unrestricted board to play out variations on)
Tool 2) Conditionals Moves (restricted board where you must confirm a move before playing more, and once you confirm it, you cannot take it back); in addition, possibly limit the number of moves to 3 or 5 locked moves.

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some information about conditional moves can be found here, as well as on other features of OGS. I was surprised not to find a link to this page on OGS itself. Did I overlook it?

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Thanks.

Wow, what an amazing tutorial!
I can’t find it on the site either. Its all ready to go and would be a very valuable addition for newcomers… I suggest putting it under a new tab on the scroll down menu with the name " How this server actually works".

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I just played a couple of games with a different account and wanted to share some follow up thoughts regarding correspondence go and conditional moves at OGS.

-It’s too easy to download the SGF and play through variations or analyze using software (what a bummer…) if conditional moves are allowed.
-I liked being able to set conditional moves
-I didn’t like that when an opponent misread, he/she could click “analyze the game” and find the variation that did the least amount of damage.

All of these issues could be solved by the solutions we discussed in this thread.

A) Only allow downloading of the sgf file after the game has finished
B) Separate conditional moves toggle and analysis board toggle
C) Limit conditional moves to 3 deep, and remove one’s ability to cancel them once set
D) Automatically i) allow conditional moves in automatch and ii) disable analysis mode

Aye, I’d get bored to death if I couldn’t pre-plan 20 moves of endgame in a 9x9 whose result is obvious.

A) Only allow downloading of the sgf file after the game has finished
B) Separate conditional moves toggle and analysis board toggle
C) Limit conditional moves to 3 deep, and remove one’s ability to cancel them once set
D) Automatically i) allow conditional moves in automatch and ii) disable analysis mode

A) I don’t much care about that one, it doesn’t download analysis anyway (for unfinished games at least).
B) I also don’t care about that.
C) NO. Or make it optional. But generally NO.
D) I don’t really care either since I could leave automatch running for a long time without finding a match and never use analysis except for the correspondence tournament, teaching games and kibitz.

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A) I don’t much care about that one, it doesn’t download analysis anyway (for unfinished games at least).

Not sure what you mean by this - downloaded analysis is irrelevant. The point was that it makes it too easy to feed the SGF into software (and cheat) or play out variations offline in an SGF viewer. It wouldn’t be an issue if you could (a) Enable conditional moves and (b) Disable analysis, but they are currently tied together.

B) I also don’t care about that.

No comment - it’s a valid opinion.

C) NO. Or make it optional. But generally NO.

The idea was either to limit the number of conditional moves, or lock moves into place, or both. The problem with the latter is that someone could click a corner point and then play freely on the board knowing he won’t get locked into it. Limit to 3 or 5 seems reasonable.

D) I don’t really care either since I could leave automatch running for a long time without finding a match and never use analysis except for the correspondence tournament, teaching games and kibitz.

OK - you don’t care, but I don’t think what you said really applies to what’s being argued here. The settings won’t change how long you wait for automatch. You’ve already expressed your opinion that you don’t mind letting opponents play variations out on a board during a competitive game.

IMO - make it hard to play out variations offline and people largely won’t. Make it easy and they will.

Nah, if people want to, they will. If they don’t, they won’t. But limiting conditional moves is nonsense. Just because you don’t, or can’t, plan ahead 20 moves doesn’t mean others shouldn’t get to. If you want to limit conditional moves in your games, limit them to zero, as per your “toggle conditional moves” suggestion.

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Let me make sure I understand your position correctly here.

  1. You are okay with your opponent downloading the sgf of your game mid-play and feeding it into a 9d bot to increase their chances of beating you, against which your only choices are to lose or do the same
    (at least make them work for it by putting it into a sgf editor, move by move)

  2. You are okay with opponents playing out variations on a board before committing to a move against you

  3. You are okay with not being able to disable #2 without also removing conditional move functionality

  1. Slippery slope fallacy. Downloading the sgf has nothing to do with cheating. If someone wants to recreate the board position, they can. To answer your question, no, I don’t mind if people download the sgf.
  2. Emphatically yes. I don’t play correspondence (usually) because it bores me to death having to wait a few days for a move, but even in my live games I really don’t care. I don’t use the analysis function myself in live games, because I am constantly training for an “over the board” situation, in which that feature wouldn’t be available to me anyway.
  3. Please use positives instead of quadruple negatives (not able to disable without removing = keep… linked). But yes, I don’t mind if analysis and conditional moves stay linked; i also don’t mind if they get separated. There is some merit to separating them I suppose, albeit not enough to convince me it was a valuable distinction.

However, I’m having a hard time imagining how one could have analysis disabled but conditional moves enabled, considering planning n conditional moves rests upon the premise of being able to place at least 2n stones on a non-game board, which basically represents what analysis is. Then you want to remove the very useful ‘cancel’ function to get rid of the logical problem you just created. I think that’s just too inconsistent.

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  1. I’m 11k, my opponent is really 11k but is regularly feeding sgfs into a 9d bot. Well they are not going to be 11k ?? They are going to be listed as, say 4k (who knows). Unless it’s a one off, they are listed as 11k and in which case I’ll lose and if they haven’t told me what they are doing I’m none the wiser. If it’s really a 17k opponent regularly feeding the 9d bot then they’ll be listed as, say, 10k and for all I know I’m playing someone close to my rank. Do I make any sense ??

  2. Like smurph - yes

  3. I can’t follow smurph’s quadruple negatives concept but I agree with him.

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RE1. It’s not quite slippery slope here. I’m not saying definitively that having the ability to download the .sgf mid-game will ultimately influence more people towards cheating. I’m saying that I don’t see a reason for someone to be able to download the .sgf before the game is over, and it certainly makes cheating easier. I prefer systems to be set up in such a way that deters cheating since it is impossible to prevent it.

RE2. Sure, I can agree with your point here. I prefer live games for the same reason you do. I have some hesitation when considering whether to directly apply that thought process to correspondence go. If one person is intent on reading things out, and the other slowly and methodically plays them out, one could conclude an advantage for the second person. This might not apply to a dan player as much as it would apply to a kyu player. Perhaps this is why people tend to disable analysis (and also conditional moves).

RE3. Thanks for the helpful comment; I should have cleaned that up a bit. We’re in a gray area here with regards to whether they should remain linked or be separated so I’ll just mention that I’m glad to see someone defending the current system.

A couple of other points.

  • I understand the sentiment of being bored by correspondence go, but I find that’s alleviated by playing groups of games at a time.
  • I originally started this thread because I wanted to play more correspondence go and the setting was always disabled, also disabling conditional moves and making for a long endgame. I’m seeing less and less of that these days.

I’m 11k, my opponent is really 11k but is regularly feeding sgfs into a 9d bot. Well they are not going to be 11k ?? They are going to be listed as, say 4k (who knows). Unless it’s a one off, they are listed as 11k and in which case I’ll lose and if they haven’t told me what they are doing I’m none the wiser. If it’s really a 17k opponent regularly feeding the 9d bot then they’ll be listed as, say, 10k and for all I know I’m playing someone close to my rank. Do I make any sense ??

I think your point makes sense. At some point we have to stop worrying about this kind of thing anyway.

I crossed over into dangerous territory here by bringing up cheating. The whole topic was supposed to be about whether or not conditional moves and analysis should be linked and disabled by default.

No, but my impression, from the occurrences we know of, is that most botting occurs throughout a game. The cheat feeds the moves into the bot from the beginning and relays the responses back into the real game one by one. So downloading the sgf is not necessary. Moreover, in my experience (albeit largely in cards), most cheats do not cheat occasionally—i.e., only when they find they are losing mid-game. The psychology of it is more like an addiction.

Emphatically yes! I would rather win or lose a game based on a wide range of strategy and tactics, rather than based on a memory lapse. Playing out variations over the board has always been standard in correspondence chess (as well as in adjournments), and is, I think, largely accepted in correspondence go, as well, although I have read that it is disabled in the fast correspondence tournaments here.

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Is this an accurate summary of one vital part of this thread (not the entire thread):

Analyze Mode and Conditional Moves must currently be controlled (that is, enabled or disabled) as a pair, rather than individually, during game set up.

Some people have argued, and would appreciate, for them to be controlled individually.

Some people don’t care if they remain paired or are controlled individually.

No one has argued that they should remain paired.

It’s more nuanced than that. Now I’d like to explain it in detail but for the sake of clarity, I will first explain it in shorthand.

Currently: analysis AND conditional moves OR neither, consistent

Proposal: analysis OR conditionals OR neither, inconsistent
-> +analysis +conditionals = no change
-> +analysis -conditionals = questionable benefit (if a player was going to respond to x at y anyway…)
-> -analysis +conditionals = inconsistent, as playing around with conditionals doubles as analysis
-> -analysis -conditionals = no change

So the only actual change happens when analysis is enabled and conditionals are disabled and vice versa. The former’s only effect as far as I can tell is that players have to wait longer for a response, i.e. it’s a waste of time. The latter only makes sense if there is something distinguishing the conditional move input mechanism from the analysis feature.

Since expansion makes even less sense, the current proposal by @namazurider was to limit the number of moves and/or disable sequence cancellation. However, my argument was that this is convoluted and and creates more problems instead of solving anything (except for the logical inconsistencies created by proposing to disentangle analysis from conditional move planning).

Finally, I very much like planning dozens of endgame moves and find the idea to limit this number quite silly - if I manage to predict all of your moves in advance, why shouldn’t I get to come back to the game at the one intersection I didn’t predict? As for making both optional,… creating more options would probably reduce the number of potential opponents, making it harder to find a game.

Online I don’t understand this feeling that people have of opponents having an unfair advantage (cheating) by using analysis, sgfs, or whatever.

If I was playing a game in real life and someone whipped out a book to check out some possible moves I would say hey, that’s cheating!

But online, I have no idea whether my opponent is a bot or using aid. I am playing who I am playing. I’m playing an entity at a certain rank.

I don’t care if I’m playing someone who has a pure rank or someone who has an inflated rank because of aid. It’s the game that matters and how I can do my best against my opponent.

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[analysis is enabled and conditionals are disabled] only effect as far as I can tell is that players have to wait longer for a response, i.e. it’s a waste of time.

I can’t think of any cases except some extreme ones in which this setting (analysis on, conditionals off) would be useful. I suppose that conceptually, it is easier to undestand the settings independently which might be of benefit. Simple is better.

[analysis is disabled and conditionals are enabled] only makes sense if there is something distinguishing the conditional move input mechanism from the analysis feature.

This would be the case with the most potential utility in this conversation, and the one that we are largely discussing here. I regret bringing up the topic of cheating lol.

Since expansion makes even less sense [It’s not clear to what you are referring to as “expansion” so I won’t comment -SD], the current proposal by @StrongDog was to limit the number of moves and/or disable sequence cancellation.

It’s worth noting that these proposals were arrived at through the discussion above with the group.

My argument was that this is convoluted and and creates more problems instead of solving anything.

  • We are discussing ways which the proposed solutions are not ideal. You make a strong case for not limiting the number of conditionals that a person can set, which was one proposal. I agree that it creates more problems. I am currently not in favor of limiting the number of conditional moves because I like using conditionals as well.

  • The other proposal was to **warn the user via popup that moves set as conditionals are locked in stone, and then **remove the ability to cancel conditionals that are set. I think we should carefully discuss this one.

As for making both optional,… creating more options would probably reduce the number of potential opponents, making it harder to find a game.

There is already a lack of potential opponents so while I understand your concern, I disagree with your argument here.

The community would settle on a default setup and it could be used ubiquitously, as is the case now (enabling both by default). For correspondence, I think that conditionals should be allowed and an analysis board should be disabled. For teaching (or teaching+correspondence), the teacher could allow both.

If it is an improvement to the current system, then there should be no reason why the number of potential opponents is reduced.

QUESTIONS

  • Is it an improvement over the current system?
  • Is removing the cancel button truly a concern for someone? You have to submit your conditional; it’s not like there are misclicks.

Off the top of my head, I can think of two excellent reasons to keep the cancel function.

  1. Conditional moves are meant to be played after your opponent makes a move. Until your opponent does move, these plans are not put into action. It is consistent with the higashi rule - only once you have played a move, you cannot take it back.
  2. Your conditional moves will aptly represent your best effort and ostensibly improve the quality of the game. If you come up with a better idea during your alotted period of time, or if you notice a lapse in reading in one of the branches you entered, or in fact an input error, you should be able to revise it.
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Input error is not worth talking about here, in my opinion. You have to click and then submit the move, which all but prevents misclicks when submitting conditional moves.

RE1.
Conditional moves are automatically cancelled if your opponent moves out of sequence. No need for a cancel button in this case.

RE2.
If you submit a conditional line of play, the assumption is that you’ve read it out and feel confident with your decision. One should assume that they will only have a chance to reevaluate the board position at the end of the sequence they just committed to (or if the opponent moves out of sequence). If someone is using conditional moves to advance the board 5 moves and then read the position, this is no different from using an analysis board. The issue becomes muddled again.

The idea of being able to change your strategy while deciding how to play conceptually makes sense; we do this all the time when playing live. When playing correspondence, shouldn’t the same level of care be applied to each move submitted as a conditional move as to each move played in a live game (e.g. no undos)? To this end, and to keep things consistent, a person shouldn’t really commit to conditional moves if they were not sure of their strategy. I feel that’s black and white, but you may feel differently.

I don’t really think these are good reasons to keep the cancel function for reasons stated above.