Diplomatic Go šŸ—” The First Game

Maybe Iā€™m just naturally a pessimistic person.

1 Like

I think you are correct in evaluating your position as bad, I just donā€™t think itā€™s 100% lost yet :slightly_smiling_face:

In fact, there is not a single guaranteed immortal stone on the board at this point :stuck_out_tongue:

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I donā€™t feel like struggling anymore.

That is also completely fine, donā€™t feel pressured to act in a certain way :slightly_smiling_face: I just wanted to share my view on the game.

Donā€™t feel bad Haze, itā€™s just a game. Even though Iā€™m a bit frustrated right now, all in all I still really enjoyed playing :slight_smile:

Round 28 has ended

  • red@le_4TC and black@Haze_with_a_Z placed at their first choices
  • white@martin3141ā€™s first choice was a collision with the existing stone C9, their second choice collided with J3, and their third choice collided at D7
  • blue@Vsotvepā€™s first and second choices collided with already existing stones (at D8 and D9), and their third choice collided at D7
  • white@martin3141 and blue@Vsotvep did not place stones this round

Voting (round 28)

Round 29 has begun and will end on 2020-09-24T00:00:00Z

Current board state

Editable board

6 Likes

:stuck_out_tongue:

5 Likes

Hey that is the way we all should play :stuck_out_tongue:

Round 29 has ended

  • black@Haze_with_a_Z submitted three choices that all collided with preexisting stones (at E5, G3, J3), and hence they did not place a stone
  • All other players placed at their first choices (B6, D7, F1)
  • The (newly placed) stone at D7 is captured

Voting (round 29)

Round 30 has begun and will end on 2020-09-25T00:00:00Z

Current board position

Editable board

6 Likes

Weā€™ve got our first unkillable group on the board! Congratulations @le_4TC for definitely finishing with at least 27 points :slight_smile:

3 Likes

Thank you :slightly_smiling_face: I guess there are some rare situations where a player would actually want to fill in an eye of an ā€œunkillableā€ group (this can even happen in regular go with superko), but I donā€™t think that will happen this game :stuck_out_tongue:

give an example pls

To prevent a board repetition, for example.

Or to commit suicide out of revenge after somebody refused to draw, making them lose.

2 Likes

But is there any benefit to not just pass?

For the purposes of superko, a non-pass move might be required to actually change the position (although in some rulesets, a pass lifts all ko-bans). In ordinary go, you will only make a suicidal eye-filling move if there are no other possible moves for you, and you have to make some non-passing move. This is extremely rare, especially on larger boards there will almost always be some territory where you can throw in a stone without doing any harm to yourself.

But in Diplomatic Go I imagine that this could happen in some more likely ways. Apart from the ā€œrevengeā€ mentioned by Vsotvep above, I think it could be in your interest to give another player some extra points, to motivate them to play in a way which works better for you. Here Iā€™m thinking about a big board where you have multiple alive groups, and you can afford to sacrifice one of them for strategic advantage.

Iā€™m not going to bother trying to construct an example right now, because Iā€™m not very good at constructing such positions even for normal go, and for Diplomatic Go there is the added issue that we havenā€™t completely defined player incentives in a lot of situations. If the only incentive is win > draw > loss, itā€™s a lot harder to construct a position where rational play demands sacrificing an unkillable group than if (for instance) each player is trying to maximize their own score on the board. Or so I think. The third issue is that Iā€™m a beginner at Diplomatic Go and might not know what Iā€™m talking about :wink:

Edit: Hereā€™s the example that inspired my initial comment. It seems to be flawed in terms of the final score, but I think the basic idea works. Maybe here I should try coming up with a better example myself, to support my not-very-well-supported argument.

4 Likes

Round 30 has ended

  • black@Haze_with_a_Z submitted a pass
  • The other players all placed at their first choices (A1, A5, D7)
  • Two stones at A6 and D7 are captured

Voting (round 30)

Round 31 has begun and will end on 2020-09-26T00:00:00Z

Current board state

Editable board

5 Likes

le4 has 28 pts atm. who should I team up with to make them have more points?

You can try to capture my group, if you want to. Iā€™d rather try to proceed to scoring though ^^

I could get 28 points if I completely get all the area at the top, so you could help by playing G9 and let me eat you. Only Martin can prevent me from getting 28 points, then.

If you get 28 points, then my group gets captured and the game continues for another 20 or so moves between you and le_4TC. I propose we all pass, go to scoring and move on to the past-game discussion and possibly a new game :slight_smile: