My half-serious feature wish here might be that after I click Undo a button appears to let me post “Sorry, misclick!” in my opponent’s language … some people may want other options (if they are honest) 
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I liked those suggestions 
I think I have once suggested exactly that – with mention of what exactly that undone move was –, simply for purpose of documentation.
I think it’s kind of an anti-feature anyways. What’s done is done and can’t be undone. Having and undo button in Go is against nature and against the spirit of the game.
Granting an “undo request” will hurt the opponent more than denying it, even if they might not realize that at first.
If my opponent forgets to press the clock, I press it for them. If they play a stone during my turn, I tell them and they take it back. If I’m shaky in a close game or fight, drop a stone and mess up the board, I apologize, rearrange the stones, ask if the position is okay and play the move I wanted to. If I misclick online, I ask for an undo. If my opponent plays a move that looks like a misclick, I wait a few seconds so they can take it back easily. If they ask for a few undos per game, I grant them.
I can learn the most, if my opponents play their best moves.
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I generally grant undo if the move looks like a misclick (like a move on the first line, or a move next to the intersection where it should be but which is weirdly placed as it is), but not if it looks like a bad move that someone would naturally play.
I was once happy to grant undo when my opponent’s misclick looked better than the move they wanted to play.
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In the end Go is a sport. I get what you’re saying but I personally don’t agree with that approach. If you do a free throw lane violation in the NBA they won’t just let you throw again.
Then do you also correct your opponents if they simply make a bad move? Pretty sure you don’t.
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Using medicines so you don’t die is against nature too, but I think it’s a good idea.
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Ok, that’s a strong point. But what about the NBA?
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Different stakes. No one’s paying me millions to play on OGS (I don’t use undo, but I think it makes sense to keep it, except maybe in special circumstances)
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I do not, correct! I said “their best move”, not my or our best move.
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I wasn’t being totally serious. Just for the records^^
Ok, that makes sense.
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I don’t think so, to me the spirit of the game is that it is a battle of go skill not mouse skill between two humans, who would rather be playing on a physical board, but due to physical separation we use the wonders of technology to play each other on a computer. The human-computer interface (also computer-computer interface in the case of Internet lag) sometimes fails, but I don’t want that to ruin the abstract battle of skill that is merely being conducted in this technological medium. Just as if we are playing on a physical board and a gust of wind, a wayward sleeve, or an atomic bomb blast knocks the stones off their proper intersections, we correct that failure of the physical medium and resume our battle of go skill.
That is why I ask for and give undos for misclicks, but not misthinks.
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I guess this depends on where you put the boundaries of what actions are part of Go. I would say that the “execution of stone placement” is a part of Go and therefore a part of the Go Skillset.
Imagine a scenario where you have a person that understands Go better than any AI or person on the planet, but he cannot communicate it. Neither OTB nor online. He is just not able to overcome the interface issues. Would you consider this person to be the best Go player in the world? I suppose that you could indeed make an argument for that, but I personally would say that he is infact not the best Go player because of not being able to actually play the game and execute his knowledge.
The solution in the end is to simply not misclick. That’s part of the game. People also sometimes misplace stones OTB. It happens, that’s life. The solution is to increase focus and maintain clean execution.
The solution is to think about what you desire exactly. If you don’t grant an undo when a move is absurd (supposing technical failure instead of wrong thinking) you want a win instead of an interesting game.
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Why?
What about people who love playing blitz but can (sometimes) just do it on their phone? Do you want them to waste precious time by pressing the submit button for every move, just because every once in a while they’d need the undo button?
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Yes, I consider Go Seigen the greatest player of all time, even when in his old age leading study sessions he would use an assistant to place stones on the board, gesturing with a stick or describing the moves.
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Definition of the Game of Go on Wikipedia
[…]
The playing pieces are called stones. One player uses the white stones and the other black stones. The players take turns placing their stones on the vacant intersections (points) on the board. Once placed, stones may not be moved, but captured stones are immediately removed from the board. A single stone (or connected group of stones) is captured when surrounded by the opponent’s stones on all orthogonally adjacent points.[7] The game proceeds until neither player wishes to make another move.
[…]
Section 2 of the official Chinese Rules of Go
Section 2. The Move
1. One of the players, called Black, takes the black stones, the other player, called White, takes the white stones. Black makes the first move, then White, and so on in alternation until the end of the game. Only one stone can be played per move.
2. Stones are played on points on the board.
3. After a stone is played, it cannot be moved to any other point.
4. Playing alternately is the right of both players, but either player may pass.
To answer your question: Because that’s the definition of Go and clearly articulated in the official ruleset.
This does not address the core of what I stated at all. It almost feels like a bad faith argument. Come on now. [Edit: I shouldn’t have accused you right away. Trying to be more accepting in 2026. Ignore what I wrote here.]
- Even though I didn’t explicitely qualify it by using the term “current”, I obviously implied that. A person who is dead cannot be the best (current) Go player in the world because he will not be able to actually play the game because he is dead.
- Let’s still go with your example though. Let’s say the best player in the world cannot place stones himself but instead relies on an assistant to interpret his gestures/descriptions. Then he has indeed found a way to “overcome interface issues” and is therefore able to play. In my example I was specifically talking about a person who is not, under any measures, able to “overcome interface issues” so that he is not able to communicate his moves to the outside world.
My point is that using the interface correctly to place the stones correctly is part of the game. If Go Seigen’s assistant would misplace a stone then that would be on Go Seigen and he should get another assistent. The player is resonsible for the correct use of his interface and for the correct placement of the stone.
Each interface/tournament setting/game setting defines its own rules. For instance
- Assistants may or may not be allowed
- In online games, requesting undo may or may not be allowed.
The majority players consider that for casual online games, requesting undo should be possible, but no one is required to grant undo. On the other hand, serious online tournaments may not allow undo. For instance the Fair-Play Guide for online Go tournaments of the European Go Federation says
Note the phrasing “we expect”. Undos don’t seem to be completely forbidden, so perhaps they are still possible in exceptional cases.
On the other hand tournament rules didn’t allow Shin Jinseo to undo his move on the first line although it was obviously a misclick:
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And that is exactly the same position I have on this. I would leave the feature in for people where both sides are happy to use it. I personally would never ask for, or grant, an undo request though. For people like me it would be nice to be able to turn that feature off completely in ranked games so that people don’t start arguing. But I guess the priority for such a feature is very low.