So, I’m participating in a “fast” correspondence tournament, and one of my games has been going on for a long time despite the fact that win/loss has been determined for a while, and now it has taken over a week just to close every boundary.
I’m sure this question has been brought up before, but how do people deal with this situation?
Thanks!!!
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It has come up before, and I think the concensus is that
- you pass when you think the game can be scored
- you politely keep playing up to that point
- if your opponent continues play after you pass, and clearly does not have a plan to improve their score, you report it
There is no polite way to say “I think you should resign now”.
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Thanks for the response Eugene.
Based on your experience, if every boundary has not been closed yet, is the scoring algorithm willing to make an estimate, or will it request that you return to the game?
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I would avoid trying to score before closing boundaries - weird things can tend to happen in those situations.
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I would just play it out but I have some ideas:
- conditional moves
- You could pass
- You could say “I think the game is over”, it’s not polite but there’s nothing else really
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Thanks for the advice. Conditional moves aren’t allowed in the tournament I’m in. But I will start passing soon!!!
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Yeah, it’s really not a great idea to score before the boundaries are closed. Technically unclosed areas aren’t points, so if you pass with those on the board, you are basically conceding them.
At one point I was finding people who don’t resign quite irritating, and I would look here Got Stats? to see what their resign vs go-to-scoring ratio is, and not play people who don’t resign.
I got a bit more relaxed about it after a while though 
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In this game(yes I know I made some terrible moves) I didn’t close the boundaries and I accidently accepted for some reason.
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Oh, that github stats page is interesting, thanks for the tip.
I have been looking at peoples’ game history to detect sandbaggers and such.
In the end, this community, and the group of people who are close to my rank, are only so big, so I think I will get to know the main players soon enough!
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ooof 
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Yeah, although it was annulled, it was a tournament game so I still lost in the tournament.
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In this case, a polite PM to your opponent highlighting that your game is the last one in a round and that perhaps we could try to wrap it up would be acceptable 
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Right, the fact is that most of the brackets in my tournament still have a few unfinished games.
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To be honest, I would only say such a thing when I am about to resign (and then resign immediately), or, of course, in a teaching game.
But NEVER in a real game, physical or virtual; very rude IMO, like, “I’m too important to wait until you have understood that you have lost”.
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I think I’ve seen another way of telling your opponent the game is over, which I only know from pro players winning from amateurs: it’s by playing a very slack move, that clearly looks like a mistake for both sides, but doesn’t really unbalance the game. The amateur should at that point take the hint and resign.
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Hmm, closing the borders with say 10-15 moves will take about a minute. Writing a polite message asking for a resignation (if that is possible, legitimately doubted by a few people on this thread) will take about a minute. So …?
If it’s the last game in a non-final round of a tournament it is a different matter of course.
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in correspondence go, these moves can take weeks or even months
“we could try to wrap it up” is not necessarily insisting on their resignation, it could also prompt faster turn around of moves, such that maybe a 2 month ending is shortened to a 2 week ending
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Endgame is an important part of the game and some says that a good player can gain many points in that phase.
That said, well… endgame is often quite boring! Doing all those boundary moves, forcing to connect, hane on first line and so on… not to mention the need IRL to fill dame!
But that’s it.
It’s part of the game. If you want to score you have to do it. And here comes my opinion: I think every player has the right to see his game scored, even if it’s a lost game. Even if it’s lost by many points.
It can be boring for the other player, I know. I’ve been there.
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Oh, most definitely! But I will not stare at the screen during all that time. From time to time when it’s my move I will take a few seconds for a trivial move. Cumulatively about a minute. That’s what I meant.
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AFAIK, it’s rude to leave the table after you’ve finished eating your food if others are still eating, since it signals you only care about your nourishment and not the company.
I’d follow that cue, more or less.
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