@Mulsiphix, I noticed an OGS user with your name ran a couple of elimination tournaments in the New Zealand Tournaments group recently.
Was that you? Do you have thoughts on the correct resolution of a draw in an elimination tournament?
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(because hardly anyone bothers to try out stuff we put in Beta
)
That’s because most new stuff is addition of “cool features” that nobody really cares much about.
This is different. I care a lot about this correction. I’ve already written that I’m willing to spend a lot of time helping to test it (probably more time than it will take you to change the code) and I mean it. Further, I’m a programmer too and I can see from the little snippet of code posted earlier that this isn’t just a bug fix; it isn’t a bug at all, the code does what it was specified to do. But the specification was wrong, and fixing that involves changes to several places in the code: it really needs testing.
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“Nobody cares about” the things that we each don’t care about 
The things that we each care about are different
Fortunately, I think that the exploration and testing up till now has identified a path forward, so we may yet see progress here… in which case your testing will definitely be appreciated.
(despite the fact that personally I can’t see why anyone cares about the opportunity to have a draw. This possibility is so un-interesting that some rulesets say something like "if this dumb thing happens, just play the game again )
At one point I was seriously considering trying to get these going again, but same for me, it didn’t seem worthwhile when I knew that so many players new to OGS but already familiar with NZ rules would end up being disappointed in the implementation. I suspect many have come and gone who would otherwise be here now.
Would it be easiest just to allow only round-robin and McMahon tournaments to use NZ rules, and just strike single- and double-elimination tournaments from the possibilities if NZ rules are selected for a tournament?
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I’m not aware of any major rule sets that say that a jigo (tied score) requires that the game be replayed (rather, that is a potential procedure for how to handle this outcome in some tournament formats). A jigo is a finished game outcome that means a drawn result. This should not be conflated with the “no result” outcomes that may arise from triple ko (and other long cycles).
Note that even the Japanese rules explicitly defines jigo (tied score) as a possible outcome (provided that integer komi was used), and let me stress again that jigo (which specifically means a tied score) is not the same thing as a “no result” (such as arising from triple ko or other long cycles).
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Games played under the official Japanese rules also can have several different troublesome outcomes (that would challenge how our ladders and tournaments work):
- “No Result”, which means that the game did not end with a result. THIS IS NOT THE SAME AS JIGO. This outcome happens when the game gets stuck in a long cycle (such as triple ko, eternal life, etc.) that neither player is willing to break from.
- “Both Players Lose”, which is a really bizarre situation that arises when both players pass too early, while leaving an unsettled situation on the board that proves to be decisive to the outcome. See this post for more discussion: Odd Cases 🤔 in the Japanese Rules - #2 by yebellz
- If integer komi were allowed in some tournaments, “Jigo”, which is a drawn game due to a tied score.
However, currently, the OGS implementation does not support any of these outcomes properly. Further, there are trickier questions about how to really properly handle “No Result” and “Both Players Lose”, since those should not (in principle) be viewed the same way as a draw. Maybe we should exclude Japanese rules from certain (or all?) tournament formats, and ladders as well, until these issues can be properly resolved.
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The official Japanese rules don’t even explicitly mention komi. The standard size of komi is a separate thing from the rules, so it can be changed and has been changed independently from changes to the rules. It has even been the case that different Japanese title matches used different komi. Also, some tournaments in Europe played under Japanese rules use or have used integer komi.
I wonder if this rule has ever been applied in an actual tournament game. Does anyone know of a case?
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I would prefer to keep the option even if it the behavior is totally unfair like lowest player id wins or both players get eliminated. (But it sounds like it’s already better than that.)
With a weird implementation it’s still an interesting outcome that can add some excitement and variety, and there’s also more hope to improve it in the future. And of course you can always just choose not to participate in the weird tournaments.
And yeah, custom komi tournaments under other rulesets would be great too! (e.g. 9x9 with 7 komi and 7x7 with 9?)
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Back-reading this thread, I just came across this post I had forgotten about. 
EDIT: Ah, it seems dexon already found it and commented there.
Conrad Melville said it more beautifully than I could have:
Personally, I find draws an even more satisfying result than a win.
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OK OK. I have many, many vices.
But “can’t be persuaded” is not one of them.
I’m convinced: we need draws, and I can see what benefits they will bring.
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<3 <3 <3
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I would like to report some related… missing features.
After I create a challenge for a ranked game with New Zealand rules and default komi, the challenge shows that komi will be 5.5 (see the bottom of the picture below). But once the challenge is accepted, the game correctly starts with 7 komi.
Furthermore, ranked challenges with New Zealand rules and default komi for 9 x 9 and 13 x 13 actually do result in games with 5.5 komi. It should be 7 for all three ranked sizes. This would be an especially nice feature considering smaller board sizes have a much higher chance of games scoring as jigo.
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Thanks! I’m hoping to find time to fix those in the next few months.
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I’ve (finally) posted a proposal I started working on a couple of months ago. It doesn’t cover making draws actually happen—that’s separate—but it does cover this side complaint.
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Thank you!
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