I really have no idea, what is its original purpose, just like many of the new rules. They list the actions and the punishment without intent or what are they for, and referees can interpret as they see fit (they literally said so as the last one, the referee can add any other as they deem as interference).
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One thing I also find weird is that why did the referee change between games? I thought a single referee should oversee the entire finals to ensure that things are treated the same way. Itās not like Japan title match where the games are stretched over a long period of time
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How it looks on TV has also ruined other sports recently.
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And the referee in the 3rd game is a very young referee, right? That alone is very odd. Given the controversy already in the previous day, shouldnāt it make more sense to find a more experienced referee for the last game?
Edit, just checked, the second gameās referee was ģ ģ¬ģ±, and the 3rd game was ģź·¼źø°. So it is younger, but not very young.
All in all, I think it is reasonable to say that rules and penalties should be proportional.
For example, did you intentionally move a stone or change the board to gain an advantage? Thatās cheating. You lose the game.
Did you place a stone outside of the board in the wrong lid? Big deal. Somebody should just warn you about it, without any penalties, regardless of how many times you do it. Losing points or the whole game on such a trivial issue is an affront to the game, as far as I am concerned.
The judged should first respect the game and make rules that hold the level of play and the concentration of the players sancrosant and above petty/minor typicalities.
Now since those were the rules, of course āit is what it isā. But the rules were bad. Whatās next? Go players having a helper/retainer next to them to take care of the stones for fear of losing points due to silly rules? 
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I agree with you that rules must be made to benefit the game and not be an obstacle. But your point that the rules are arbitrary or subjective, I canāt agree.
Every sports rulebook has a ācatch-allā rule that gives referees freedom of choice.
Hereās the one from the IFAB soccer rules,
Law 12 - 3 Disciplinary Action
There are different circumstances when a player must be cautioned for unsporting behaviour including if a player:
- shows a lack of respect for the game
- verbally distracts an opponent during play or at a restart
What is a lack of respect?
If I yell instructions to my teammates while standing next to the ear of my opponent, is that a distraction?
You canāt ever put every situation in a rule, so you must have these subjective ones. I believe the KBA rules you quoted are actually nicely specified with examples, thatās not typical or standard for rule books.
The rule promotes a flowing game, so that an opponent cannot legally disrupt the normal flow (1.think, 2.play move, 3.press clock), by adding āstallingā after 3.press clock. This does seem beneficial to the game to me.
Similarly, in soccer, players need to do their throw ins within a certain time (not stall the time). Obviously if a team is behind in score it would harm them if they stall, so why should they be punished? Same reason: it disrupts the game. So being behind and thus being hurt themselves from stalling, doesnāt mean they should somehow be exempt from this rule.
I feel that in this case your reasoning is āI donāt understand why the rule exists, thus it is badā. This is I feel not fair to the KBA, who, I must assume, tried their best to improve the rules.
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Yes, however you do not lose the game for itā¦ the usual thing is: first the referee whistles to āget on with itā, if you do not you are given a few seconds. Another whistle, then if you still take too long, a yellow card. Minor infractions, minor warning, minor punishments. Make sense.
The opponent does not get a free goal awarded or a total free win out of such trivialities, though 
Now, if the fans storm the pitch or if your players start boxing with the opponents, then yes, you might get awarded a ā2-0 technical victoryā, but that is a serious issue that actually totally disrupts the game - usually permanently.
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Iām not familiar with Hanja but the option to withdraw, and therefore make the tournament have to find another second place is not necessarily an option here. The tournament has already concluded, if the organizers want to they can just document Kejie as the second place in the tournament. This is nothing that Kejie can āwithdrawā from without consent from the tournament organizers.
Yes, I do think it is funny that the CWA stated that they will not ārecoginzeā the result. Thatās like me posting on the internet that I wonāt recognize the FIFA World Cup winner. Nobody even asked them to recognize the result.
What I said is correct. The Korean rules have always stated that captured stones shall be put in the lid. You can read it in your link:
ģ 3ģ”° ė°ėķµ
- ė°ėėģ ė“ė ėźµ¬ģ“ė¤.
- ķµģ ėź»ģ ģ”ģ ėģ ė³“ź“ķėė° ģ¬ģ©ķė¤.
Not sure soccer was a good example for this. FIFA introduced the VAR in 2018 and that is a system that made the sport less enjoyable according to many players and fans.
I highly doubt that football got better because of improvements of the football rules. Humans seem to continously evolve in all sports. Baduk players are also getting contnously better.
True, and yet the FIFA World Cup 2006 was decided by one player insulting another playerās mother.
I cannot pay $500,000 per year but I can put stones in a lid.
I agree with you that the Korean rules are not optimal and could use some improvements. Still the rule that Kejie violated is clearly spelled out.
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Ok Iāll give you this one lol
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Personally I think a right for the players to check the records (including captures) to the scribe on the site is enough. The Japanse live game had the same, and Iāve seen pros in their games just checking when they want to (this I think is one of the interesting ācustomsā I heard from Japanese players, they sit on the ground, and the lid or bowl are below their line of sight from the opponents, so they learn to count based on shapes, and if they had questions, just go ask the scribe)
I actually donāt object if there are subjective ones listed, but not with them listed alongside actions-only based regulations without specific intents. They are not in the section regarding players rights and behaviors, which actually are in the rules (articles 13, 14, etc.). But they then include these supposedly guidelines into the warnings and penalty section by referencing them and then adding subjective judgment into them by giving referees immense power to interpret them.
Iāve looked through the old ones and how they slowly added and reorganized these rules (you can see the old ones here) and compared them. Lots of the more strange ones like the ādelay of the gameā and this āplace a stone on the lidā are added, while some clearly mark intent regulations changed (like a warning can be given to players or managers who raise objections that are irrelative or false, and replaced with the referee can determine the objections as they deemed, not even mentioned who can raise objections or the validity of the objections). You can even see the shortening of the rules even after adding new ones like the lid rule, because they simply remove the subjects and objects of the sentence and only list the actions themselves.
If this is not deliberately vague I donāt know what I would call it. I agree they must have put effort into making them and adding them, as the rules-supplemented materials had shown multiple change dates. However, if you look through the history using the archive, the trend is pretty clear. The effort of painstakingly adding rules and regulations has been slowly turning and changing to make it more opaque in recent years (especially after 2018).
There is one coincident that the 3rd dayās referee was the chairman (one of the youngest) of the Baduk professional player associations elected in 2018 to 2020, and it was at the time when the Korean Baduk Association was in the battle with Lee Sedol to take control over the behaviors of the professional Go players with his retirement controversy. They want to control the professional Go playersā behaviors and even go to court. I cannot help to wonder if the purpose behind all the changes had more political reasons to make interfering and controlling the games easier, and recently more and more commercialized game competition environments. This incident is just the surface of the changing system within KBA that is reflected.
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This is completely different; the time is shared in football, so one player keeping the ball at the sideline doesnāt let the other team play either.
If a Go player wants to use all their available time for their first move is against no rules at all.
And Iām saying this as a person who gets annoyed by too slow players. It annoys me, but itās perfectly within the rules of the game.
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I mean Takemiya famously took 5 hours to make a move one time, likely just to annoy his opponent (because his opponent took a long time to make a move in the previous match)
Iām sure thereās just some random precedents that make you want to come up with rules like these.
To be fair we do have examples like
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Go title is not just one man said so, especially when they are currently still held in the format of one host association and invite players in other regions to join. It can absolutely happen where the ones who got invited donāt show up, and you claim yourself you had an "international title winner, even if no international players partake in them. Right now you can go ask players all around the world and ask if Byun Sangil won the 29th LG cup and was the winner, I think you can imagine the majority of the players in China would say no, and players in Korea would say yes, players in Japan would say Korean said so, but I can add * to the title Byun Sangil got in total. So does it still count as an International title? And if next year if LG Cup even can be held, and Chinese players simply refuse to participate, and state that even the 29th LG Cupās games donāt count in their records, what would the historical in the future view this āchampionship wonā by Byun. And the next Chinese League is about to start, and teams already refuse Byun to join the games, and the Nongshim Cup is about to begin next month, where it would be a Korean-sponsored game using Korean rules held in China with Japanese players participating as team games. What would you think it would happen in those games if a Korean referee made a similar ruling (or are Koreans even allowed to be as referees, or even join in the game if the best world players tournament before that happened and Ke Jie refused to join, the likelihood is very high)? This is definitely going to have an impact on the whole Go community you included.
And please make sure you understand what withdraw (éč³½) means (withdraw means in the Chinese records Ke Jie didnāt even lose in the 3rd game, and forfeit ę£ę¬ will be recorded but with Lossor+F, it doesnāt matter to the Korean records but certainly affect Ke Jieās rating in China and even records around the world to include the 2nd or 3rd game to calculate Ke Jie and Byun Sangilās rating officially or unofficially) and your post about the old Korean rules is from the section about the game format and equipment, not punishment. One is a statement of customs and definition, one is actively making what action is a penalty. Before that, it wasnāt even worth a warning.
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Is this Nie Weiping talking about it? I recognise the name from books.
I canāt understand it though, no captions. Be curious to know what they think
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@Counting_Zenist thanks for that thorough analysis and that context. I can agree with your reasoning.
In the go situation, yes a player is allowed to use all thinking time, but if they arenāt letting their opponent play a move, what are they actually thinking about? So using thinking time āafterā a move doesnāt seem rules-as-intended.
I agree, itās very different in that football has shared time. However, my point was that in the specific situation that the losing team is wasting time on the sideline, that situation becomes comparable to the go situation of not pressing the clock immediately after a move.
In that it is A) a written rule infraction, that B) doesnāt benefit the offender and C) doesnāt actually hurt the ānon-stallingā player. Yet there is very good reason not to allow the stalling, namely preventing disruption the play/flow of the game.
But I can understand if you think itās a bit far fetched of an example.
I thought we were talking about taking lots of time to play your move, not about not stopping the clock after your move was made.
The first one is perfectly legal.
The second one I can understand why it can be illegal (it disrupts the game) even if technically itās against the person to let their own time run out.
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The title of a tournament is given by the tournament organizers. If you are not involved in organizing the tournament you do usually not get to have a say in the matter of who won. Unless that is wanted/specified by the organizers.
The tournament comittee has decided that ė³ģģ¼ has won the tournament, you can read that on their official homepage http://baduk.lg.co.kr/ and of course everywhere else on the internet. There is no difference between a person saying that ė³ģģ¼ has not won the tournament and a person saying the earth is flat. Its no use to argue with such people.
What? What has ė³ģģ¼ to do with this. This seems completely irrational if true.
You explicitely stated that the tournament organizers might have to find a new second place player if heād decide to āwithdrawā from the tournament. This is not possible for him to decide. He would need the tournament organizers to acknowledge his withdrawal. He cannot make himself disappear from the tournament record by his own choice. That is what Iām saying.
If China decides to tamper with official Baduk game records then thatās a whole different situation. If they would actually decide to do so, then we will not be able to take Chinese players Baduk ratings at face value in the future.
The rules have always specified that the captured stones are to be put into the lid. They now specified what should happen if a player breaks that rule.
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Board nā Stones also show an example from 2010 when a Chinese player possibly left a stone on the table and mistakenly put it back in the bowl flipping the result of a half point game
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Here is the transcript translated using ChatGPT
Jiang Yi (Host, CCTV Sports and Youth Channel):
Currently, everyone is very concerned about the LG Cup match between Ke Jie and Byun Sang-il. After the issues that arose in the previous game, weāve encountered new problems in this one. Have you been closely following this matter?
Nie Weiping:
Iāve been paying a lot of attentionāvery closely.
First, this is a very unfortunate incident for our Go community. In the past, there have been many major competitions, but this is the first time such a situation has occurred.
Looking at this from two perspectives:
Ke Jie is young and might be a bit hot-tempered, which is understandable. I deeply sympathize with him.
However, regarding this matter, the Korean side has rules, even though our players may not fully understand them. I think Korea could have handled this better. There was no need to take such an extreme approach.
Every player works very hard to progress from the preliminaries to the finals, dedicating a lot of effort. But then, to lose a game so easily due to a rulingāsuch extreme measuresāI deeply sympathize with Ke Jie. It shouldnāt have been handled this way; there was definitely room for improvement.
Jiang Yi:
In the previous game, where two penalties with misplaced stones (outside the lid), led directly to a loss, what do you think about the penalty?
Nie Weiping:
You have to understand that for professional players at this high level, penalizing two points is essentially declaring them the loser.
Even a two-point penalty is significant. Itās like starting a soccer match with a 4:0 disadvantageāhow can you still play?
The penalty was too severe. I believe Korea could have handled this better.
This incident feels like a small tragedy for Go enthusiasts in both China and Korea.
Now that itās happened, I hope everyone can approach it from a broader perspective and focus on the bigger picture of Go.
The Korean Go Association and the Chinese Go Association need to work together to resolve this issue properly and avoid creating bigger problems.
Jiang Yi:
I understand your point. I recall Marshal Chen Yi once said, āThough Go is a small path, virtue holds the highest respect.ā
Nie Weiping:
āThough Go is a small path, virtue holds the highest respectāāthis is something Marshal Chen often said.
Jiang Yi:
Right, right. Go has always been considered a gentlemanās sport. In many regards, while the rules may seem reasonable on paper, they can feel unwarrented emotionally (thus unreasonable).
Nie Weiping:
Exactly, thatās what I mean as well.
Jiang Yi:
Does Ke Jie feel that the refereeās handling of the situation was a bit rough?
Nie Weiping:
Of course, of course. The refereeās handling was rough, compounded by Ke Jieās youth.
I do not agree with Ke Jieās decision to withdraw from the tournament. Escalating the matter to this point makes it seem almost irreparable.
Now that he has withdrawn, I hope both the Korean and Chinese Go Associations can address this issue from a higher perspective and handle it properly to prevent further disruptions.
Jiang Yi:
From a Go fanās perspective, everyone wants their national player to win. However, since such an unexpected incident occurred during the match, we should all wait for the Chinese Go Association and the Korean side to coordinate and announce a final resolution.
Nie Weiping:
I think that, in todayās game, a rematch could be an option.
Theyāve already ruled against Ke Jie in one gameāthereās no need to issue another loss today. Thatās too much. A rematch would be fairer and give everyone an opportunity.
This approach would show respect for the playersā hard work. After all, reaching the finals is no small feat, especially considering their age and current state. To take away his opportunity so easily feels quite inappropriate.
Jiang Yi:
From another perspective, this incident could ultimately benefit Go in China, Japan, and Korea, and even globally. It might push the three countries to unify certain rules. If we all want to promote Go worldwide and elevate it to a higher level, shouldnāt we work toward standardization?
Nie Weiping:
This is something that deserves serious attention. I think we could organize a trilateral meeting between China, Japan, and Korea to discuss how to make the rules more universally acceptable.
Edit: translation is generally fine, but this sentence ę£éå°éåå¾·ęå° is translated a bit weird. Instead of āThough Go is a small path, virtue holds the highest respectā, it is āAlthough Go is just a game (not a major discipline), Players should still maintain their highest virtue and respect (the game and each other)ā
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Have you read the historical story about Go Seigen and Honinbo Shusai
The Game with Shusai
The game between Go Seigen and Honinbo Shusai to celebrate the 60th birthday of Shusai is mentioned in Magic of Go. However, the column fails to mention the controversy surrounding the match. Each player was allowed 24 hours of playing time. Over a period of 3 months, from 16 October 1933 to 29 January 1934, the game was adjourned 13 times always at Shusaiās turn to play as it was Shusaiās privilege to determine when adjournments would occur. As the players were allowed to go home during the adjournments, many suspect that Shusai adjourned the game at critical moments and studied the current game situation with his pupils. Though he was behind mostly during the game, Shusai made a myoshu at 160 and surged back to eventually win by two points. Later, Segoe Kensaku let it slip to a journalist, supposedly off the record, the widespread belief in top go circles that Maeda Nobuaki, one of Shusaiās pupils, had discovered the move idea. It was certainly well known that Shusai did discuss the game with his pupils during the adjournments. The game was played without komi. Go Seigen played black. John Fairbairn presents a thorough analysis of this game and the surrounding situation in his book āāOld Fuseki vs New Fuseki: Honinbo Shusai plays Go Seigenāā, published by Slate and Shell.
And by leveraging every possible unfair advantage and breaking no existing custom at the time, Honinbo Shusai won the game against Go Seigen and kept his title as the āstrongest playerā in Japan at the time. So do people think Honinbo Shusai is the stronger player and the better player at that time today? Or do we think Go Seigen was the better player and stronger player? You can say technically Honinbo Shusai was still the title holder by Honinbo House but even players at the time outside of Honinbo House didnāt agree. Thus started the journey of Go Seigen beating every Japanese player in Junbago. The event actually mark the end of Honinbo Shusaiās reputation as well as the recognition of Go Seigen
Those only mock others and ignore othersā opinions, deem to get forgotten or mocked by history.
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