Hi. I’m new to OGS. I registered long ago but haven’t played much yet. I wanted to try playing here more frequently. I probably have just misunderstood something, so I’m just trying to understand how things work.
I played a game against the machine. (https://online-go.com/game/3576408) At the end we got to the stone removing phase. I never clicked on “Accept removed stones.” The machine marked some stones dead and I didn’t agree with the result, so I tried to click on some of its stones that I believe are dead. As soon as I clicked on one of the stones the machine had marked as dead, the result was finalized without my acceptance.
I’m just trying to understand how things work. According to the Help page, there should be a phase where it waits for me to click on “Accept removed stones.” Perhaps the opponent can force acceptance without my approval if they are accepting defeat? Or perhaps there is no discussion phase when playing against a machine? The win is correct (I won), but not the score, so it doesn’t make a big difference. I just want to know how this works for the future. Thanks.
For whatever reason, bot games on OGS are auto-scored, sometimes incorrectly. When incorrect scoring affects the win/loss in a rated game, you can call a moderator to resolve that. See this post for more details.
Thanks. I understand now. I appreciate all the helpful replies. I don’t think HowToPlay is right about the rank, though. This is marked as a ranked game. But it’s still ok, since I won, even though it wasn’t scored correctly.
Yes it’s marked as ranked but you don’t gain or lose points from it. The bots are set to always be provisional, being you don’t gain or lose points when you play them.
By the way, why do bots use Japanese rules? On other servers where scoring is automatic, Chinese rules are used. That way players can make a few last plays to ensure that the score is clear without losing points. Myself, I prefer Japanese rules with real people, but Chinese rules seem to make more sense when automatic scoring is involved. Just a question!
Thanks for the speedy response, HowToPlay! Again, I’m not concerned about this game, just trying to understand how OGS works. Can you explain more how the game is ranked but doesn’t gain or lose points? How does being provisional affect the score?
Provisional means the player doesn’t have a confirm rank yet, as to not effect the servers ranking system. A player must play a certain amount of games first to confirm there rank. During this time all the games they play, there opponents neither gain or lose points.
I did a quick game to show https://online-go.com/game/3580710. On the right hand bar there is a icon called Game Information click it and you can see that the rule-set in Chinese
Ok, that worked! Thanks. I still wonder why the bots don’t play Chinese by default (so this won’t happen to others). But at least I know how to make it work for me now.
Makes sense. A lot of sense, actually. I keep forgetting about all that cheating stuff… Pathologically guileless, I am. I’d never thought of doing something like that to a poor piece of software.