Number of moves to make a game not annulled

Dear,

What is the minimum number of moves in a game for it to be ranked after a time-out?
I am a beginner and noticed two of my games got a time-out by my opponent and one game got ranked, another not. The first mentioned game got more moves than the second, so there probably is a minimum number of moves that has to played before the game gets ranked.

Anyone any idea?

Kind regards,

Ton DaiKen

Less than N moves on an NxN board will be annuled.

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Thank you! Sensible :wink:

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I disagree. Playing 18 moves and having the game annulled is rather frustrating haha

In my opinion, 5 moves is more than enough chance for a player to “cancel” a game free and clear on any board size.

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I vote for 2 moves, for two reasons:

  1. When both players put a stone on the board, they are in a way saying that they decided not to cancel.
  2. Opening avoidance. For example, if you as White can cancel a game after Black made move 3, then you can always avoid diagonal fuseki.

PD: I’m refering to both timeout and manual cancellation.

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Makes sense. I would support this also. Players have the option to say “I don’t want this game” but if they both play a stone then the game’s a game.

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Mostly I use cancellation to avoid trolls, so I believe the current system that they have is just fine. That way, I can tell whether the opponent will actually play a real game, or start doing 1-1 points after a couple of moves.
However, it definitely could be lowered, just not to something like two moves.

If the limit is two moves, trolls can play 1-1 at move 3.
If the limit is 19 moves, they can do it just the same, at move 20. This will actually waste more of your time.
It is unfortunate, but there is no helping you. Just report them to a moderator.

I propose a lower limit of 5 moves or less. That is enough to see the four corner moves. In most cases, this is not enough information for one party to cancel for feeling behind.

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This is the wrong tool for the job. The moderator button is for trolls.

Cancellation is for “oops, I didn’t mean to accept a game of this nature”.

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On the flip side, let’s say I get a game by mistake and then bump my touchpad on the board while trying to cancel. At two moves, now I don’t get to leave without a ratings hit.

Remember: some openings are signaled from move one (Jabberwocks, Black Hole, Mirror Go, to name a few). I’m not sure what’s significant about adding diagonal fuseki to the list.

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Given this, 4 or 5 moves is still a more reasonable number than 19.

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Yes.

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Remind me again why we need any moves before we decide we want to cancel?

It seems to me that when you play a stone, you are saying “right, I’m ready and committed to play this game”.

What can you possibly discover after that, which you could not discover before, other than that your opponent plays an opening you don’t like, or the experimental opening you planned actually sucks. In neither case do I think you should be able to get out of it with a cancel.

Answer was already discussed above.

“A bump on the touchpad while trying to cancel”. I didn’t realise that was a serious comment - the cancel button is miles from the playing board.

And you made this mistake after you already made a mistake getting into the game? How much slack should we be cutting people? :smiley:

But OK - I see now why one stone’s grace might help someone who’s fumbling with a tiny screen on a bouncy bus :slight_smile:

GaJ

You don’t have much experience with laptop touch pads do you? :stuck_out_tongue:

“Touchy” is an apt description. :wink:

This is a fine point. By move 19 the game is well under-way. The same is true for any board size:

Maybe a simple adjustment could be:

Less than N/3 moves on an NxN board will be annulled.

Up to three moves on a 9x9, four moves on a 13x13 and six moves on a 19x19. This solves all of the points raised above (leaving some ambiguity on fuseki avoidance) and keeps the simplicity of the original rule.

I agree, about that many moves seems to be a reasonable amount, however, one thing that having a 19 move turn limit does(and I am not saying I like the 19 turn limit rule) is that it highly discourages sandbaggers. To have to drop your rank by waiting 19 moves may be annoying, even to a troll. Especially if your opponent moves slowly.

Though sandbagging isn’t really a major problem on OGS thankfully(at least in my experience?), so a lower move limit then 19 or 13 or 9 should definitely be implemented.

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Agreed. I hadn’t considered sand-baggers.

Can you elaborate on how this sandbagger discouragement work with a higher stone count before bailing. I didn’t follow that (proably I don’t understand the modus operandi of sandbaggers!)

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