OGS has, perhaps unwittingly, invented a new Go variant “Can you afford to pass 3 times? Go” or “- - - Go”*, and we are all playing it. If you are ahead and past move 120, rather than playing moves to try to win, you can take a gamble and pass: if your opponent doesn’t have a ko threat type move big enough to drop your lead below a KataGo estimate of 99% after you pass following the ko threat, they follow up on the threat and you pass again, then you win. But be warned, if you are still winning after the 3 passes, but only 95%, you don’t win and have to keep playing (but you can try again once your winrate is over 99% again, but don’t be tempted to check with KataGo whilst playing, that’s cheating!). And your opponent might find some good ko threat and then you are losing after the passes. You don’t need to follow through with all 3 passes though, you can answer the threat so you just passed once. This adds an intriguing meta-game to vanilla Go, which was getting rather boring after 3000 years and needed a refresh.
Until it actually happens, this is just trying to scare people with a Boogie Man.
I hold nothing against you, personally or otherwise, however this kind of sarcasm seems petty to me. It’s also spam to sincere threads with this tag. Somewhat clickbaitey.
In endgame winning by 10 points can be 99% according to KataGo. And if the temperature of the board is low, with just 1 or 2 point moves available, then you be 15 points ahead and 99.8% winning, pass 3 times and let them grab a couple 1-2 point moves, and then be 10 points ahead and 99.0% winning and get the win awarded to you. So opponent needs to find some big (>15 is plenty, even 10 points could be enough if reduces you to 80% winrate) ko threats you need to answer rather than pass to break your 3 passes strategy. This could happen even with some complex position remaining on the board, which KataGo assumes you will answer correctly, but in reality you are a weak human who might make mistakes so would rather get the win awarded.
tbh, since I see online games as practice with no competitive merit…
this sounds like a tournament problem, you haven’t stopped anybody from learning anything, just eliminated risk of making big blunders, so since this isn’t a competitive tournament I don’t care
If the game was not ended by the new 3 pass rule, white would have had the opportunity to make a mistake once all dame were filled to not play a defensive move inside their territory at e.g. g15, and if white did so then black could have won the game.
That may be your usage of OGS, but it is not so for all: I played many serious tournament games on OGS and indeed the game I put the most effort into in my life (more than the British championship title matches at 3 hours each, probably >24 hours of thought), on OGS, against Alexander Dinerstein 3p, beating him when I was 3d.
Actually, I have now read @frolag’s argument, and it does make sense from at least that point of view. Still, somehow, it does not seem noteworthy enough to me (and in that particular case, not likely to change the result either).
Would this happen enough to become a problem? I honestly do not know. But until I have seen some indication that that is the case, I don’t understand the visceral backlash to such a measure, let alone it being absurd enough to warrant disruptive mockery.
I’d rather wait and see whether, in practice, this idea has any merit.
Maybe an interesting addition to this variant is to make it Blitz with Absolute time, so that passing three times might be a way to win when you’re low on time
Assuming for some reason we were talking about this three pass thing being a variant and not a criticism
