Thank you! Haha, it’s so frustrating. Until you would resume and continue to play on. I don’t mind showing it to you why those stones are dead, I like to help as well, but don’t keep insisting that they aren’t dead. And I would not turn down a review unless I have something to do. I like reviews, they really help. 
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Hi, sorry to revive an old topic, but I have been thinking about this recently. I am a beginner. I can tell when smaller groups are dead, but sometimes it is harder with larger groups. It does help me to play things through to work out the reasons, and I would definitely welcome constructive criticism on my games from anyone more experienced. Sometimes it just needs doing it a few times for the penny really to drop.
I also had the situation that ajventi describes, where I had a section that had two larger eyes that were connected without any cuts. We had both passed, and it was asking about removing the group as dead stones. We both agreed that the group was alive, but neither of us knew how to change the group from dead to alive. My opponent was a gentleman, and we agreed to just play it out; then he tried to attack inside my territory and almost succeeded in getting a foothold. We are both 25k, so we found the game interesting and useful.
So I guess what I am trying to say is that for me, it depends on who you are playing. If you are both experienced it would be boring, futile and counterproductive to continue to flog a dead horse; but if it teaches a lesson, why not? Thanks to those experienced players who are prepared to invest the time to educate us noobs. Although I haven’t had a teaching game yet, I would really appreciate a more experienced person investing the time in me.
I think behaviour that was described, quickly making a section that is plainly dead alive just before the time runs out is just bad sportsmanship, and would leave a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t know if I could be bothered to report such petty one-upmanship, but I would definitely never have another game with that person.
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I think behaviour that was described, quickly making a section that is plainly dead alive just before the time runs out is just bad sportsmanship, and would leave a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t know if I could be bothered to report such petty one-upmanship, but I would definitely never have another game with that person
It’s really more than bad-sportsmanship, it’s trying to exploit a feature of the site to win games, so basically cheating.
The OGS community at large is better off if people who do this are reported to the moderators so it doesn’t become common.
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I don’t think that at my level it’s fair to call it a teaching game, but I’d be happy to play a game and review it afterwards - send me a challenge if you like.
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At the moment it is not letting me accept any more challenges as I have quite a few long correspondence games on the go, but I will take you up on that offer as soon as I can, if that’s OK.
Leave it too long and I’ll probably be asking you for a teaching game
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I had a game like this yesterday and when their pointless moves inside my territory got ridiculous I sent a message, “what are you doing?” and they resigned. As a new player on here I was curious if I should have done something differently.
Well as long as it’s a beginner game I would suggest a little "compasion"
Your game was against a player who seems to have been playing his first game. It takes a while to fully grasp the rules and see the potential / see that there is none. A polite explanation might be best in most cases. If the opponent insists on being annoying I suggest the “resign, report, and move on” option.
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That’s right, that’s why I wish we could turn rated games into unrated if both players agree. That way we could go a lot easier on new players, allow them to try things out, play teaching moves, and just have a fun relaxing game, without risking your rank. I totally enjoy this kind of games! Like this one fun game
This is inevitable with new players. Many people just don’t learn all of the rules when they start to play. Or if they read them, they don’t fully understand them or remember them. I didn’t understand Ko until i was 15 kyu. The concept of eyes, or needing two-eyes in order to live, is actually rather complicated. Unless you have a teacher spelling it out for you, you’re unlikely to understand.
The most complicated part of teaching Go is explaining when a game is finished. Explaining that you simply pass when there is nothing productive left to do; then you remove the dead stones. Many things need to be understood to even make sense of that.
I can imagine being a beginner, finishing a game, and then suddenly my opponent starts marking my stones as dead and removing them from the board. How dare they touch my stones! I read, very clearly, that stones are only removed from the board when they run out of liberties. I would think my opponent is probably cheating - maybe they’re trying to take advantage of me?
Of course, they could just be punks looking to waste your time and theirs. But I think lack of understanding is more likely. If this is a regular problem, then maybe a lot of moderator time can be saved by displaying an animation to new players that explains dead stones? This could be shown at the stone removal phase of every players’ first 20 games.
Is that even plausible? Or am I being optimistic about human nature here? Are these people punks looking to waste your time and theirs?
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