Restarting games from scoring tool

If you need to score, you didn’t fight hard enough!

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I’m not sure what you mean. I think it’s that either player can restart the game. There is a notification for “game restarted from scoring phase” so this must be something that can happen without one player’s input.

But then who plays? The person who didn’t restart or the person who’s turn it would have been?

For me if it’s the former then there’s not much problem (at least in this example.) But if the latter then there could be issues with playing on with new information.

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And what about correspondance games? Is it possible that one player passes and then the other passes, sees the score, restarts, it’s the other player’s turn but they have not seen the score state so have no idea where is unsettled or not and maybe pass again…

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We need a new meme: “scoring is for pussies”. :grin:
I guess what picture could be appropriate.

((actually I am that kind of pussy: I hardly resign a game))

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I think you completely missed the point alright.

It’s a problem for every level below professional and nearly professional players I’d say. If katago is hinting there’s a weakness somewhere by marking intersections as neutral or groups as dead, strong players especially might be able to use this info and figure it out that there’s a seki somewhere etc.

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Unless it becomes OGS policy to have Katago in the score estimator essentially tell players how to finish the game, I feel like games like these should just be annulled. Not this game necessarily of course, but games where players gain new information and then resume.

This is the problem I alluded to a long time ago actually in effect, much more clearly than I imagined even.

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This seems not really the right solution though. Surely it should be that the indication of dead stones/settled areas be limited somehow to avoid this. Eg only stones or groups of stones in atari are marked dead or some such cut off in certainty that leaves more for players to mark themselves but not leaving it completely unassisted?

I mean more so in the short term. I can imagine people being quite frustrated if say a person gets to scoring and thinking they’ve won, and then their opponent decides to go back and play again after seeing katago’s suggestions.

I don’t think it would be unreasonable for someone to ask for such a game to be annulled unless it genuinely is to become site policy that it’s ok. It’s very similar to getting to the scoring phase, having a friend message you to say “Hey the game isn’t finished you can capture theses stones” and then you going back to continue the game.

In any case yes some other long term should be implemented. @Vsotvep mentioned some ideas for example on how the usage of Katago could work

I tried a suggestion as well

but I think it still would just give too much info away that there’s still moves to be made in the area. So likely something similar to Vsotvep’s algorithm is better.

I think though when you know it’s katago giving an opinion, it might still be hard to avoid some situations where it gives away a hint that there’s some aji. I guess if this is kept to a minimum it’s better than no change.

It makes sense but maybe a bit too limited, but maybe that’s how it might need to be, I don’t know :slight_smile:

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When a game restarts, the person who plays first is the one who would have played next had the game not been interrupted. No one ever gets two turns in a row.

This thread addresses a significant problem that is much more common than one might think. I know this because I watch a lot of games, especially among DDKs. It also has the potential to affect higher-level games since KataGo is stronger than anyone on this site and might notice a weakness that even dans have overlooked.

When both players overlook an unsettled position that could be decided by the next move, and the autoscore reveals the defect, then acting on that information is the same as botting.

I see only two possible solutions: either prevent return to play, or annul the game if an unsettled position has the potential to change the outcome. Perhaps add a grace period of a few minutes before the game is officially scored, during which someone could file a mod report if they wanted the game adjudicated. The filing of a report might then freeze the game until adjudication occurs.

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… or as the OP said, dumb down the scoring tool, so that it really only helps with obvious areas (if that is possible).

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I believe this is the case for the various rulesets that use area scoring (e.g., Chinese, AGA, New Zealand, etc.).

However, this should not be the case under Japanese rules, which explicitly states that when a person asks to resume the game, their opponent gets the next move.

This quirk of the Japanese rules can even lead to both players losing.

Technically, the Japanese rules specifically prescribes that both players should lose. However, pragmatically, it seems reasonable to annul the game to avoid the ambiguous effect on the rating system.

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Did you ever have a game Iike this? I think there are too many theorists worrying about things don’t happen

The solution is though to have an option to disable auto score, everything back to a hundred years ago :smile:

I haven’t played a whole lot of live games since the update.

I don’t think very many of my correspondence games have ended or ended in scoring since the update either.

Just because it hasn’t happened to you or me doesn’t mean it’s just something in theory. It has clearly come up as a potential issue. It’s also the case that without a potential policy on it, people might start doing it more often than now (which maybe not at all, or it may be not reported on the forums, or just not reported).

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Sure, too many too serious on the tool and features of the site, :relieved:

Under what conditions is it acceptable to restart?

It’s difficult. This is just a general issue when both players think the game is finished, while in fact it isn’t.

Just the other day there was a more obvious case posted on reddit.
I think there is no easy way to fix such player mistakes so that it would be considered fair to everyone in 100% of the cases. In real life games, sometimes I might encourage players to play on, but that is already interfering with the game and it will be difficult to automate. And players could even refuse (after all, they both passed, so the game is technically over).

Perhaps the fairest way would be to always use KataGo to automatically evaluate the score when both players pass and never allow resumption. The players wouldn’t even need to accept the score before the result is final. It’s all automatic when both players pass (similar to FlyOrDie).

The players might be surprised by the score, but at least it’s virtually impossible to “cheat”.

You’d have to give KataGo sufficient playouts to score the game correctly in 99.999% of cases.

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In a real life tournament game, my opponent counted 10 more points for himself, I did not bother to watch and a 2d spectator saw and corrected it. I never thought my opponent was cheating.

No need to complicate things. There are most likely practical and easy ways to solve complicated problem. People don’t want to do that any more, like where is my calculator?

Go is an intellectual game. When there is a problem, solve it yourself. I thought that’s why people like Go, apparently not. Sad

Well, the other option is to always require players to mark dead stones (like KGS) and resume when there is disagreement. After all, that is how it’s usually done in real life. That would be fine too.

But I think OGS wants to accomodate players (novices) who don’t understand this dead stone removal phase and help them to score the game. In that case, I feel OGS should fully automate scoring and result determination, instead of some in-between solution.

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If you look at the image/game in the OP though, Katago might give a fairly random looking score to the game though, depending on how far it can get into the opponents territory, or how many stones would be captured etc.

It’s not really a good solution to positions with weaknesses that the players haven’t seen.

I think definitely one should just want to let the two players accept whichever score they both agree even if it’s nonsense from perfect play or superhuman play with Katago + high playouts.

The problem is just to help that process along enough but without giving away the opinion of a superhuman bot :slight_smile:

Taking katago out of the scoring would obviously solve the problem, but I think the nicety of an engine like Katago is that is likely to “understand” more easily sekis and things in the scoring.

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