If white goes first white can add a move on the lower left. Black resumed and invaded there first, flipping the outcome.
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Not at all. The OG wrote,
That doesnāt refer to a specific game. It is a general question. I thought it was odd that no one pointed out the limitation on restarts, so I decided to point it out. In other words, it is a general answer to a general question. Perfectly on topic.
yes, but the point is there is a deadlock under japanese rules. Nobody want to end the game, nobody want to resume, and hypothetical play is inconclusive.
Under Japanese rules, if someone thinks they can turn the game by resuming AND they are happy to resume and let their opponent play first, I think that would be allowed and would not be āboth players loseā. You could imagine a situation where you think there is a move that is defensible, but itās complicated enough that you donāt think youāre opponent will succeed, then you can resume without it being āboth players loseā.
This is from a translation of the japanese rules:
After the game stops according to Article 9, if the players find an effective move, which would affect the result of the game, and therefore cannot agree to end the game, both players lose.
Emphasis added by me. If a player is happy to resume and let their opponent play first, there is no disagreement about ending the game. Their opponent has to oblige, and has the right to play first.
The issue is some things that would result in a deadlock under normal Japanese rules do not result in a deadlock under the implementation on OGS.
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Again, I could be wrong about all this, so Iād be interested in hearing @yebellzās take on things, as they have a much better understanding of Japanese rules. But, I think the rationale used for this annulement:
seems like this game was resumed from teh scoring and then the winner changed, so this is annulled according to japanese rules
Is wrong, at least strictly under the official Japanese rules. Of course, the player wanting to resume would not have been allowed to play first under the official rules. But what I mean is I do not think resumption of play changing the outcome, compared to no resumption and agreement to end, is what results in both players lose.
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I donāt know either player - and perhaps this is just me projecting - but Iām wondering if another explanation for this social situation might be possible, which I am hoping might defuse the otherwise unpleasant taste in the OPās mouth
Because both of these players were beginners, it is very possible that Black passed in good faith, not realizing it may be possible for them to live in Whiteās lower left corner
As mentioned above - the polite / legal move thing to do at this point would be for Black to ASK if they could resume play - sort of like asking for an un-do. That way - the choice to continue the game or end it right there would be up to White. Like - if Black had said - hey, I thought the game was over, but now Iām seeing another possibility? Can we continue? Is that OK? That would have gone down very differently.
However thatās not what happened. My guess - based on my own dim understanding of things way back when I was 24-25 kyu - is that Black may have thought they were ready to end the game, but then the got flustered, realized they wanted to gamble on a risky invasion, and kept playing. Iām guessing they probably didnāt realize theyād made an illegal move / social blunder until they got the natural consequences thereof. I donāt know if it makes being on the pointy end of that exchange any less unpleasant, but hopefully some food for thought
My 2 cents - your mileage may vary - void where prohibited
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To summarize,
- The server allows this because the players may need to settle life and death disputes, or they may have realized after passing that some borders are still open.
- Rejecting the score and resuming the game repeatedly is not allowed, itās considered as a form of stalling.
- Resuming the game for other reasons than 1. is not fair-play but is not prohibited by the current ToS.
- The Japanese rules say that āif a player requests resumption of a stopped game, his opponent must oblige and has the right to play firstā. Unfortunately this is not implemented by the server.
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These additional comments have been very informative. The only thing that remains unclear to me is why the game was annulled. Sorry if Iām being denseā¦
Since there were unsealed boundaries the game was permitted to resume even after 2 successive passes (i.e., the first pair of passes) - wasnāt this an appropriate restart? After which, one player turned the tides on the other. Why an annulment?
I think the reasoning is that it was annuled because they didnāt just seal the borders but rather started an invasion.
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Thanks. This makes the most sense now.
IMO, once both players pass the game is over. Deciding the status of groups should be automated and when itās wrong it is the developers problem not the players. Then the game could get reported when wrong, the admins should flip the result to whatever it should have been, the admins should also be strong enough to score the game properly, OR let Katago decide the final result. Then the report is also given to the developers to improve the auto score feature.
The exception could be for custom games. But for auto match and the like, it should be automated. Both players passing should mean the game is DONE regardless of the state of the board.
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@PJTraill Hi, you are right in assuming Iām very new, only 2 days playing. After this game I learned the double pass rules and I agree that OGS shouldnāt have allowed me to continue. Arguing the rules themselves, I donāt itās a perfect rule; personally I wanted to check the score as OGS doesnāt have a current score display (that I know of). Eventually, after seeing that I would lose, I wanted to try and win, thus choosing to continue.
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For some games āanalysisā can be enabled so you can use score estimator during the game. In other games itās disabled and for those games your skill in estimating the score is considered part of your go skills.
And thatās actually a good part of why itās frowned upon to restart the game after scoring has started - youāve now seen the estimated score for the scoring phase and you shouldnāt take that knowledge back to the āplayingā phase.
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I do not agree. I find it ugly that the result should depend on an external authority, and think it should be determined by negotiation between the players mediated by the UI, with resumption to resolve disputes.
I have described in detail how that could work at Use AI scoring to eliminate score cheating - #32 by PJTraill .
Read your āproposalā from that post and I like what you have. From what Iām learning, go scoring is sometimes difficult to decide as there is no single win condition (like checkmate). Because of the ambiguity of the scoring, I also think that it should be the players who ultimately decide the game, not the AI. This is where online play might be a problem (stalling) but the players should have ample time to look at the board and make changes to the score.
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Donāt be too harsh on yourself, even at my almost-dan level i sometimes pass with some border being open, and then need to resume the game in order to close it. That has happened both on online games, as well as OTB tournaments >___>
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