Wasting time in a lost game
I had never seen this until it happened to me the other night. I suppose it may be a fair ploy in some cases, but I found it quite unnecessary and offensive.
I was playing white in a 4-stone handicap game, and the game was finished. A preliminary count showed that I was ~20 points ahead. We played with a clock, and I had around 2 minutes left, wheras my opponent had around 5 minutes left. The dame were filled and the status of all the groups were clear. (By the way, this was not a blitz.)
He proceeded to continue to play moves inside my territory, leaving me to capture his stones when required or passing, seemingly with the hope that my time would run out before he had reduced me to living groups with just 2 eyes each.
As it happened, he ran out of moves before I ran out of time, and I won by what turned out to be 17 points. But I don't think I will want to play him again anytime soon.
Note to programmers of computer Go players: A good number of computer Go programs play this way, and it's very irritating when the human player has already won the game.
--unkx80
Indeed, but recognising whether one has won or lost requires an ability to evaluate the whole board position, which in turn requires the ability to judge the status of all groups on the board; these two judgement calls are very difficult to program into computers. Once they are able to do this reliably, you will likely find that they won't need to know when to resign very often :-)
-- BenFinney
You were ahead on the board, and your opponent was ahead on the clock. In other words, you'd sacrificed time for position, and now your opponent was attempting an upset using what tools he or she had. If you were ahead in territory, and your opponent had received thickness in exchange, would you be mad if they tried to use their thickness to their advantage?
To me, it makes sense to either accept the clock as part of the game or not play with a clock at all.
-- DougRidgway
I accept cigarette smoke as a part of the club atmosphere and as such as part of a game. But if my opponent continuously blows smoke into my face, I won't play him soon again either. Mortens example is an extreme case of unsporting behaviour. Even passing requires a small amount of time, and if multiplied by the number of empty spaces with liberties on the board, the opponent can win on time in many cases. See also the tournament rules of last Toyota Denso cup in Amstelveen, tipping the balance even too much in favour of sportmanship for my taste.
--Dieter
The opposite thing happened in a tournament I played in January. I was about 30 points or more down on the board, with 10 minutes on the clock. My opponent had about 30 seconds. The tournament rules were sort of like "sudden death": when my opponent ran out of time, he would not be allowed to move; but I could make moves, as long as I had time on the clock. Similar to sudden death, but more like "sudden paralysis" or "sudden coma". So there I was with 9 minutes more than he, about midway through the yose. I thought about engineering a win on time; instead I resigned, to the surprise of everyone. If the board position were less clear, I would have kept playing. But I just didn't feel good about winning on time when the board position was so hopeless by itself. (But I could not fault a player who would keep playing to win on time; it is part of the rules after all.) I guess I don't have the killer instinct. -- TakeNGive
Jasonred : The point being, Morten was not ahead on the board but behind on time... the game was actually OVER... this is different from not resigning when you're 50 points below, but half the board is open, and you have 30 minutes while your opponent has 30 seconds...
Unfortuneately, this bad behaviour is very common in all blitz games, whether Go, Chess, or any other timed game :( ... -- Tim Brent
Fhayashi: I had someone do this to me in a blitz game on KGS. I had things mostly wrapped up, he kept playing silly moves to eat up time. Then he finally passed, I passed, and during the "dead stone selection" phase, he suddenly "undos" and plays another move. It's all legal though, so I can't really complain. I've won and lost games where we've played in the opponent's large eyespace and kept getting/giving "pass" responses, only to end up with a big, dead group.
JasonD: I like to think of it this way: my opponents are perfectly capable of managing their time, as am I. Running out of time means you lose, regardless of the board position. If you dont like it, you shouldn't have agreed to the time settings. If you lose on time, you need to think a little faster or manage your time better.
What is the point of spending most of your time getting a superior board position, and then complaining because your opponent uses a strategy that allows him to win? Having a 30k player play against a dan with the dan having only 30 seconds of play time and the 30k 30 minutes... who should win? If the dan agrees to the time settings, he shouldn't complain. See Complaining about time settings
I like the statement above about trading territory for thickness, or whatever. Trading time for a better position is the same thing.
BobMcGuigan: In the old days (75+ years ago) in Japan there were no clocks but sometimes pros used time as a weapon. There is a good story on this topic by Nakayama Noriyuki. John Power's translation is published in Go World issue 50. Hoshino was playing Sakata and adopted a strategy of trying to outlast his opponent. Many hours were spent on each move, the goal being to tire out the opponent (there were no adjournments) and cause mistakes. This is a different kind of (ab)use of time than that discussed above. I think it all depends on one's reason for playing. In the go clubs I've frequented, clocks are almost never used for friendly games, except if it is explicitly a blitz game. So why are there almost universally time limits on servers? I think it is to keep things moving along and to allow someone to know approximately how long the game will last. Most server games are "friendly" games so, in my opinion, the goal should be to play good games. Sudden death games guarantee poor play due to time consciousness.
Blake: If you don't like losing on time, you should play with different time controls. :) If you use byo-yomi timing, you will have 30 seconds per move for as long as you can keep moving within 30 seconds; in canadian overtime (IGS timing), you have a certain amount of time to play a certain number of moves, infinitely, as long as you play that number of moves in the set time. Either method prevents time-killing.