BQM 12

  Difficulty: Advanced   Keywords: EndGame, Question, Rules
[Diagram]
End of game  

It's the end of the game. Both players have passed. The Japanese rules apply. The white player sets about to remove the marked Black stones. "Hey, hey" Black objects, "I should remove your stones, which are dead."

Suppose this is a friendly game, and the players go on to analyze the position. They conclude, correctly, that whoever plays first, wins the fight, something they failed to see during the game. (We assume the outer, unmarked chains of stones are alive by virtue of enough eye space.)

Now, if I understand the rules well, White can prove that her marked stones are not dead, since she can make them live by capturing the marked black stones, starting to fill liberties, e.g. at b.

However, she cannot claim the Black marked stones are dead, because Black can demonstrate he can make them live, just the same way, capturing the marked white stones, filling liberties, starting e.g. at a.

Conclusion: neither of those stones die and both remain on the board as if they where alive by seki, although the position should not lead to seki in actual play.

Any comments ?

-- DieterVerhofstadt


The position is not finished. The result cannot be counted. In a friendly game opponents have to finish it. In a tournament the result should be determined by a referee. Referee can proclaim it a seki, can play it to the end himself or declare the result in favour of the player with beautiful eyes. The decision is final and cannot be appealed.

[Diagram]
End of game  

In the following position (and this happens quite often in pro games) the referee declares the marked black stones dead but points marked with letters from a to e neutral points because actually White has to make all those moves inside her territory to capture the black stones.

Usually in online games as Black I will fill all the dame to the left forcing White to kill.

Generally I like to force the opponent to play defensive moves inside his territory. Sometimes he refuses and then I feel guilty about making big damage. Here is one example.


Dieter: I know the position is not finished. But the game is: both players have passed! In a friendly game, you say, players should play it out. But who will be granted the first move ? And in a tournament, the referee must decide, you say. I agree, but this post has precisely for purpose to know which decision I am to take as a referee when such an event occurs in my tournament. And I want to make a sounder judgment than in favour of the player with the beautiful eyes. After all, that's what rules are for, isn't it?


BillSpight: As I understand the Japanese rules, the players have found an effective move after the game stop, and cannot agree on the status of the stones involved. In that case, both players lose. (If one player could give up his stones and still win, he could agree that they were dead.)

There are provisions in the Japanese rules for a kind of dead stones seki, where both players' stones are dead. But the death of those stones is determined by the peculiar post-stop rules, not by regular play.

W: The way I was taught it was that the game ended when both players agreed on the status of every point on the board. Passing is simply declaring that you do not think you can gain any more score, not necesarilly declaring that any of your groups that the player contests is his. IMO if the players disagree on the status of some group after two passes, the one who passed first gets to make his presumed gaining move, and play continues until the disagreement is resolved. I was also taught to always fill in the dame with regular plays before passing; in this specific case, there's a lot of dame to fill in no matter who's turn it is or what you think the status of the groups are. Whichever of these habits you follow, the result is the same; the player who passed first gets to capture.

f3etoiles In fact, what you have been taught is of little importance. The question is "What says the official rule?' And the answer, of course, depends where (and how) you are playing. Official Japanese rules (1989 ; the 1949 version was quite different) say the position is in seki , including the outside groups (never mind they have two eyes, or even a lot of teritory; all this disappears. Unfair, or absurd ? Complain to the Nihon Kiin :-) Friendly game ? I would say "have a good laugh on it and play another game" (or count to see if it would have made any difference) Area counting? (AGA, or French rules, say) : 2 possibilities : a) count the position as is (kind of seki), or b) let the game start again, with the player who passed first having the move (quite unfair, of course, but the situation is absurd anyway : in area counting, you are supposed to fill the dames)


IronChefSakai: What is this rule involving "beautiful eyes?"

KarlKnechtel: Dieter refers, from what I can tell, to that most universal of tiebreakers, that of physical attractiveness - arbitrarily favouring the more attractive party in a dispute. Nothing to do with the Go definition of an eye. :)


BQM 12 last edited by 50.23.115.116 on January 27, 2015 - 05:47
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