No Result

No result (J. mushoubu, 無勝負), also known as a void or annulled game, is a rare game outcome where neither player is considered to have won; the game is not counted in official results and is replayed. Most commonly it occurs due to repeating whole board situations such as triple ko, quadruple ko, or, more rarely, eternal life. Under Japanese rules (Article 12), such a repeating position becomes a no result if the players agree. Other rulesets contain different provisions.

Although a no result game is not counted in the player's results (unlike jigo), it is still an official game, and receives, for example, its own number in a series. In a best-of-seven match with a no result game, the last game will be considered Game 8.

Occurrences in professional games

• From the inception of the Nihon Kiin on 24th July 1924 till 30th June 2007, only 19 instances of no result were recorded among the 168,813 games played by the professionals, averaging about 1 no result game every 9000 played.^[1]

• In the fourth game of the 1980 Meijin Title, played October 8-9, Cho Chikun, playing against Otake Hideo, retook a ko without an intervening ko threat. Since he had asked the game recorder if it was his turn to take the ko, and the game recorder confirmed that it was, the referee, Ishida Yoshio, in a controversial decision, declared the game to be no result.

• On June 28th 2007, during the 14th Agon Cup in Japan, a game between Kono Rin 9p and Akiyama Jiro 8p ended in a no result due to the emergence of a quadruple ko.

• An Sungjoon and Choi Cheolhan, playing in the fifth round of the 2013 Korean Baduk League, created eternal life and the game was judged to have no result by the referee.

[1] Translated from an article in Weiqi Tiandi 2007.15.