Remove the Captives in their own Time

This article describes the proposal^[1] to allow the captor to require their opponent to remove the captives in their own time. This obviates the dissatisfaction felt by many that something usually positive (capturing) should be penalised and that the loser of the stones can use this to wriggle out of a loss.

Of course it remains advisable to plan to play so as to complete one’s game within one’s time limit.

Many time systems allow the clock to be stopped for large captures, as noted in section Stopping clock for removing big captures on page Common Clock Rules. This goes some way to solving the problem, but some clocks can be a little awkward to pause.

Proposal

When a player fills the last liberty of one or more opposing groups, they may, before pressing the clock say ‘captives, please’, ‘(number) groups captured’ or ‘(number) stones captured’ or an equivalent in a language shared with their opponent. Speech-impeded players may instead tap or otherwise indicate the captured stones and their bowl of captives. In this case, the opponent must remove all captured stones and pass them to their opponent before making their own move or passing.

Discussion

Notes

[1] Proposal documented by Patrick Traill (2019-01-23).