Forum for Dispute Mero-Jasiek
I don't get it [#331]
Can someone explain in layman's terms what was being argued? I don't get how this affected the score of the game at all.
After the fourth pass there were some "dead" stones of Robert's on the board. (Dead under, say, Japanese rules. Capturable under Ing rules, but Csaba did not capture them before ending play.) The question was whether they should remain on the board as live stones. There is no provision for taking them off the board after the fourth pass. They might have been taken off after the second pass, but that did not happen.
RobertJasiek: Here is a similar example:
![[Diagram]](diagrams/37/bf8b5bb7532f1e9462f3dfc815613664.png)
![[Diagram]](diagrams/28/027288c1ca2ea771a325f7ed81fb3856.png)
![[Diagram]](diagrams/39/c85ac85470d244b3f9ed2ce3b6698e9b.png)
So you're saying after the third diagram, the score is 25-0 black?
There certainly is a question about the pass, 
. Pass plays are limited to certain situations.
" Pass plays are limited to use in three situations: (1) a player can place two stones on the board as a pass play to indicate that he resigns: (2) at the beginning of a handicap-play game White makes a certain number of mandatory pass plays, the number being the size of the handicap; and (3) a player passes when he has no points to contest, in which case his opponent may continue to play on one-sided neutral points."
This is case (3). If both the Black stone and the White stones on the bottom half of the board are alive, there are several neutral points there. If a player mistakenly overlooks a play on a neutral point, there is no penalty, but no player is allowed to break a rule deliberately. There is no oversight here. Both players should think that either Black is dead or White is dead in the bottom half.
"There are also rules about the states of passing: (1) When one player has no points to contest and passes, his opponent can still play. (2) When both players make one pass play each, signifying that all neutral points have been filled and there is nothing more to contest, play pauses."
Each player should believe that all neutral points have been filled (that can safely be filled), and play should pause.
Each player regards the empty points in the bottom half as somebody's territory.
"(3) After play pauses, if there are no disagreements when the dead stones are taken away, both players make one more pass play each to end the game."
Wait a second! What is going on with White's pass, ? If the players agree about which stone or stones are dead, why haven't they been taken off the board? (We have already inferred that each player thinks that some stone is dead, by the first two passes, or that someone has deliberately broken a rule.) If they disagree about which stone or stones are dead, they should not be passing. Tilt! The pass, , indicates that the rules have not been followed in this case.
RobertJasiek: These arguments support your theory. It is understandable why both theories ( 1) yours and 2) mine that the first two passes introduce removals) exist: Ing Chang-ki expected it to be clear what should happen during a Game Pause and that therefore in practice the two-sided neutral points would be filled. Unfortunately, he did not write clearly what he meant to be happening during a Game Pause: Verbal or averbal? Informal or formal removals? Removal of only one's own stones? With or without agreement of the opponent for each particular removed stone, and what if without? Are the next passes used as a means to express agreement? If yes, in which order and exactly when may they occur?
I could not have put it better myself: " ... Ing Chang-ki expected it to be clear what should happen ... "
This is exactly why this whole thread is so ridiculous. Anyone who has played enough go to be entering tournaments knows exacly what should happen and should not be using legal technicalities to manouver a win.
RobertJasiek: I have not meant to draw your conclusion from Ing's unrealized desire. E.g., in an Infamous-Ko, Ing sees a balance of breaths that makes the thing behave like a seki. If this approach were generalized, then Hane-Seki would not be like a seki because there the breaths are not balanced. - Also your wish that "Anyone who has played enough go to be entering tournaments knows exacly what should happen" cannot be fulfilled: E.g., many players used to Japanese style rules wanted to see a Japanese style rules behaviour in the Ing rules. - I am not sure what you want to see in all rulesets: That all one-sided and all two-sided neutral points are filled before the first succession of passes, that all one-sided neutral points are filled before the first succession of passes and that none of the two-sided neutral points may be filled before the first succession of passes, or that neither any one-sided nor any two-sided neutral point may be filled before the first succession of passes? You claim that "having played enough Go" would give one and only one answer. However, the truth is contrary: Different rulesets give different answers to this. There is not the one unity of what happens and has to happen througout the world of Go. Furthermore, if you claim any particular necessiety for one-sided and two-sided neutral points, then defining "one-sided neutral point" and defining "two-sided neutral point" becomes a legal technicality, something that you do not like. You should decide: do you want or do you not want legal technicalities?
The answers to these questions of ordinary procedure lie in the practice at professional Ing tournaments, of which there are a large number. They are not a matter of speculation. If the Ing Foundation will not answer these questions, there are plenty of English speaking pros who can tell us.
While we're at it, what about Black's pass, 
? We know that at this point Black regards all stones on the board as alive. In that case, there are several neutral points to fill, and Black is required to fill one. (There is no penalty for passing when you overlook a play on a neutral point, but Black can hardly be said to be doing that!) is illegal.
RobertJasiek: If you mean to follow Bill's interpretation, then the first pass of the game was illegal already. - After the 4 succession passes, I expected to fill the neutral points by means of the Ing Fill-in Counting, i.e. each player fills half of them.
Your first pass was illegal? You actually thought that you had one or more points to contest?
RobertJasiek: I mean that according to your interpretation already the first pass was illegal because (in the view of me as a player) neutral points were still available. - As long as there are strategically dead stones on the board, removing them does change the Area Score. So as long as removals may take place, the score, which is the Area Score, can still change.
So you did think that neutral points were available to play. Since playing on one gains a point, you should not have passed.
RobertJasiek: Until the 3rd pass in succession I expected my opponent to remove the adjacent dead stones either informally or by means of alternating play, after what the neutral points would have become his territory points (so there was no practically useful reason to occupy such neutral points). When he made the 4th pass in succession, things changed and it was unnecessary to fill some neutral points because by passing I had to get half of them in the Ing Fill-in Counting procedure (according to my interpretation).
RobertJasiek: It does not mean that I lost but that I would have lost if only my opponent had played to remove the potentially removable stones before making a third pass in succession. - Of course, you can criticise me for not resigning instead of making the 4th pass in succession. But why should I resign in a moment when I can win by passing? The aim of the game is to win, the aim of the game is not to resign if one can win. Resignation is a right, not a duty. - Since you criticise my missing resignation instead of making the 4th pass in succession, why don't you also criticise my opponent 1) to make the 3rd pass in about just one second and thereby essentially prohibiting any informal removals during a Game Pause, 2) to make the 3rd pass instead of playing and approaching breaths to remove some of my stones, 3) not to make / ask for any informal removals during a Game Pause? If you think that my opponent should have won the game, then you should criticise him for not acting accordingly in time.
If winning at any cost is the only thing that matters in your reality, then I don't know of a nice way to say this, but your mind, however intelligent, lacks something that most other human beings have. Let's call it a sense of perspective.
When you talk about game pauses, 3rd vs 4th consecutive passes, informal removals etc. etc., all I can say is NO ONE CARES. I'm picturing a Dalek waving his sinkplunger and going "Ex-ter-mi-nate!" You argue like a robot incapable of escaping his algorithm, not like a human.
In about 99.99% of all games of go, people are able to determine the winner, without controversy, without rules lawyering, just by being familiar with the game, and being reasonable. You cannot strictly, algorithmically define "being reasonable", but if that worries you, you're very much alone. Few others (none of the amateurs I know, and from what I read apparently few professionals either) see a problem.
RobertJasiek: Winning is the game aim that each player should follow during the alternating play. The only morality here is that it is considered good to strive for winning. A person that does not like games with that game aim should not play such games at all or at the very least tolerate players that do follow that game aim. - When you suggest that no one should talk about game pause, 3rd pass, 4th pass, etc., is this your request to ignore the announced rules intentionally? Which respect do you pay to the tournament organization that has set those rules? - Players with an opinion similar to yours tend to throw in figures like "99.99%". They are not true. Empirical data suggest figures in between 30% and 70%, depending on what you ask. In case of extreme questions like "Do you like official Ing rules?", the answers I have seen give ca. 10%. However, nothing close to 0.01%. Such tiny figures are fakes.
What empirical data? Are you suggesting 30% of tournament games end in a rules dispute?
I think Robert is refering to episode 3 of the Dalek Invasion of Earth.
RobertJasiek: Sample queries like e.g.: "Do you want rules to be logical and complete?", "Do you prefer Area Scoring or Territory Scoring?".
That's a different question.
You want to bend reality to match whatever rules are in effect. Other people, when asked, would certainly like to have rules that match the reality of playing games of Go, in which most people's experience is that rules disputes are exceedingly rare, and not worth bothering about. "Do you want rules to be logical and complete" is as near useless a question as I can think of, because everyone asked will just nod their heads and say "sure, can I have fries with that?"
I'm not saying you shouldn't complain to tournament organizers if a broken set of rules is in use. Off the board, feel free to go ballistic and fill rec.games.go with articles, or lodge protests about the rules in general (not particular games) with tournament directors. I predict that most people still won't care because they feel they know how to play, and do not in general worry that their opponents might have a different idea about how to play, regardless of what the rules say.
My point is that nearly all go players have a common understanding about the usual cases (I'm standing by my 99.99% figure; at best I might be persuaded to take a 9 off the end) of life, death, seki, etc., and challenging this understanding IN A GAME, in particular a game without any unusual shapes, with a legalistic argument is an entirely misguided approach. The common understanding (even if it cannot easily be expressed in a mathematically sound way) trumps rulesets, because it embodies the spirit of the game much better than any arbitrary collection of paragraphs.
If you do not share this common experience, then please consider that maybe the problem lies with you.
RobertJasiek: (First a minor point: Ing wanted to explain the entirety of all shape classes by his rules.) - You speak of "reality". There are different realities: The reality of Japanese professionals, the reality of Korean professionals, the reality of Chinese professionals, the reality of Taiwanese professionals, the reality of Western amateurs familiar with Japanese style rules only, etc. One can, however, claim that there would be one common intersection of those realities and you seem to claim that. Something like: "What can be reduced to a two-eye-formation is independently alive. What can be reduced to a two zero-sided-liberties seki is alive in seki. What can be reduced to one zero-sided-liberty, one black-eye-liberty, and one white-eye-liberty is alive in seki. Everything else is dead." However, what one can do for life and death is not similarly possible for scoring because of the fundamental difference that two-sided dame score under Area Scoring but not under Territory Scoring. One can only approach a common reality here by saying: "If the score is greater than 1, then there is a winner. Otherwise we cannot assess the winner." This may describe a common intersection but it is not something you want to imagine as the one universal reality. - (Such an approximative reality can be described even in mathematically sound ways, but you would not like it because of the high degree of formality.) - I share the common experience, but it is not good enough to make us happy playing Go, because, as described, necessarily it has to be too imprecise. - The only hope to have a sufficient and universal reality is to create one set of international rules.
I believe, what you (crux) treat as common sense is not as common throughout the world of Go as you might expect it to be. To give an example, I don't have to come up with any "beast":
About one year ago, I introduced a strong chinese player to my local club. As usual in China, he repeatedly took his opponent`s prisoners when there were no stones left in his bowl. He also put his own prisoners back into the opponent`s bowl. Most of the players in our club are used to Japanese rules and habits only, so as you may imagine, they got irritated.
In my view, RJ's mission is primarily to strive for better rules, which I sincerely appreciate. I'd consider him pro at rules like other people are pro at playing, with comparable severity and dedication. Critics who do not care much about rule issues at all, are likely to miss the point.
Even though aiming at better rules goes far beyond trying to win a single game, doing the latter is one of the means available, strictly applying the rules while ignoring other Go players` "common sense". I agree that such a way to demonstrate the flaws of a ruleset - be it inconsistency, ambiguity or mere incomprehensibility to many players - can serve as occasion to accuse him of unsportsmanship, and I suspect that Robert is well aware of these social implications.
Just a side remark: your way of speech doesn't exactly appear very sportsmanlike in terms of a fair conversation, either. Disagreement doesn't justify disrespect.
What about the tournament organizers? Did they let players know the proper end of game procedure? Or did they just announce that the tournament was to be played under Ing rules, which nobody understands?
RobertJasiek: The tournament organizers just announced that the tournament was to be played under (official) Ing rules.
Robert, I know that people blame you for poor sportsmanship and rules lawyering. Csaba can be faulted for not knowing or abiding by the rules, since he did not allow a game pause. But the major culprits, IMO, are the tournament organizers, who knew that many, if not most, of the players would be unfamiliar with the Ing rules, and did not provide pertinent information to them.
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