The main page states:
"The round 2 game Csaba Mero - Robert Jasiek of the European Go Championship 2002 in Zagreb used the rules of play of the Ing 1991 Rules. After a succession of 4 passes, there were no stones of Csaba on the board that could have been removed by wise alternating play if the passes had not occurred yet while there were still some stones of Jasiek on the board that could have been removed by wise alternating play if the passes had not occurred yet."
But looking back at the previous discussion on rec.games.go, I see some reference to plays by Jasiek after the first two passes. What is the case? Were there simply four consecutive passes, or was there play after the first two passes?
RobertJasiek: Looking up my archives, it was as follows:
So yes, the first succession of exactly two passes was followed by my board-plays and his pass-plays, and then the second succession of pass-plays occurred that consisted of four pass-plays. Bill, do you think that it makes an essential difference?
I believe that my ruling as a director would have been different, given your plays after the second pass. The section about pauses states:
"18 Play pauses when each side passes once, making two consecutive pass plays. If there is disagreement about life and death, play can resume."
Since there was apparently no discussion about life and death during the pause, my prima facie reading would have been that there was no disagreement about life and death, and that play should not have resumed. So I would have declared all those subsequent plays invalid, and rolled the play back to the pause.
RobertJasiek: It depends on what is meant by "disagreement" in the rules text (it could also be an averbal disagreement expressed by means of continued alternate moves). However, this your interpretation has another problem: A ko recapture is not possible due to only passes but, following your theory, only due to both passes and verbal disagreement about some (related or unrelated) life and death. I do not find this interpretation convincing. - However, you are indicating for us just how many different things one might possibly interpret into those Ing 1991 Rules...
Well, as for taking a ko back, if both players agree about the life or death of the stones involved in the ko, there is no need to play the ko, is there?
Also, if play is not allowed to resume unless there is a disagreement, how can plays during resumption be construed as disagreement? They are not allowed.
RobertJasiek: About the ko: good argument. - About resumption: Also pass-plays are plays. So, by your argument and if the players agree verbally (and thereby Ing 1991 Rules would have been different than what Mr. Yang currently says about them, i.e. that removals are done averbally), it would not be allowed to make any 3rd or 4th pass-play in succession. This, however, contradicts the definition of Game End that requires 4 pass-plays in succession.
Agree with Bill. If you still wanted to make plays, why did you pass in the first place?
RobertJasiek: This is not how Ing rules think. The first two pass-plays are reminders that now the removals begin. Either by informal removal or, if not sufficiently many stones are removed informally and thereby the players do not then both pass to confirm the Game Pause phase of informal removals, by alternating play removals. - However, since there is so much ambiguity in the official Ing rules, from now on I rather prefer to choose the safe way when playing under official Ing rules: continue board-plays to remove as many stones as I like before I make my first pass-play, unless I should be in time trouble (in which case my opponent may force me into more time penalty points anyway, but I do not need to force myself into that).