2006-04-28 newest contents, 2009-01-17 last update, 2006-04-28 first day, Robert Jasiek


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Flaws of the World Amateur Go Championship 1979 Rules

The rules of play in the World Amateur Go Championship 1979 Rules contain especially the mentioned flaws. They might be flaws related to ambiguous aspects, ambiguous terms, undefined terms, ambiguous rules, or missing rules.

Flaws related to the following are not (!) mentioned: tournament rules, resignation, counting mechanics, descriptions of the playing material, diagrams of the rules, diagrams of the precedents (except when concerning rules for these diagrams).

Contents

Overview

Conclusion: The World Amateur Go Championship 1979 Rules are not useful but harmful.

Examples

The examples show where the rules make mistakes at 30 kyu level.

Example 1

According to §20(i) about determining the end of the game, "The players continue to play alternately until all the neutral points have been filled". Hence the player to move next in the example has to fill the neutral point and kill himself:

. # # # # # #
# # # . O O O
O O O O O O .

Example 2

According to §17(i), "A position in which there are two opposing groups without eyes or with one eye apiece but in which neither side can
move first and capture the other is called a 'seki'.". Hence a position with three groups is not a seki. The following example is not a seki.

. # # #
# # . O
O O O O
O . # #
# # # .

Example 3

According to §15(i), "A player possesses an eye at a point when he has occupied at least seven of the eight points surrounding it with his own
stones". Hence, in the following example, the eye on the left side is White's:

O O O # .
O . O # .
O O # # #

Group(s) of Stone(s)

Preliminary Note

E.g., "§9-group" means "the term 'group' as it is introduced in §9 of the rules". This precision of a lawyer cannot be avoided because often the same word is used for very different meanings in different paragraphs of the rules. Usage of such abbreviations shall increase readability.

Concluding Summary

"group of stones" is undefined. It might or might not mean the same in different paragraphs. To distinguish different usage clearly, one has to speak of §9-group, §10-group, §16-group, §17-group, §18-group, §24-group. The probable meaning of §9-group and §10-group is "string". The probable meaning of either of §16-group, §17-group, §18-group, or §24-group might refer to either "one string" or "one or several strings". In the latter case also the set of strings is undefined and further ambiguity can arise from intersecting sets for the respective applications of the terms. E.g., if the string A as a group is alive and if the string B as a group is alive, then it does not necessarily follow that the two strings A and B are alive if considered as one group together.

The Flaws

Surround

Summary

All types of terms of "surround" are undefined. In different paragraphs, they have different meanings. To distinguish different usage clearly, one has to speak of §12-surrounded, §15(i)-surrounding, §15(ii)-surrounded, §19/sentence 1-surrounded, §19/sentence 2-surrounded, §23-surrounded. The probable meaning of either of §12-surrounded, §19/sentence 1-surrounded, §19/sentence 2-surrounded, §23-surrounded is related to "a connected set of points with a particular feature is adjacent via lines and only adjacent via lines to points with another particular feature". §15(i)-surrounding and probably also §15(ii)-surrounded have meanings fundamentally different from that.

The Flaws

Position

Preliminary Note

The rules are not consistently structured as numbered rules-paragraphs. §28 is succeeded by the rules-paragraph "Nihon Ki-in Precedents" and then by the Appendix "Precedents". The rules-paragraph "Nihon Ki-in Precedents" consists of two sections: the section "Ko questions and three points without capturing" and the section "Defensive moves inside territory". The first section consists of numbered text-paragraphs. Thus, to address the text location there, one has to call, e.g., the text-paragraph (2) in the section "Ko questions and three points without capturing" of the rules-paragraph "Nihon Ki-in Precedents". It is not even possible to omit the explicit "rules-paragraph" because then confusion could arise whether the rules-paragraph or the appendix would be meant.

Summary

"position" is undefined. It means different things in different paragraphs. To distinguish different usage clearly, one has to speak of All meanings of "position" seem to refer to either a subset of all points of the board or all points of the board, however, the rules text does not clarify exactly which subsets those are.

The Flaws

Eye, False Eye

Concluding Summary

Non-mathematicians tried to describe eyes, false eyes, and other eye space patterns formally. The result is a rules text at 30-kyu level because very likely a 29-kyu would have a better understanding of the concepts than the rules convey.

Defining seki is complicated. If the problems of defining hypothetical strategy are ignored for the moment, then defining independent life is comparatively easy: One or several strings of the same player form a "two-eye-formation" if and only if there are exactly two particular vacant points so that each of the strings is adjacent via lines to each of the two vacant points, none of the strings is adjacent via lines to another vacant point, and each of the two vacant points is adjacent via lines only to the strings. If hypothetical strategy is now used as if it were well-defined, then a string of a player is "independently-alive" if hypothetical strategy leads to a two-eye-formation on at least one point of the string.

It is superfluous for the rules to define eye, false eyes, or other eye space patterns. For independent life, it is sufficient to refer to the concept of two-eye-formation. From that, all the superfluous eye terms can be derived. However, the rules try the opposite: First define superfluous eye terms and then derive the concept of two-eye-formation. There are arbitrarily many eye shape patterns but only one concept of two-eye-formation. Hence not surprisingly the rules fail completely.

To distinguish different usage clearly, one has to speak of §14-eye, §15(i)-eye, §15(ii)-false-eye, 16(i)-eye, 16(ii)-eye, §17(i)-eye, §24-eye.

The Flaws

Life, Seki, Death, Territory

Concluding Summary

The terms and rules related to life, seki, death, or territory are very ambiguous, confusing, undefined, wrong, or contracting Go wisdom. Especially the description of the term and the rules for "seki" contradict Go wisdom for several reasons. A superfluous encore for removals from sekis is included.

This is a very short summary. However, the frequent characteristics ambiguous, confusing, undefined, wrong, and contracting Go wisdom indicate an almost total failure of the rules about central terms of Life and Death Territory Scoring.

The Flaws

Rules Restricting Repetition

Specification

This chapter is about rules restricting repetition. It is, however, not about hypothetical application of rules restricting repetition. It is also not about the term "position" standing alone for itself. These aspects are treated in other chapters.

Summary

The terms and rules are ambiguous, misleading, or undefined.

The Flaws

Flaws Related to Hypothetical Alternate Play

Preliminary Note

A list of rules-paragraphs concatenated by "+" means that the relevant flaw occurs in each of the rules-paragraphs. E.g., "§§15(i)+15(ii)+16(i)+16(ii)+17(i)+18+19" means that the relevant flaw occurs in each of the rules-paragraphs §15(i), §15(ii), §16(i), §16(ii), §17(i), §18, and §19. Hence closely related flaws are summarized together as one flaw.

Summary

The rules hide almost all of the nature of hypothetical alternate play behind grammar, like e.g. in the word "cannot". Definitions of "hypothetical move-sequence" and "hypothetical strategy" are missing entirely. Many aspects are unclear. The rules fail to describe how hypothetical alternate play works and how to execute it in practice despite its extremely great procedural complexity.

Relevant Citations

§15(i): "A player possesses an eye at a point when he has occupied at least seven of the eight points surrounding it with his own stones, or when alternate play by both sides would produce such a pattern. However, to possess an eye at one of the corner points (A-1, A-19, T-1, T-19) a player must have occupied, or be able through alternate play to occupy, all three of the points surrounding it". §15(ii): "A point which a player has surrounded in a pattern other than those specified in the preceding paragraph and which he cannot bring into one of those patterns through alternate play is called a ‘false eye’.". §16(i): "A group of stones is termed ‘alive’ if it possesses at least two eyes such as specified in paragraph 15(i), or if it can secure at least two eyes for itself through alternate play.", §16(ii): "A group which has two eyes, one or both of which are false, but which cannot be captured because of the restrictions in rule 12 is also alive, the preceding paragraph notwithstanding.". §17(i): "A position in which there two opposing groups without eyes or with one eye apiece but in which neither side can move first and capture the other is called a ‘seki’.". §18: "Groups of stones which possess, or for which alternate play will produce, shapes other than those specified in the preceding two rules are termed ‘dead’.". §19: "Those points on the board which a player has surrounded with living stones of his own and on which his opponent cannot live are called ‘territory’."

The Flaws

Pass, End of the Game

Summary

The move type "pass" is mostly missing. Its usage would let some of the terms and rules be superfluous. The terms and rules are confusing, unclear, or ambiguous.

The Flaws

Neutral Points, Necessary Defensive Moves inside Territory

Summary

The terms are undefined. The rules are incomplete or contradict common Go knowledge.

The Flaws

Precedents

Concluding Summary

Precedents per se are superfluous in rules of play. Their usage indicates a weak general rules design. The precedents are incomplete, inapplicable, irrelevant, difficult, unnatural, ambiguous, unclear, confusing, contradicting, or undefined. The Nihon Kiin is assigned an undue role in a ruleset that should be supposed to be fair in a world-wide context. The rule about long cycles creates undecidable strategy because "No Result" is uncomparable to any counted score.

Relevant Citation of the Rules-paragraph "Nihon Ki-in Precedents"

Ko questions and three points without capturing

(1) A bent four in the corner is independently dead, regardless of the rest of the board.

(2) The three-points-without-capturing positions shown are to be resolved by actual play. If neither captures, neither receives any territory.

(3) If a triple, quadruple, quintuple, etc. ko, a round-robin ko, an eternal life, or other abnormal pattern arises and the same board position is made repeatedly with neither side willing to give in, the game ends without result.

(4) In a thousand-year ko, if neither side is willing to start the ko, the player who is able by capturing and connecting to make the position a seki shall do so.

Defensive moves inside territory

All questions concerning the need for defense inside territory are to be resolved by actual play, with a pass regarded as one move.

The Flaws - Part 1

This part involves numbered rules-paragraphs.

The Flaws - Part 2

This part is about the rules-paragraph "Nihon Ki-in Precedents".

The Flaws - Part 3

This part is about the Appendix "Precedents". Although the exact appearances on the diagrams as such are not treated, the relevance of the diagrams for the rules and the text accompanying the diagrams is discussed.

Miscellaneous Flaws

Flaws Sorted by Nature

The leading numbers identify the flaws. The following signs estimate the difficulty for a rules theorist to fix the flaws:

21 Terms with Obvious Meanings

84 Terms without Obvious Meanings

3 Rules with Obvious Meanings

56 Rules without Obvious Meanings