Rules Meeting in China

Fish

Rules Meeting in China - Oct 8, 2004 5:51PM
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Rules meeting notes

September 7 2004 Guiyang City China

Present (note: spelling of names might not be always correct)

Mrs Yao, Ing Foundation
Mr Ing, Ing Foundation president
Mr Yuang, Ing foundation secretary
Mr Ni, Shanghai Ing Foundation

Mr Chen Zude 9d, China, Past president
Mr Wang Runan 8d, China Kiwon president
Mr Wang Haijun 8d Gen secr. China Weiqi Association
Mr Kim China Rules committee

Mrs Nam 1d, Korea
Mr Kim Su-chang 9d, Korea (rules expert)

Mr Kudo 9d, Nihon Ki-in

Mr Chen, Singapore
Chris Kirschner, AGA
Terry Benson, AGA
Matti Siivoli, EGF
Jan van Rongen, EGF

Mr Tsao, journalist, China
Mr Kim, Myongji University Korea, observer
?, Go Weekly reporter

various interpretors.

{According to Mr. Kim (Myongji University) after the meeting, only about half of what was said was actually translated. The translations in themselves were a summary and many of the smaller details were left out. Also some of the more heated debates in Chinese were not translated at all.}

Morning discussion.

The purpose of the meeting was set in the beginning by mr. Ing: a first step towards unification of rules. All parties present were asked to give their opinion.

China first

Mr Wang (president):
- wants unification
- but it will be very difficult
- anyway the professional point of view is that they can play under any kind of rules.

Mr Chen Zude:
- focuses on worldwide competition
- rules should be (a) reasonable and logical, (b) simplified, so that everybody can understand
- suggests to have a world committee
- plea for a more authoritive organisation besides the IGF (he means a professional organisation, the IGF is for amateurs and is a Japanese organsiation (sic))
- says he has also spoken to Mr Kato and that they agreed that rules was not the only problem, also matters of representation (such as the country the player is representing) should be adressed.

Mr Wang (Secr. general of China Weiqi Ass):
- is responsible for the rules in the Ass
- points out that Weiqi is supervised by the government, so in some areas Weiqi borrowed rules from the physical sports
- f.i. does not consider it reasonable to lose a game because of a simple mistake (prefers a system with yellow and red cards)
- we need unified rules in relation to the Olympic movement
- the number one goal is to promote go in the world.

Mr Jan van Rongen:
- { I was a but surprised by the order, the EGF after China. In any case I explained the situation in Europe quite a bit, then went on to the GAISF membership of the IGF, and then supported the last two points of mr Wang: that unified rules are very important in this global setting, and that the main aim is promotion }
- no notes taken

Mr Kudo (Nihon Ki-in):
- to have go in the Olympics will be quite difficult
- in Japan Go is still considered as an art -- Go is not in the sports department
- Japanese professionals have a different idea about rules: they want to compete on the board, not on time
- thinks the Japanese rules are much more reasonable these days

Mr Kim 9d (Korean Rules Committee)
- agrees with all the opinions, and sees various different good and bad points in the current situation
- but points out that in his opinion using rules from one country in tournaments in another country does cause problems and confusion
- agrees aspecially with mr Chen Zude that rules should be simple and reasonable
- with respect to unified rules in relation to the Olympics he suggests to seek guidance from the AGA and the EGF (because we have -- in his opinion -- been able to discard our national disagreements)

Mr Chen from Singapore:
- "we adopt the rules of our sponsors"
- also emphasises the importance of unified rules.

Mr Terry Benson:
- goes into the history of the rules debate in the USA
- the AGA rules were aimed at amateurs, and also to overcome the problem that in the US many different rule systems were used.
- believes that the AGA rules are very good for the current situation, but also remarks that "bigger questions" should be left to the professionals and hopes that a world international professional system can be devised { I am not sure what he meant here, other than being polite}

Matti and Chris also made some final remarks, I did not make full notes because we were repeating most of the previous remarks. Anyway in this discussion some remarks were made about the suitability of Ing rules for teaching purposes, and Chris emphasized that we should make a distinction between the rules of the game and tournament rules.

Mrs Nam (in English)
- she tries to analyse what has been said and wants to focus the discussion on what she sees as the real problem area in the discussion. She sees three areas: (a) method of counting, (b) komi, and (c) time regulation.
- she thinks (a) is the real issue; (b) and (c) are not really part of a rules discussion.
- she suggests setting up committee(s) because the big meetings as today's are costing a lot of money and time
- she points out that logical does not always imply simple (see Ing rules), and wants pratcical rules, not academic and 100% logical.

That ended the first round of opinions. Mr Ing summarizes (and puts in his own opinions):
- strive towards a world organisation for rules
- members of that organisation should give up their own opinion / nationality, but strives towards rules as simple as possible
- recognizes the difficulties and emphasizes that professionals must use these rules too in the end
- wants to discuss in a future conference the counting methods first, wants to defer discussions about ko to a later point in time,
- differs in opinion with Mr Nam about the komi not being part of the discussion

There is some more time before lunch and the various counting methods are explained (Ing, Chinese, Korean, Japanese). The discussion becomes a bit more chaotic. Matti shows a situation that is seki in one rule set and has to be played out in another.

- lunch break -

Afternoon discussion.

Although mr Ing wants to focus on counting methods after lunch there are some other discusion that slip in. Before the meeting some sheets were circulated with win/loss data related to changes in the komi. These data were only from World Cups. Mr Kudo points out that the samples are by far to small and that conclusions should be drawn from 10,000 games, not from a couple of 100. He circulates the Japanese statistics. Then he goes back to the point of calculation methods:
- thinks that Ing counting leads to some problems in amateur tournaments
- chinese counting destroys the shapes, he does not like that, but
- in japanese counting one must be very careful, because one missing stone will influence the count immediately.

Mr Wang (Gen. secr.) thinks the Ing rules might be a problem in promotion of amateur go, although in pro tournaments they might be a good choice. Points out that the Japanese counting derived from an older Chinese system, then takes a long time to show that the current Chinese approach is superior to both of them (without explicitly saying so): "when in doubt, play it out".
{ I also made a note that he said that the "re-enforcement problem" does not disappear, but I do not know what it means }.

Mr Kim 9d expresses his opinion that the Chinese method of counting is a bit complicated. The Ing counting might be good for smaller children [on a small board], but on the normal board the need to have 180 stones each is a problem in promotion.

He puts up a position that has a principle problem in Korean and Japanese rules: white can play two more (dame) moves, but Black cannot play. "If I think the game is finished and my opponent keeps on playing, what can I do?"

The discussion goes into a discussion of what is territory (the area counting debate) , but most of it no longer gets translated.

After the break mr Ing summarizes:-
- world unified go rules are needed
- we will make an organization to make them
- they will have the authority to decide
- we will have to go back to our resp. countries for feedback
- the Ing foundation will organize the next meeting.
Everybody agrees. Mr Kudo needed some time to understand the question asked to him because of translation problems. When he finally puts in his "yes" there is a round of applause.

Meeting adjourned.

Conclusions, thoughts, notes

- So this was not a technical meeting, but a political one
- The Ing foundation focus for this meeting was definitely on rules for professionals, but it broadened. If a body like the IGF would adopt something "neutral", like the AGA rules, it would set such a precedent that it might force the professional organisations to devise their own unification.
- Japanese statistics with komi 5,5 - all pro games since 1998 (10,054/9,125) Black wins 52.42%. With 6.5 komi since 2002 up to 204-08-05 (3,152 / 3,027) Black wins 51.01%.

Jan van Rongen

loners

恶补了一下E文，才看懂了一半，汗

雪茄

这是应氏杯期间的围棋规则统一的会议。有相关的中文报道。

偶个人菜鸟感觉，

1、先行得利是不可避免的，强行让先行者过多补偿有失自然之美。
2、规则的统一有利于围棋世界范围内普及，而数子法比较简单，难以作弊，日韩应该做一点牺牲，承认并接受中国规则为世界规则。

[此贴子已经被作者于2004-11-12 17:23:41编辑过]