I had a winning sequence of moves in my game against a lamer named “superman”. See here: http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=320202

Now this lowly creature, after I repeatedly told him that it would not be fair to stretch out the game with pointless fours, would not resign the game even if he/she/it promised to do so. I would have won my game against him in move 152 and he deliberatedly produced a draw.

Lessons:

1. In the first level championship (this time ch.7.1.1) this guy has no place. He will remain in the first division, totally undeserving it.

2. There is no reason to like playing against him/her/it. Anyone of you reading this be prepared for a tedious, ugly, unfair match against him.

3. The rule of mandatory draw at move 150 should be revoked in championship games, which should be treated more seriously. Letting lowly losers advancing or not dropping out only because of the draw is unacceptable.

Surely no one will read this because the Gomoku forum is dead. But in case yes, draw your lessons yourselves.

First of all, you would have won the game at move 154.

If there was not the rule for a draw at move 150. Did you not know the rule? Your opponent knew it probably.

I think it may be an unfair rule but it was made especially as not for games to take forever - or fill up the whole board (361 moves). I see no disgrace for someone who tries to make a draw using the established here rules and not lose.

Second, he won't stay in first league because he'll finish at 7th position.

And third, your 3rd proposal to revoke the 150 moves rule at championship games, is the only thing in your post, I agree it has a point and should be examined.

First of all, what you wrote to my third point makes what you wrote to the first point irrelevant. In the top division it should not be allowed that someone drags out the game to reach an undeserved draw.

Second, with this move he will remain in the top division because the last four players will drop out, that is those ranked from 8 to 11. And this will be a disgrace, yes.

The rule for championships are: In the first division, the first 5 are guaranteed to stay at 1st division. So, the rest (which are now 6 players) will probably fall to the 2nd division.

Usually only 4 players fall, but that's because there are usually 9 players.

My first point refers to what has to do with previous or ongoing games.

The third point refers to what need to be done for future games.

And your game with Superman can be considered a draw, not a tie.

Tie = an equal result, the 2 players have no moves available and none has won.

Draw = the game is drawn forever, that is the two players can play forever and noone can win and it is stopped.

Your reaction is somewhat explainable as you did have a winning sequence but the golem rules say that forever=150moves. It's arbitrary, you may find it unfair, but it still is the rule here.

Well, to say that the rule is the rule is tautologic. And no one needs to be reminded about that. What I said that it was an unfair and ungentlemanly utilization of the rule. Right?

And yes, Superman drops out only in case Andrey, Mikle, mpapa and Adam Malysz decides to remain in the Championship roster, signed up for the next season. Then they would take the place some of those who do not drop out to the second division in any other way, like Superman or Nevermind.

Message

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MSGID: #974259

From: vector

To: SuPeRmAn

Date: 2005-09-04

Title: Bastard

Message: You are the most unfair player I have ever seen. And do not ever call me “my friend” you stupid idiot.

Vector, I can not see that following the rules are unfair. The rules says that you only have until move 150 to ensure a win. I too would definitely have provoked a draw in this situations, as the rules are the way they are. If you want to change the rules for later games, fine. But don't complain about people who are simply following the rules!

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=320202&nmove=145

“superman” writes:

“sorry friend i still dont see it u probably win by timeout cuz my puter is acting up”

meaning: he does not even able to see 10 moves ahead, but willing to let the game run out of time – a face-saving type of loss.

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=320202&nmove=147

at this point “superman” writes:

“yea i think i see it congrats :-)”

meaning: he acts like a friend, living up to my request that he tries to be gentlemanly and resign before move 150.

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=320202&nmove=149

and then here “superman” writes (not knowing proper English sentence structures):

“u would of won but the rules say 150 moves is a draw sorry friend good game”

meaning: he does not care that he is in the top division, where real skills should decide, and he forces the draw regardless of his willingness to give way for the better one. man, we are talking about the division of the most skilled players in the game here, not the masters of the cheapest solutions…

lesson: following the rules IN ITSELF is NOT fair play. you have to act like a fair player too. i was not complaining about “superman's” following the rules, but i do resent ungentlemanly gains.

you know Marius, it is like being law-abiding but not quite ethical. do you know the difference?

This happens extremely often in chess. You can't win, so you find a way to try and get a draw. It's not unethical, it's the rules.

oh, simpletons, you do not get the point. “it's the rules” – it is so easy and lazy to hide behind a truism. read the other parts, as well, ok?

I SO disagree with you, vector. It is a tremendous difference between the laws of a nation and the rules of a game. I can see nothing unethical whatsoever in following the rules of the game. I agree that it is possible to be unethical within the laws of a nation. In this game, there is a draw after 150 moves. THAT IS THE RULE! If you want to play another game with other rules, fine. But I see nothing wrong or unethical by trying to reach 150 moves if one sees that one is behind. In fact, I think it is the right thing to do. Otherwise, it is like saying in chess, for example “Oh, if I use en passant now, it will be a draw, but otherwise I'll lose. I don't like the en passant rule, so I'll just resign”.

You really do not see the point. “Superman” was acting unfairly NOT because of abiding by the rule but because acting sneaky around it (read his/her messages). And this is a behavior that does not fit in the first division.

The difference between unethical and ungentlemanly vs rule-keeping still applies.

Otherwise, the whole discourse is tedious.

Well dear Vector, you are a real 'gentleman' by complaining so much about a loss within the rules. I do not see anyone completely on your side. Do you realy think only you can judge right?

Chess has a similar rule, a draw is called after a certain number of moves without capture (I'm no expert), do you think is that unfair?

We are here players from all over the world, with different ideas about what fair-play is. Don't be so warmed up.

Unfortunately, only the players are able to read the comments from the game, not others, so I am only able to see the moves.

And I think I see your point, I simply disagree with you. I don't think that this is ungentlemanly at all.

actually, I agree with vector – this rules talk misses the point. and you can read what superman wrote, that is indeed sneaky. you might call it unfair if you want.

Well Dear Crelo, this is an issue of principle, if you know what i mean. It is not about losing. Moreover, it was not even a loss – except I lost my trust in someone.

And yes, Marius, read the comments I copied into this thread, if you make the effort writing into the forum, make the effort look around first.

To a certain degree, I have to agree with vector; it can at least be argued that pretending to be ready to resign and then not do so is ungentlemanly.

On the other hand, it may seem a bit ungentlemanly to hang him out to dry in a forum, and calling him names very few would consider using in a civilized society.

As for superman's place in the first (or any) league, I can only point at the behaviours in the chess world championschips in the 60's/70's, where the players used all kinds of psychological tricks to throw the opponent off balance… I my mind, a place in the championchips is earned by how you play, not by how you behave, and forcing a game to draw within the rules is a legitimate tactic, so I fail to see how that would be considered a reason to remove anyone from the championchips…

Thats's at least my two cents…

If indeed Superman wrote those messages to vector, recognizing that he had lost and that he would resign, that may explain the frustration from vector's part. What Marius and Crelo and myself say is that we get your point. We just don't agree. I would not feel frustrated even if someone said “i'll resign next move” and then play for another 20 moves, and draw or even win the game. It's not very polite but I find it not fair.

And orvieto is the last player to call someone sneaky. Read his personal page: “my other nick, firenze…“. I bet he a lot of nicks in this site, perhaps all playing in the championship. Could you answer that please, orvieto?

Yes, I DID see your previous post, vector. I DO read the previous posts before writing my own.

However, I did not see anything wrong with these comments (apart from poor english), so I assumed there were other comments during the game which was of interrest for this discussion. I agree that intentionally losing on time can be bad (although I don't mind if my opponents do so), but this was not what Superman did. He commented that he MIGHT lose on time, as his computer was acting up (which, of course, may or may not be true).

I do not see how any of these comments can have affected the game, as it was already clear at that point that you would not win before the 150th move. Maybe Superman was not aware of this rule, but discovered it between his move 145 and 149? I don't know, but I don't think it matters.

Bear in mind that I am not discussing whether we should keep the rule about 150 moves or not. That is another discussion. I am simply saying that as long as it is there, deliberately (and not because of some bug, as was the case with some implementations in Street Soccer), it can not be considered unfair to try to reach 150 moves rather than resign.

It was also mentioned a similar rule in chess. And draughts have a similar rule, too. I do not think that anyone would consider it unfair to play for a draw in these games. I think the reason why you think it is unfair here, is that this rule is not a common rule in gomoku. But neither is the opening rule, I believe. We must play by the rules that apply, or not play at all.

Oh, one more thing: Let's try to keep the discussion “clean”. Surely, we are able to debate this without resorting to personal attacks or abusive language. If the post from Superman really is a copy of a message from vector, I find that sad.

Correction

I said: It's not very polite but I find it not fair.

I meant to write: It's not very polite but I do not find it unfair.

I am greatly surprised how agitated many of you become in this thread. Glad to see that Bertil understand the point I wanted to make about ungentlemanly behavior and moved away from the “hide behind the rules” argument.

Mind you, in such cases as this there is no other way to press or urge people to play more gentlemanly, cavalierly or fairly but to open a debate about certain acts that cannot be considered gentlemanly, cavalier, fair, whatever. So this is the reason why what he did should be discussed openly. And it is indeed interesting to see your reactions.

And Bertil, another thing, this thread is not about “removing” superman from the top division but to claim that this kind of behavior and the use of cheap tricks is not characteristic of the top division players. Simple as that.

vector, in any case, do not ask for politeness if you are not polite yourself

All right, sorry for that part.

Vector, I find your outbusrt here a very poor show, in any game or sport where a draw is a possibility and a lesser player secures a draw, why should he be attacked for it, seeing as you are such a superior player, why didn't you secure a win inside the game limit.

Superman played the game well and dserved the draw.

Give him a break.

Vector rightly felt betrayed if the conversation he reported on is true. He is also rightly frustrated if Superman did not do anything significant in the game (mind you, black dictates the tempo most of the time), only defended in order to get a lousy, and yes, undeserved draw. It is true that none of this is sufficient reason to launch such a tirade against any player, no matter how opportunistic that player is.

By the way, it is interesting that most of the people commenting on this thread probably do not even know the dynamics of a gomoku game, and what exactly is at stake – so their comments are a bit uninformed.

I find your viewpoint interesting…at one time in my life i was rather adept at chess,and know when a game is turning south,however, i enjoy thechallange to see if there may not be some aspect of the game from a different corner that might not be a veritable discovery,therefore over the years i have played quite a few games with little to no concerne as to a traditional turn of play,it has not often been a happy experience for someone playing me as it tends to drag the game out as i think and explore alternative moves ….now back to where you are comming from ,“when in rome do as the romans” ;)eventually water seeks its own level. The last post was by Nevermind,i find our games to be some of the very best i have played simply because he isnt overly concerned by my explorations of off the wall openings *~/:) you may indeed be a better more experienced player however perhaps you are learning a lesson of an entirely different nature.dont let it get to you.it is'nt worth it…