The recent ruling in the Transatlantic Go Tournament seems wrong: it puts technology ahead of the game of go. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth. There may be circumstances I’m not aware of, but basically, the game between Mateusz Surma and Eric Lui was played online over KGS, Mateusz was ahead on the board in the late endgame, and the move he tried to play with 10 seconds to spare somehow did not make it to the server in time. The final ruling is that he lost on time. To me, this violates the spirit of the game.

In ultimate frisbee, the Spirit of the Game is a guiding principle of the rules. Players call and adjudicate their own fouls; if players disagree, play gets restored as best as possible to what would have happened without that incident.

“Spirit of the Game: Ultimate relies upon a spirit of sportsmanship that places the responsibility for fair play on the player. Highly competitive play is encouraged, but never at the expense of mutual respect among competitors, adherence to the agreed upon rules, or the basic joy of play.” [Official Rules of Ultimate, 11th Edition]

Even at the professional level, where there are referees, the integrity rule allows players to overrule the referee when it’s to their own disadvantage:

“Any player or head coach can overturn any call made by an official if the official’s call favored the player’s or coach’s own team. Officials shall respect the integrity call. This allows teams to display sportsmanship and remedy an incorrect call against their opponent.” [AUDL Rule Book]

To me, go and ultimate share the same kind of spirit: highly competitive yet friendly play.

Mateusz losing due to a technical glitch makes the game of go subservient to technology. Technology enables long-distance tournaments, but that should be an incidental part of the match: the game is most important. When technology goes wrong, you try to restore the game to what it would have been without the technical glitch. And when a ruling is unfair, the winner should be able to overturn it. Integrity and spirit of the game are important, both in ultimate and in go.