[Case Study] Small Tournament structure

Hey All, Consider the situation of a small (5 player) multideck tournament with time for three games. If you were organizing this tournament, what would you do? One option is three rounds and no final. The benefit of that format is that each of the rounds has equal weight in determining the winner, and that the optimal seating chart can be used across three rounds. The main drawback is that if one player gets two game wins in the first two rounds, in the last round, everyone is just playing for second place. The other alternative, playing two rounds + Final, can be good because it gives everyone a chance to win. The drawbacks are that you get worse seating distribution in the first two rounds, and that the first two rounds can seem almost meaningless. The benefit of picking your seating in the final round is minor, because everyone can change decks, and you'd only be picking based on your knowledge of player skill. Doing well in the prelim rounds gives you the benefit from winning ties in the final, but overall, the first two rounds are much less significant in this format. Which format would you use, and why? Also, would your answer change if 8-11 people showed up, so that you had enough for two tables? Ira

<ira...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1127683086....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com... > Hey All, > > Consider the situation of a small (5 player) multideck tournament with > time for three games. If you were organizing this tournament, what > would you do? > > One option is three rounds and no final. ... > The other alternative, playing two rounds + Final, can be good because > it gives everyone a chance to win. ... > Which format would you use, and why? Having done both, made the decision myself, and quite likely will again in the future, I go with 3R + 0F. Granted, it has huge problems with getting people to play for the outcome of a single game. They're supposed to do that, but it's just real, REAL tough to get everyone to forget the tournament standings as they play the second and especially the third game. I wish I could think of some sort of tweak for this but I'm drawing a blank so far. Even so, I've played 2R + F and that's even worse. It makes the first two rounds hard as hell to take seriously when everyone automatically advances to the final. And even worse with multideck, since the one thing you win in the preliminary rounds then becomes almost worthless itself if you don't know what decks your opponents will choose. On balance, 3R + 0F will at least maintain its interest throughout the tournament even with its particular problem. > Also, would your answer change if 8-11 people showed up, so that you > had enough for two tables? There's no issue in that case. Tournament Without Final (rule 3.1.6) is only legal to use with less than 8 players. I'd opt for the legal tournament... :-) Fred

Frederick Scott wrote: ... And even worse with multideck, since the one thing you win in > the preliminary rounds then becomes almost worthless itself if you don't know > what decks your opponents will choose. I as judge force the players to make the seating order with one vampire from their crypt. So you get an information about the deck they are playing. (If you see a Korah, you usually know, if you can handle that deck.) So i would prefer 2+F, because it is more like a real tournament. Frank

On 26 Sep 2005 02:41:32 -0700, <x5m...@gmx.de> wrote: > > Frederick Scott wrote: > ... And even worse with multideck, since the one thing you win in >> the preliminary rounds then becomes almost worthless itself if you >> don't know >> what decks your opponents will choose. > > I as judge force the players to make the seating order with one vampire > from their crypt. So you get an information about the deck they are > playing. (If you see a Korah, you usually know, if you can handle that > deck.) Well, that will only make people put in one oddball vampire that doesn't fit at all. You have 33% chance of losing 1 uncontrolled vampire in your game, but people will completely get off-track on what you're playing. -- Bye, Daneel

> I as judge force the players to make the seating order with one vampire > from their crypt. So you get an information about the deck they are > playing. (If you see a Korah, you usually know, if you can handle that > deck.) Interesting idea! I kind of like it, though I wonder if that's tournament legal. LSJ? Ira

> Granted, it has huge problems with getting people to play for the > outcome of a single game. They're supposed to do that, but it's just > real, REAL tough to get everyone to forget the tournament standings as > they play the second and especially the third game. I wish I could > think of some sort of tweak for this but I'm drawing a blank so far. > Toss is an additional prize for every TW.

<x5m...@gmx.de> wrote in message news:1127727692.2...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... > Frederick Scott wrote: > ... And even worse with multideck, since the one thing you win in >> the preliminary rounds then becomes almost worthless itself if you don't know >> what decks your opponents will choose. > > I as judge force the players to make the seating order with one vampire > from their crypt. So you get an information about the deck they are > playing. (If you see a Korah, you usually know, if you can handle that > deck.) I can understand the incentive to do that. But that sort of a rule isn't official VEKN either. I'm almost tempted to say that there should be an optional rule that would require all finalist to reveal their entire crypt prior to final seat selection. (Or part of their crypt, as you're doing. But I like the entire crypt, myself.) This would even up some of the snarky stuff that goes on with respect to uneven knowledge of opponents decks going into the final round. Fred

"Gregory Stuart Pettigrew" <ethe...@sidehack.gweep.net> wrote in message news:2005092615...@sidehack.gweep.net... [ quoted text not captured ] I'm not sure what you mean by "every TW". But if you mean give a prize for every game win, that makes a lot of sense. It doesn't even have to be an extra prize - it could be taken out of the tournament prize. Like, 10 booster packs for the tournament winner, less two given out for every game win that happens. In theory, the winner could win up winning as little as four packs but he will have to have won at least two more for a game win in the process. Fred

In message <1127761197.9...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, "ira...@gmail.com" <ira...@gmail.com> writes: Please leave the reference in of the poster who wrote this - it makes following threads much simpler. Google will do this automatically for you. [ quoted text not captured ] It's illegal. Table positions are not assigned in the final round. Instead each of the finalists is given an index card (or reasonable substitute) with his or her name on it. Starting with the lowest qualifier, each qualifier places his or her index card faceup in a row on the table. When placing his or her card, each player must choose to position his or her card at either end of the row (one end of the row is equivalent to the other) or may create a space between two cards already placed. After all cards have been placed, they are read from left to right to determine seating positions in the final round. The judge will then determine randomly which player will play first. Clearly, no-one is going to quibble if you use a different (but obvious) token other than an index card - scraps of paper, their (distinct) tub of pool counters - or even simply have players stand around the table. The effect is the same, so there's no difference to quibble over. Forcing a player to reveal something about their deck is not part of the official system, so a substitute system that forces that is clearly not compliant with the rules. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

Not talking about small tournaments any longer. James Coupe wrote: > >> I as judge force the players to make the seating order with one vampire > >> from their crypt. So you get an information about the deck they are > >> playing. (If you see a Korah, you usually know, if you can handle that > >> deck.) > > > >Interesting idea! I kind of like it, though I wonder if that's > >tournament legal. LSJ? > > It's illegal. > > Table positions are not assigned in the final round. Instead > each of the finalists is given an index card (or reasonable > substitute) with his or her name on it. ... Why is a vampire from the crypt no "reasonable substitute". The core of that tournament rule is, that there is a connection between the card and the player. It would not be ok., if you use turn down cards. But where does the rule prohibit that there are some equal informations. > ... Forcing a player to reveal something about their deck is not part of the > official system, so a substitute system that forces that is clearly not > compliant with the rules. There is no normal tournament, where are not some players in the finals who know something about some other decks. The rules about the seating in the finals wants you to have some informations about the players, otherwise they wouldnt make any sense. If you wouldnt know anything about the players and their decks, you could randomize the seating. Giving the players who know nothing some small information, is not "forcing a player" but making the players more equal to fulfill the basis of the seating in the finals.

In message <1127775782.5...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, x5m...@gmx.de writes: >Not talking about small tournaments any longer. > >James Coupe wrote: >> It's illegal. >> >> Table positions are not assigned in the final round. Instead >> each of the finalists is given an index card (or reasonable >> substitute) with his or her name on it. ... > >Why is a vampire from the crypt no "reasonable substitute". The core of >that tournament rule is, that there is a connection between the card >and the player. It would not be ok., if you use turn down cards. But >where does the rule prohibit that there are some equal informations. The rule states how you should conduct the placing for the finals. Forcing players to provide additional information about their deck is not part of that. The rules for sorting the final position out also don't say that you can't give money to the judge to alter your placing - will you be asking for that? The rules don't say that you can't hold a charity auction to determine the placing - how's that for you? The rules don't say that you can't get each player to play strip poker to determine who sits where, and who gets a sneak peak at all the decks - sound good to you? The point is - the rules tell you how to conduct the placing for the finals. Any equivalent system is going to be just fine. Since I've had some situations where some players view a line of cards as being the top half a circle (so pred->prey goes left to right) but others view it as the bottom half (so pred->prey goes right to left), I tend to favour placing things in a circle. Or just having the players stand around a table, and slot in and shuffle around, because that's completely transparent. The rules don't allow you to force players to tell each other anything about their decks, however. Judges aren't allowed to pull new rules out of their ass just because they think it's better that way. If you do think players should be forced to reveal information about their decks under certain circumstances, suggest this to V:EKN's representatives. Don't just pull it out of your ass. It's not a judge's role to do that. If you think it is your role to make up arbitrary rules as you see fit, don't be a judge - run a Make Your Own Storyline tournament instead. The ideal is that any judge anywhere would run a sanctioned tournament in exactly the same way, and all players would play in an entirely fair situation where no mistakes were made. Since mistakes will, inevitably, be made, the best we can do is ask judges to not arbitrarily invent new rules that a player will have no knowledge of before turning up at a sanctioned tournament. Note: Judges must take action to resolve any rules infraction (whether a violation of the V:EKN Tournament Rules or the game rules) they notice or that is brought to their attention. It is the judge's responsibility to *stop* new rules being pulled out of the air, not to create them. >There is no normal tournament, where are not some players in the finals >who know something about some other decks. In a sufficiently large tournament, it would be quite possible for each player to have sat at a different table from each of the other finalists. The only information they would have would be hearsay. In a 2R+F tournament, for example, with fifty players, it is possible that each player could have played two rounds against opponents selected from a different batch of ten, which never intermingled - or that the effect of random seating would be to provide that. (Note also that use of the Archon's seating chart is optional.) Given how large some of the continental championships and qualifiers are in some parts of the world, having a very large tournament of this sort of scale is entirely possible. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: > If you do think players should be forced to reveal information about > their decks under certain circumstances, suggest this to V:EKN's > representatives. Note that I recently asked LSJ for the list of people who make the tournament rules and banned list, and for an undisclosed reason, that list of people is undisclosed. :) So if you want to make a change to the tournament rules, there really isn't much direct access to the decision makers, other than LSJ. Of course, LSJ is pretty much always available and extremely fast to respond to questions. While I generally favor open systems with clear processes for change, I'd say we're doing pretty darn well, and I have faith in the abilities and judgement of whatever group decides our VEKN fate. Three cheers for the undisclosed group of people that decide the tournament rules! (One cheer each for succubus club, dramatic upheaval, and kindred restructure. ;)) Ira

ira...@gmail.com wrote: > Note that I recently asked LSJ for the list of people who make the > tournament rules and banned list, and for an undisclosed reason, that > list of people is undisclosed. :) The members of the rules team are undisclosed. For the tournament rules and banned list, that's (currently) me. If I said otherwise, it was because I misunderstood the question. -- LSJ (vtesr...@TRAPwhite-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep (remove spam trap to reply) Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

James, you did not answer to the point of my message. The rules about the final seating imply that the players know something about the other players or their decks. A final seating with absolute anonymous players (wearing masks for example) and absolute anonymous decks (because the players never played against each other) would be silly. Instead of choosing seating you could randomize. So the rules want, that the players know why they seat themselve at a place. James Coupe wrote: > The rule states how you should conduct the placing for the finals. > Forcing players to provide additional information about their deck is > not part of that. Ok., maybe you are right. But, like i told before, the rules want that the players know something about the other decks. So the judge doesnt have to stop players talking about the decks and should not hinder to get more informations. So it is trivial if they get some more information. > The rules for sorting the final position out also don't say that you > can't give money to the judge to alter your placing - will you be asking > for that? The rules for the final seating have a message: The seating of the players in the final is determined by their own decision in the order of the rank after the prelims. Your example obviously is against the intend of the rule, my case supports the decision that must be made after the rules. That is really not comparable. > The rules don't allow you to force players to tell each other anything > about their decks, however. Judges aren't allowed to pull new rules out > of their ass just because they think it's better that way. I played it that way before there were any official tournaments. I played it that way even in big tournaments without any contradiction of the players. So i really didnt pull it out of my ass. I can accept that it is an unofficial way to make a more fair environement. So maybe if a player would complain against it, i had to think about it. > ... The ideal is that any judge anywhere would run a sanctioned tournament > in exactly the same way, and all players would play in an entirely fair > situation where no mistakes were made. Since mistakes will, inevitably, > be made, the best we can do is ask judges to not arbitrarily invent new > rules that a player will have no knowledge of before turning up at a > sanctioned tournament. Your ideal is nice but irrelevant. Judges are no roboters and they shouldnt be. The should follow the tournament rules, but how they follow the rules is dependant on their individuality. In half of europe it is usual that you have to tell the judge about deals that are made on the table. (I got a warning for not reporting a deal to the judge in a tournament.) Deals are not in the tournament rules and (you know it) they arent even in the playing rules. These judges obviously think they need these rule to have a better and fairer game. I can accept that. But i dont do it myself. So if you want a crusade against judges that do something not verbally written in the tournament rules, start here. Judges have to ensure that the players play after the rules and they have to give a fair playing environment. Both are not hurt by my behaviour. Frank

[ quoted text not captured ] > Toss is an additional prize for every [table win]. I really, really like this idea. Even at larger tournaments. It would reduce the value of the prizes going to the finalists, of course, but it would likely result in all the rounds being harder fought.

Emmit Svenson wrote: > Gregory Stuart Pettigrew wrote: >>Toss is an additional prize for every [table win]. > > I really, really like this idea. Even at larger tournaments. It would > reduce the value of the prizes going to the finalists, of course, but > it would likely result in all the rounds being harder fought. > Same here. Most of the tournaments I've been to have had at least a booster pack to the winner of each table, which only works out to about a $.60 additional entry cost - I don't think most people would even notice. - crispy

> The members of the rules team are undisclosed. > For the tournament rules and banned list, that's (currently) me. > > If I said otherwise, it was because I misunderstood the question. Aha! Thanks for the clarification! What are your thoughts on scouting decks during a tournament? I'm not familiar with any tournament rules that govern it, and it seems like it's left to the tournament organizer to decide a policy (which may be difficult to enforce.) Ira

In message <1127828592.1...@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, x5m...@gmx.de writes: >James, you did not answer to the point of my message. The rules about >the final seating imply that the players know something about the other >players or their decks. Which is entirely possible. Ask them. Or ask someone who played against them. I've certainly seen players ask who's in the finals, what they're playing, what they like to play and so on. All entirely possible without judging intervention. >A final seating with absolute anonymous players (wearing masks for >example) and absolute anonymous decks (because the players never played >against each other) would be silly. Right. But since the finals structure doesn't allow for that - you always know who the players are. The index cards (or alternative method) clearly identify the player's name. >Instead of choosing seating you >could randomize. So the rules want, that the players know why they seat >themselve at a place. The intention behind the rules is one thing. What the rules actually say is another. A judge's responsibility is to enforce the rules, not what he thinks the rules should be. Any judge who believes it is his job to enforce what he thinks the rules should be, instead of what they are, should not be a judge; such behaviour is entirely contrary to the required behaviour of a judge. A detailed example of intent vs the rules is given at the bottom. >James Coupe wrote: >> The rules don't allow you to force players to tell each other anything >> about their decks, however. Judges aren't allowed to pull new rules out >> of their ass just because they think it's better that way. > >I played it that way before there were any official tournaments. I >played it that way even in big tournaments without any contradiction of >the players. So i really didnt pull it out of my ass. Erm, it's not part of the rules of the tournament *and you know it*. That's pulling a rule out of your ass. Note that "But Miss! Miss! The bigger boys in the playground didn't stop me doing this" isn't an argument for saying "My rules are legal." Plenty of mistakes get made at tournaments. People are human. >Judges have to ensure that the players play after the rules and they >have to give a fair playing environment. Both are not hurt by my >behaviour. A "fair playing environment" is given by enforcing the rules laid down by V:EKN. All players can find out what those rules are before they turn up to a tournament. They do not suddenly find themself thinking "Hey, wait, with this rules change 'for fairness', I'm screwed." Can you tell me precisely what is fair when I turn up to a tournament and get penalised for behaviour which is entirely legal, such as making a deal? LSJ has ruled many times about just how legal this is. Or is this just what your sense of fairness tells you? Oh right... Enforcing your sense of fairness onto players who happen to know what the real rules are is not part of the role of a judge in a sanctioned tournament. Any judge who cannot deal with that should resign and allow someone else to judge instead. A History Lesson * ******* ****** Consider: many players - myself included - some years ago found that "Table Split" deals were distasteful. In brief: if two decks sat next to each other that would mutually annihilate each other if they went at it like normal, they would often make a deal to get one of them 3VP and the other 2, by concentrating on other players on the table, then one deck allowing itself to be ousted. The usual example was 2 combat decks that would send each other to torpor and get 0 VP. The deal they made was entirely legal, but distasteful to many players. Why was it distasteful? Well, to many players it felt like being ganged up on. You've suddenly got your predator AND your grand-predator rushing your vampires and quite possibly a prey who's there blocking you and doing his own nastiness. So, instead of 1 to 2 Methuselahs trying to get you at any one time, you've suddenly got 3. And they're probably doing it with a turn of speed. Problem: this is the optimal course of action for the two decks. If they go at each other, they get zero VPs. So they have to do this. Now, some judges would want to rule this illegal. It is not a "fair playing environment" for the player(s) victimised in this fashion. So you rule the play illegal. But it's still the best course of action for them. So they still want to do it, whether you rule the deal illegal or not. It's still *completely* the right move for them. We can also be pretty certain that this sort of thing is not what the game's rules were set up for. How do we know? Because Richard Garfield has said so. The intent - for him - in a multiplayer game like Jyhad is not to make a free-for-all (like when you sit down on a table of Magic players and the last person standing wins, no other restrictions), but also not to make it multi-player solitaire. And also, we know that he wanted the ability for players to co-operate when it was in their mutual interest, but that their interests should be diverse - this is the foundation of the predator/prey structure (to give sometimes over- lapping, but different, requirements for each player to follow), and also why the predator gets the pool and VP no matter who performs the oust. Various people suggested to him that the ousting player could get the pool or the VP or something. But no, the idea is that each player has a distinct set of goals. If they choose to oust someone else, it is because there is something in it for them. For example, the player might be contesting or disrupting every single major resource they have (for instance, two master heavy decks contesting each others' copies of The Parthenon, Anson and so on), or they might have struck a deal to get some assistance - but that is not freely doable, since the mechanisms for providing assistance are difficult and sometimes unreliable (depending on precisely what mechanism you choose). Votes can be cancelled, master cards reversed, actions blocked or whatever. So, there's a strong belief that two decks should not always have the same core goals. (Excluding a particularly weird Storyline set-up, for now.) So a table-split deal victimises the players not involved, and is against the founding principles of the game - a predator and prey should not have the same goals for the entire game, until one of them rolls over! But - if we enforce the "fairness" that an individual judge sees behind this, we're going to have a whole hell of a time where deals that are legal over here are illegal over there. So you don't magically decide on a new "fair" rule out of your ass. End result: The rules got changed to provide a heavy disincentive against this (and against other deck types, at the time). The concept of the Game Win was introduced, so that a player would need to be able to get 3 VPs to do consistently well. This makes it quite a bit harder to organise the deal in situations where table-splits were previously possible - the difference between 3VP and 2VP was slight, the difference between 1GW and 0GW was not slight. Yes, you might still take it if it was your only option - but the change in the rules meant that playing decks that can coast along on three rounds of 2VP and *maybe* the odd 3VP are strongly disincentivised too. (Specifically, this also hit "bad" wall decks - those which sit there and don't move forward, expecting to get 2VP for last man standing. These days, a good wall deck must be able to get 3VP to get the GW - so will have forward pressure, which is another precept of the game that Garfield wanted, and has said so with regards the fact that he provided the Edge as a carrot for this.) Lessons to be learnt: Don't enforce your own interpretation of the rules because you think it's "fair" - making players jump through arbitary hoops that you decide upon isn't fair. Lessons to be learnt (2): If you take the problems to V:EKN, they'll look at the situation and see if they can improve it in the next revision of the rules. [ quoted text not captured ]

James, it is interesting for me, that at the Dealbreaker thread you are arguing with the practical limit (it is not possible to avoid out-of-game play by considering who broke a deal sometime ago), in this thread you are arguing about theoretical fullfilling of rules without any practical considerations. James Coupe wrote: > Which is entirely possible. Ask them. Or ask someone who played > against them. I've certainly seen players ask who's in the finals, what > they're playing, what they like to play and so on. All entirely > possible without judging intervention. Ok., than my method is absolutely trivial and may shorten the time needed to start the finals. ... Any judge who believes it is his job to enforce what > he thinks the rules should be, instead of what they are, should not be a > judge; such behaviour is entirely contrary to the required behaviour of > a judge. Sorry, your theoretical argument is, all judges should be clones of LSJ. My argument is, if the players are happy the judge is obviously a good judge. You want to kill flexibility and creativity out of the judges. I dont agree. > Erm, it's not part of the rules of the tournament *and you know it*. > That's pulling a rule out of your ass. Starting a round earlier than expected because all games of one round are finished is not part of the rules. Forcing the players to tell the judges all deals that are made is not part of the rules. Not telling the players axactly how many time is left, to prevent stalling, is not part of the rules. What exactly to do in a given situation is not written in the rules. Tournament in reality function, because judges make decisions - and usually make good decisions. That is not making rules, that is judging. Example: There is a tournament with a well known play group. There is one new player, who doesnt know anything about the others. This player gets to the finals. He is a little bit helpless and asks you as the judge, what are the other players playing, because it is unfair, if he has no informations to make his seating decision. What do you think is legal for the judge: - To say: So you are toast, bad luck. - To say: Ask player X, he played against all people who are in the finals. - To say: If nobody refuses, every player can use one of his vampires in the seating to give a little information about what he is playing. > A History Lesson > * ******* ****** It is an interesting story, but i dont think, we are talking about ruling, we are talking about handling the situation in the final seating by a judge. Sidenote: If two players make a table splitting deal the others have to immediately make a counter deal. Than it is 3 to 1, who will win? > End result: The rules got changed to provide a heavy disincentive > against this (and against other deck types, at the time). The concept > of the Game Win was introduced, so that a player would need to be able > to get 3 VPs to do consistently well. That was a ruling limiting a table split deal. In many situations it is still the best way to split the table, even by not getting only 2 VPs. I have never played in the US, but for me it looks like american players tend to see to often playing as not-playing-to-win even if it is not written in the rules. > Lessons to be learnt: Don't enforce your own interpretation of the rules > because you think it's "fair" - making players jump through arbitary > hoops that you decide upon isn't fair. Of all the problematic judging that occurs in VTES, do you really think our discussion points at the important things?