Portsmouth Sabbat League round 6

Round 6 of the League took place on Wednesday Night, and now the table looks like this: Legbiter Played 6, VPs 4,1,1,5,1.5,3 rating 3196 Mark Baxter Played 1, VPs -,-,-,-,-,1, rating 3004 John Eagles Played 5, VPs 0,3,0,0,-, 2 rating 3000 Robert ["Billy"] Shread Played 5, VPs 0,0,3,0,0.5, - rating 2984 Alex Murphy Played 1, VPs -,-,-,-,-,0, rating 2961 Anam ["Angel"] Sheader Played 4, VPs -,0,-,1,0.5, 0 rating 2954 John Lee Barber Played 3, VPs 0,-,-,-,0, 1 rating 2945 Ian ["Snook"] Stubbington Played 4, VPs -,0,-,0,0.5, 0 rating 2930 Steve ["Squid"] Cantlow Played 4, VPs -,-,0,0,0.5, 0 rating 2923 [the VPs for the second game do not add up to 5 because i withdrew after ousting Ian - according to the Sabbat rules. Similarly, the VPs for round 6 do not add up to 8 because Steve withdrew, much to the annoyance of John]. John E reckons i have cheated him of a VP somewhere which is possible, but i can't for the unlife of me see where i've made the mistake. Help, anyone? Anyway, if i find it i will correct it. We have two new players [Alex and Mark] and we had two EXTRAORDINARY 4- player games, in which running out of cards played a major role. Sabbat withdrawal rules are GOOD, ladies and gentlemen - they amount to the second way of winning which VTES has long lacked, compared to Bad Old Magic. O, and just a reminder that there's a REAL tournament [official, prizes sort of thing] this saturday. Be there, or be at Rob Treasure's barbecue! Finally, thanks to Xian for digging out the results of the last round for me! Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Share what you know. Learn what you don't.

legb...@my-deja.com wrote: > > Round 6 of the League took place on Wednesday Night, and now the table > looks like this: > > Legbiter Played 6, VPs 4,1,1,5,1.5,3 rating 3196 > Mark Baxter Played 1, VPs -,-,-,-,-,1, rating 3004 > John Eagles Played 5, VPs 0,3,0,0,-, 2 rating 3000 > Robert ["Billy"] Shread Played 5, VPs 0,0,3,0,0.5, - rating 2984 > Alex Murphy Played 1, VPs -,-,-,-,-,0, rating 2961 > Anam ["Angel"] Sheader Played 4, VPs -,0,-,1,0.5, 0 rating 2954 > John Lee Barber Played 3, VPs 0,-,-,-,0, 1 rating 2945 > Ian ["Snook"] Stubbington Played 4, VPs -,0,-,0,0.5, 0 rating 2930 > Steve ["Squid"] Cantlow Played 4, VPs -,-,0,0,0.5, 0 rating 2923 > > [the VPs for the second game do not add up to 5 because i > withdrew after ousting Ian - according to the Sabbat rules. Similarly, > the VPs for round 6 do not add up to 8 because Steve withdrew, much to > the annoyance of John]. > > John E reckons i have cheated him of a VP somewhere which is possible, > but i can't for the unlife of me see where i've made the mistake. Help, > anyone? Anyway, if i find it i will correct it. Well, someone has been "cheated" out of some victory points somewhere - one point in each of the games where the victory points do not sum to the total number of players. The formula for calculating ratings is based on the idea that VTES is a "zero sum" game - no one gains except what others lose. You can't all gain and you can't all lose. (It isn't a perfect zero sum formulation, I think, but it is as close as possible while remaining usable, i.e. not "hopelessly" complex.) Everyone comes to the table with 1 VP (conceptually: a sort of virtual "ante"). At the end of the game, the ante has simply been redistributed. No VPs vanished and no extra VPs appeared. The on-line player rating calculator depends on this (and checks to make sure that all VPs are allocated before perfoming the calculation): http://madnessnetwork.hexagon.net/madness_coord_rater.html That concept was taxed slightly by the 0.5 VP award for time limit, but the formula handles that by rounding those half points up to a full point for purposes of calculating ratings. (See the note at the bottom of the player rating calculator page.) With the Sabbat Withdrawal rules (*not* the official DCI rules), the VPs brought to the table can vanish. To illustrate, take an extreme example: four players withdraw, leaving one player left (to claim his own VP for "last Meth standing"). VPs brought to the table: 5. VPs won: 1. If everyone started with a rating of 3000, then the last Meth standing would end the game with a rating of 3000 (he got the one VP that he was expected to win) while every other player winds up with 2968. No one gains while most lose. Not a zero-sum. This (loss of a VP from the table) was one of the problems of the Sabbat Withdrawal rule that resulted in it never becoming part of the official DCI environment. If you use the Sabbat Withdrawal rule, you can either accept the transition away from a zero sum game or allocate the "lost" VPs in some manner (giving the withdrawer or her Predator a VP for purposes of calculating ratings, for example). > We have two new players [Alex and Mark] and we had two EXTRAORDINARY 4- > player games, in which running out of cards played a major role. Sabbat > withdrawal rules are GOOD, ladies and gentlemen - they amount to the > second way of winning which VTES has long lacked, compared to Bad Old > Magic. ? How is gaining no additional VPs a way of "winning"? I could just be ousted and get the same number of additional VPs. Classic (current) withdrawal rules *are* a second (albeit nearly unachievable) way of winning, since you get a VP for withdrawing (the VP you brought to the table). If you want the Sabbat Withdrawal (house) rule to function as a second way of "winning", you should award the withdrawer a VP for withdrawing. -- LSJ (vte...@wizards.com) VTES Net.Rep for Wizards of the Coast. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.wizards.com/VTES/VTES_Rules.html