Dice roll for resolve ties sucks

I finished 5th place the EC last Sunday tied with Kamel, and I lost the dice roll to get a place in the finals :( And even worse, aparently only the finalists of previous Continental championship and not the first five people of the previous are qualified for the next one. I can understand that for playing the final it should be a way of determining the finalist, but in qualifiers tournaments people tied with the last spot get also qualified for the next EC, why could it be fare not to be qualified for next EC when I finished within the first 5 people(tied) after the 3 rounds of Day 2 of the EC? So the dice roll rules on that as well? Why not implement a système which calculates as wells the points that people in your tables did to have any other way of avoidings ties like ELO system in other cardgames?

[ quoted text not captured ] I gotta say that I like the ELO system. Basically any system which is not a random one to determine who's going to the final sounds better to me than a dice roll. Apart from that, I don't really see what could be it ! Arthur

I was thinking about having a third column in the Rankings sheet which indicates the average of the summatory of table points of all your oponents during the tournament, cause if people you have played against in the three rounds got lost of table points it indicates more or less the quality of your oponents. And this column could be used only in case of a tied whit the Table points column. !it's only an idea.

On 17 nov, 08:39, Acbishop <antonio_cobo_cue...@hotmail.com> wrote: > against in the three rounds got lost of table points it indicates more sorry bad typing I wanted to say lots of table points

[ quoted text not captured ] I like this idea. Really like it!

On Nov 17, 8:19 am, Acbishop <antonio_cobo_cue...@hotmail.com> wrote: > I finished 5th place the EC last Sunday tied with Kamel, and I lost > the dice roll to get a place in the finals :( > > And even worse, aparently only the finalists of previous Continental > championship and not the first five people of the previous are > qualified for the next one. I can understand that for playing the > final it should be a way of determining the finalist, but in > qualifiers tournaments people tied with the last spot get also > qualified for the next EC, why could it be fare not to be qualified > for next EC when I finished within the first 5 people(tied) after the > 3 rounds of Day 2 of the EC? > A couple of years ago at the Swedish ECQ we had the last players qualifying tied on gw's, vp's and tp's. So we rolled a dice determining who would qualify and who would not. The loser was ofcourse gutted and I found it very strange that a dice roll would determine a qualification issue. So I talked to Oscar and Scott and got a rule introduced that in the event of a qualifier tie both players qualify. This should apply in this event too, shouldn't it? Roll a dice to determine who will play the finals, but both players qualify. Will take a look at and comment on your system later. Just wanted to share this with you. Perhaps Oscar or Scott or Johannes could clarify this. Regards Alex Ek Swedish NC

[ quoted text not captured ] * If multiple players tie for a qualifier spot, then all the tied players qualify. That's from the WW website. So I can't see why you wouldn't qualify. //Alex

[ quoted text not captured ] I don't know If I'm qualified or not, cause I asked Oscar on Sunday and He said I'm not cause I'm not on the final, I asked Robyn and she said that normally I'm qualified. So for the moment I don't know if I'm or not qualified, as I'm currently living in Paris for me it should be great being already qualified for next EC which is going to be held in Paris(hope to see there lots of people :) )

[ quoted text not captured ] I'm not sure that Oscar is a really reliable source on that kind of matter. :p Scott?

_angst_ schrieb: [ quoted text not captured ] In a qualifier 25% qualify and ties for the 25% qualify as well. In a championship finalists qualify. There are no ties for finalists, since they get resolved before the finals. You haven�t been the 6th finalist, you have been no finalist. That are the rules as they stand. We might think about changing them, we might think about making an exception in this special case of hardship (I mean getting booted out of the final AND not being qualified is really hard).

[ quoted text not captured ] It's really hard, that's true, and I don't see the point of not giving a qualification for next EC to someone who lost a dice roll. Specially with the rules for people tied in qualifiers. Cause I can understand that only one can play the final, but I think that Kamel and me both of us deserve the qualification for next EC. But as my usual luck now I'm fucked by a dice roll, no final, no qualify, nothing. It is so unfare. The rules of the qualifiers about getting the qualify for the players who tied is because the people tied did same valuable effort to get the qualify. So what's the difference between Kaml's efforts and mine during EC Day 2? I think no difference, same GWs, same VPs, same Table Points, the only difference is the result of a dice roll. How can a dice roll determine who deserve a qualification or not for next EC? I think it's enough punishment not to be in the EC Final, don't need to punish more saying "Listen guy, you are not good rolling a dice, you don't deserve being qualified for next European Championship for that", It is senseless.

Acbishop schrieb: [ quoted text not captured ] I agree with you. I was just stating that the rules say otherwise and I suggested to probably bend the rules a little in this situation. Rest assured I�ll stay on it.

[ quoted text not captured ] Then I would suggest bending them for this occasion but also changing them for the future. //Alex

Wholeheartedly agree, you should at least qualify. A day of great cards shouldn't be wrecked due to a bad die roll. David Wilson Baron of Ann Arbor Sire of Many.

As the benefactor of two good dice rolls to get into finals, I can feel sympathy for you. To have no expectation to be in the finals and luck into it feels great. It must feel equally bad to luck out of the finals. What you suggest about qualifying if you tie on GWs VPs and TPs seems fair. Are there any counter-arguments? Brandon

Would seem fair to qualify at least. Difficult to say even with a rating system whether or not you or Kamel had tougher opponents on the day even with average points of opponents as quality in that size event when you've just cut should be fairly evenly distributed (at least that's the point of the 2 day). Hugh

On Nov 17, 1:19 am, Acbishop <antonio_cobo_cue...@hotmail.com> wrote: > I finished 5th place the EC last Sunday tied with Kamel, and I lost > the dice roll to get a place in the finals :( I feel your pain. We should start a support group. ----------------------------------------------- Ethan Burrow - hosed at NAC 2001

I can sympathize with your situation. Several years back, with the old qualifying rules (no ties for qualifying spots), I was in a 3-way tie for 2 qualifier spots. We had to roll a dice and, suffice it to say, I rolled the lowest among the 3. (That really sucked). I was really pleased when years later, they changed to allow for ties in Qualifying spots (though that still sometimes creates hassles when there aren't enough t-shirts). - Regarding ties for the actual finals, I don't think there's really a better way to do it. When you get to the point where even Tournament Points are tied, you're going to be splitting hairs regardless of what method you choose. There's sufficient randomness in the game that you really can't compare the performance of the other players (besides through TP's in that game). So the die roll is the simplest and fastest. - Regarding the qualifying spots, I do think you make a good argument on why they should alter the rules so that those who tied for a finals spot (but lost on the dice roll) would still qualify. I really don't think it's a big deal from an organizational standpoint, since over the past few years, they have gradually been relaxing the qualifying standards (to broaden participation). Allowing local mini-qualifiers, giving automatic qualifying spots for organizers, automatic qualification for those in the continental finals from the previous year, etc. It shouldn't be a problem to also have an allowance for people who just barely lost out on the finals due to the dice roll.

On Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:19:41 -0800 (PST), Acbishop <antonio_c...@hotmail.com> wrote: > I finished 5th place the EC last Sunday tied with Kamel, and I lost > the dice roll to get a place in the finals :( > > And even worse, aparently only the finalists of previous Continental > championship and not the first five people of the previous are > qualified for the next one. I can understand that for playing the > final it should be a way of determining the finalist, but in > qualifiers tournaments people tied with the last spot get also > qualified for the next EC, why could it be fare not to be qualified > for next EC when I finished within the first 5 people(tied) after the > 3 rounds of Day 2 of the EC? Finalists qualify. Or the first five people qualify. You ended up being 6th place; there are four 2nd place and one 1st place players. > So the dice roll rules on that as well? Dice (coins, etc.) are used as a tie-breaker. Unless something better tournament-specific performance indicator can be used (e.g. counting pool you have left at the end of each game, etc.), I don't see an alternative to randomization. > Why not implement a systï¿œme which calculates as wells the points that > people in your tables did to have any other way of avoidings ties like > ELO system in other cardgames? Because such "systï¿œme" would suck. If you introduce a pre-condition that has nothing to do with performance at the given tournament (e.g. the ELO or some ranking) then not only do you put an extra pressure on the people processing the results (I can imagine a similar whine-post on losing the ELO-based tie-breaker because a previous tournament result wasn't processed), but you are not necessarily being any more fair than with the 50/50 randomness. If you use something at the tournament... You don't get a guarantee of fairness. Assume a 50-player tournament with two hubs. First hub contains world-class players as opponents, second hub contains noobs as opponents. Getting the same result (e.g. 2 GW 6 VP) from each hub will carry a completely different set of difficulty. Even the 50/50 randomization is more fair in this case than to say that the guy scoring 2/6 in the noob hub had a more difficult set of adversaries (if they happen to score better). I really hate the randomization. I just don't see an alternative to it. Going beneath TPs would create artificial criteria that would introduce more book-keeping, more calculations, and not necessarily be any more fair (TPs are a borderline case, even they are pretty artificial, and serve only as tie-breakers - but do they really track performance? Is it really a "better" loss to lose to a single opponent than to lose to two opponents who potentially table-split? etc.). Random tie-breakers, while unfair when applied, have a generally beneficial side too - they remove the tactical element from the game that aspires to exploit whatever favorable pre-condition the player may be subject to, and instead urges everyone to achieve as many GWs and VPs as possible. -- Regards, Daneel

[ quoted text not captured ] Unless they are in Portugal. Then only the Winner qualifies. [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] Yeah... somehow they got a really special rule for Portugal... and Portugal only... probably for fairness... aren't we special?

A die roll is a bad way of breaking a tie, for sure. But what else can be used? How does Elo work in a multiplayer game?

On Nov 17, 8:28 pm, Obtenebration <obtenebrat...@obtenebration.org> wrote: > A die roll is a bad way of breaking a tie, for sure. But what else > can be used? > > How does Elo work in a multiplayer game? Poorly. In any case, yeah, dice rolls to break ties sucks. But there isn't really a better option. Although I agree that if X players tie for whatever the last place is to Qualify, they should all qualify regardless of how many people are supposed to. If it means that an extra 2 or 3 people qualify? So be it. -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] I think the real problem here is to Qualify to a Final (or even a Win). Also, lets not forget the qualification for tournaments of limited number of players, like 2nd day EC or NAC. I don't know how it works, but could the Archon order between players through "quality of ousts"? For instance, when in tie, the player that ousted the better players wins. Could this bring any extra problems? Tiago, Known Toaster Lover

On Nov 17, 7:56 pm, Brum <tiago.br...@gmail.com> wrote: > I think the real problem here is to Qualify to a Final (or even a > Win). > Also, lets not forget the qualification for tournaments of limited > number of players, like 2nd day EC or NAC. > > I don't know how it works, but could the Archon order between players > through "quality of ousts"? > For instance, when in tie, the player that ousted the better players > wins. > Could this bring any extra problems? I think the main challenge is that systems that work well in 2-player games don't port over quite as well in multi-player (4 or 5-player) ones. In a two-player game (i.e. MtG) the quality of defeated opponents does make some sense (because you win largely on your own merits). But in VTES, I don't think it's as useful. You'd have to keep careful notes of table seating and order of ousts (if B ousts C but then A ousts B, does the transitive property apply with A being a better player than C?). Also, the political dynamic really alters things as well. If anything, a lot of the the best players (or the ones with the best decks) may be seen as the table threat and everyone else may try to oust him. Alternatively, there may be times when you get your predator or grandprey ousted on purpose, etc. None of that is reflected by the quality of ousts, which is why I think it would be a poor system to implement.

On 18 Nov, 00:03, Brum <tiago.br...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Unless they are in Portugal. Then only the Winner qualifies. > Huh, what's all this about? Something I missed? Drain

On Nov 18, 2:15 am, "echiang...@yahoo.com" <echiang...@yahoo.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] Indeed. Bad idea. But the randomness of dice is just... too random. Once we had a number of players tied and we did a table to see who would pass just with them. Of course we didn't have problems of time that day and I don't think it was a sanctioned event. It was years ago. I'm not saying that this should be done, specially because it would only solve 4 or 5 ties before a tournament like EC day 2.

Drain schrieb: [ quoted text not captured ] When the national championship has less than 15 players not all finalists qualify, but only the winner. A maximum rate of 33% (as in LCQ) seems about right. Would be rather ridiculous to have a national championship with 5 players = auto-qualify. We have been increasing the number of possible qualifications in many ways (mini-qualifiers, LCQ at 33% ...) but at some point there needs to be a limit, else we can just dump the qualification system.

[ quoted text not captured ] Again, I fully agree with you. Those seem like sensible rules. But since those rules are not anywhere, and I believe they should be, its rather unfair to impose them in just one case. I'm sure that once these rules are clarified things will run more smoothly.

Brum schrieb: [ quoted text not captured ] I would put them somewhere if there was any access to the White-Wolf website. Unfortunately there is no such access and there is no other page to move the information to. I�ll work on getting something up. -- Johannes

On Nov 17, 9:28 pm, Brum <tiago.br...@gmail.com> wrote: > But the randomness of dice is just... too random. It is. This is true. But *all* tie breakers eventually end with "well, we have to flip a coin, then". You can split and parse and split all day long, but eventually, you are still going to end up with a tied tie. And the only way to break the tied tie (or tied tied tied tie) is random selection (well, that, or feat of strength, but there is only so far that is going to get you...). As it stands, we have 3 levels of ranking/tie breaking--GW/VP/TP. *Most* of the time, there is enough differentiaton that you don't need to flip a coin. Every once and a while, you do. If there was a 4th level of tie breaking, still, every once and a while, you'd need to flip a coin. Sure, it sucks. But it is really the only reasonable way to go about things. -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] I see. And got to agree with you. Shame about the info being concealed until late notice, though I didn't participate in said tournament. Drain

[ quoted text not captured ] But you do. You can talk to Robyn or Oscar and have the rules changed. Then they would continue to be equal to everybody, since they would change at the same time to everybody. The rules are quite clear in the fact that a National Championship qualifies the top 5 players. No exceptions. If one would agree or not, that is a diferent question (in that one I agree with you), but exceptions are not there. Anyway, we don't expect to have the same problem again, since we'll be organizing things sooner this year. Cheers, Tiago

[ quoted text not captured ] Even the NFL has to use a coin toss as their 11/12th tie breaker: http://www.nfl.com/standings/tiebreakingprocedures best - chris

[ quoted text not captured ] Math people, help me out - my feeling is that at larger tournaments, you are more likely to have a tie, since there will be more people with exact same results. And of course at a larger tournament, it feels worse to decide something like who is in the finals on a coin flip. best - chris

"Brum" <tiago...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:3c166295-fe13-447b...@g23g2000yqh.googlegroups.com... > But the randomness of dice is just... too random. What are you going to do, though? The randomness of tournament points is just too random for my blood. The whole concept is silly. TPs don't begin to measure the quality of how a player played a tournament. They're just a static version of rolling the die. On top of this, you want a _different_ static version of rolling the die? I'd question whether such systems are a good thing. In theory, they allow players to predict whether they'd qualify for finals in a given set of circumstances ("Joe on table 5 gets his oust before being ousted by his predator whereas I win this table with 2 1/2 victory points; would I get in or not?") which is actually not good because it might encourage people to play games with their tournament standing in mind. That is, it's OK to play with the mindset that, "The better I do in this game, the better chance I'll have to make the finals." But my understanding of the play-to-win rule is that it's NOT OK to play with the goal that (for instance) "1 1/2 VPs gets me into the finals but only 1 does not". To that end, I think it's actually better to leave it to a die roll, the result of which cannot be predicted until it takes place. Fred

"librarian" <auct...@superfuncards.com> wrote in message news:he13i1$pqn$3...@news.eternal-september.org... > Peter D Bakija wrote: > Math people, help me out - my feeling is that at larger tournaments, you are more likely to have a tie, since there will be more > people with exact same results. And of course at a larger tournament, it feels worse to decide something like who is in the > finals on a coin flip. I think it would depend on the statistical curve. That is, to make the top 5 out of 12 is a different thing than making the top 5 out of 80. Of necessity, the top 5 out of 80 will have won more victory points and probably be less likely to land on exactly the same number of VPs and TPs. On the other hand, the effect you cite matters, too. I don't know which one would matter more. But my point is, it's not just the number of people - it's also what position on the curve is one that matters for breaking ties. (If there's a tie between three people for third place, it would get broken but we wouldn't care that much about it. If there's a tie for 12th place, we wouldn't care about it unless it's where the qualification line stood. And with current rules, I'm hearing that it wouldn't get broken anyway.) Also, keep in mind: with more people, organizers tend to plan longer tournaments. Three rounds provides more results than two round so there will be fewer ties for that (indirect) reason. Fred

Frederick Scott wrote: > That is, it's OK to play with the mindset that, "The better I > do in this game, the better chance I'll have to make the finals." But > my understanding of the play-to-win rule is that it's NOT OK to play > with the goal that (for instance) "1 1/2 VPs gets me into the finals > but only 1 does not". PTW means that you play for the 1.5 VPs instead of the 1 VP for no other reason than 1.5 > 1 (it has nothing to do with the finals). PTW: Play to get the best result reasonably possible for yourself. Order of results: 1 GW 0 GW and 2 VP 0 GW and 1.5 VP 0 GW and 1 VP 0 GW and 0 VP

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:he178s$kff$1...@news.eternal-september.org... > Frederick Scott wrote: >> That is, it's OK to play with the mindset that, "The better I >> do in this game, the better chance I'll have to make the finals." But >> my understanding of the play-to-win rule is that it's NOT OK to play >> with the goal that (for instance) "1 1/2 VPs gets me into the finals >> but only 1 does not". > > PTW means that you play for the 1.5 VPs instead of the 1 VP for no other reason > than 1.5 > 1 (it has nothing to do with the finals). > > PTW: > > Play to get the best result reasonably possible for yourself. Sure. I think the reason this is an issue has to do with evaluating scenarios where a player is making value judgements between, say, a high chance of finishing with 1.5 VPs (in the above scenario) vs. a smaller chance of going for 2 VP or more and taking the game win. Of course, neither strictly violates play-to-win, as the player is left to his own devices in sorting out such priorities. I'm just saying that the value of the rule, in my humble opinion, is to keep the opportunities for each game more equal to all the players involved. So it doesn't have to matter to another player - who may need a game win and a sweep to make the finals - whether he's seated in a game where there's one or more people who are merely trying to get a victory point or so and then sit on their positions rather than being seated at a table of four other players who all feel they need to go for game wins. The latter would certainly provide the easier opportunity to sweep. You said it yourself: playing to get the best result reasonably possible for yourself has nothing to do with the finals - which was my point. Fred

On 17 nov, 14:14, _angst_ <a...@student.chalmers.se> wrote: > On Nov 17, 2:08 pm, Johannes Walch <johannes.wa...@vekn.de> wrote: > > > > > > > Acbishop schrieb: [ quoted text not captured ] > > >> In a championship finalists qualify. There are no ties for finalists, > > >> since they get resolved before the finals. You haven´t been the 6th > > >> finalist, you have been no finalist. > > > >> That are the rules as they stand. We might think about changing them, we > > >> might think about making an exception in this special case of hardship > > >> (I mean getting booted out of the final AND not being qualified is > > >> really hard). > > > > It's really hard, that's true, and I don't see the point of not giving > > > a qualification for next EC to someone who lost a dice roll. Specially > > > with the rules for people tied in qualifiers. Cause I can understand > > > that only one can play the final, but I think that Kamel and me both > > > of us deserve the qualification for next EC. But as my usual luck now > > > I'm fucked by a dice roll, no final, no qualify, nothing. It is so > > > unfare. The rules of the qualifiers about getting the qualify for the > > > players who tied is because the people tied did same valuable effort > > > to get the qualify. So what's the difference between Kaml's efforts > > > and mine during EC Day 2? I think no difference, same GWs, same VPs, > > > same Table Points, the only difference is the result of a dice roll. > > > How can a dice roll determine who deserve a qualification or not for > > > next EC? I think it's enough punishment not to be in the EC Final, > > > don't need to punish more saying "Listen guy, you are not good rolling > > > a dice, you don't deserve being qualified for next European > > > Championship for that", It is senseless. > > > I agree with you. I was just stating that the rules say otherwise and I > > suggested to probably bend the rules a little in this situation. Rest > > assured I´ll stay on it. > > Then I would suggest bending them for this occasion but also changing > them for the future. > > //Alex- Masquer le texte des messages précédents - > > - Afficher le texte des messages précédents - I totally agree with Alex... Nicolas, French Prince of Oye Plage

[ quoted text not captured ] And what about ECQ with 5 players ? such as in the UK ?

librarian wrote: > Math people, help me out - my feeling is that at larger tournaments, > you are more likely to have a tie, since there will be more people > with exact same results. And of course at a larger tournament, it > feels worse to decide something like who is in the finals on a coin > flip. Of course your hypothesis is correct, and a coin flip sucks, sure. The problem is: what else is there which we could use? I'd just LOVE for the 4th tiebreaker to be: - Number of tables finished before Time was called Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! http://vtesville.myminicity.com/ Please buy my cards! http://shop.ebay.com/kjmergen/m.html