[LSJ] V:EKN Tournament Rules Question

In one of the EC threads, Tobias (tobiasop...@hotmail.com) wrote: > round 3: my predator is Shane from australia, playing pot rush, but > Johannes (judge) comes over and asks if it's ok if they swap him for > Stephane Lavrut, since Stephane's on the same table as Kamel and they > wish to avoid a possible accusation of collusion (long story). I've looked at the tournament rules, and can't find anything relating to this. I'd like to know whether this is allowed, and if so, under what circumstances. Is it up to the discretion of the judge? Can the Archon seating arrangements be overridden under certain conditions? (note that this is in no way a dig at the judging at the EC (it was great!) - the quoted message above just had me wondering - I merely would like to know for future tournaments) mark

On Wed, 01 Dec 2004 21:58:42 GMT, mark <mark.s...@no.chello.spam.at> scrawled: >In one of the EC threads, Tobias (tobiasop...@hotmail.com) wrote: > > > round 3: my predator is Shane from australia, playing pot rush, but > > Johannes (judge) comes over and asks if it's ok if they swap him for > > Stephane Lavrut, since Stephane's on the same table as Kamel and they > > wish to avoid a possible accusation of collusion (long story). > >I've looked at the tournament rules, and can't find anything relating >to this. I'd like to know whether this is allowed, and if so, under >what circumstances. Is it up to the discretion of the judge? Can the >Archon seating arrangements be overridden under certain conditions? well, the archon seating is merely an attempt at fulfilling the criterion for seating set out in the tournament rules. there may be more than one way to arrange a given set of players in an 'optimal' manner....and i think (?) the rules merely require that predator/prey relationships are not repeated from round to round, where possible...the other criteria (number of starting transfers, sitting next to another player but in opposite pred/prey relationship, etc) are merely desirable. salem domain:canberra http://www.geocities.com/salem_christ.geo/vtes.htm (replace "hotmail" with "yahoo" to email)

Johannes Walch wrote: <snipped explanation> thanks for the explanation. makes sense to me. so i assume that this is up to the tournament judge's discretion? >this wasn´t (of course) a gift because neither kamel nor stéphane took a >game win in that round and for no one the situation improved/got worse. of let's paint another outcome: both kamel and stephane could have quite possibly won their 2nd and 3rd round games (they're both first class players). if they'd both ended up in the finals, then i would expect people would have raised a lot of questions about the table-switching situation.... in that case, wouldn't it have been better to leave the seating as it was? (please don't take this as a criticism, it just would have looked bad if it had ended up like this, imo). as an aside, my 2nd round table had 3 players from vienna, seated next to each other. we all knew each other's decks. one of us ended up in the final (we went into the round with 0/0, 0/0 and 0/2 - so no collusion :-)). i saw the seating on that table as just an (unfortunate) coincidence - the luck of the draw - and didn't consider asking for it to be changed. thanks again for a great tournament - i had an excellent weekend! mark

Collusion is covered under the "Cheating" section (5.1, under Tournament Violations). All cheating situations are to be reviewed and penalized by the Head Judge, but it is all that is required to be done. Not that I don't like the solution taken; in fact, I'm a fan of preventing things from occuring instead of correcting them later. The seating is determined by the tournament organizers and need not be exactly what the Archon proposes, so I guess there's nothing wrong in re-arranging the tables to avoid any future charges by players. best, Fabio Sooner NC for Brazil, still getting used with the little details on tournament rules

"Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote in message news:7GIrd.81225$EZ.68268@okepread07... > One thing I really wish they'd change is the emphasis on starting > transfers. Starting transfers, as far as I can tell, is a almost > meaningless consideration. I'm sick and tired of going to 3 or 4 > table tournament and looking up in the second round and finding two > other players that I'd played with in the first round. There's no > excuse for that. NEW OPPONENTS is a much more important consideration > than starting transfers and it's my perception that consideration gets > stepped on by the desire to avoid getting the same number of starting > transfers both rounds. Starting transfers is weighted lower than new opponents by the optimal seating charts used in the Archon. The consideration for new opponents is not stepped on by the desire to avoid starting transfers. See the article cited on the Optimal Seating Chart tab of the Archon: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3C9CAE29.1015B5%40white-wolf.com New players is only "stepped on" when necessary to avoid repeating the exact same predator-prey relationship (and, if I recall correctly, those two criteria are never at odds). > In a three table tournament, you should never have to play with more > than one other guy from the previous rounds table in a subsequent > round. In a four table tournament, it should be rare to play with > even one other opponent. More than four tables, it should never happen. > > Am I wrong? I guess so, if that's what the current so-called optimal seating charts provide. I'd be happy to entertain any more optimal seating chart you care to provide for whatever given number of players you find one for, of course. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. V:TES homepage: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/ Though effective, appear to be ineffective -- Sun Tzu

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:3193maF...@individual.net... > http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3C9CAE29.1015B5%40white-wolf.com > > New players is only "stepped on" when necessary to avoid repeating > the exact same predator-prey relationship (and, if I recall correctly, > those two criteria are never at odds). Oops, sorry. Item 2 is paired-through-all-three-rounds. What we're discussing is #4. That is stepped on by 1 (pred-prey repetition) and by 2 (above) and by 3: equitable VP availability (i.e., No one sits at a four player table twice if anyone sits at a five player table all three rounds, and no one sits at a four player table thrice if anyone sits at a five player table twice). [ quoted text not captured ]

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:3193maF...@individual.net... > "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote in message > news:7GIrd.81225$EZ.68268@okepread07... >> NEW OPPONENTS is a much more important consideration >> than starting transfers and it's my perception that consideration gets >> stepped on by the desire to avoid getting the same number of starting >> transfers both rounds. > > Starting transfers is weighted lower than new opponents by the optimal > seating charts used in the Archon. > The consideration for new opponents is not stepped on by the desire > to avoid starting transfers. > See the article cited on the Optimal Seating Chart tab of the > Archon: > http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3C9CAE29.1015B5%40white-wolf.com OK. My apologies about having the wrong perception. I think what keeps screwing me up about this subject is consideration #3, not #8; the emphasis on distributing people between four and five player tables rather than allowing people new opponents. (And I _assume_ that what #4 means is really better stated something like, "The fewest possible pairs of players share a table more than once." As stated, #4 almost sounds like a repeat of #2.) That one's a much harder call and I'm thinking I probably agree with the choice myself (though I'm ambivalent). I know a lot of people think #3's very important, so I suppose it's hard to argue with in any event. Fred

"salem" <salem_ch...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:310uq05fmos8bu46f...@4ax.com... > well, the archon seating is merely an attempt at fulfilling the > criterion for seating set out in the tournament rules. there may be > more than one way to arrange a given set of players in an 'optimal' > manner....and i think (?) the rules merely require that predator/prey > relationships are not repeated from round to round, where > possible...the other criteria (number of starting transfers, sitting > next to another player but in opposite pred/prey relationship, etc) > are merely desirable. One thing I really wish they'd change is the emphasis on starting transfers. Starting transfers, as far as I can tell, is a almost meaningless consideration. I'm sick and tired of going to 3 or 4 table tournament and looking up in the second round and finding two other players that I'd played with in the first round. There's no excuse for that. NEW OPPONENTS is a much more important consideration than starting transfers and it's my perception that consideration gets stepped on by the desire to avoid getting the same number of starting transfers both rounds. In a three table tournament, you should never have to play with more than one other guy from the previous rounds table in a subsequent round. In a four table tournament, it should be rare to play with even one other opponent. More than four tables, it should never happen. Am I wrong? Fred

[ quoted text not captured ] > Ostensibly, the seating should be done without regard to the > identities of the players behind the numbers. > You are right. But in some rare situations personal judgement has to override guidelines. Below is my statement from the german forum, explaining the procedere in detail : stéphane lavrut was playing a weenie cel deck. kamel was playing a !tor embrace deck. before round 3 kamel had 1GW 5VP alas a good chance to the final. stéphane had 0GW 0VP alas no chance to the final. stéphane (playing a rush deck) was to be the prey of kamel, his best friend. after talking with stéphane i came to the conclusion that stéphane would be hard pressed not to be accused of collusion if he did anything for kamel no matter what reasons he had. therefore i assumed that stéphane had not really a free choice how to play the game which i considered to be a really bad situation. therefore i swapped shane schneider (also playing a rush deck) who was also very eager to win and in no friendly relationship to kamel with stéphane. stéphane and kamel were happy about it because they are very honorable players and didn´t want to have an aire of collusion around them. all the other players on these two tables were asked and agreed to the solution, sascha neumayr was the only one who didn´t agree at first but could be convinced that it is a good way to handle the situation. this wasn´t (of course) a gift because neither kamel nor stéphane took a game win in that round and for no one the situation improved/got worse. of course i wouldn´t have anticipated the very likely case of a problematic situation if i didn´t know them so well, but i would have suggested the same procedere if you and one of your friends were in the same situation. of course this change is recorded in the archon and therefore will be part of the official report going to Robyn. there isnt any section in the vekn rules that state anything about this but on the other hand there is no section that states that someone has to use the archon seating charts to determine seating. -- johannes walch

"mark" <mark.s...@no.chello.spam.at> wrote in message news:m8rrd.56983$ha....@news.chello.at... [ quoted text not captured ] Ostensibly, the seating should be done without regard to the identities of the players behind the numbers. -- [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <m3brdci...@nothung.homelinux.net>, h...@iki.fi.remove.these.invalid (Janne Hägglund) mumbled something about: >"Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> writes: > >> I'm sick and tired of going to 3 or 4 table tournament and looking up in >> the second round and finding two other players that I'd played with in the >> first round. There's no excuse for that. NEW OPPONENTS is a much more >> important consideration than starting transfers > >> Am I wrong? > > No, I agree. > > It's frustrating to sit down with a player you've played against before, >while there are lots and lots of interesting players and decks you'll never >meet in this tournament. But there won't be more than 24 other players in that tournament, and you'll sit with more than half of them -- close to 75%, I believe. So you might miss out on as close as six players. Sad, but no way around it due to the permutation requirements of not-same-predator, not-same-prey involved. (I'm not re-explaining this again; if what I said above doesn't make sense, use Google or work out the math yourself.) -- Derek a host is a host from coast to coast and no one will talk to a host that's close unless the host that isn't close is busy, hung, or dead

In message <con4k3$ceh$1...@stu1id2.ip.tesion.net>, Johannes Walch <johanne...@vekn.de> writes: >after talking with >stéphane i came to the conclusion that stéphane would be hard pressed not to >be accused of collusion if he did anything for kamel no matter what reasons >he had. therefore i assumed that stéphane had not really a free choice how >to play the game which i considered to be a really bad situation. Make sure that players know they are free to call "you" (or another judge, if appropriate to that tournament) over at any point, and that extra time will be allocated where lengthy discussions are needed to deal with[0] difficult allegations of collusion and similar. Re-iterate this wherever it might be pertinent. It doesn't matter if they're *accused* of collusion. What matters is whether or not they're colluding in reality. Since, as judge, you'll be required to rule in any event of collusion, this isn't really any different. You know as a judge that some/many tricky rulings will come up, and some will be controversial. Going back over time, we've certainly had allegations of (say) French people giving assistance to other French players at a table. (I do recall French examples being given in the past, but there is no particular reason for picking France other than that.) Should you set it up so that they don't ever sit together? If you'll stop one set of allegations of collusion coming together but not another potential set, it's a very tricky line you walk. You leave the position of Judge open to criticism of intervening arbitrarily which detracts from your own authority. To be honest, were it me handling this, I'd be much happier hovering over a problem table when not circling the rest of the game, to see how it goes. I've often hovered near a table that's - for example - got several new players on it in order to try and prevent minor errors occurring. [0] Ask for details, go over the history, get other input, discuss with other players and so on. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D Who's ever heard of that, though! EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 Designing a deck that just calls votes. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D That's crazy talk, there.

"Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> writes: > I'm sick and tired of going to 3 or 4 table tournament and looking up in > the second round and finding two other players that I'd played with in the > first round. There's no excuse for that. NEW OPPONENTS is a much more > important consideration than starting transfers > Am I wrong? No, I agree. It's frustrating to sit down with a player you've played against before, while there are lots and lots of interesting players and decks you'll never meet in this tournament. -- hg@ "If you can't offend part of your audience, iki.fi there is no point in being an artist at all." -Hakim Bey

Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<2btvq0tdfvdn4e5rq...@4ax.com>... Talking about the Archon. There is a mistake in the seating chart for 23 players (the number we had in the saturday draft of the EC). A predator-prey relation is doubled.

"Derek Ray" <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:2btvq0tdfvdn4e5rq...@4ax.com... > In message <m3brdci...@nothung.homelinux.net>, > h...@iki.fi.remove.these.invalid (Janne Hägglund) mumbled something about: > > >"Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> writes: > > > >> I'm sick and tired of going to 3 or 4 table tournament and looking up in > >> the second round and finding two other players that I'd played with in the > >> first round. There's no excuse for that. NEW OPPONENTS is a much more > >> important consideration than starting transfers > > > >> Am I wrong? > > > > No, I agree. > > > > It's frustrating to sit down with a player you've played against before, > >while there are lots and lots of interesting players and decks you'll never > >meet in this tournament. > > But there won't be more than 24 other players in that tournament, and > you'll sit with more than half of them -- close to 75%, I believe. In a 3+F tournament? You can't sit with more than 12 (before the finals). :-) I'm not sure if you meant to write "14 other players", talking about a 3-table tournament, or if you meant that you'll sit with more than half of them if it's a less-than-25-player tournament. In a 15-player tournament, for example, it looks like you get 9 or 10 other players to sit with over 3 rounds. In a 13-player tournament, though, it's sometimes only 7 different players over 3 rounds (though the maximum would have been in that case 10, due to sitting at 4-player tables twice - for some players it's 8 versus a maximum of 11, sometimes 8 out of 10), and two are often repeated from the first round to the second. This is probably because of the "equalize 4 versus 5 player table seating as much as possible" criteria for the charts, as Scott said. In an 18-player tournament, um, wait. It looks like the chart has player 14 on a 4-player table all three rounds? That can't be right. :-) This appears to be on account of player 3 being on a 5-player table all three rounds; I guess one of the 3s should swap with one of the 14s. Let me go on to use the 17-player chart as an example instead. :-) Players here get 9 out of 10, or 8 out of 10, or 8 out of 9 possible opponents, it looks like. So yeah, in smaller tournaments, probably you're going to repeat at least one opponent at least once, and sometimes you annoyingly have to play against two previous opponents at the same time. But you will at least play against mostly new opponents - 70% of the most new opponents possible, at worst, I think. (For tournaments with at least 3 tables.) Josh not the seating chart guru

Decebalus <x5m...@gmx.de> wrote: > There is a mistake in the seating chart for 23 players (the number we > had in the saturday draft of the EC). A predator-prey relation is > doubled. Good catch. Round 3, table 3, the 15->8 should be 8->15. Kevin M., Prince of Henderson, NV (USA) "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

"Decebalus" <x5m...@gmx.de> wrote in message news:fb7de752.04120...@posting.google.com... > Talking about the Archon. > > There is a mistake in the seating chart for 23 players (the number we > had in the saturday draft of the EC). A predator-prey relation is > doubled. Send details to the address given in the Archon. [ quoted text not captured ]