ORIGINS 2004 Tournament Reports and Winning Decks [LONG]

OK, here's everything from Origins 2004: Thursday Constructed ---------------------- Final Name Prelim Prelim Final TPs Rank GWs VPs VPs 1 David Tatu 1 5.5 3 108 2 Mark Loughman 2 9 2 120 3 Ben Peal 1 6 0 108 4 John Bell 1 5 0 108 5 Jay Kristoff 1 4.5 0 108 Final Round: Mark => Ben => David => John => Jay 6 Will Kristoff 1 3.5 108 7 Jared Strait 1 3.5 96 8 Shane Strait 1 2.5 84 9 Peter Charnley 0 1 72 9 Trey Morita 0 1 72 9 Christian Herro 0 1 72 12 Karl Schaefer 0 1 60 12 Noal McDonald 0 1 60 12 David McCarty 0 1 60 15 James Moran 0 1 54 16 Rick Buerger 0 0.5 66 17 Matt Flint 0 0 54 17 David Setty 0 0 54 17 Cameron Domer 0 0 54 20 Jill Endress 0 0 48 20 Josh Duffin 0 0 48 20 Sean Sanderson 0 0 48 20 D Paul Bowles 0 0 48 20 Judy Cyran 0 0 48 25 Robyn Tatu 0 0 42 David's winning deck: Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 19, Max: 26, Avg: 5.75) ---------------------------------------------- 5 Jost Werner ani AUS PRE 6, !Toreador:2 1 Kendrick ANI aus obf POT 7, !Nosferatu:2, Priscus 1 Teresita for ANI OBF POT 7, !Nosferatu:3 1 Ox ANI OBF POT 6, !Nosferatu:2 1 Christanius Lionel ANI OBF pot 6, !Nosferatu:2 1 Nigel the Shunned ANI obf POT 5, !Nosferatu:2 1 Cicatriz ani obf pot 5, !Nosferatu:2, Bishop 1 Shannon Price ani obf 3, !Nosferatu:2 Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (12 cards) 1 Bleeding the Vine 3 Blood Doll 1 Information Network 1 KRCG News Radio 1 Metro Underground 1 Nosferatu Kingdom 1 Obfuscate 1 Shanty Town Hunting Ground 2 Using the Advantage Minion (78 cards) 4 .44 Magnum 5 Aid from Bats 1 Army of Rats 8 Art Scam 2 Behind You! 1 Bum`s Rush 1 Canine Horde 7 Carrion Crows 5 Cats` Guidance 2 Cloak the Gathering 1 Computer Hacking 1 Concealed Weapon 2 Elder Impersonation 2 Faceless Night 2 Fake Out 6 Forced Awakening 2 High Ground 1 J. S. Simmons, Esq. 1 Laptop Computer 2 Lost in Crowds 1 My Enemy`s Enemy 1 Pushing the Limit 1 Rampage 2 Raven Spy 1 Spying Mission 2 Swallowed by the Night 1 Tasha Morgan 6 Taste of Vitae 2 Telepathic Misdirection 1 Thrown Gate 4 Wake with Evening`s Freshness Friday Constructed (25 players, 3R+F) --------------------------------------- Final Name Prelim Prelim Final TPs Rank GWs VPs VPs 1 Jay Kristoff 1 4.5 3 162 2 Ben Peal 2 7 1 168 3 Eric Chiang 1 5 1 106 4 Peter Bakija 1 6 0 150 5 Matt Flint 1 5 0 126 Final Round: Ben => Peter => Matt => Eric => Jay 6 David McCarty 1 4 126 7 Robyn Tatu 1 4 120 8 Christian Herro 1 3.5 102 9 Aaron Northrup 1 3 120 10 Jared Strait 0 4.5 150 11 Chris Talbot 0 3.5 126 12 Noal McDonald 0 3 120 13 Dave Buerger 0 2 120 14 Shane Strait 0 2 90 15 Cameron Domer 0 2 84 16 Trey Morita 0 1.5 102 17 David Tatu 0 1 84 18 Karl Schaefer 0 0.5 90 18 Arthur Wright 0 0.5 90 20 Rick Buerger 0 0 70 21 David Setty 0 0 66 22 Jill Endress 0 0 64 23 Mike Perlman 0 0 60 DQ Josh Duffin 1 5 120 DQ Keith Thompson 0 0 48 NOTE: Josh dropped to play in the (impromptu) draft. Keith dropped for another event. Jay's winning deck: Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 25, Max: 40, Avg: 8.25) ---------------------------------------------- 5 Lazverinus AUS DOM FOR POT pro 10, !Ventrue:2, Archbishop 3 Owain Evans cel pre AUS DOM FOR 8, !Ventrue:3 1 Gustav Mallenhous AUS DOM for obt 8, !Ventrue:2, Priscus 1 Jesse Menks ani AUS DOM FOR 8, !Ventrue:3, Archbishop 1 Joseph O`Grady aus cel DOM FOR 7, !Ventrue:3 1 Samson dom 2, !Ventrue:2 Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (14 cards) 4 Blood Doll 1 Club Zombie 1 Corporate Hunting Ground 1 Demonstration 1 Erciyes Fragments, The 1 Guardian Angel 1 KRCG News Radio 1 London Evening Star, Tabloid Newspaper 1 Mob Connections 1 Powerbase: Chicago 1 Rack, The Minion (76 cards) 1 Aranthebes 1 Cardinal Benediction 2 Crocodile`s Tongue 6 Deflection 2 Disarm 1 Disputed Territory 3 Enhanced Senses 3 Eternal Vigilance 1 Flak Jacket 4 Forced Awakening 1 Foreshadowing Destruction 6 Freak Drive 5 Govern the Unaligned 3 Indomitability 1 IR Goggles 1 Mylan Horseed (Goblin) 2 Neighborhood Watch Commander (Hunter) 2 Restoration 3 Rolling with the Punches 2 Scouting Mission 2 Seduction 2 Soak 1 Sport Bike 2 Superior Mettle 2 Taste of Vitae 2 Telepathic Counter 4 Telepathic Misdirection 1 Templar 1 Threats 2 Thrown Sewer Lid 2 Unflinching Persistence 4 Wake with Evening`s Freshness 1 WMRH Talk Radio Friday Draft (16 players, 2R+F) --------------------------------- Final Name Prelim Prelim Final TPs Rank GWs VPs VPs 1 Dave Buerger 1 4 3 108 2 Josh Duffin 2 6.5 1 120 3 Christian Herro 1 3 1 78 4 Matt Heslin 1 3.5 0 96 5 David McCarty 1 3 0 88 Final Round: Josh => Dave => Matt => David => Christian 6 Patrick vd Reest 0 1.5 84 6 Karl Schaefer 0 1.5 84 8 David Tatu 0 1.5 78 9 Trey Morita 0 1 84 10 Robyn Tatu 0 1 66 11 James Moran 0 0.5 54 11 Cameron Domer 0 0.5 54 13 Jill Endress 0 0 46 13 Rick Buerger 0 0 46 15 Noal McDonald 0 0 36 16 Mike Perlman 0 0 30 This draft was a 'booster' style draft, with 4x SW, 3x BH, 3x GE, which was drafted in that order. Dave's winning draft deck not available. Saturday Constructed (30 players, 3R+F) ----------------------------------------- * = already qualified (8) ^ = newly qualified (30-8 = 22, 22/4 = 6) Final Name Prelim Prelim Final TPs Rank GWs VPs VPs 1 Ben Peal* 2 7 4 162 2 D Paul Bowles^ 2 9 1 168 3 Izaak Kemp^ 2 7 0 150 4 Mike Perlman^ 1 6 0 126 5 Dave Buerger* 1 6 0 126 Final Round: D Paul => Ben => Izaak => Mike => Dave 6 Nicholas Smith^ 1 5 138 7 Robyn Tatu* 1 5 108 8 Todd Holland^ 1 5 102 9 Karl Schaefer^ 1 4 132 10 Stephanie Turner 1 4 120 11 David McCarty 1 3 114 12 Bernie Bresnahan 1 3 108 13 Randy Meny 0 4 144 14 Jay Kristoff* 0 3 126 15 Jill Endress 0 2.5 132 16 John Bell 0 2.5 120 17 David Setty* 0 1.5 102 18 Patrick vd Reest 0 1 84 18 Will Kristoff 0 1 84 18 Kevin Bolte 0 1 84 21 Sean Sanderson 0 0.5 84 22 Mark Loughman* 0 0.5 78 22 James Moran 0 0.5 78 24 Jeff Turner 0 0 78 24 Cameron Domer 0 0 78 24 David Tatu* 0 0 78 27 Matthew Piatek 0 0 66 DQ David Barasch 0 0.5 66 DQ Benjamin Ferguson0 0 42 DQ Peter Charnley* 0 0.5 54 NOTE: The three DQs were voluntary withdrawls after the 2nd round. List of the six qualifying players: - D Paul Bowles - Izaak Kemp - Mike Perlman - Nicholas Smith - Todd Holland - Karl Schaefer Ben's winning deck, "The Thugginator": Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 7, Max: 22, Avg: 3.58) --------------------------------------------- 1 Quira AUS OBF obt tha 6, !Malkavian:2 2 Colonel cel dem obf AUS 5, !Malkavian:3 2 Roger Farnsworth aus OBF 4, !Malkavian:3 1 Lena Rowe aus obf pre 3, Pander:2 1 Basil obf 1, Pander:2 1 Ingram Frizer ani pot AUS OBF 6, !Nosferatu:3 1 Zoe AUS cel obf 3, Malkavian:2 1 Krid obf 2, Nosferatu:3 1 Hanna Redmonds obf tha 2, Caitiff:3 1 Piotr Andreikov aus 2, Tzimisce:3 Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (15 cards) 1 Admonitions, The 1 Barrens, The 5 Blood Doll 1 Dreams of the Sphinx 1 Institution Hunting Ground 2 Into the Fire 2 Remover 2 Sudden Reversal Minion (75 cards) 7 Blooding 2 Bloodwork 7 Cloak the Gathering 4 Domain of Evernight 5 Faceless Night 5 Forgotten Labyrinth 5 Lost in Crowds 10 Marijava Thuggee 3 Night Moves 1 Saturday-Night Special 5 Spying Mission 5 Swallowed by the Night 8 Telepathic Misdirection 8 Wake with Evening`s Freshness Saturday Draft (12 players, 2R+F) ----------------------------------- Final Name Prelim Prelim Final TPs Rank GWs VPs VPs 1 Trey Morita 1 3 2.5 96 2 Matt Flint 0 1 1.5 66 3 Christian Herro 1 3.5 0 96 4 Joshua Duffin 0 2.5 0 90 5 Dave Pennington II 0 2 0 96 Final Round: Christian => Trey => Joshua => Dave => Matt 6 Andrew Valkanas 0 1 54 7 Kevin Mergen 0 1 48 8 Noal McDonald 0 0 36 9 Eric Chiang 0 0 24 DQ Tony Matranga 0 2 96 DQ Jared Strait 0 3 90 DQ Shane Strait 1 2 72 NOTE: The three DQs were voluntary withdrawls after the 2nd round. Also, the judge (me) played in this draft due to the fact that it would have been 11 players otherwise, which would have been insanely unplayable. This draft was a 'booster' style draft, with 4x SW, 3x BH, 3x GE, which was drafted as 2/1/1, 1/1/1, 1/1/1. Trey's winning draft deck not available. Sunday Constructed (18 players, 2R+F) --------------------------------------- Final Name Prelim Prelim Final TPs Rank GWs VPs VPs 1 Ben Peal 2 7 1.5 120 2 Matt Flint 1 5 0.5 108 3 Trey Morita 1 4.5 0.5 114 4 Stephanie Turner 1 3 0.5 78 5 Jay Kristoff 1 4 0 108 Final Round: Ben => Matt => Trey => Jay => Stephanie 6 Cameron Domer 0 3 96 7 John Bell 0 2 84 8 Dave Pennington II 0 2 72 9 Brad Cashdollar 0 1.5 78 10 Dave Setty 0 1 66 10 Dave Buerger 0 1 66 12 Josh Duffin 0 1 60 13 D Paul Bowles 0 0 42 13 Jeff Turner 0 0 42 13 Mark Loughman 0 0 42 13 James Moran 0 0 42 13 Karl Schaefer 0 0 42 18 David McCarty 0 0 36 Ben's winning deck, "The Blockinator": Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 17, Max: 40, Avg: 7.17) ---------------------------------------------- 3 Anneke AUS CEL dom PRE 10, Toreador:1, Justicar 1 Francois Villon AUS CEL chi obf pot PRE 10, Toreador:2, Prince 2 Marcellus AUS CEL pro 8, Toreador:2, Prince 1 Tatiana Romanov AUS cel pre 7, Toreador:1, Prince 1 Kallista AUS CEL pre pro 6, Toreador:1 1 Felicia Mostrom AUS CEL pre 5, Toreador:1 1 Dorian Strack AUS cel 4, Toreador:1 1 Colin Flynn aus cel 3, Toreador:1 1 Volker CEL pot 5, Brujah:2, Prince Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (13 cards) 1 Anarch Revolt 1 Art Museum 1 Barrens, The 6 Blood Doll 1 Rack, The 1 Society Hunting Ground 2 Sudden Reversal Minion (77 cards) 6 .44 Magnum 2 Blur 6 Concealed Weapon 5 Eagle`s Sight 4 Enhanced Senses 10 Forced Awakening 1 Parity Shift 5 Precognition 6 Pursuit 5 Quicken Sight 6 Second Tradition: Domain, The 6 Side Strike 6 Sideslip 3 Spirit`s Touch 6 Telepathic Misdirection 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

In message <TZqHc.125$jJ.28@fed1read07>, "Kevin M." <you...@imaspammer.org> mumbled something about: >OK, here's everything from Origins 2004: As an idle note referencing a prior thread: This is what it took to get into the finals for each tournament at Origins. (I'm listing the player whose preliminary ranking was 5th in each case) Thursday Constructed (25 players): Jay Kristoff, 1 GW, 4.5 VP Friday Constructed (25 players): Jay Kristoff, 1 GW, 4.5 VP Friday Draft (16 players): Christian Herro, 1 GW, 3 VP Saturday Qualifier (30 players): Dave Buerger, 1 GW, 6 VP Saturday Draft (12 players): Dave Pennington II, 0 GW, 2 VP Sunday Constructed (18 players): Stephanie Turner, 1 GW, 3 VP In every event except the Saturday Draft, the 6th-place finisher was never more than a single VP behind. In the Saturday Draft, that player was short 1GW and 1.5VP, but it's pretty obvious that the Saturday Draft is the least useful for anyone's purposes, as it's certainly a smaller tournament. My point is this: Anyone still interested in standing up on their hind legs and telling me that additional VP don't matter and sheer accumulation of Game Wins is the only way to make the finals? -- 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

"Kevin M." <you...@imaspammer.org> wrote in message news:TZqHc.125$jJ.28@fed1read07... > OK, here's everything from Origins 2004: [lots of snippage] > Friday Draft (16 players, 2R+F) > --------------------------------- > Final Name Prelim Prelim Final TPs > Rank GWs VPs VPs > 1 Dave Buerger 1 4 3 108 > 2 Josh Duffin 2 6.5 1 120 > 3 Christian Herro 1 3 1 78 > 4 Matt Heslin 1 3.5 0 96 > 5 David McCarty 1 3 0 88 > Final Round: Josh => Dave => Matt => David => Christian Just for the sake of completeness or something, I don't think this was the right seating order (assuming that seating is what you're indicating with the arrows). It was, I believe: Josh -> David M. -> Dave B. -> Xian -> Heslin > Saturday Draft (12 players, 2R+F) > ----------------------------------- > Final Name Prelim Prelim Final TPs > Rank GWs VPs VPs > 1 Trey Morita 1 3 2.5 96 > 2 Matt Flint 0 1 1.5 66 > 3 Christian Herro 1 3.5 0 96 > 4 Joshua Duffin 0 2.5 0 90 > 5 Dave Pennington II 0 2 0 96 > Final Round: Christian => Trey => Joshua => Dave => Matt And this one was: Xian -> Josh -> Matt F. -> Dave P. -> Trey > Sunday Constructed (18 players, 2R+F) > --------------------------------------- > Final Name Prelim Prelim Final TPs > Rank GWs VPs VPs > 1 Ben Peal 2 7 1.5 120 > 2 Matt Flint 1 5 0.5 108 > 3 Trey Morita 1 4.5 0.5 114 > 4 Stephanie Turner 1 3 0.5 78 > 5 Jay Kristoff 1 4 0 108 > Final Round: Ben => Matt => Trey => Jay => Stephanie And unless they switched seats partway through, which is certainly possible, I think this one was: Ben -> Jay -> Matt -> Stephanie -> Trey Thanks for the reports, Kevin! Any idea when the results will go into the VEKN ratings database? :-) Josh "seating is hard to keep track of" D.

Kevin M. wrote: >NOTE: Josh dropped to play in the (impromptu) draft. Keith dropped for >another event. Josh's drop let me squeak into the final round. Josh is the best! >Jay's winning deck: Kevin's list had WMRH in the wrong spot. Here is the fixed version: Beefcake Blocks! Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 25, Max: 40, Avg: 8.25) ---------------------------------------------- 5 Lazverinus AUS DOM FOR POT pro 10, !Ventrue:2, Archbishop 3 Owain Evans cel pre AUS DOM FOR 8, !Ventrue:3 1 Gustav Mallenhous AUS DOM for obt 8, !Ventrue:2, Priscus 1 Jesse Menks ani AUS DOM FOR 8, !Ventrue:3, Archbishop 1 Joseph O`Grady aus cel DOM FOR 7, !Ventrue:3 1 Samson dom 2, !Ventrue:2 Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (15 cards) 4 Blood Doll 1 Club Zombie 1 Corporate Hunting Ground 1 Demonstration 1 Erciyes Fragments, The 1 Guardian Angel 1 KRCG News Radio 1 London Evening Star, Tabloid Newspaper 1 Mob Connections 1 Powerbase: Chicago 1 Rack, The 1 WMRH Talk Radio Minion (75 cards) [ quoted text not captured ] The deck was designed for a more bleedy atmoshpere than this tournament turned out to be. Even so, it held up well. Lots of cool, permanent resources, and a nice assortment of previously proven cards. Nothing ground-breaking here. We already knew that the Erciyes Fragment is good; add the fact that Beefcake can play many of the most popular tournament skills, and it gets really strong. I think this is my first tournament winning deck to use dominate. It took several showers before I felt clean following this win :) Jay PS: at no point have the !Ventrue sucked.

Josh Duffin wrote: > > Sunday Constructed (18 players, 2R+F) > > --------------------------------------- > > Final Name Prelim Prelim Final TPs > > Rank GWs VPs VPs > > 1 Ben Peal 2 7 1.5 120 > > 2 Matt Flint 1 5 0.5 108 > > 3 Trey Morita 1 4.5 0.5 114 > > 4 Stephanie Turner 1 3 0.5 78 > > 5 Jay Kristoff 1 4 0 108 > > Final Round: Ben => Matt => Trey => Jay => Stephanie > > And unless they switched seats partway through, which is certainly > possible, I think this one was: > > Ben -> Jay -> Matt -> Stephanie -> Trey Seats were not switched during the game, and the seating order as given by Josh Duffin is correct. - Ben Peal fu...@mindstorm.com

"Joshua Duffin" <duff...@bls.gov> wrote: > "Kevin M." <you...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > > OK, here's everything from Origins 2004: [snip Josh and Ben saying the seating order in the finals was wrongly entered] OK, I don't know how all those finals could have been put into the computer in the wrong order, but as it doesn't matter, I'll just let it be. Maybe I was more tired than I thought. I certainly am going to make sure I get more sleep next year. :) > Thanks for the reports, Kevin! Any idea when the results will go into > the VEKN ratings database? :-) Next week. Maybe you'll still be #1 in draft? > Josh "seating is hard to keep track of" D. Kevin M., Prince of Henderson, NV (USA) [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <gh3te0t6a46g82424...@4ax.com>, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> mumbled something about: >In every event except the Saturday Draft, the 6th-place finisher was >never more than a single VP behind. In the Saturday Draft, that player >was short 1GW and 1.5VP, but it's pretty obvious that the Saturday Draft >is the least useful for anyone's purposes, as it's certainly a smaller >tournament. Replace all occurrences of "Saturday Draft" in this paragraph with "Friday Draft", please. I am a moron and cannot tell my days of the week apart. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<gh3te0t6a46g82424...@4ax.com>... > As an idle note referencing a prior thread: This is what it took to get > into the finals for each tournament at Origins. (I'm listing the player > whose preliminary ranking was 5th in each case) I'm pretty sure continuing a discussion where it started is an excellent way to continue a debate in the sense that anyone interested pro or con can probably encounter your post _without_ sheer luck only. Posting a la coupe de grace where it probably fails to reach at least a portion of the participants of the original debate can nevertheless be good for other purposes. > In every event except the Saturday Draft, the 6th-place finisher was > never more than a single VP behind. In the Saturday Draft, that player > was short 1GW and 1.5VP, but it's pretty obvious that the Saturday Draft > is the least useful for anyone's purposes, as it's certainly a smaller > tournament. > > My point is this: > > Anyone still interested in standing up on their hind legs and telling me > that additional VP don't matter and sheer accumulation of Game Wins is > the only way to make the finals? However, as far as the actual debate went I can only refer to my argument, which read along the lines of... dan...@eposta.hu (Daneel) wrote in message news:<a23a105e.04062...@posting.google.com>... [...] > ASSUMPTION: In a tournament of sufficient size your only sure way to > make the finals is to score 3 GWs. VPs are only used for secondary > sorting. Lots of people will have 2 GW; the second best way to make it > is to have 2 GW and lots of VPs. Nevertheless, without GWs you won't > make the finals. [...] > Case A: > 0 GW and 0 VP: 75% (about 45th place) > 1 GW and 3 VP: 22% (about 15th place) > 2 GW and 6 VP: 2.2% (some chance for the finals; about 5th place) > 3 GW and 9 VP: 0.073% (probably finals + first seed) > > Case B: > 0 GW and 6 VP: 100% (In a tournament with 50 people that's about 16th > place.) Note that my "calculated" placings assumed a tournament of about 50 participants (and as such were actually calculated in a rule-of-thumb manner, based on the results of the last few regular local tournaments). Further note that even at the quoted smaller events, those people who just made it into the finals could have just missed it as well. Also note the variations of VP concentration. Aiming to achieve 1/4.5 is a sure way to _miss_ the finals and score 6th- place. Getting 2+ GWs is more like it. Last but not least please note my phrases "2 GW and lots of VPs" and "without GWs you won't make the finals" for some on-topic reference. Happy Gaming, Daneel

In message <a23a105e.04071...@posting.google.com>, dan...@eposta.hu (Daneel) mumbled something about: >Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<gh3te0t6a46g82424...@4ax.com>... >> As an idle note referencing a prior thread: This is what it took to get >> into the finals for each tournament at Origins. (I'm listing the player >> whose preliminary ranking was 5th in each case) > >I'm pretty sure continuing a discussion where it started is an >excellent way to continue a debate in the sense that anyone interested >pro or con can probably encounter your post _without_ sheer luck only. Funny, I'm pretty sure that posting something like this WITHOUT obviously directing it at any specific person... ie, by responding to a different thread... is an excellent way to cap off that same debate, as only the people who feel "stung" will respond. *smirk* I really am not interested in people who don't at least bother to glance over each new post for content. It only takes a few seconds to see what the person in question is talking about, and then you can tap "next" on your newsreader to go to the next-unread message. Some newsreaders allow you to mark an entire thread "read" if you're that type, and if you feel confident enough that the thread will remain on subject (experience indicates that it never does, so I always touch each post briefly). I suppose if one is still silly enough to use Google, and considers web-based interfaces to actually be EFFECTIVE for this sort of thing, then one might have some trouble, or more of a time investment required. That, however, is not my problem. Refusal to use readily-available technology for assistance is simple stubbornness. [ quoted text not captured ] Very few tournaments hit 50 participants -- and it's worth noting that you are blithely ignoring your own statements. Your statement: The only sure way to make the finals is to score 3 GW. Proven false above. Your statement: The second best way to make it is to have 2GW and lots of VPs. This is an abstract statement due to the phrase "second best"; however, if you are intending to imply that 2GW and lots of VP are necessary, that also has been proven false above. >Further note that even at the quoted smaller events, those people who >just made it into the finals could have just missed it as well. Also Are we going to play "what-if" and "might-have-been" now? What if everyone plays weenie Dominate bleed? Everyone would contest and the Samedi deck with 20 Deflections might well win. >note the variations of VP concentration. Aiming to achieve 1/4.5 is a >sure way to _miss_ the finals and score 6th- place. Getting 2+ GWs is >more like it. Also proven false above. I suggest reading my post, and then examining the VP totals for the 4th place finishers in Kevin's post. Aiming to achieve 1GW with lots of VPs may not be the most certain way to make the finals, but it is patently true that it is POSSIBLE to do so. Aiming for a higher-risk 2GW provides more certainty that if you succeed, you will make the finals -- but also typically increases the risk of failure. (in our prevous example, it surely did). >Last but not least please note my phrases "2 GW and lots of VPs" and >"without GWs you won't make the finals" for some on-topic reference. First proven false above, second is a pithy tautology. Glad you showed up for your on-topic spanking. Thanks for playing! [ quoted text not captured ]

> >Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<gh3te0t6a46g82424...@4ax.com>... > >I'm pretty sure continuing a discussion where it started is an > >excellent way to continue a debate in the sense that anyone interested > >pro or con can probably encounter your post _without_ sheer luck only. > > Funny, I'm pretty sure that posting something like this WITHOUT > obviously directing it at any specific person... ie, by responding to a > different thread... is an excellent way to cap off that same debate, as > only the people who feel "stung" will respond. *smirk* Nice riposte, even though I basically disagree (I generally prefer threads to remain as comprehensive and exclusive as possible). Also note that posting a stingy post in the first place is bound to sting normal folks every now and then, even if (ad absurdum) posted by a well-known troll or something... ;) > I really am not interested in people Well, cool statement. Must be nice to be you... ;) (Talk about selective quoting and (un)intentional(?) misunderstanding of content...) > >> ASSUMPTION: In a tournament of sufficient size your only sure way to > >> make the finals is to score 3 GWs. VPs are only used for secondary > >> sorting. Lots of people will have 2 GW; the second best way to make it > >> is to have 2 GW and lots of VPs. Nevertheless, without GWs you won't > >> make the finals. > >Note that my "calculated" placings assumed a tournament of about 50 > >participants (and as such were actually calculated in a rule-of-thumb > >manner, based on the results of the last few regular local > >tournaments). > > Very few tournaments hit 50 participants -- Irrelevant to a discussion about tournaments with 50 participants. (Kind of like how it would be pointless to argue on an Assamite Deck Strategies forum on the Path of Blood that discussion about the Assamites is pointless because they seldom win anyway). > and it's worth noting that you are blithely ignoring your own statements. Please clarify. > Your statement: The only sure way to make the finals is to score 3 GW. > Proven false above. Check the part quoted from my original post. 1. It is an assumption (on which my calculations are based). 2. It assumes tournaments of "sufficient size" (an admittedly arbitrary comment on which my position calculations sheds some light, which use 50-people tournaments). > Your statement: The second best way to make it is to have 2GW and lots > of VPs. This is an abstract statement due to the phrase "second best"; > however, if you are intending to imply that 2GW and lots of VP are > necessary, that also has been proven false above. See above. > >Further note that even at the quoted smaller events, those people who > >just made it into the finals could have just missed it as well. Also > > Are we going to play "what-if" and "might-have-been" now? No. Check the VP variations. Gaining 1 GW and 4.5 VP will earn you 5th place at one 20 player tournament and 6th at another. Please try to tell me how the same GW/VP score will always get you a fix position. > >note the variations of VP concentration. Aiming to achieve 1/4.5 is a > >sure way to _miss_ the finals and score 6th- place. Getting 2+ GWs is > >more like it. > > Also proven false above. I suggest reading my post, and then examining > the VP totals for the 4th place finishers in Kevin's post. Aiming to > achieve 1GW with lots of VPs may not be the most certain way to make the > finals, but it is patently true that it is POSSIBLE to do so. Yes. The chances are, however, drastically diminished with an increase in tournament size. Seldom do I see 50+ participant tournaments where some finalists managed with a single GW. The usual is something like around 1+ people with 3 GW, and around 4+ with 2. If all tables yield a GW, 50/5×3 is 30, distributed somewhat unevenly among 50 participants. The rule of thumb borderline between 1 GW and 2 GW required for the finals is around 30-40 people. > Aiming for a higher-risk 2GW provides more certainty that if you > succeed, you will make the finals -- but also typically increases the > risk of failure. (in our prevous example, it surely did). You clearly assume smaller tournaments. It is even possible to make the finals without any GWs. Unfortunately (fortunately?) I have little experience with smaller tournaments. I prefer events with 40-50 participants, where I won't usually face the same people again in the preliminary rounds (and the whole thing feels more "authentic"). 51+ is not really preferred, because it is basically two or more different tournaments with jointly tallied results. Happy Gaming, Daneel

Kevin wrote: >OK, here's everything from Origins 2004: (snip) Kevin, thank you for all of the effort you put in at this year's Origins. I think that this might have been your most smoothly run year so far. Your work does not go unnoticed. Jay

In message <a23a105e.0407...@posting.google.com>, dan...@eposta.hu (Daneel) mumbled something about: >> >Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<gh3te0t6a46g82424...@4ax.com>... >> >I'm pretty sure continuing a discussion where it started is an >> >excellent way to continue a debate in the sense that anyone interested >> >pro or con can probably encounter your post _without_ sheer luck only. >> >> Funny, I'm pretty sure that posting something like this WITHOUT >> obviously directing it at any specific person... ie, by responding to a >> different thread... is an excellent way to cap off that same debate, as >> only the people who feel "stung" will respond. *smirk* > >Nice riposte, even though I basically disagree (I generally prefer >threads to remain as comprehensive and exclusive as possible). Also >note that posting a stingy post in the first place is bound to sting >normal folks every now and then, even if (ad absurdum) posted by a >well-known troll or something... ;) You think I'm just a troll? I've done more for this game than you could imagine. I've spent more time creating things for it, writing about it, and otherwise supporting it (especially when it was in the ditch under WotC) than you EVER would have, because you're too set in your little narrow-minded clueless world to even HOPE to have that talent. Go fuck yourself. I have better things to do with my time than waste it on dead-slot losers like you. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > > I've done more for this game than you could imagine. I've spent more > time creating things for it, writing about it, and otherwise supporting > it (especially when it was in the ditch under WotC) than you EVER would > have, because you're too set in your little narrow-minded clueless world > to even HOPE to have that talent. Well, so far the things I've been reading in this group by your hand were overwhelmingly unimpressive. You seem bitter. Time to retire then? //Doc. -- "Wees jezelf, er zijn al zoveel anderen" - Loesje begin Your_MS_program_incorrectly_interprets_this_as_an_attachment.txt

In message <40F1F291...@freemail.nl>, The Doctor <D...@freemail.nl> mumbled something about: >Derek Ray wrote: >> >> I've done more for this game than you could imagine. I've spent more >> time creating things for it, writing about it, and otherwise supporting >> it (especially when it was in the ditch under WotC) than you EVER would >> have, because you're too set in your little narrow-minded clueless world >> to even HOPE to have that talent. > >Well, so far the things I've been reading in this group by your hand >were overwhelmingly unimpressive. That's because you're a short-sighted RPG refugee whose overblown opinion of himself is only matched by your overblown opinion of your skill. Both are sadly lacking. I suggest Google. [ quoted text not captured ]

> >> >Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<gh3te0t6a46g82424...@4ax.com>... > >Nice riposte, even though I basically disagree (I generally prefer > >threads to remain as comprehensive and exclusive as possible). Also > >note that posting a stingy post in the first place is bound to sting > >normal folks every now and then, even if (ad absurdum) posted by a > >well-known troll or something... ;) > > You think I'm just a troll? You started rough. I entered the sparring room. If you wield heavy weapons you should also have the guts to take a direct hit. > I've done more for this game than you could imagine. I've spent more > time creating things for it, writing about it, and otherwise supporting > it (especially when it was in the ditch under WotC) than you EVER would > have, because you're too set in your little narrow-minded clueless world > to even HOPE to have that talent. That is very nice of you. You sound like RCG and LSJ combined. Must be cool to be you... However, all that you have written (even if true and as such is to be respected) falls short of being a point in a debate whether you behave like a troll or not. You are not just a troll. You also contribute. But you do not seem indispensable in either capacity (work for the game, being the local tough guy on forums). Your work is to be respected; your attitude is to be not. It's not just style, mind you. I don't mind people who are rough, but have the guts and are fair. You are rough (especially if someone disagrees with you, even if in a normally polite manner), but as soon as someone does anything but cower before you you become hysterical. You also have a tendency to sneak-post (my definition of posting something that is supposed to continue an old debate) and find various excuses to scorn *specific* people (only specific people, like people who use google, or people who play the RPG and compare the CCG to it, or... Forgive me for being personal for a bit, but I presume you are a straight young adult caucasian middle class male (in no way belonging to any minority) who has a tendency to have prejudices and use a set of convenient social clichés to mark the majority of the people as one form of inferior minority). > Go fuck yourself. I have better things to do with my time than waste it > on dead-slot losers like you. I had hoped for some more on-topic posting. Guess the topic _will_ go on, only in another thread. I'll be polishing my vigilance... Bye, Daneel

In message <a23a105e.04071...@posting.google.com>, dan...@eposta.hu (Daneel) mumbled something about: >> >> >Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<gh3te0t6a46g82424...@4ax.com>... >> >Nice riposte, even though I basically disagree (I generally prefer >> >threads to remain as comprehensive and exclusive as possible). Also >> >note that posting a stingy post in the first place is bound to sting >> >normal folks every now and then, even if (ad absurdum) posted by a >> >well-known troll or something... ;) >> >> You think I'm just a troll? > >You started rough. I entered the sparring room. If you wield heavy >weapons you should also have the guts to take a direct hit. Sorry, bud, it's a dead miss. I just don't want to waste time with you if you're going to be a retard, because it just proves what I said -- you're a dead slot. You can't get it because you don't have enough common sense, you won't get it because you're too stubborn, and you'll NEVER get it because you won't try. I suggest you go through Google and read. Some things you'll never know about, but you should definitely catch up on the past before you begin running your mouth. Until then, you can continue to go fuck yourself. [ quoted text not captured ]

> You think I'm just a troll? > > I've done more for this game than you could imagine. I've spent more > time creating things for it, writing about it, and otherwise supporting > it (especially when it was in the ditch under WotC) than you EVER would > have, because you're too set in your little narrow-minded clueless world > to even HOPE to have that talent. So continue. > Go fuck yourself. I have better things to do with my time than waste it > on dead-slot losers like you. So do these better things. Thanks ! Kamel.

In message <1b066664.04071...@posting.google.com>, kamel...@yvelines.pref.gouv.fr (Kamel SENNI) mumbled something about: >> You think I'm just a troll? >> >> I've done more for this game than you could imagine. I've spent more >> time creating things for it, writing about it, and otherwise supporting >> it (especially when it was in the ditch under WotC) than you EVER would >> have, because you're too set in your little narrow-minded clueless world >> to even HOPE to have that talent. > >So continue. Have been for some time, thanks. >> Go fuck yourself. I have better things to do with my time than waste it >> on dead-slot losers like you. > >So do these better things. Have been doing that for some time too, thanks. I originally tried to discuss the issues again with this retard, but frankly, he spends a lot of time being a fool about stuff and bitching about my attitude instead of stepping back and looking at the big picture, in order to arrive at some conclusions that AREN'T based within 15 miles of himself. Here's one for all y'all: Don't like my attitude? LEARN TO THINK. I cut a lot of discussions short in person because people obviously cannot grasp the most basic premise of the conversation; if one can't identify that what we're looking at is a forest, debating whether or not those are pine trees or maple trees is going to be pretty fruitless. Not so easy to do on USENET, and I often make the mistake of responding to morons who say things like "But we aren't talking about forests." Perhaps all of you reading this could consider that, too; first identify the forest correctly, THEN consider whether or not your assessment of the trees is right. Daneel can't do that and is more interested in intellectual masturbation and calling me a troll than using his head; can YOU do that? Or are you in Daneel's ghost ship? [ quoted text not captured ]

Daneel wrote: > Your work is to be respected; your attitude is to be not. Hear, hear! > It's not just style, mind you. I don't mind people who are > rough, but have the guts and are fair. You are rough (especially if > someone disagrees with you, even if in a normally polite manner), but > as soon as someone does anything but cower before you you become > hysterical. And again, I have to second that. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > > I suggest you go through Google and read. Some things you'll never know > about, but you should definitely catch up on the past before you begin > running your mouth. Whatever the amount of knowledge in your head or work you've done in the past does not give you the righjt to call other people names and insult them (well pathetic attempts at insults anyway). You should go read about Netiquette perhaps. I'm sure there's plenty of peopple that can teach you plenty about that. In fact, use Google if you wish. [ quoted text not captured ]

<snip> > I suggest you go through Google and read. Some things you'll never know > about, but you should definitely catch up on the past before you begin > running your mouth. > > Until then, you can continue to go fuck yourself. > > -- Derek Must be tough, having fallen down from your oh-so glorious past to just degenerating threads with your personal arguments. Go do those better things like Kamel said and give it a rest. -Bram Vink

Hey Jay, > PS: at no point have the !Ventrue sucked. You have so many actions at exactly +1 stealth; I would have been worried that they'd be blocked all the time. Did you find that they weren't blocked because people couldn't block, didn't choose to block because they were scared of your combat, or that they did block, but you had freak drives and a lot of actions? Also, I'm curious about Telepathic Misdirection - did you use it for bounce, intercept, or both? In retrospect, would you have preferred more Dom bounce, or did you like the variety of bounce types? And why not Mr. Winthrop vs. the Sport's Bike? Perhaps just fear of contesting, but I'd probably rather contest it than have him out. And I'm always afraid of Car Bombs. hehe. :) Feel free to not reveal your entire strategy, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask the master. :) Ira

Ira wrote: >Hey Jay, >> PS: at no point have the !Ventrue sucked. >You have so many actions at exactly +1 stealth; I would have been >worried that they'd be blocked all the time. Did you find that they >weren't blocked because people couldn't block, didn't choose to block >because they were scared of your combat, or that they did block, but >you had freak drives and a lot of actions? Yes, intercept can bother this deck. On the day of this tournament I wasn't getting blocked much. When people are trying to block me, a combination of Beefcake combat, and multiple, good actions can confuse the blocking player. Also Crockodile's Tounge and Seduction are there to help. >Also, I'm curious about Telepathic Misdirection - did you use it for >bounce, intercept, or both? In retrospect, would you have preferred >more Dom bounce, or did you like the variety of bounce types? I really like the versatility of Telpathic Misdirection, especially in a deck like this one that is content with blocking or bouncing. Plus, it's not an intstant discard in a two player end-game. The varitey of bounce types served me well. >And why not Mr. Winthrop vs. the Sport's Bike? Perhaps just fear of >contesting, but I'd probably rather contest it than have him out. And >I'm always afraid of Car Bombs. hehe. :) Sport Bike and the other equipment in the deck (I.R., Flack) were often innocently equiped early in the game by a non-Beefcake vampire. No one seems to care if Sampson or Owain has a bike. Later on, Beefcake walks over and equips that stuff from those innocent dudes and becomes even more of a blocking machine. >Feel free to not reveal your entire strategy, but I figured it >couldn't hurt to ask the master. :) There's no real secret to my strategies. And yeah, it doesn't hurt to ask. BTW, what did the master say when you asked him? :) take care, Jay

> >> >Also > >> >note that posting a stingy post in the first place is bound to sting > >> >normal folks every now and then, even if (ad absurdum) posted by a > >> >well-known troll or something... ;) > >> > >> You think I'm just a troll? > > > >You started rough. I entered the sparring room. If you wield heavy > >weapons you should also have the guts to take a direct hit. > > Sorry, bud, it's a dead miss. I just don't want to waste time with you > if you're going to be a retard, because it just proves what I said -- > you're a dead slot. You can't get it because you don't have enough > common sense, you won't get it because you're too stubborn, and you'll > NEVER get it because you won't try. Sorry, I was wrong. You *are* just a troll, regardless of what you once were. Immediately resorting to getting personal once you are proven wrong, even if it is only about basic facts, like what one post stated and what it did not state. You conveniently ignore integral parts of some posts (like my note on the number of people participating). My greatest sorrow is that while your contributions may be worth something in themselves, your arguments are always in a vacuum - it is pretty hard to involve you in an actual _debate_. (Even for people who are more lenient than I am.) As soon as someone disagrees with you your straw breaks. It is hard to take you really seriously for the same reason; most normal folks will just tolerate you, but will not necessarily be happy with what you contribute. Less lenient folks and trolls will take the lurking flamebait present in your average comment and flame your ass off. And grin when you whine how you never saw that coming. Check the forum work of TheLasombra. An old timer and a significant contributor, he can be sarcastic like vinegar, but he is always far from being offensive. Or LSJ; he can be so diplomatic that it literally hurts. It is possible to remain civil after lengthy forum exposure (even if the means are currently beyond my comprehension). Bye, Daneel

> >> >Also > >> >note that posting a stingy post in the first place is bound to sting > >> >normal folks every now and then, even if (ad absurdum) posted by a > >> >well-known troll or something... ;) > >> > >> You think I'm just a troll? > > > >You started rough. I entered the sparring room. If you wield heavy > >weapons you should also have the guts to take a direct hit. > > Sorry, bud, it's a dead miss. I just don't want to waste time with you > if you're going to be a retard, because it just proves what I said -- > you're a dead slot. You can't get it because you don't have enough > common sense, you won't get it because you're too stubborn, and you'll > NEVER get it because you won't try. Sorry, I was wrong. You *are* just a troll, regardless of what you [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <40F28AED...@freemail.nl>, The Doctor <D...@freemail.nl> mumbled something about: >Derek Ray wrote: >> >> I suggest you go through Google and read. Some things you'll never know >> about, but you should definitely catch up on the past before you begin >> running your mouth. > >Whatever the amount of knowledge in your head or work you've done in the >past does not give you the righjt to call other people names and insult >them (well pathetic attempts at insults anyway). Well, if you would pull your head out of your ass and try to think, instead of leaving it up there and continuing to blow smoke, then you might understand why I insult people. When I phrase something politely and you fail to read it, I figure that the only way to get your attention is to call you a naughty boo-boo. Funny, I don't have ANY of this trouble at work, and I phrase all my email correspondence there in the same "polite" style as I do here. Yes, yes, whine all you like, but for every nasty message, there are plenty of polite ones too. I know you'd just LOVE to demonize me as a right 'orrible blighter, but forget it, bud, I know better. Maybe I work with people who are a bit smarter than you, or who are at least willing to listen to well-phrased arguments? Hmmm... could beeee.... Maybe it's that "Malkavian wannabe" leaking into your head again. Ooo, the voices! *snort* [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <93148a54.04071...@posting.google.com>, jja....@hccnet.nl (Darky) mumbled something about: [ quoted text not captured ] And fuck you too, Bram. I spend just as much time posting content as I do responding to retards -- it's just a shame that more and more of the readers here these days seem to be retards who are unwilling to listen to plain old facts, and instead want to blabber about unrelated bullshit in an effort to support a flimsy to nonexistent point. I refer you to my initial post in this thread, which was chock full of content. EZ GG $$, as you would say -- that's all. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <a23a105e.04071...@posting.google.com>, dan...@eposta.hu (Daneel) mumbled something about: >> Sorry, bud, it's a dead miss. I just don't want to waste time with you >> if you're going to be a retard, because it just proves what I said -- >> you're a dead slot. You can't get it because you don't have enough >> common sense, you won't get it because you're too stubborn, and you'll >> NEVER get it because you won't try. > >Sorry, I was wrong. You *are* just a troll, regardless of what you >once were. Immediately resorting to getting personal once you are >proven wrong, even if it is only about basic facts, like what one post Except that you have, yet again, failed to prove anything. Go back and read. Just read. Continue to read until you understand it. And then go back and read again. And keep reading. Eventually you will find that you cannot deny your own words, or the gaping flaws in your logic that an old grandmother could waddle through before you could close it. >stated and what it did not state. You conveniently ignore integral >parts of some posts (like my note on the number of people >participating). Because you ignore the big picture in favor of your own narrow-minded perceptions. You do this because you cannot STAND that someone other than you might be right. Guess what; I am. I always will be, because you REFUSE to grasp things that are not as you have always perceived them, and you (like the Doctor, unsurprisingly) have SUCH an overflown opinion of yourself that you assume you're always right. You're not! In fact, you're usually wrong, because you haven't really spent any time thinking; you've just spent time running your mouth and pissing and moaning about how I said bad words to you. Example: You cannot say "I prefer 50 player tournaments, so I will use THIS for all my arguments, and deny that any other size exists". It does not matter a shit what you prefer. The rules must encompass 12-player tournaments through 100-player tournaments. 25-30 player tournaments are far more common than 50-player tournaments, and probably 12-25 player tournaments are more common than THOSE. When dealing with generalizations, it is most useful to pick... the general case, in other words, the most common. I need provide no more examples. Again, please just TRY to think. I know it's hard, but you can manage it. [ quoted text not captured ]

Daneel wrote: > Note that my "calculated" placings assumed a tournament of about 50 > participants (and as such were actually calculated in a rule-of-thumb > manner, based on the results of the last few regular local > tournaments). > > Further note that even at the quoted smaller events, those people who > just made it into the finals could have just missed it as well. Also > note the variations of VP concentration. Aiming to achieve 1/4.5 is a > sure way to _miss_ the finals and score 6th- place. Getting 2+ GWs is > more like it. At a tournament of 50+ players, I'd rather play a deck that has a lower chance of getting GW but a higher chance of getting lots of VP when it does win, than play a deck that has a better chance of getting 2 GW but not typically getting more than 3 VP when it does win. Why? Because if I _do_ get the 2 GW that's gonna be necessary to make the finals, I also want the VP that are also going to be necessary to make the finals. 2 GW and 5 VP, or 2 GW and 6 VP aren't going to do it. - Ben Peal fu...@mindstorm.com

Howdy, .me foolishly inserts self into flamewar > Sorry, I was wrong. You *are* just a troll, regardless of what you > once were. Immediately resorting to getting personal once you are > proven wrong, even if it is only about basic facts, like what one post > stated and what it did not state. You conveniently ignore integral > parts of some posts (like my note on the number of people > participating). Neither of theses are characteristics of trolls, unless you are just using the term as a generic insult and not in its Net-specific sense. And for what it's worth, I've yet to see anyone 'prove' anyone wrong about anything in this thread or the bits of the one it was derived from that I read. Here's a diagram of the 'argument' as I see it: Daneel: In tournaments of 'sufficient size' (N=50), you need lots of Game Wins to make the final, and VP are largely irrelevant. Derek: In actual tournaments of 'sufficient size' (12<=N<=30), you are quite likely to make the final based on your VP, so they're very important. Note that both statements are more or less entirely correct - it's simply that 'sufficient size' is taken to mean different things. Daneel has chosen an abstract number, apparently based on his experience of European tourneys; Derek is analyzing actual data from a very important set of US tourneys. Applying Daneel's analysis to the US data produces no useful result; we almost never see his 'sufficient size'. Applying Derek's analysis to the Daneel's specific European hypothesis is similarly not terribly helpful, though I would note that tournaments of smaller scale probably happen more often there than ones of larger scale happen here... > My greatest sorrow is that while your contributions may be worth > something in themselves, your arguments are always in a vacuum - it is > pretty hard to involve you in an actual _debate_. (Even for people who > are more lenient than I am.) As soon as someone disagrees with you > your straw breaks. It is hard to take you really seriously for the > same reason; most normal folks will just tolerate you, but will not > necessarily be happy with what you contribute. Less lenient folks and > trolls will take the lurking flamebait present in your average comment > and flame your ass off. And grin when you whine how you never saw that > coming. Dude. What are you basing these wild generalizations on? Maybe you _should_ check Google, like Derek suggests. While Derek is well-known for flaming _other people's asses off_, he most often does so with cause. And most often that cause is the other person's inability to form and/or follow a logical argument. I don't tend to agree with that school of discourse, but I can certainly understand where it comes from. In the current case, I suspect it is your insistence that the only important value of N is 50, in the face of empirical evidence to the contrary, that is ticking him off. > Check the forum work of TheLasombra. An old timer and a significant > contributor, he can be sarcastic like vinegar, but he is always far > from being offensive. Oof. Hopefully Jeff will take that better than it reads. > Or LSJ; he can be so diplomatic that it > literally hurts An apt description. You do know that it's his job to be here, right? He is paid to be diplomatic, among other things. > It is possible to remain civil after lengthy forum > exposure (even if the means are currently beyond my comprehension). Heh. The hard part is remaining civil after initial introduction... Most people who make it to 'lengthy' exposure have a pretty good sense of appropriate behavior. Say, how long have you been with us? Hope that helps, Alex

dan...@eposta.hu (Daneel) wrote in message news:<a23a105e.04071...@posting.google.com>... ...sorry for the double post. I'm not sure why it occured, I most certainly believe I only sent the post once... Bye, Daneel

>Daneel can't do that and is more interested in > intellectual masturbation and calling me a troll than using his head; > can YOU do that? Or are you in Daneel's ghost ship? Yes, I can. And no, I'm not anywhere, except in front of my PC. The thing that I see, Derek, is that continue to argue with a guy you don't like rise your level of cholesterol, lessens your lifespan by elevating (is it the word ?) your arteral tension and so on. Just say : "Hey Danneel, see you in another life !" You will feel better, and we will, then, continue to discuss about our favorite games without that flamewars, that give us a bad opinion of you, just because you really want to be the last to talk. Tha last to talk is not always the guy who won... You can win by just let the other talk to the end... alone. I know the great work you have done for the ratings. So, Derek... Bye ! Kamel.

Alex Broadhead wrote: > > Daneel: In tournaments of 'sufficient size' (N=50), you need lots > of Game Wins to make the final, and VP are largely irrelevant. > Derek: In actual tournaments of 'sufficient size' (12<=N<=30), you > are quite likely to make the final based on your VP, so they're very > important. > wrong in small to medium size event you need 1 gw and a lot of vps and in a large event you need 2 game win and a lot of vps stefan

Derek Ray wrote: > > Maybe I work with people who are a bit smarter than you, or who are at > least willing to listen to well-phrased arguments? Hmmm... could > beeee.... Maybe it's that "Malkavian wannabe" leaking into your head > again. Ooo, the voices! *snort* Or maybe you are just a bitter man who is trying to gain standing in a community he feels he has done much for, but which was never openly appreciated by all. Or maybe you have delusions of grandeur. Or maybe you are just too stupid to communicate in a normal manner with people you do not have to face (this is a common problem on the internet). Just because they cannot punch you in the face you feel you have the right to be mean. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > > And fuck you too, Bram. I spend just as much time posting content as I > do responding to retards -- it's just a shame that more and more of the Stop wasting both our times then, go to just posting content and leave the retards alone. You'll have more time, and we and the retards will have more content to read. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <40F3AF9...@freemail.nl>, The Doctor <D...@freemail.nl> mumbled something about: >Derek Ray wrote: >> >> Maybe I work with people who are a bit smarter than you, or who are at >> least willing to listen to well-phrased arguments? Hmmm... could >> beeee.... Maybe it's that "Malkavian wannabe" leaking into your head >> again. Ooo, the voices! *snort* > >Or maybe you are just a bitter man who is trying to gain standing in a >community he feels he has done much for, but which was never openly >appreciated by all. Nope. Enough people who I consider to matter say nice things to me on a frequent basis. Perhaps you are just a fool? >Or maybe you have delusions of grandeur. Projection syndrome? >Or maybe you are just too stupid to communicate in a normal manner with >people you do not have to face (this is a common problem on the >internet). Just because they cannot punch you in the face you feel you >have the right to be mean. You know, this is what's funny; I would WELCOME any of you, ANY of you, standing in front of me and trying to repeat the things both of you do. I am dead certain that I would not be the one changing my tune, and we would notice a MARKED difference in your attitude. And it's not because of any physical reasons; it's just that you might realize just how stupid some of the things you say are when you heard them said out loud. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <40F3B016...@freemail.nl>, The Doctor <D...@freemail.nl> mumbled something about: >Derek Ray wrote: >> >> And fuck you too, Bram. I spend just as much time posting content as I >> do responding to retards -- it's just a shame that more and more of the > >Stop wasting both our times then, go to just posting content and leave >the retards alone. You'll have more time, and we and the retards will >have more content to read. Pot, kettle, black. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <40f3aa22$0$33210$3b21...@usenet.univie.ac.at>, Stefan Ferenci <a950n...@unet.s.p.a.m.univie.ac.at> mumbled something about: [ quoted text not captured ] This is actually a quite accurate perspective. It's been my personal impression that to make the final consistently, I need to scarf up as many GW and VP as I can possibly manage; when I don't think I can get a GW, I need to make at least some VP in a round. A round where I get 0VP is terrible and hurts my chances significantly, because now I will lose on tiebreakers to anyone who is running at about the same speed I am. The larger the tournament, the more likely it is that someone's deck is performing almost exactly as well as mine. Those stray VP matter TONS. That's also why the 1GW/5VP sweep is better than the 1GW/4VP sweep, and why the tournament seating charts are structured to make an effort to avoid someone being at a 4-player (or 5-player, whichever is the odd number out) table more than once. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <1b066664.0407...@posting.google.com>, kamel...@yvelines.pref.gouv.fr (Kamel SENNI) mumbled something about: >>Daneel can't do that and is more interested in >> intellectual masturbation and calling me a troll than using his head; >> can YOU do that? Or are you in Daneel's ghost ship? > >Yes, I can. And no, I'm not anywhere, except in front of my PC. > >The thing that I see, Derek, is that continue to argue with a guy you >don't like rise your level of cholesterol, lessens your lifespan by >elevating (is it the word ?) your arteral tension and so on. There's another school of thought on that. Some believe a good argument restores vigor, wakes the blood up, and really makes one think. I'm not one of those. I think it's just about unmattering <-- new word! for me -- I don't really let this stuff bother me in the real world. I talk about it to others locally who read the group sometimes, but typically they bring it up to ME first. >Just say : "Hey Danneel, see you in another life !" >You will feel better, and we will, then, continue to discuss about our >favorite games without that flamewars, that give us a bad opinion of >you, just because you really want to be the last to talk. Tha last to >talk is not always the guy who won... There's no "winning", one way or the other. I think this is something many people don't understand. I speak until I've said what needs to be said. I don't really like repeating myself, and I really REALLY don't like people who just plain don't read what's being said. >I know the great work you have done for the ratings. Actually, most (if not all) of the credit for what Robyn and I did should go to Robyn. She is the one who has put in tons of work in the past keeping the ratings straight, and tons of work during the new-ratings process to make sure everything was up-to-date and the data had as few as possible holes in it... and she's managed to do this despite all the Princes who fail to send tournament reports on time, or fail to send them at all until they've been pestered with multiple emails... and then send an improperly filled out report. Wow, that's some grim stuff. I've seen the junk that some Princes send (if you're reading this, you know who you are), and all I can say is that they should be glad it's Robyn pestering them to fix it, and not me. I'd have had some heads on a plate by now. =) Hurrah, Robyn! [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > > You know, this is what's funny; I would WELCOME any of you, ANY of you, > standing in front of me and trying to repeat the things both of you do. > I am dead certain that I would not be the one changing my tune, and we > would notice a MARKED difference in your attitude. > > And it's not because of any physical reasons; it's just that you might > realize just how stupid some of the things you say are when you heard > them said out loud. So you'd stand in front of me saying I am stupid, a fool, a wannabe and I should go fuck myself? I would not be surprised to break with my non-violence rule if someone would be stupid enough to be as insultive as I've seen you be in the past 2 weeks. Please do note that in none of the cases I have witnessed your opponent (since that seems to be how you view anyone who happens to have another opinion) was the one that started the unpleasantness. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > In message <40F3B016...@freemail.nl>, > The Doctor <D...@freemail.nl> mumbled something about: > > >>Derek Ray wrote: >> >>>And fuck you too, Bram. I spend just as much time posting content as I >>>do responding to retards -- it's just a shame that more and more of the >> >>Stop wasting both our times then, go to just posting content and leave >>the retards alone. You'll have more time, and we and the retards will >>have more content to read. > > > Pot, kettle, black. Wrong, I never claimed to be producing content. Try again. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Fri, 09 Jul 2004 08:32:17 -0400, Derek Ray wrote: >Anyone still interested in standing up on their hind legs and telling me >that additional VP don't matter and sheer accumulation of Game Wins is >the only way to make the finals? My understanding is that the "play to win" rule derives from the VEKN sportmasnship rule: "Players must not play toward goals that conflict with the goal of the game as stated in the V:TES rulebook (e.g., attacking certain players on the basis of their V:EKN ratings or overall tournament standing, etc.)." It appears from this that one's tournament standing is not a sportmanslike goal. One is supposed to be trying to win each individual game, regardless of the tournament metagame. If that's the case, then the statistics from Origins are irrelevant to that issue. But thanks to Kevin for taking the trouble to write the stats up. Me, I'm still haven't finished 2003 for Doomtown, never mind 2004. :( Andrew

"Kevin M." <you...@imaspammer.org> wrote in message news:HsFHc.212$jJ.108@fed1read07... > "Joshua Duffin" <duff...@bls.gov> wrote: > [snip Josh and Ben saying the seating order in the finals was wrongly > entered] > > OK, I don't know how all those finals could have been put into the > computer in the wrong order, but as it doesn't matter, I'll just let it > be. Maybe I was more tired than I thought. I certainly am going to make > sure I get more sleep next year. :) Good luck with that, I think I said the same thing about this year. :-) > > Thanks for the reports, Kevin! Any idea when the results will go into > > the VEKN ratings database? :-) > > Next week. Maybe you'll still be #1 in draft? I actually discovered on returning to DC that at least one of my old draft tournaments fell off the back of the bus, so I am no longer #1. But perhaps I can restore my reputation with the Origins tournaments! Josh egomaniac... or megalomaniac?

Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<1766f0lkd8oqldh59...@4ax.com>... > Funny, I don't have ANY of this trouble at work, and I phrase all my > email correspondence there in the same "polite" style as I do here. This is a well-known cause of flame wars. When people read e-mail from people they know, they automatically envision a face, a tone of voice and body language that tends to soften the impact of any harsh words. When people read the work of strangers, they tend to interpret it in a more hostile way. So the people at work who know you as a friendly guy with a gruff sense of humor don't take your guff seriously, but the participants and lurkers on r.g.t-c.j might not know any other side of you--especially since hostile exchanges tend to remain in the memory longer than friendly ones. Of course, another factor might be that the people you work with have to try to get along with you as part of their job, and their private opinions might be very different from their public ones. I wouldn’t know, but it may be worth considering.

Hey Jay, Thanks for your response amidst the flamewar that's going on elsewhere in this thread. :) > one seems to care if Sampson or Owain has a bike. Later on, Beefcake > walks over and equips that stuff from those innocent dudes and becomes > even more of a blocking machine. Ah, OK. > BTW, what did the master say when you asked him? :) He said, "Be humble and lead by example." :) Ira

Howdy Stefan, [ quoted text not captured ] 'Wrong' in this context isn't specific enough. Are you disagreeing with my reduction of Daneel and Derek's positions? It doesn't look like it to me. The first part of your assertion, "in small to medium size event you need 1 gw and a lot of vps," can be read to be the same as Derek's assertion, if we can agree that 'small to medium' and 12<=N<=30 are functionally equivalent. (I suppressed the 'you need 1 GW and' part of Derek's argument, as I perceived the crux of the disagreement to be over the value of VP.) Which leaves the only part you seem to be considering 'wrong' to be Daneel's assertion that for large events (N=50) VP are largely irrelevant. Is that correct? If not, I cannot parse your comment, and I'd appreciate clarification rather than oxidation... Alex

wum...@comcast.net (Alex Broadhead) wrote in message news:<cef10767.0407...@posting.google.com>... > Applying Daneel's analysis to the US data produces no useful result; > we almost never see his 'sufficient size'. Applying Derek's analysis > to the Daneel's specific European hypothesis is similarly not terribly > helpful, though I would note that tournaments of smaller scale > probably happen more often there than ones of larger scale happen > here... They do. That's another topic, though, and IMHO even though there are more small tournaments than large ones, I see small tournaments as requiring less analysis. In a smaller tournament you can almost always just ignore the Game Win rule and aim to get as much VPs as possible (and usually get a GW in the process anyway). In a larger tournament the significance of GWs vs. VPs begin to matter. Nevertheless, the question originally came up in relation to a problem of taking chances (aiming at a GW at great risk or taking VPs from a more secure losing deal). > > My greatest sorrow is that while your contributions may be worth > > something in themselves, your arguments are always in a vacuum - it is > > pretty hard to involve you in an actual _debate_. (Even for people who > > are more lenient than I am.) As soon as someone disagrees with you > > your straw breaks. It is hard to take you really seriously for the > > same reason; most normal folks will just tolerate you, but will not > > necessarily be happy with what you contribute. Less lenient folks and > > trolls will take the lurking flamebait present in your average comment > > and flame your ass off. And grin when you whine how you never saw that > > coming. > > Dude. What are you basing these wild generalizations on? The late work of one Mr. Derek Ray. > Maybe you _should_ check Google, like Derek suggests. I am using it. I am browsing old posts. I am not comprehensive, but I am driven by my curiosity and my desire to be familiar with the rules and the history of the game. > While Derek is well-known for flaming _other people's asses off_, he most > often does so with cause. And most often that cause is the other person's > inability to form and/or follow a logical argument. Sometimes it is a matter of tastes, preferences and personal experience. And neither is Derek omniscient. I've no problems with people who flame other people's asses off as long as they _never_ do it when they are not 100% right. > In the current case, I suspect it is your insistence that > the only important value of N is 50, in the face of empirical evidence > to the contrary, that is ticking him off. I was instructed to read so many times that recommending it no longer seems to be any stylish. My insistance was fairly simple and easily recognizable. One, I think that my original calculus was a more or less fair representation of the data I processed (and as such IMHO a fairly accurate, albeit general depiction). My conclusions drawed from that were also fairly accurate. True, I did have some assumptions and environmental variables set, and my findings do not apply equally well to situations with different assumptions or environmental variables. My insistance, to put it simply, is that in order to bring evidence to a discussion you need to observe the bases of the discussion. To rephrase the incident: Daneel: In tournaments of 50+ size making the finals is nigh impossible without 3 GWs or 2 GWs and lots of VPs. Derek (undirected post): People who say that it is impossible to make the finals without 2 or 3 GWs are asses, check this data about these actual tournaments with 12 to 30 people. Daneel (paraphrased): Uhum... Kind of like the process you described for Derek, right? ;) > > Check the forum work of TheLasombra. An old timer and a significant > > contributor, he can be sarcastic like vinegar, but he is always far > > from being offensive. > > Oof. Hopefully Jeff will take that better than it reads. Maybe that's just my opinion and I did not write it just to please him. Note that neither did I wish to upset him. I'm also sure he can live with me having this opinion... ;) > > Or LSJ; he can be so diplomatic that it literally hurts > > An apt description. You do know that it's his job to be here, right? > He is paid to be diplomatic, among other things. I am aware. I am curious whether you really thought that your comment brought in new information, but that is another question. > > It is possible to remain civil after lengthy forum > > exposure (even if the means are currently beyond my comprehension). > > Heh. The hard part is remaining civil after initial introduction... > Most people who make it to 'lengthy' exposure have a pretty good sense > of appropriate behavior. Say, how long have you been with us? Not sure what 'us' means: My first Usenet post is from January 2004. I have my WW forum account since about '99. I am playing VTES since '96. > Hope that helps, With what exactly? > Alex Bye, Daneel

<snip> > >> > >> Daneel: In tournaments of 'sufficient size' (N=50), you need lots > >> of Game Wins to make the final, and VP are largely irrelevant. > >> Derek: In actual tournaments of 'sufficient size' (12<=N<=30), you > >> are quite likely to make the final based on your VP, so they're very > >> important. > >> > >wrong in small to medium size event you need 1 gw and a lot of vps > >and in a large event you need 2 game win and a lot of vps > > This is actually a quite accurate perspective. > > It's been my personal impression that to make the final consistently, I > need to scarf up as many GW and VP as I can possibly manage; when I > don't think I can get a GW, I need to make at least some VP in a round. > > A round where I get 0VP is terrible and hurts my chances significantly, > because now I will lose on tiebreakers to anyone who is running at about > the same speed I am. The larger the tournament, the more likely it is > that someone's deck is performing almost exactly as well as mine. > > Those stray VP matter TONS. That's also why the 1GW/5VP sweep is better > than the 1GW/4VP sweep, and why the tournament seating charts are > structured to make an effort to avoid someone being at a 4-player (or > 5-player, whichever is the odd number out) table more than once. > > -- Derek > i find this thesis of yours enormously interesting and useful, Derek, and i'ld like to thank you for sharing it with us. i always like it when the discussion about VTES/Jyhad gets quantitative and i think it's at these times that one may justly talk about a "science" of gaming, or at least of Jyhad. i feel that this latest contribution of yours is probably the most significant quantitative leap in the field since Ethan articulated the module concept. i wonder if you would agree with this extension of your idea, based on final table realities [at least as i perceive them]: it is actually WORSE to mount what we might call a Doc/Daneel deck that routinely takes games so as to get 3GW and an irrelevant number of VP, than one that routinely accumulates just enough [ie 1-2 GW depending on tournament size, and a LOT of VP] to get to the final. This proposition is of course based on the notion that the routine game-winner is a marked Methuselah once they get to the final, the victim of every possible cross-table effect that is not actually injurious to the other players' individual interests. It may, however, be wholly wrong - i do not know whether in tournaments players who go in as first seed are unusually likely to win. Does anyone else know? -- Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

James Mcclellan wrote: > WORSE to mount what we might call a Doc/Daneel deck that routinely takes Excuse me? I know I haven't bothered to say it yet, since Derek keeps using harsh words to shout about his opinion, but I agree with Derek that it's better to pick up stray VP. It got me to the final last Sunday... It's better to go for 50% chance at 1 VP then 5% chance of a GW (assuming the path to them would be mutually exclusive) _in_a_tournament_. In a friendly game however, there are no second places, I will always go for the tablewin. (Though I won't care about not getting it) [ quoted text not captured ]

Daneel wrote: >>of appropriate behavior. Say, how long have you been with us? > > Not sure what 'us' means: > > My first Usenet post is from January 2004. > I have my WW forum account since about '99. > I am playing VTES since '96. A kewl, let's compare dicksizes :) Usenet since 1992 or 1993 (hard to recover the exact date since it's pre-dejanews). Jyhad since 1994. (Including being annoyed by Tom Wylie's Rotschreck rulings in this group that changed about twice per week ;) ) Webforums (though non on-topic) since they exist, I guess about 1999 indeed. How am I doing? [ quoted text not captured ]

> Nice riposte, even though I basically disagree (I generally prefer > threads to remain as comprehensive and exclusive as possible). Also > note that posting a stingy post in the first place is bound to sting > normal folks every now and then, even if (ad absurdum) posted by a > well-known troll or something... ;) To furthur your English education Main Entry: stin·gy Pronunciation: 'stin-jE Function: adjective Inflected Form(s): stin·gi·er; -est Etymology: perhaps from (assumed) English dialect stinge, noun, sting; akin to Old English stingan to sting 1 : not generous or liberal : sparing or scant in giving or spending 2 : meanly scanty or small As you can see Stingy has very little to do with Sting as you write in the above statement. Hope this helps. -- Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown, Jr XZealot Archon of the Swamp

<snip> I agree with Derek that it's > better to pick up stray VP. In that case, i apologise for misrepresenting you. [ quoted text not captured ]

XZealot wrote: > > To furthur your English education Next time you attack a Hungarian about his English, please do so in perfect Hungarian. And do read up on your Netiquette before doing so. And don't forget to never attach pictures to your posts anymore. [ quoted text not captured ]

"XZealot" <nbr...@rapidretailsolutions.com> wrote in message news:<2lks61F...@uni-berlin.de>... > > Nice riposte, even though I basically disagree (I generally prefer > > threads to remain as comprehensive and exclusive as possible). Also > > note that posting a stingy post in the first place is bound to sting > > normal folks every now and then, even if (ad absurdum) posted by a > > well-known troll or something... ;) > > To furthur your English education *dictionary entry for 'stingy' snipped* > -- > Comments Welcome, > Norman S. Brown, Jr > XZealot > Archon of the Swamp Since comments are welcome, perhaps it'd be appropriate to point out the irony in Norman's spelling of 'further'. :P -John Flournoy

"James Mcclellan" <legb...@mailandnews.com> wrote in message news:<65431ae53501e77dddc...@mygate.mailgate.org>... > i wonder if you would agree with this extension of your idea, based on > final table realities [at least as i perceive them]: it is actually > WORSE to mount what we might call a Doc/Daneel deck that routinely takes > games so as to get 3GW and an irrelevant number of VP, than one that > routinely accumulates just enough [ie 1-2 GW depending on tournament > size, and a LOT of VP] to get to the final. If I had a deck that can be reasonably expected to score 3 GW in a tournament, I'd probably have what is a broken deck. Discussing whether it is good to use a deck that scores 3 GW or not is probably moot, because performance at a tournament round highly depends on the environment and also on the draw. Aiming to get exactly 3 VPs is a viable strategy if you can do it every single round (most likely winning the tournament). Using a deck that cannot normally do over 1/3 in a given round but has a significant chance to fall short of gaining the GW is a poor choice in larger tournaments. A deck that is good at securing GWs stands a better chance in any tournament. A deck that is good at gaining lots of VPs stands a better chance in any tournament. A deck that is good at gaining lots of GWs and VPs is probably the best in any tournament. A deck that can pick up some VPs but stands a poor chance of scoring a GW is an increasingly poor choice for larger tournaments. In any given round you only accumulate VPs during the given round (and get the GW after the round is tallied). If you aim to score as close as possible to 5 VP each round, you cannot really go too wrong... ;) Bye, Daneel

The Doctor <D...@freemail.nl> wrote in message news:<40F546E2...@freemail.nl>... > Next time you attack a Hungarian about his English, please do so in > perfect Hungarian. Don't lose sleep over it... He is right; I'm posting in English, so I should re-read my posts to eliminate bugs like that. Also, I don't really mind it when people correct my English (or other languages I frequently use), because 1) I learn from it, and 2) when it is all someone can add to a debate, I usually take it as a compliment concerning the content I contribute. Bye, Daneel

fu...@optical.mindstorm.com (Ben Peal) wrote in message news:<bf72a12e.04071...@posting.google.com>... > At a tournament of 50+ players, I'd rather play a deck that has a > lower chance of getting GW but a higher chance of getting lots of > VP when it does win, than play a deck that has a better chance of > getting 2 GW but not typically getting more than 3 VP when it does > win. > > Why? Because if I _do_ get the 2 GW that's gonna be necessary to > make the finals, I also want the VP that are also going to be > necessary to make the finals. 2 GW and 5 VP, or 2 GW and 6 VP > aren't going to do it. I'm not sure whether you agreed with me or not by posting that, but I certainly agree with what you posted... ;) Getting 2 GW + lots of VPs is definitely a cool strategy, and to get that you basically need lots of VPs. You should not rely on getting no more than 1/3 each round (unless you are most certain to do it at least four times in a row...) Bye, Daneel

wum...@comcast.net (Alex Broadhead) wrote in message news:<cef10767.04071...@posting.google.com>... > > > Daneel: In tournaments of 'sufficient size' (N=50), you need lots > > > of Game Wins to make the final, and VP are largely irrelevant. > > > Derek: In actual tournaments of 'sufficient size' (12<=N<=30), you > > > are quite likely to make the final based on your VP, so they're very > > > important. > > > wrong in small to medium size event you need 1 gw and a lot of vps > > and in a large event you need 2 game win and a lot of vps > > 'Wrong' in this context isn't specific enough. Are you disagreeing > with my reduction of Daneel and Derek's positions? It doesn't look > like it to me. [...] > Which leaves the only part you seem to be considering 'wrong' to be > Daneel's assertion that for large events (N=50) VP are largely > irrelevant. Is that correct? If not, I cannot parse your comment, > and I'd appreciate clarification rather than oxidation... Would you please point towards my post where my assertion stated how VPs are irrelevant? Here's a helping hand: > ASSUMPTION: In a tournament of sufficient size your only sure way to > make the finals is to score 3 GWs. VPs are only used for secondary > sorting. Lots of people will have 2 GW; the second best way to make it > is to have 2 GW and lots of VPs. Nevertheless, without GWs you won't > make the finals. Please note parts "VPs are only used for secondary sorting", "Lots of people will have 2 GW", "the second best way to make it is to have 2 GW and lots of VPs" and "without GWs you won't make the finals". Also, especially in the case of the last statement, I must point out that in the first part of the first sentence ("...of sufficient size...") I am using an unspecified descriptor ("sufficient"). CLARIFICATION: In the previous assumption (and the original calculations and deductions based on it) the phrase "tournament of sufficient size" refers to a tournament with about 50 or more participants. Hope that helps, Daneel

In message <40F3E01F...@freemail.nl>, The Doctor <D...@freemail.nl> mumbled something about: >Derek Ray wrote: >> >> You know, this is what's funny; I would WELCOME any of you, ANY of you, >> standing in front of me and trying to repeat the things both of you do. >> I am dead certain that I would not be the one changing my tune, and we >> would notice a MARKED difference in your attitude. >> >> And it's not because of any physical reasons; it's just that you might >> realize just how stupid some of the things you say are when you heard >> them said out loud. > >So you'd stand in front of me saying I am stupid, a fool, a wannabe and >I should go fuck myself? Yep, I sure would. I've done it to plenty of other people in the past when they were being stupid, a fool, and a wannabe; and I have actually been officially warned in a tournament before for saying: "If you think I made the wrong decision, you can go fuck yourself." Surprised? I'm not afraid to say what I think. >I would not be surprised to break with my non-violence rule if someone >would be stupid enough to be as insultive as I've seen you be in the >past 2 weeks. Mind stating that in a sentence of less than 10 words? I just want to be absolutely certain what you said here before I say "Bring it" and openly smirk. Ooops, too late. *smirk* I have little fear of such blather. >Please do note that in none of the cases I have witnessed your opponent >(since that seems to be how you view anyone who happens to have another >opinion) was the one that started the unpleasantness. Except, of course, the three people including yourself who jumped into the thread. I don't recall you contributing anything to the VP discussion; I think you're just here because you have a hard-on for me. Pot, kettle, black? Again? [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <75bdf7ed.04071...@posting.google.com>, emmits...@hotmail.com (Emmit Svenson) mumbled something about: >Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<1766f0lkd8oqldh59...@4ax.com>... >> Funny, I don't have ANY of this trouble at work, and I phrase all my >> email correspondence there in the same "polite" style as I do here. > >This is a well-known cause of flame wars. When people read e-mail from >people they know, they automatically envision a face, a tone of voice >and body language that tends to soften the impact of any harsh words. >When people read the work of strangers, they tend to interpret it in a >more hostile way. So the people at work who know you as a friendly guy >with a gruff sense of humor don't take your guff seriously, but the >participants and lurkers on r.g.t-c.j might not know any other side of >you--especially since hostile exchanges tend to remain in the memory >longer than friendly ones. You've misinterpreted my statement, or more likely I phrased it unclearly -- let me redo that here for clarity. You have surely noticed that some of my messages have a "polite" tone, and others have a "rude" tone, and occasionally you get the "downright hostile" tone. The "polite" tone is the one I use at work -- and oddly, nobody has trouble reading or understanding anything I say. Nor do I get anywhere NEAR the obtuse responses I get from some people on here -- I get well-thought out conversation and/or debate, if necessary. Here, it seems some people are, well, shall we say, less willing to read the entire message, or perhaps just too damn dumb to understand what's being said. Often, this results in the "rude" tone being used in later responses, especially when the person in question wanders into the "deliberately obtuse" realm of their own responses. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <40F3E04D...@freemail.nl>, The Doctor <D...@freemail.nl> mumbled something about: >>>Stop wasting both our times then, go to just posting content and leave >>>the retards alone. You'll have more time, and we and the retards will >>>have more content to read. >> >> Pot, kettle, black. > >Wrong, I never claimed to be producing content. False. But in any case, you pretty much damn yourself with that statement. Thanks! [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <65431ae53501e77dddc...@mygate.mailgate.org>, "James Mcclellan" <legb...@mailandnews.com> mumbled something about: >> A round where I get 0VP is terrible and hurts my chances significantly, >> because now I will lose on tiebreakers to anyone who is running at about >> the same speed I am. The larger the tournament, the more likely it is >> that someone's deck is performing almost exactly as well as mine. >> >> Those stray VP matter TONS. That's also why the 1GW/5VP sweep is better >> than the 1GW/4VP sweep, and why the tournament seating charts are >> structured to make an effort to avoid someone being at a 4-player (or >> 5-player, whichever is the odd number out) table more than once. >> >i find this thesis of yours enormously interesting and useful, Derek, >and i'ld like to thank you for sharing it with us. i always like it when >the discussion about VTES/Jyhad gets quantitative and i think it's at >these times that one may justly talk about a "science" of gaming, or at >least of Jyhad. i feel that this latest contribution of yours is >probably the most significant quantitative leap in the field since Ethan >articulated the module concept. Leave us not be TOO carried away. However, it is, interestingly, something which came up long ago when the Turbo-Arika decks were going 'round, and was debated to some degree then. Searching on Google will locate the huge thread, but the premise, stated semi-simply, was this: We assumed at the time that Turbo-Arika, for the sake of argument, has a 50% chance of either sweeping and taking a Game Win, or choking, dying horribly, and getting 0VP. It's one of the few archetypes that is taken to such extremes and requires so little player interaction -- the skill required to play the deck is ALL that's needed, so we can actually remove the other decks from consideration at the table. Given a 3-round tournament plus a final, simple math permutations give us the following table of performances for Turbo-Arika, based on the assumption that it adheres as closely as possible to the percentages: R1 R2 R3 Final ================= GW GW L L GW L GW L GW L L (didn't make final, has no chance for Game Win here) L GW L (didn't make final) L GW GW L L L GW (didn't make final) It can be assumed that the two Game Wins that are sweeps would leave a player with 2GW and 10VP, fairly likely to make the final table. In a smaller tournament, 1GW and 5VP might be enough, and the "didn't make finals" would turn into GWs. But now we look at its performance. In order to win a decently-sized tournament, Turbo-Arika actually has to beat the probabilities at some point, because over 4 rounds its expected performance is 2 sweeps and 2 chokes. In any situation when it gets its 2 sweeps at the right time to make the final, it won't finish the job UNLESS... ...UNLESS it gets lucky. There was a lot more discussion at the time, of course, mostly on whether or not you wanted to trust your tournament performance to luck or skill. I personally lean towards skill, which is why I said at the time (and still do) that Turbo-Arika isn't a problem in the sense of "too good"; it's a loophole that should probably be closed, but not broken. It messes games up, but is FAR from a guaranteed win. >i wonder if you would agree with this extension of your idea, based on >final table realities [at least as i perceive them]: it is actually >WORSE to mount what we might call a Doc/Daneel deck that routinely takes >games so as to get 3GW and an irrelevant number of VP, than one that For clarification, this should be described as an "all or nothing" deck that either sweeps or gets 0VP. >routinely accumulates just enough [ie 1-2 GW depending on tournament >size, and a LOT of VP] to get to the final. This proposition is of Also for clarification, this could be described as an "all-flexible" deck that hits the middle of the 0-5 range: excellent chances to get either 2VP or 3VP, but very unlikely to have the resources to sweep. >course based on the notion that the routine game-winner is a marked >Methuselah once they get to the final, the victim of every possible This doesn't even have to be based on that notion. >cross-table effect that is not actually injurious to the other players' >individual interests. It may, however, be wholly wrong - i do not know >whether in tournaments players who go in as first seed are unusually >likely to win. Does anyone else know? I can fetch the database from Robyn if we like. I mean, we've got one, why not use it a little bit? [ quoted text not captured ]

>A deck that is good at securing GWs stands a better chance in any >tournament. >A deck that is good at gaining lots of VPs stands a better chance in >any tournament. >A deck that is good at gaining lots of GWs and VPs is probably the >best in any tournament. >A deck that can pick up some VPs but stands a poor chance of scoring a >GW is an increasingly poor choice for larger tournaments. Going off on a tangent, is there any evidence that suggests deck quality matters? Best I can gather from data is that the deck played by the best player is likely to be the "best" deck and, if not, then whoever the luckiest player among competents players has the best deck. This is evidenced by how often you see the same names win or at the top and how often you wonder how such and such deck won. I don't think any analysis has been done on trying to evaluate all decks played in a tournament for quality and correlating to final tournament position. It may not even be possible as people fail to agree with how good a deck is, nevermind such things as the effort required to pore over numerous decklists.

The Doctor wrote: > Please do note that in none of the cases I have witnessed your opponent > (since that seems to be how you view anyone who happens to have another > opinion) was the one that started the unpleasantness. You started your contribution to this thread with an insulting and derisive pot shot at Derek. - Ben Peal fu...@mindstorm.com

James Mcclellan <legb...@mailandnews.com> wrote: > i do not know whether in tournaments players who go in as > first seed are unusually likely to win. Does anyone else know? http://groups.google.com/groups?&th=fcfc3804a9840e0f%40posting.google.com "THE JOHN BELL CURSE" When coming in first place in the preliminary rounds, said Methuselah will lose the final round. "THE MATT FLINT CORROLARY" When coming in second place in the preliminary rounds, said Methuselah will win the final round. "THE DUFFIN DILEMA" When achieving 3GW in the preliminary rounds, said Methuselah will lose the final round. 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

Howdy, > > Which leaves the only part you seem to be considering 'wrong' to be > > Daneel's assertion that for large events (N=50) VP are largely > > irrelevant. Is that correct? If not, I cannot parse your comment, > > and I'd appreciate clarification rather than oxidation... > > Would you please point towards my post where my assertion stated how > VPs are irrelevant? Here's a helping hand: > > > ASSUMPTION: In a tournament of sufficient size your only sure way to > > make the finals is to score 3 GWs. VPs are only used for secondary > > sorting. Lots of people will have 2 GW; the second best way to make it > > is to have 2 GW and lots of VPs. Nevertheless, without GWs you won't > > make the finals. Ah. I see. So your assertion works out to: "In order to make the finals of a tourney of size X, you'll need Y GW (and probably some amount of VP as well), where as X increases Y also increases." I'll certainly grant you that tautology. It reminds me of the time I heard the commentator John Madden say, "If you want to win the game, you've got to move the ball down the field." (In reference to [American] football.) I note also that you and Derek are apparently in entire agreement, except as to what size tournaments are... (And there you've both got statistics to support your positions.) I guess I just tried too hard to find an actual difference between your positions to go with the disagreement in your postings. My mistake. Whatever, Alex

Howdy, > > While Derek is well-known for flaming _other people's asses off_, he most > > often does so with cause. And most often that cause is the other person's > > inability to form and/or follow a logical argument. > > Sometimes it is a matter of tastes, preferences and personal > experience. And neither is Derek omniscient. I've no problems with > people who flame other people's asses off as long as they _never_ do > it when they are not 100% right. It's always a matter of opinion and understanding. There is no such thing as '100% right'. And thus I have problems with flaming in general. But I still understand the urge, and, in fact, am gaining in understanding by the minute... > To rephrase the incident: > > Daneel: In tournaments of 50+ size making the finals is nigh > impossible without 3 GWs or 2 GWs and lots of VPs. > > Derek (undirected post): People who say that it is impossible to make > the finals without 2 or 3 GWs are asses, check this data about these > actual tournaments with 12 to 30 people. > > Daneel (paraphrased): Uhum... See... The secret here is in the (undirected post) bit. What Derek actually said was: "Anyone still interested in standing up on their hind legs and telling me that additional VP don't matter and sheer accumulation of Game Wins is the only way to make the finals?" You read this and _self-selected_ as someone who disagreed with his statement - he didn't direct it at you. And then in order to 'disprove' his assertion, you chose to repeat an argument that is a non-sequitur in the context of this thread. (The one with N=50). To rebut his argument, what you need to demonstrate that Game Wins are the only thing that is important in making the finals... Which is probably why I assumed that that was what you were trying to do (viz. the other branch of this thread I'm in). As it is, you now seem to have denied that latter is what you are arguing (again in the other thread), so I'm not seeing what you hoped to accomplish? Do you, in fact, agree with Derek's assertion above? (That additional VP do [always] matter.) > > > Or LSJ; he can be so diplomatic that it literally hurts > > > > An apt description. You do know that it's his job to be here, right? > > He is paid to be diplomatic, among other things. > > I am aware. I am curious whether you really thought that your comment > brought in new information, but that is another question. Holding LSJ up as an example of diplomacy when he really has no choice but to be diplomatic just struck me as irrelevant to the wider context of newsgroup posters. > > > It is possible to remain civil after lengthy forum > > > exposure (even if the means are currently beyond my comprehension). > > > > Heh. The hard part is remaining civil after initial introduction... > > Most people who make it to 'lengthy' exposure have a pretty good sense > > of appropriate behavior. Say, how long have you been with us? > > Not sure what 'us' means: > > My first Usenet post is from January 2004. > I have my WW forum account since about '99. > I am playing VTES since '96. My point was entirely that you might not want to lecture about civility to people who have managed to 'be civil' (participate in a community) for much longer than you... Which is not to say that the veterans are always right. Just that it's a tad unseemly to tell the people who built the house how to live in it. > > Hope that helps, > > With what exactly? You seem to me to be trying to pick a new flamewar with your words here and above - why? I suppose you doubt my sincerity in trying to defuse what looked to me like a pointless argument? I had assumed that you didn't enjoy the previous flaming, but perhaps that was my mistake? In any case, I don't do that sort of thing - I leave it to the professionals. I don't see any point in repeating myself with abusive emphasis - if people can't see the value of my commentary with their rational minds, I doubt that they will get it with their emotional minds. Alex

<snip> i feel that this latest contribution of yours is > >probably the most significant quantitative leap in the field since Ethan > >articulated the module concept. > > Leave us not be TOO carried away. ;-) One possible interpretation of my remark would be: "There has been *NO* really serious and useful attempt since Ethan's module concept to get quantitative about Jyhad, except for this one. Hooray!" Seriously, i do think this is a good idea which is worth kicking about a bit to see if it helps one to win games and tournaments. That is why, entertaining though the flame-war was, i pitched into the thread - probably it is also why Alex, Stefan and Ben joined in too. Where it seems to me this discussion *MIGHT* be headed is that you should take at least two decks to any tournament, and that which one you played would depend on tourney size. That's something i wouldn't have thought of myself, and would find a very useful tool if that really IS what is being said. > > However, it is, interestingly, something which came up long ago when the > Turbo-Arika decks were going 'round, and was debated to some degree > then. I remember this one <snip> In order to win a decently-sized > tournament, Turbo-Arika actually has to beat the probabilities at some > point, because over 4 rounds its expected performance is 2 sweeps and 2 > chokes. In any situation when it gets its 2 sweeps at the right time to > make the final, it won't finish the job UNLESS... > > ...UNLESS it gets lucky. > > There was a lot more discussion at the time, of course, mostly on > whether or not you wanted to trust your tournament performance to luck > or skill. I personally lean towards skill, which is why I said at the > time (and still do) that Turbo-Arika isn't a problem in the sense of > "too good"; it's a loophole that should probably be closed, but not > broken. It messes games up, but is FAR from a guaranteed win. Agreed, except that i personally don't think this is a loophole which should be closed. I LOVE it when some clever person [or in the case we are talking about, several clever French people] comes up with a "machine" deck [for those who did not follow this thread, many of us believe that the brilliance of the Lang/Alix turbo-Arika deck lies in the inclusion of Distraction to unblock one's hand - there are other turbo-decks but this one is so elegant and, well, French]. However, this is a matter of tastes not to be disputed sorta thing, it seems to me. > > >i wonder if you would agree with this extension of your idea, based on > >final table realities [at least as i perceive them]: it is actually > >WORSE to mount what we might call a Doc/Daneel deck that routinely takes > >games so as to get 3GW and an irrelevant number of VP, than one that > > For clarification, this should be described as an "all or nothing" deck > that either sweeps or gets 0VP. > > >routinely accumulates just enough [ie 1-2 GW depending on tournament > >size, and a LOT of VP] to get to the final. This proposition is of > > Also for clarification, this could be described as an "all-flexible" > deck that hits the middle of the 0-5 range: excellent chances to get > either 2VP or 3VP, but very unlikely to have the resources to sweep. Interesting! i would have turned those definitons round, which probably means i don't understand your argument as well as i think i do. Are you, perhaps, making a tactical case only [about what you should do in a game], and not a strategic case [about what kind of deck you should take to a game] at all? If so i would not at all blame you or think worse of your idea, because i completely understand that this is where the discussion started ... what do you do if IN A GAME you have an outside chance of a game win by doing A, but a near-certain chance of VPs if you do !A. > > >course based on the notion that the routine game-winner is a marked > >Methuselah once they get to the final, the victim of every possible > > This doesn't even have to be based on that notion. Sorry brother, you've lost me here. Unless you're referring to the sheer dumb lucky happened-to-run-across-all-the-numpties-and-swept player? > > >cross-table effect that is not actually injurious to the other players' > >individual interests. It may, however, be wholly wrong - i do not know > >whether in tournaments players who go in as first seed are unusually > >likely to win. Does anyone else know? > > I can fetch the database from Robyn if we like. I mean, we've got one, > why not use it a little bit? > i think that would be really interesting! Of course, as Curevei points out further down this thread, there are two hypotheses which one could set up, maybe three. 1. In the final, everyone has an equal chance to win [amongst skilled players with decent decks, the outcome of a game is down to luck]. 2. In the final, the player who wins will generally *NOT* be the top seed [the top seed will be victimised]. 3. In the final, the top seed will tend to win [the most skilled/ruthless player wins more often than would be expected by chance]. My prediction, for what *VERY* little it is worth, is that [3] will be true for 10-20 player tournaments, and that 2 will be true for 30+ player tournaments. MUCH more importantly, the data is going to falsify AT LEAST two of these hypotheses. [ quoted text not captured ]

> Since comments are welcome, perhaps it'd be appropriate to point out > the irony in Norman's spelling of 'further'. :P Note to self: use the spell checker. I don't know where that attachment came from, but I do see that I sent it. Strange... Anyone care to teach me Hungarian? I would love to learn it. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Daneel" <dan...@eposta.hu> wrote in message news:a23a105e.04071...@posting.google.com... [ quoted text not captured ] I do like to educate other posters, and I definantly am enjoying the fireworks. [ quoted text not captured ]

> Next time you attack a Hungarian about his English, please do so in > perfect Hungarian. > > And do read up on your Netiquette before doing so. Care to teach me? > And don't forget to never attach pictures to your posts anymore As opposed to whichever newsgroup program you are using attaches "Your MS program incorrectly interprets this as an attachment". You seem to have not been able to work the bug out of that one, and from where I am sitting, you are the only poster on this newsgroup with that problem. Funny Stuff... [ quoted text not captured ]

XZealot wrote: > > As opposed to whichever newsgroup program you are using attaches "Your MS > program incorrectly interprets this as an attachment". In case you had not noticed: that is not an attachment. MS even recognises it as a bug in their programs, but refuses to fix it. Instead everyone in the world is supposed to never start a line with 'begin' *roll eyes* [ quoted text not captured ]

>there are two hypotheses which one could >set up, maybe three. > >1. In the final, everyone has an equal chance to win [amongst skilled >players with decent decks, the outcome of a game is down to luck]. > >2. In the final, the player who wins will generally *NOT* be the top >seed [the top seed will be victimised]. > >3. In the final, the top seed will tend to win [the most >skilled/ruthless player wins more often than would be expected by >chance]. > >My prediction, for what *VERY* little it is worth, is that [3] will be >true for 10-20 player tournaments, and that 2 will be true for 30+ >player tournaments. MUCH more importantly, the data is going to falsify >AT LEAST two of these hypotheses. Top seed has two advantages that aren't getting much mention: picking seating position last; beating everyone else on tiebreakers. Picking seating position certainly has advantages on average. It's really not clear, at least to me, whether it's a clear advantage most of the time, almost all of the time, or what. Helps, of course, to scout and whatnot to know what others are playing. Beating people on tiebreakers means you can play differently. You can play for a time out if it seems possible. You can play for table splits. Disadvantage of top seed is that everyone should have an extra incentive to knock off anyone higher ranked in the finals to prevent losing on tiebreakers in case a table split arises ... and everyone is lower ranked than the top seed. Then, the top seed probably has one of the better seating positions at the table and requires being "stabilized". I don't buy that someone is a greater threat *just* because they did particularly well in prelims. Matchups might have been far better or whatever. Doesn't mean prelim success should be ignored, but I'd put it behind other considerations; the composition of the final table is likely to heavily influence the players' approaches, assuming they even bother thinking about how to table manage to victory. What this means for deck quality, I guess, is that I'd care much more about the type of deck someone is playing in the finals than the precise components - whether a deck is aggro, control, or aggro-control, what speeds they develop at, what they are next to, etc. - matchups.

Daneel wrote: > Ben Peal wrote: > > At a tournament of 50+ players, I'd rather play a deck that has a > > lower chance of getting GW but a higher chance of getting lots of > > VP when it does win, than play a deck that has a better chance of > > getting 2 GW but not typically getting more than 3 VP when it does > > win. > > > > Why? Because if I _do_ get the 2 GW that's gonna be necessary to > > make the finals, I also want the VP that are also going to be > > necessary to make the finals. 2 GW and 5 VP, or 2 GW and 6 VP > > aren't going to do it. > > I'm not sure whether you agreed with me or not by posting that, but I > certainly agree with what you posted... ;) Well, your initial post in this thread on the matter was (I think) based on another thread which I never read, so I'm also not sure if I agreed with you or not in my post. :) I just figured I'd post my thoughts on the matter, and it's nice that you agree with it. :) > Getting 2 GW + lots of VPs is definitely a cool strategy, and to get > that you basically need lots of VPs. You should not rely on getting no > more than 1/3 each round (unless you are most certain to do it at > least four times in a row...) Exactly...you need that many VP to make it at all, and if you're getting that many VP, then the GW will take care of themselves. So, the options are to play a high-risk, high-yield deck, or to hope you have a monster day with whatever other kind of deck you're playing. I've seen both strategies work, but I think the high-risk, high-yield strategy has been more successful. - Ben Peal fu...@mindstorm.com

Curevei wrote: > > Picking seating position certainly has advantages on average. It's really not > clear, at least to me, whether it's a clear advantage most of the time, almost > all of the time, or what. Helps, of course, to scout and whatnot to know what > others are playing. Certainly helped me last Sunday. I had already played against 2 of the 4 other finalists, and chose to seat behind one playing a Gangrel deck that did little in pressurizing it's prey. It would give me time to develop my position. I was not even the top seed, but second seed, but the top seed had only seen my deck, and decided to stay away from me as an advantage. Turns out I was more right then he was about our choices, but still, it was a distinct advantage we had over the other 3. [ quoted text not captured ]

wum...@comcast.net (Alex Broadhead) wrote in message news:<cef10767.04071...@posting.google.com>... > > I've no problems with people who flame other people's asses off as long as > > they _never_ do it when they are not 100% right. > > It's always a matter of opinion and understanding. There is no such > thing as '100% right'. I wrote, if someone only flames if they are 100% right. So if someone does not flame when it is a matter of opinion, but lets loose when someone is being a jerk about sticking to false facts, it is far less antagonistic to me than when someone flames all the time (and is sometimes right). > And thus I have problems with flaming in general. But I still understand > the urge, and, in fact, am gaining in understanding by the minute... Curiosity... Is that based on this particular debate? > > To rephrase the incident: > > You read this and _self-selected_ as someone who disagreed with his > statement - he didn't direct it at you. And then in order to > 'disprove' his assertion, you chose to repeat an argument that is a > non-sequitur in the context of this thread. (The one with N=50). To > rebut his argument, what you need to demonstrate that Game Wins are > the only thing that is important in making the finals... I did not disprove his argument. In fact, my post had nothing to do with his argument. I merely pointed out how his post was _irrelevant_ to the discussion what it apparently wished to continue (conclude). > Holding LSJ up as an example of diplomacy when he really has no choice > but to be diplomatic just struck me as irrelevant to the wider context > of newsgroup posters. There are different styles you would probably all describe as 'diplomatic'. But anyway, let's drop it, I'm not really cool about talking about people who do not participate in the current discussion. I should not have brought them up anyway. > My point was entirely that you might not want to lecture about > civility to people who have managed to 'be civil' (participate in a > community) for much longer than you... You see, comments like this make me doubt your sincerity. I thought that it was quite obvious that my usage of civil was as an adjective (in which case it roughly means 'courteous'). You seem to be twisting my words in order to get somewhere. Is this really the case? > Which is not to say that the veterans are always right. Just that it's a > tad unseemly to tell the people who built the house how to live in it. I guess times do change... The old man who once started the workshop can well be an unimportant shareholder in what the company has since become. As things change, previous positions and standings need to be revised. > > > Hope that helps, > > > > With what exactly? > > You seem to me to be trying to pick a new flamewar with your words > here and above - why? Your comments were on the verge of sincere contribution and veiled offence. I simply wished to make the matters clear. I'm cool either way, but I do not wish to offend someone who is not trying to offend me. > I suppose you doubt my sincerity in trying to > defuse what looked to me like a pointless argument? You missed the point. > I had assumed that you didn't enjoy the previous flaming, but perhaps that > was my mistake? I enjoyed it, yes. I would have enjoyed a civil discussion about facts and theories far more. > In any case, I don't do that sort of thing - I leave it to the > professionals. I don't see any point in repeating myself with abusive > emphasis - if people can't see the value of my commentary with their > rational minds, I doubt that they will get it with their emotional > minds. I recommend this paragraph to everyone who regularly flames. Bye, Daneel

Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<gh3te0t6a46g82424...@4ax.com>... > In message <TZqHc.125$jJ.28@fed1read07>, > "Kevin M." <you...@imaspammer.org> mumbled something about: > > >OK, here's everything from Origins 2004: > > As an idle note referencing a prior thread: This is what it took to get > into the finals for each tournament at Origins. (I'm listing the player > whose preliminary ranking was 5th in each case) > > Thursday Constructed (25 players): Jay Kristoff, 1 GW, 4.5 VP > Friday Constructed (25 players): Jay Kristoff, 1 GW, 4.5 VP > Friday Draft (16 players): Christian Herro, 1 GW, 3 VP > Saturday Qualifier (30 players): Dave Buerger, 1 GW, 6 VP > Saturday Draft (12 players): Dave Pennington II, 0 GW, 2 VP > Sunday Constructed (18 players): Stephanie Turner, 1 GW, 3 VP > > In every event except the Saturday Draft, the 6th-place finisher was > never more than a single VP behind. In the Saturday Draft, that player > was short 1GW and 1.5VP, but it's pretty obvious that the Saturday Draft > is the least useful for anyone's purposes, as it's certainly a smaller > tournament. > > My point is this: > > Anyone still interested in standing up on their hind legs and telling me > that additional VP don't matter and sheer accumulation of Game Wins is > the only way to make the finals? > Damn, only away for a week and you miss a great flamewar. let me guess who is starring in it. :-) I am not sure if you were talking to me with the above statement, but in the thread before i was trying to figure out the legality of not going for the GW. Ofcourse VP's matter. Most tournaments i played lately (i haven't played many the last times) required at least 2 GW to get to the finals. W

Howdy, > I did not disprove his argument. In fact, my post had nothing to do > with his argument. I merely pointed out how his post was _irrelevant_ > to the discussion what it apparently wished to continue (conclude). But it wasn't irrelevant to the thread it was posted in, or in general. I found it useful to have the Origins stats tabulated in the way he did, and found it interesting to note that you don't necessarily need tons of GW to make the finals in the sorts of tourneys I might play in - that was not at all obvious to me. That you considered his post irrelevant to the argument you posited in another thread seems to me to reinforce Derek's judgement in not posting it to that thread. That you seem to essentially agree with his argument makes it additionally bizarre that you would take umbrage. As it was, reposting your original assertions made it look to me like you had a substantive disagreement, i.e. that you couldn't simply extrapolate the statistics and arguments to larger N. And then you started throwing the term 'prove' about, which further confused me. When you're not trying to prove anything, it's hard to do it. > > My point was entirely that you might not want to lecture about > > civility to people who have managed to 'be civil' (participate in a > > community) for much longer than you... > > You see, comments like this make me doubt your sincerity. I thought > that it was quite obvious that my usage of civil was as an adjective > (in which case it roughly means 'courteous'). You seem to be twisting > my words in order to get somewhere. Is this really the case? I'm not sure how I'm twisting your words. I just mean that 'civil' or 'courteous' has different meanings in different contexts. And that I am not sure that you are entirely clear on its meaning here. > > > > Hope that helps, > > > > > > With what exactly? > > > > You seem to me to be trying to pick a new flamewar with your words > > here and above - why? > > Your comments were on the verge of sincere contribution and veiled > offence. I simply wished to make the matters clear. Sarcasm doesn't strike me as a good tool for that job. It is a good tool for turning either sincere contribution or veiled offence into open hostility, which would make matters clear, though it would not clarify their previous status. > I'm cool either > way, but I do not wish to offend someone who is not trying to offend > me. > > > I suppose you doubt my sincerity in trying to > > defuse what looked to me like a pointless argument? > > You missed the point. Apparently. I thought there was an argument under the pointlessness. As it turns out, you were just taking Derek's bait and baiting him in turn. Derek's a big boy and didn't need my help (though I do like to acknowledge his contributions, as they've meant a lot to me), and you were apparently enjoying yourself. I should've stayed away. > > I had assumed that you didn't enjoy the previous flaming, but perhaps that > > was my mistake? > > I enjoyed it, yes. I would have enjoyed a civil discussion about facts > and theories far more. See, this is patently untrue. You can't have a civil discussion about facts and theories on the basis of an off-topic, non-sequitur reply to a (baiting, but on-topic) assertion of fact. I _thought_ that your intention was to do so, but now that you have confirmed that you were not, in fact, actually attempting to address Derek's argument at all, I see that I was mistaken, and I see that I should have let you guys have your little flamewar and get it out of your systems. Oh, and as an aesthetic criticism, I guess I find your flaming technique kind of confusing and undirected. More, bigger, and weirder! Then I'll know to observe at a distance. Alex

wum...@comcast.net (Alex Broadhead) wrote in message news:<cef10767.04071...@posting.google.com>... > Howdy, > > > I did not disprove his argument. In fact, my post had nothing to do > > with his argument. I merely pointed out how his post was _irrelevant_ > > to the discussion what it apparently wished to continue (conclude). > > But it wasn't irrelevant to the thread it was posted in, or in > general. I found it useful to have the Origins stats tabulated in the > way he did, and found it interesting to note that you don't > necessarily need tons of GW to make the finals in the sorts of > tourneys I might play in - that was not at all obvious to me. Ask him why he did it. Also, ask yourself, did you really need a tabulation to see how you don't need 2+ GWs in a tournament with 20 players? > That you considered his post irrelevant to the argument you posited in > another thread seems to me to reinforce Derek's judgement in not > posting it to that thread. Irrelevant but apparently intended to be relevant. I already explained. > That you seem to essentially agree with > his argument makes it additionally bizarre that you would take > umbrage. As it was, reposting your original assertions made it look > to me like you had a substantive disagreement, i.e. that you couldn't > simply extrapolate the statistics and arguments to larger N. And then > you started throwing the term 'prove' about, which further confused > me. When you're not trying to prove anything, it's hard to do it. Are you familiar with the contents of the thread the discussion originates from? Your comments seem to indicate otherwise. > > > My point was entirely that you might not want to lecture about > > > civility to people who have managed to 'be civil' (participate in a > > > community) for much longer than you... > > > > You see, comments like this make me doubt your sincerity. I thought > > that it was quite obvious that my usage of civil was as an adjective > > (in which case it roughly means 'courteous'). You seem to be twisting > > my words in order to get somewhere. Is this really the case? > > I'm not sure how I'm twisting your words. I just mean that 'civil' or > 'courteous' has different meanings in different contexts. And that I > am not sure that you are entirely clear on its meaning here. The fact you had to explain your usage of civil clearly shows how even you knew you were not using it in the sense I intended it. Yes, some words may have different meanings in different contexts. Yes, it is possible to intentionally misunderstand what someone is writing. I'm not sure many people would understand 'to be civil' in the case of a message board to mean 'of or relating to citizens', 'of or relating to the state or its citizenry' or 'of, relating to, or based on civil law' instead of 'adequate in courtesy and politeness'. Maybe it's just me, being a non-native speaker of English and a noob to the message boards. > Sarcasm doesn't strike me as a good tool for that job. It is a good > tool for turning either sincere contribution or veiled offence into > open hostility, which would make matters clear, though it would not > clarify their previous status. What job? I'm not yet sure what your motives are in this discussion. You clearly want to avoid being outright offensive, but neither do I see any sincere attempt to actually understand what I am writing. > > > I suppose you doubt my sincerity in trying to > > > defuse what looked to me like a pointless argument? > > > > You missed the point. > > Apparently. I thought there was an argument under the pointlessness. The argument was in a former thread. Feel free to check it in order to see what this debate was about. > See, this is patently untrue. You can't have a civil discussion about > facts and theories on the basis of an off-topic, non-sequitur reply to > a (baiting, but on-topic) assertion of fact. Assess both threads in unison. You may be enlightened to my motives. > Oh, and as an aesthetic criticism, I guess I find your flaming > technique kind of confusing and undirected. More, bigger, and > weirder! Then I'll know to observe at a distance. Well, I'm not really your average Troll. In fact, I seldom flame, and most of the time just throw in my cents or try to contribute some other way. You must excuse me for not being as skilled as others are when it comes to being offensive, twisting words or being outright ignorant. Perhaps being a noob, I still retain some sincerity... Best Regards, Daneel

Wouter Kuyper expounded: [ quoted text not captured ] LSJ has repeatedly reiterated that you MUST go for the GW. You cannot play for tournament considerations and you cannot settle for a more certain VP score while you have a "reasonable chance" of a GW. What you risk in goign for the GW is compltely irrelevant to the legality of the decision.

Howdy, > Also, ask yourself, did you really need a tabulation to see how you > don't need 2+ GWs in a tournament with 20 players? ...well, see, there was this guy who was arguing that in tournaments of sufficient size you needed 3 GWs to make the finals... BTW, don't think that I didn't notice that you've again substituted your own random constant (20) for the relevant value (30) above. .me walks away shaking head Alex

wum...@comcast.net (Alex Broadhead) wrote in message news:<cef10767.04071...@posting.google.com>... > > Also, ask yourself, did you really need a tabulation to see how you > > don't need 2+ GWs in a tournament with 20 players? > > ...well, see, there was this guy who was arguing that in tournaments > of sufficient size you needed 3 GWs to make the finals... ...who also explained in the very same post that in this particular case he meant 50+ under sufficient size. I'm at least finally clear concerning your previous intentions. > BTW, don't think that I didn't notice that you've again substituted > your own random constant (20) for the relevant value (30) above. You originally wrote: > But it wasn't irrelevant to the thread it was posted in, or in > general. I found it useful to have the Origins stats tabulated in the > way he did, and found it interesting to note that you don't > necessarily need tons of GW to make the finals in the sorts of > tourneys I might play in - that was not at all obvious to me. Unless you meant that you usually participate in exactly 30 player tournaments, you probably used the plural form to refer to the whole bunch of tournaments analysed by Derek. Which were: Thursday Constructed (25 players) Friday Constructed (25 players) Friday Draft (16 players) Saturday Qualifier (30 players) Saturday Draft (12 players) Sunday Constructed (18 players) 12 + 16 + 18 + 25 + 25 + 30 = 126 126 / 6 = 21 20 is far closer to the mean than 30 is, wouldn't you agree? So much for your "random constants" angle. You're no fun, by the way. Continuing a debate with you demonstrates how prolonged forum exposure does make it hard to remain civil without turning ignorant in the process. I think I'll look up that post about typical forum inanities (posted here by atomweaver?) so that I can refer to the more common ones simply with numbers. Spares a lot of typing... Best Regards, Daneel

Timlagor <TimSl...@yaMhoo.co.uk> wrote in message news:<MPG.1b634499f...@news.eclipse.co.uk>... [ quoted text not captured ] Which is exactly how i read it. With "reasonable" being pretty small (say 5%). Others didn't agree though. W

Daneel wrote: > If I had a deck that can be reasonably expected to score 3 GW in a > tournament, I'd probably have what is a broken deck. Wrong, you would have what is called a Winning deck. PTO is broken, but its hardly a winning deck style. Play to win! Raille

Derek Ray wrote: > Here, it seems some people are, well, shall we say, less willing to read > the entire message, or perhaps just too damn dumb to understand what's > being said. Often, this results in the "rude" tone being used in later > responses, especially when the person in question wanders into the > "deliberately obtuse" realm of their own responses. *raises hand* Yup that could be me. I seem to have managed to get onto the rude side now and again. ;) Raille

In message <44a2da05.04071...@posting.google.com>, Wouter...@yahoo.com (Wouter Kuyper) mumbled something about: >Timlagor <TimSl...@yaMhoo.co.uk> wrote in message news:<MPG.1b634499f...@news.eclipse.co.uk>... >> LSJ has repeatedly reiterated that you MUST go for the GW. You cannot Assuming you have a reasonable chance of that GW. >> play for tournament considerations and you cannot settle for a more >> certain VP score while you have a "reasonable chance" of a GW. What you Oh, wait, you DID mention it! Try to keep it all together. >> risk in goign for the GW is compltely irrelevant to the legality of the >> decision. See above related to "reasonable chance". The more reasonable your chance, the less you risk, by definition. >Which is exactly how i read it. With "reasonable" being pretty small >(say 5%). Others didn't agree though. Oooo, I don't believe I've EVER seen LSJ state a percentage. Careful now, you're confusing your own interpretation with quotation. I can tell you this, though: Attempt to specifically dictate a player's actions, as opposed to simply forbidding their illegal actions, and players will walk out of your tournaments. ...Starting with the person whose deck you played for them. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<brlmf0plu2papplcc...@4ax.com>... > In message <44a2da05.04071...@posting.google.com>, > Wouter...@yahoo.com (Wouter Kuyper) mumbled something about: > > >Timlagor <TimSl...@yaMhoo.co.uk> wrote in message news:<MPG.1b634499f...@news.eclipse.co.uk>... > >> LSJ has repeatedly reiterated that you MUST go for the GW. You cannot > > Assuming you have a reasonable chance of that GW. > > >> play for tournament considerations and you cannot settle for a more > >> certain VP score while you have a "reasonable chance" of a GW. What you > > Oh, wait, you DID mention it! Try to keep it all together. > > >> risk in goign for the GW is compltely irrelevant to the legality of the > >> decision. > > See above related to "reasonable chance". > > The more reasonable your chance, the less you risk, by definition. > > >Which is exactly how i read it. With "reasonable" being pretty small > >(say 5%). Others didn't agree though. > > Oooo, I don't believe I've EVER seen LSJ state a percentage. Careful > now, you're confusing your own interpretation with quotation. No, i don't think i saw LSJ give a percentage either, (i wish he did) i never wanted it to look like HE gave the percentage, sorry if it looked like that. > > I can tell you this, though: Attempt to specifically dictate a player's > actions, as opposed to simply forbidding their illegal actions, and > players will walk out of your tournaments. > > ...Starting with the person whose deck you played for them. I know, i know, we talked about this before :-) and you are right about that. I just hoped someone could think of something that avoids that, but still makes you play for the GW (say from a 5-10% chance of getting it). I can't think of anything yet, but i would love to see some sort of percentage (or explanation as to what "reasonable" means in this context) in the rules. Perhaps, even when not enforcable by a judge, people will follow that rule just because they are good guys. W

Wouter Kuyper wrote: > No, i don't think i saw LSJ give a percentage either, (i wish he did) Why? Let's say for sake of argument that LSJ says "reasonable chance" == "25%". How does that help? Is there some calculation you can run on the game state to say what someone's chance of winning is? --Colin McGuigan

> Why? Let's say for sake of argument that LSJ says "reasonable chance" > == "25%". How does that help? Is there some calculation you can run on > the game state to say what someone's chance of winning is? Yes, the calculation goes like this: count all possible outcomes of the game in which you get a GW. Then count all possible outcomes of the game. Divide the two numbers, that that's your probability. I realize it's not actually possible to count the two (potentially infinite) numbers above. Nonetheless, estimating probabilities is a useful and necessary skill. It's a weak argument (IMO) to claim that since we can't calculate the probabilities exactly, we shouldn't even try estimating. Colin, if you look at a VTES game in its mid-game, you can make a reasonable guess at who's going to win. You can assign probabilities to various outcomes. They won't be perfect, but they'll be close, and close is good enough and certainly better than nothing. Also, as a player, you know your deck, and can make an even better estimation than a casual observer. As a judge, if you really want to take the time, you can look through players' decks. I realize we're not computers and giving a concrete number isn't actually that concrete, but I personally think that some ballpark number is better than nothing at all. Finally, on a larger scale, I believe our goal should be that all judges make the same (correct) ruling given the same situation. I realize that it's possible to have different rulings that are both correct (because of differing definitions of the word "reasonable.") I also realize it's not possible to have exactly the same situation. Nonetheless, I personally strive to unify all judge's decision through dialogue with LSJ and open communication of the rules. If other people do not feel that it's a worthy goal to have judges make the same decisions given the same input, then we have a fundamentally different approach to these discussions. Ira

Colin McGuigan <magu...@BGONEspeakeasy.net> wrote in message news:<W-CdnXuehpV...@speakeasy.net>... [ quoted text not captured ] There is no way to be calculating this ofcourse. But many that play tournaments are capable of saying "i've been in quite a few of these situations or similar; i have won about 1/8 of these situations" Ofcourse it will still be guesstimating, but i will be able to tell if i have a chance to win that is closer to 25 or to 10%. I think many can. W

On 19 Jul 2004, Ira wrote: > > Why? Let's say for sake of argument that LSJ says "reasonable chance" > > == "25%". How does that help? Is there some calculation you can run on > > the game state to say what someone's chance of winning is? > > Yes, the calculation goes like this: count all possible outcomes of > the game in which you get a GW. Then count all possible outcomes of > the game. Divide the two numbers, that that's your probability. Wouldn't a meteor landing on the game shop be a possible outcome? Maybe some possibilities ought to be weighted as more or less likely. > I realize it's not actually possible to count the two (potentially > infinite) numbers above. Nonetheless, estimating probabilities is a > useful and necessary skill. It's a weak argument (IMO) to claim that > since we can't calculate the probabilities exactly, we shouldn't even > try estimating. <snip supporting arguments> Do people really refuse to play to win so often it would be worth implementing something like that? If judges started trying to play my deck for me, I'd probably find another hobby (or at least skip out on tournaments). Matt Morgan

Ira wrote: > Yes, the calculation goes like this: count all possible outcomes of > the game in which you get a GW. Then count all possible outcomes of > the game. Divide the two numbers, that that's your probability. I bet you could teach those people who build chess-playing computers a thing or two. > I realize it's not actually possible to count the two (potentially > infinite) numbers above. Nonetheless, estimating probabilities is a > useful and necessary skill. It's a weak argument (IMO) to claim that > since we can't calculate the probabilities exactly, we shouldn't even > try estimating. Never said that. What I'm making fun of is the idea that if LSJ would give a "magic number", then the situation would suddenly become resolved. We're very good at estimating. I can estimate if my chances are "reasonable" or not. But if you ask five different players five turns in what they think their chance of winning a game is, I will guaran-frickin'-tee you it will not total 100%. Hell, I'd be surprised if it totalled less than 200%. > Colin, if you look at a VTES game in its mid-game, you can make a > reasonable guess at who's going to win. You can assign probabilities > to various outcomes. They won't be perfect, but they'll be close, and > close is good enough and certainly better than nothing. Laf. The majority of games have an endgame that's extremely delicate -- everyone's at a little pool, and one or two combos is all it takes. Played a six player game last night. It went something like this: me (4 pool) -> 6 pool -> 1 pool -> 2 pool -> 8 pool -> 12 pool. That game could've gone any which way -- trying to predict a winner was, and generally is, futile. Even if there's a deck that's dominating the table, that's usually the cue (around these parts) for everyone to turn against it. I have seen very, very few sweeps. > Also, as a player, you know your deck, and can make an even better > estimation than a casual observer. As a judge, if you really want to > take the time, you can look through players' decks. I realize we're > not computers and giving a concrete number isn't actually that > concrete, but I personally think that some ballpark number is better > than nothing at all. My stance is that you can name whatever ballpark number you want, and it'll mean bumpkis. Here's an experiment! Try it with your playgroup! 1) Play a game. 2) On the start of turn 3, have everyone (secretly) write down what they think their percentage of winning is. Don't share the info. 3) Repeat on turn 6, 9, 12, etc. 4) Afterwards, share the information. Compare the totals for any given turn; what do they add up to? Then check to see how accurate they were. For extra credit, have someone play "judge", who doesn't play, but can investigate player's hands, crypts, libraries, etc also write down these percentages. I eagerly await your results. > Finally, on a larger scale, I believe our goal should be that all > judges make the same (correct) ruling given the same situation. I > realize that it's possible to have different rulings that are both > correct (because of differing definitions of the word "reasonable.") > I also realize it's not possible to have exactly the same situation. > Nonetheless, I personally strive to unify all judge's decision through > dialogue with LSJ and open communication of the rules. If other > people do not feel that it's a worthy goal to have judges make the > same decisions given the same input, then we have a fundamentally > different approach to these discussions. I'm trying to stay within the realm of possibility, here. You cannot mathematically define "reasonable", nor someone's chances of winning V:TES. --Colin McGuigan

Wouter Kuyper wrote: > There is no way to be calculating this ofcourse. But many that play > tournaments are capable of saying "i've been in quite a few of these > situations or similar; i have won about 1/8 of these situations" > Ofcourse it will still be guesstimating, but i will be able to tell if > i have a chance to win that is closer to 25 or to 10%. I think many > can. Uhm. Not to be rude, but, so? I'm sorry. That was rude. Let me explain. Let's say, hypothetically, you find yourself in a position where you have calculated your chance of winning (X%), and found that it's less than reasonable (Y%) (X% < Y%). So, you wait for your turn, and you tap your Succubus Club, and state you're giving all your pool and all your minions to your best buddy. Other players cry foul and call the judge. The judge examines your situation and says, "No can do. You still have a reasonable chance of winning." You explain your calculations to the judge, but the judge disagrees. Do you tell the judge he's in error? --Colin McGuigan

In message <44a2da05.04071...@posting.google.com>, Wouter...@yahoo.com (Wouter Kuyper) mumbled something about: >Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<brlmf0plu2papplcc...@4ax.com>... >> >> I can tell you this, though: Attempt to specifically dictate a player's >> actions, as opposed to simply forbidding their illegal actions, and >> players will walk out of your tournaments. >> >> ...Starting with the person whose deck you played for them. > >I know, i know, we talked about this before :-) and you are right >about that. I just hoped someone could think of something that avoids >that, but still makes you play for the GW (say from a 5-10% chance of >getting it). But this sort of play isn't the problem, and I think this is something everyone has lost sight of. A person who decides whether to go for the 5% chance of the GW, or to take a sure 2VP and skedaddle, is NOT a person making a play that we as players should find objectionable. The choice is obviously from the individual's own perception of his best interests at that time, and it is also clearly a choice made "against the wall" -- ie, there is no more time to wait, the choice must be made now. The plays that players have found objectionable are the ones where people deal to split the table with a rollover on turn 3, or where someone is going nuts cross-table, or where someone is bE1nG a MalKaVIan, ... as well as having another weapon to detect collusion, although I do not think collusion is the problem either. >I can't think of anything yet, but i would love to see some sort of >percentage (or explanation as to what "reasonable" means in this >context) in the rules. Perhaps, even when not enforcable by a judge, >people will follow that rule just because they are good guys. No percentage can be accurately determined at the table; why try to determine a percentage in the rules? And you surely know better than to think people will follow unenforceable rules just because they're good guys. Look around. I'm in the process of searching for the exact wording of something I saw on a casino wall recently; it was rule #1, in fact. I think it applies eminently to both V:TES and this particular situation. I shall not mention anything about it yet, because the wording itself was quite well done, and I want to be sure it carries the correct impact. [ quoted text not captured ]

Matt wrote: > Wouldn't a meteor landing on the game shop be a > possible outcome? Maybe some possibilities ought > to be weighted as more or less likely. Hey Matt - yes, you're definitely correct. Outcomes must be weighted. Error on my part. Colin wrote: > Never said that. What I'm making fun of is the > idea that if LSJ would give a "magic number", > then the situation would suddenly become resolved. Oh, my bad - I didn't realize that's what you were arguing against. I can't defend that point, and I agree that LSJ giving a number wouldn't suddenly resolve anything. I think it may slightly increase the consistency of rulings across the world, but that's just an opinion that can't be backed up by fact. :) *My* point is that as a regular judge (i.e. not LSJ), giving a number for "reasonable" is better than being unable to define it in any way. I'm really just shifting the argument to a different level. If there's a debate about a player playing to win, I see two likely debates (maybe more): 1) Player and judge discuss what is a "reasonable" chance 2) Judge defining "reasonable" as 5%, and then player and judge discuss whether or not the player has a 5% chance of winning. (or 2% or 20% or whatever number the judge wants to pick.) I personally prefer the judge to define it as he wishes, and then engage in the latter discussion, rather than the (IMO) more nebulous first discussion. Granted, both discussions are necessarily nebulous, I just prefer the latter. Perhaps it's just a matter of taste? > I can estimate if my chances are "reasonable" or not. How do you define reasonable? I can estimate if my chances are "falanteerpop" if I don't have to define what it means. :) > Here's an experiment! Try it with your playgroup! Unfortunately it's not that simple. First, the numbers shouldn't add up to 100%, because there's some chance the game will time out (2hr limit) or some other way that no one wins (2-2-1.) Also, say everyone estimated 15% chance of winning, and then I won. Were the estimates correct? They could all be entirely correct. I'm not claiming that it will solve everything to define "reasonable." I'm claiming that it's better to define reasonable than to leave it undefined. > You cannot mathematically define "reasonable", Sure I can: I define a "reasonable" chance of winning as a 5% or greater chance of winning. > nor someone's chances of winning V:TES. This I agree is practically impossible to define. That is where the judge's estimation comes in. As the judge, I define "reasonable," and then I estimate the player's chances of winning. I take into consideration the situation at the table, the time left on the clock, the player's deck, the relative skill of the players, the chance that a meteor will strike the game shop, etc. I will then come up with a number. It's basically a black box how I come up with that number. This experiment might have value: Have ten experienced judges observe a game from the beginning to turn 10. At turn 10, have each observer estimate the chances of winning for each player, as well as the chance the game will time-out or otherwise have no winner. It doesn't really matter who wins, it just matters how close the estimates are. If those numbers are close, then one could possibly conclude that skilled judges would magically come up with estimates that are similar, and therefore a global definition of "reasonable" would allow more consistent rulings (without sacrificing flexibility among judges.) Ideally, we'd also do an experiment to determine the accuracy of the estimates, and that would take much longer (estimate the outcomes of many games, and see if you're right over time.) Also, the turn at which you must make the estimate has a great impact on your accuracy. Ideally, we should have the observers estimate chance of winning only when a play-to-win question arises, but that experiment would take a really long time to conclude. Ira

Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<r0pof0p0jluov72ta...@4ax.com>... > In message <44a2da05.04071...@posting.google.com>, > Wouter...@yahoo.com (Wouter Kuyper) mumbled something about: > > >Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<brlmf0plu2papplcc...@4ax.com>... > >> > >> I can tell you this, though: Attempt to specifically dictate a player's > >> actions, as opposed to simply forbidding their illegal actions, and > >> players will walk out of your tournaments. > >> > >> ...Starting with the person whose deck you played for them. > > > >I know, i know, we talked about this before :-) and you are right > >about that. I just hoped someone could think of something that avoids > >that, but still makes you play for the GW (say from a 5-10% chance of > >getting it). > > But this sort of play isn't the problem, and I think this is something > everyone has lost sight of. > > A person who decides whether to go for the 5% chance of the GW, or to > take a sure 2VP and skedaddle, is NOT a person making a play that we as > players should find objectionable. The choice is obviously from the > individual's own perception of his best interests at that time, and it > is also clearly a choice made "against the wall" -- ie, there is no more > time to wait, the choice must be made now. > > The plays that players have found objectionable are the ones where > people deal to split the table with a rollover on turn 3, or where > someone is going nuts cross-table, or where someone is bE1nG a > MalKaVIan, ... as well as having another weapon to detect collusion, > although I do not think collusion is the problem either. making a losing deal where you can get a GW can be anoying too. > > >I can't think of anything yet, but i would love to see some sort of > >percentage (or explanation as to what "reasonable" means in this > >context) in the rules. Perhaps, even when not enforcable by a judge, > >people will follow that rule just because they are good guys. > > No percentage can be accurately determined at the table; why try to > determine a percentage in the rules? I think, when i am playing a game, i can make a difference between "my reasonable chance" (5%) and "your reasonable chance" (40?%). I will be able to tell where my chances are closer too. You are saying you are not? if you indeed cannot, it will be very difficult for you to make any losing deal, as it is important to know even for you if your chances are 35 or 55% of getting a GW. > > And you surely know better than to think people will follow > unenforceable rules just because they're good guys. Look around. I think there are that will follow these rules. I there are that won't. but at least that is some improvement. > > I'm in the process of searching for the exact wording of something I saw > on a casino wall recently; it was rule #1, in fact. I think it applies > eminently to both V:TES and this particular situation. I shall not > mention anything about it yet, because the wording itself was quite well > done, and I want to be sure it carries the correct impact. I'm curious :-) W

Colin McGuigan <magu...@BGONEspeakeasy.net> wrote in message news:<YNKdnQENxbK...@speakeasy.net>... > Wouter Kuyper wrote: > > There is no way to be calculating this ofcourse. But many that play > > tournaments are capable of saying "i've been in quite a few of these > > situations or similar; i have won about 1/8 of these situations" > > Ofcourse it will still be guesstimating, but i will be able to tell if > > i have a chance to win that is closer to 25 or to 10%. I think many > > can. > > Uhm. Not to be rude, but, so? > > I'm sorry. That was rude. Let me explain. If that was rude, i don't mind your rudeness. > > Let's say, hypothetically, you find yourself in a position where you > have calculated your chance of winning (X%), and found that it's less > than reasonable (Y%) (X% < Y%). So, you wait for your turn, and you tap > your Succubus Club, and state you're giving all your pool and all your > minions to your best buddy. > > Other players cry foul and call the judge. The judge examines your > situation and says, "No can do. You still have a reasonable chance of > winning." > > You explain your calculations to the judge, but the judge disagrees. Do > you tell the judge he's in error? You are mixing some things up. if you have a less then reasonable chance of winning you still have to play for the highest number of VP's you can get. you cannot just give up/transfer out in that case. The situation where you cannot get more VP's then you have now, is also interesting, but not the issue in this case. W

ira...@yahoo.com (Ira) wrote in message news:<500e74e.04071...@posting.google.com>... > > Why? Let's say for sake of argument that LSJ says "reasonable chance" > > == "25%". How does that help? Is there some calculation you can run on > > the game state to say what someone's chance of winning is? > > Yes, the calculation goes like this: count all possible outcomes of > the game in which you get a GW. Then count all possible outcomes of > the game. Divide the two numbers, that that's your probability. some outcomes are more likely then others, so this is not exactly how it goes, but i agree with you that it is doable to get an approximation of your chance. > > I realize it's not actually possible to count the two (potentially > infinite) numbers above. Nonetheless, estimating probabilities is a > useful and necessary skill. It's a weak argument (IMO) to claim that > since we can't calculate the probabilities exactly, we shouldn't even > try estimating. agreed. > > Colin, if you look at a VTES game in its mid-game, you can make a > reasonable guess at who's going to win. You can assign probabilities > to various outcomes. They won't be perfect, but they'll be close, and > close is good enough and certainly better than nothing. > > Also, as a player, you know your deck, and can make an even better > estimation than a casual observer. As a judge, if you really want to > take the time, you can look through players' decks. I realize we're > not computers and giving a concrete number isn't actually that > concrete, but I personally think that some ballpark number is better > than nothing at all. > > Finally, on a larger scale, I believe our goal should be that all > judges make the same (correct) ruling given the same situation. I > realize that it's possible to have different rulings that are both > correct (because of differing definitions of the word "reasonable.") > I also realize it's not possible to have exactly the same situation. > Nonetheless, I personally strive to unify all judge's decision through > dialogue with LSJ and open communication of the rules. If other > people do not feel that it's a worthy goal to have judges make the > same decisions given the same input, then we have a fundamentally > different approach to these discussions. Amen. we should aim for the least ambiguous rules possible. W

"Ira" <ira...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:500e74e.04071...@posting.google.com... > Matt wrote: > > I can estimate if my chances are "reasonable" or not. > > How do you define reasonable? In the absence of a game-defined, English-overriding definition, the English is used. http://www.m-w.com You might also investigate "reasonable doubt", as used by US law. If you find that a universal (here used to mean "for all of US law jury cases) hard percentage number for that has been defined for US law, please cite the ruling, and maybe the V:EKN will add similar "help" to the V:EKN rules. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

Ira wrote: > *My* point is that as a regular judge (i.e. not LSJ), giving a number > for "reasonable" is better than being unable to define it in any way. Let's try another thought experiment that I hope illustrates my counter-point. Define "pornography". =) > 1) Player and judge discuss what is a "reasonable" chance > 2) Judge defining "reasonable" as 5%, and then player and judge > discuss whether or not the player has a 5% chance of winning. (or 2% > or 20% or whatever number the judge wants to pick.) > > I personally prefer the judge to define it as he wishes, and then > engage in the latter discussion, rather than the (IMO) more nebulous > first discussion. Granted, both discussions are necessarily nebulous, > I just prefer the latter. Honestly, I see no difference between the two discussions. At all. This may just be a fundamental disagreement between us, but two people arguing whether something is "reasonable" strikes me as exactly the same as two people arguing whether something is "X% likely". > How do you define reasonable? Counterpoint: How do you define "rich"? Or "short"? Or "heavy"? I use these words every day, but it is impossible to assign a concrete (numerical) meaning to any of them. > Unfortunately it's not that simple. First, the numbers shouldn't add > up to 100%, because there's some chance the game will time out (2hr > limit) or some other way that no one wins (2-2-1.) Also, say everyone > estimated 15% chance of winning, and then I won. Were the estimates > correct? They could all be entirely correct. Two points: 1) If everyone estimated their chances of winning at 15% (in a 5 player game), that totals 75%. Kinda off. Worse if everyone gives themselves a 50% chance to win. 2) What if someone's predictions fluctuate wildly? 25% on turn 3, 50% on turn 6, 10% on turn 9, etc? How useful are those predictions then? > Sure I can: I define a "reasonable" chance of winning as a 5% or > greater chance of winning. Fine. I'll play Derek's game with you. We roll a 20-sided die. If it comes up 1, I'll pay you $5. Otherwise, you pay me $1. You have a "reasonable" chance of winning at 5:1 odds! That's _fantastic_! > Have ten experienced judges observe a game from the beginning to turn > 10. At turn 10, have each observer estimate the chances of winning > for each player, as well as the chance the game will time-out or > otherwise have no winner. > > It doesn't really matter who wins, it just matters how close the > estimates are. > > If those numbers are close, then one could possibly conclude that > skilled judges would magically come up with estimates that are > similar, and therefore a global definition of "reasonable" would allow > more consistent rulings (without sacrificing flexibility among > judges.) And if the numbers aren't close? --Colin McGuigan

Wouter Kuyper wrote: > Colin McGuigan <magu...@BGONEspeakeasy.net> wrote in message news:<YNKdnQENxbK...@speakeasy.net>... >>Let's say, hypothetically, you find yourself in a position where you >>have calculated your chance of winning (X%), and found that it's less >>than reasonable (Y%) (X% < Y%). So, you wait for your turn, and you tap >>your Succubus Club, and state you're giving all your pool and all your >>minions to your best buddy. >> >>Other players cry foul and call the judge. The judge examines your >>situation and says, "No can do. You still have a reasonable chance of >>winning." >> >>You explain your calculations to the judge, but the judge disagrees. Do >>you tell the judge he's in error? > > You are mixing some things up. if you have a less then reasonable > chance of winning you still have to play for the highest number of > VP's you can get. you cannot just give up/transfer out in that case. > The situation where you cannot get more VP's then you have now, is > also interesting, but not the issue in this case. Pretend it is, because at the crux, the issue is: it doesn't matter whether you think it's reasonable or not, only the judge. All your calculations and knowledge of your deck and experience don't mean bumpkis compared to what the judge thinks. So even if you have the magical ability to figure out exactly your percentage of winning, it still wouldn't matter. --Colin McGuigan

Ira wrote: > > Colin, if you look at a VTES game in its mid-game, you can make a > reasonable guess at who's going to win. You can assign probabilities > to various outcomes. They won't be perfect, but they'll be close, and > close is good enough and certainly better than nothing. Close is not good enough if the outcome is tested to a fixed number. One judge would estimate 24%, another would estimate 28% (quite close, right? if not, use 26% for more closeness) With a fixed limit of 25%, the same situation would be within the rule for one estimation, and beyond the limit in anoter estimation. Not good enough, therefor. //Doc. -- "Wees jezelf, er zijn al zoveel anderen" - Loesje begin Your_MS_program_incorrectly_interprets_this_as_an_attachment.txt

Hey LSJ, > You might also investigate "reasonable doubt", as used by US law. If you want to use US law as an example, they employ case studies as a primary method of learning and debating. Thus far, you've been unwilling to provide many case studies, either crafted by yourself or by someone else. I unfortunately haven't had the opportunity to observe you as a judge, but I look forward to the possibility because of the vast learning potential it provides. If you or someone else would transcribe any of your recent real-life rulings on complicated issues that arise at tournaments, I think many people would benefit. IMO, the rules exist fundamentally to create a fair (and fun) game, and to allow judges across the world to make the same (correct) decisions in similar circumstances. I assert the following: 1) Providing illustrative case studies that focus on the definition of "reasonable chance" would allow judges across the world to make more consistent rulings. 1a) Achieving more consistent rulings is a desirable goal. 2) Providing a ballpark number for the definition of "reasonable chance" may possibly allow judges across the world to make more consistent rulings, and would not make the rulings less consistent. Ira

LSJ expounded: > "Ira" <ira...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:500e74e.04071...@posting.google.com... > > Matt wrote: > > > I can estimate if my chances are "reasonable" or not. > > > > How do you define reasonable? > > > In the absence of a game-defined, English-overriding definition, > the English is used. > > http://www.m-w.com > > You might also investigate "reasonable doubt", as used by US law. > If you find that a universal (here used to mean "for all of US law > jury cases) hard percentage number for that has been defined for > US law, please cite the ruling, and maybe the V:EKN will add similar > "help" to the V:EKN rules. The "reasonable" in "reasonable doubt" applies not to the size of the doubt but to whether or not it is reasonable to harbour it.

Hey Colin, > Counterpoint: How do you define "rich"? Or "short"? Or "heavy"? > I use these words every day, but it is impossible to assign a concrete > (numerical) meaning to any of them. I'm proposing that an approximate number is better than nothing at all. Even if you can't define those words exactly, you can come close. Also, within a context, those words become much easier to define. For instance, you could mathematically define a "short adult human male" as someone whose height is below one standard deviation of the mean adult human male height. For business and government and daily life, it's useful to be able to estimate, if not exactly define, what those words mean. > 1) If everyone estimated their chances of winning at 15% (in a 5 player > game), that totals 75%. Kinda off. That's not necessarily off - at least one quarter of my games end with no one winning. In fact, I'd say about half of my last 20 games have ended with no one winning. Then again, I always play with a two hour time limit, and I'm generally a slow player and willing to play with other slow players. :) > Worse if everyone gives themselves a 50% chance to win. Definitely agreed. :) > Fine. I'll play Derek's game with you. We roll a 20-sided die. If it > comes up 1, I'll pay you $5. Otherwise, you pay me $1. You're confusing the point. We use "reasonable chance" to determine the options available to a player at a given point in the game. I'm not saying I *want* to be in the situation where I have only a 5% chance to win; I'm saying that if I assess the situation and determine that I have a 5% chance to win, I would feel obligated to try to win. If I determine that I had only a 4.9999% chance to win, then I would not feel obligated to try to win, and I would allow myself different negotiating possibilities (like threatening to oust myself, or offering a 2-3 table split where I get the 2.) Obviously I am defining "reasonable" as 5%, and then using the magic black box to determine my chances. I'm proposing that if you forced people to use their own magic black box and generate a number, those numbers would end up being similar. Now that we're discussing this in depth, I really do want to try the experiment I proposed - it's quite possible that my assertion is totally wrong. :) I can understand why it may seem to you that arguing over 5% vs. 4.9999% is no different than arguing over "reasonable" vs. "not reasonable." Nonetheless, IMO, "5%" will produce more consistent rulings than "reasonable." Do you agree that consistent rulings are better rulings? This point is fundamental to my argument, but I think most people will agree with that particular point. > And if the numbers aren't close? Then we've lost nothing, and potentially disproved my assertion that specifying a number for "reasonable" would produce more consistent rulings. Ira

Timlagor wrote: > The "reasonable" in "reasonable doubt" applies not to the size of the > doubt but to whether or not it is reasonable to harbour it. Nice try, but it's the same thing. A doubt that is not reasonable to harbor is one that whose likelyhood is too small. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

Ira wrote: > I'm proposing that an approximate number is better than nothing at > all. > > Even if you can't define those words exactly, you can come close. > Also, within a context, those words become much easier to define. For > instance, you could mathematically define a "short adult human male" > as someone whose height is below one standard deviation of the mean > adult human male height. Mean for where? If you mean, "the entire planet", then you get a situation[1] where the average man in Japan is now "short". [1] Where I am, yes, incredibly stereotypical. > That's not necessarily off - at least one quarter of my games end > with no one winning. In fact, I'd say about half of my last 20 games > have ended with no one winning. Then again, I always play with a two > hour time limit, and I'm generally a slow player and willing to play > with other slow players. :) So, then, the situation is simply reversed -- if the numbers totalled 100%, they'd be off. Doesn't change things. > Do you agree that consistent rulings are better rulings? This point > is fundamental to my argument, but I think most people will agree with > that particular point. Consistent rulings are better. But giving a number will not make things any more consistent than they are now. --Colin McGuigan

> > I'm proposing that an approximate number is better than nothing at > > all. > > > > Even if you can't define those words exactly, you can come close. > > Also, within a context, those words become much easier to define. For > > instance, you could mathematically define a "short adult human male" > > as someone whose height is below one standard deviation of the mean > > adult human male height. > > Mean for where? If you mean, "the entire planet", then you get a > situation[1] where the average man in Japan is now "short". > And? According to stereotype, the average man in Japan IS short. Yes, local averages are important, but global averages are important too, and are often far easier to calculate.

> With a fixed limit of 25%, the same situation > would be within the rule for one estimation, > and beyond the limit in anoter estimation. I agree. Two judges can currently both rule differently and both rule correctly given the same situation. My proposal to provide a specific number for "reasonable" will not fully solve that issue. Then again, I do believe that it will improve the consistency of rulings in some cases, and make it no worse in the others. For those with an economic background, I'm trying to claim that it's a Pareto improvement. Of course, I could be wrong about that. :) Consider these possible percentages for "reasonable": 1% 5% 10% 20% I think each of those numbers have a very different feel. If people were forced to pick a number for "reasonable chance to win," we currently get a wide variety of (equally correct) answers. Hypothetically, if LSJ picked a number for "reasonable" I believe that judges would be able to rule more consistently. Even though we all know it's mathematically impossible to actually calculate the percentage chance of winning, people are still able to estimate a number. I'm proposing that given the same situation, skilled judges will estimate relatively similar numbers, and therefore have more consistent rulings, and therefore be better for the game. Then again, I don't actually expect LSJ to ever give a specific number for "reasonable," so I content myself by publicly announcing my definition of reasonable (5%), which is just as correct as anyone else's. :) Ira

Gregory Stuart Pettigrew wrote: > And? According to stereotype, the average man in Japan IS short. Yes, > local averages are important, but global averages are important too, and > are often far easier to calculate. Well, let's take bring this back to Jyhad. If in locale A, people in strong positions tend to do well, and in locale B, people in strong positions tend to get attacked by the table and thus do poorly, the exact same _game state_ in locale A and in locale B can produce entirely different results. So what is not a reasonable chance in locale A (if you are not in the strong position) may well be a reasonable chance in locale B. --Colin McGuigan

Colin McGuigan <magu...@BGONEspeakeasy.net> wrote in message news:<AoCdncFFH7J...@speakeasy.net>... > Ira wrote: > > *My* point is that as a regular judge (i.e. not LSJ), giving a number > > for "reasonable" is better than being unable to define it in any way. > > Let's try another thought experiment that I hope illustrates my > counter-point. Define "pornography". =) > > > 1) Player and judge discuss what is a "reasonable" chance > > 2) Judge defining "reasonable" as 5%, and then player and judge > > discuss whether or not the player has a 5% chance of winning. (or 2% > > or 20% or whatever number the judge wants to pick.) > > > > I personally prefer the judge to define it as he wishes, and then > > engage in the latter discussion, rather than the (IMO) more nebulous > > first discussion. Granted, both discussions are necessarily nebulous, > > I just prefer the latter. > > Honestly, I see no difference between the two discussions. At all. > This may just be a fundamental disagreement between us, but two people > arguing whether something is "reasonable" strikes me as exactly the same > as two people arguing whether something is "X% likely". > > > How do you define reasonable? > > Counterpoint: How do you define "rich"? Or "short"? Or "heavy"? > > I use these words every day, but it is impossible to assign a concrete > (numerical) meaning to any of them. I would also like to argue that when it comes to rules kind of things (like tax-laws for rich) these words are not used BECAUSE they are too easy interpreted in different ways. The "rules" for taxes don't say "when you are rich pay this amount of taxes" they say "when you earn x pay y%" W

Colin McGuigan <magu...@BGONEspeakeasy.net> wrote in message news:<AoCdncBFH7I...@speakeasy.net>... [ quoted text not captured ] In this case it is easier for a judge to say "no you stay in, and play your cards as good as you can". In the case of path a: 6%chance of the GW, 94%chance of 0VP path b: 99%chance loosing with 2 VP; 1% of 1VP you have to choose; if i were judge i would allow both paths, because i will not force you to play your cards in a different way. I think the game is more fun when everybody goes for the GW, and thus takes path a. I also think it is in the rules that you have to take path a. (because of my definition of reasonable). But i am not sure it is in the rules. (AND that is the whole point; i know the situation and i know the rules. the rules are saying something about the situation, but they are just not clear enough.) W

> > Do you agree that consistent rulings are better rulings? This point > > is fundamental to my argument, but I think most people will agree with > > that particular point. > > Consistent rulings are better. But giving a number will not make things > any more consistent than they are now. > Suppose i am judge; i am asked for advise when a deal is being made. 3-2. It is argued by others that the 2-VP-guy still has a reasonable chance to win. I look at the situation thoroughly and think his chances of winning are about 10-15%. I agree that his chances are reasonable and forbid the deal. Suppose you are judge; you are asked for advise when a deal is being made. 3-2. It is argued by others that the 2-VP-guy still has a reasonable chance to win. you look at the situation thoroughly and think his chances of winning are about 10-15%. you find his chances of winning are not reasonable and let them make the deal. same situation; same assessment; different rulings because of unclearness in the rules. Suppose there is a magic number say 5% (or 20% whatever). In the above situations our rulings will be the same. It won't help in all situations; assesments may differ per judge, but i agree with Ira that they won't differ a whole lot. Perhaps you think his chances are around the magic number; hell, flip a coin, or better yet, let them play; no interference is often better. But at least in some cases rulings have improved. W

"Wouter Kuyper" <Wouter...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:44a2da05.04072...@posting.google.com... > I would also like to argue that when it comes to rules kind of things > (like tax-laws for rich) these words are not used BECAUSE they are too > easy interpreted in different ways. The "rules" for taxes don't say > "when you are rich pay this amount of taxes" they say "when you earn x > pay y%" I've never heard anyone hold up the complexities and subsequent loop holes of tax law as a feature to be desired. Would you rather have a multi-volume set of tax law documents for V:EKN play-to-win judgments (the use of which still hinges on the judge's judgment, and makes judging harder or the system more prone to abuse by the letter lawyers who desire to take things out of context for personal gain), or a simple acknowledgment that the judge's judgment is to be used? [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ expounded: > Timlagor wrote: > > The "reasonable" in "reasonable doubt" applies not to the size of the > > doubt but to whether or not it is reasonable to harbour it. > > Nice try, but it's the same thing. > A doubt that is not reasonable to harbor is one that whose likelyhood is > too small. I disagree. A lot of people cast their votes in national elections purely on the basis of the personal appearance of the candidates. (even some apparenly intelligent voters) A juror might decide that the accused "looks innocent" -this would have nothing to do with numbers. That would be unreasonable.

"Timlagor" <TimSl...@yaMhoo.co.uk> wrote in message news:MPG.1b688cfc5...@news.eclipse.co.uk... [ quoted text not captured ] Nice try, but now you've changed the topic from "reasonable" in terms of describing a chance/likelyhood to "reasonable" in terms of describing rational behavior. "Reasonable doubt" doesn't refer to the jurors' misguided emotional responses. Please stay on topic. Further idle straying in the attempt to prop up the lost position will be silently ignored. [ quoted text not captured ]

Ira wrote: > I'm proposing that given the same situation, > skilled judges will estimate relatively similar numbers, and therefore > have more consistent rulings, and therefore be better for the game. And I'm saying there are factors in the game you simply cannot calculate. The metagame, the negotiations, convincing someone to block something or to let that small bleed through so someone does not keep the edge. You cannot calculate these. Let the players play their game as they see fit. Someone who is blatantl;y obvious in helping someone can be recognized. And if they are clever about it so noone noticed, well good for them, they were goood at what they do. I'd probably disallow all deals and tell people to play the game faster! And as a matter of fact, I think any exact number for the percentage will actually result in less consistency, since all judges will weigh different factors differently. You expect all judges to know about every possibe strategy and every possible level of psychological warfare possible, and thus make exactly the same assesment. I think that given the exact same situation you will be hard pressed to find any 2 judges giving you the exact same percentage. And like I said. problems will arise in the borderline cases, where one judge judges the game to be on one site of the border and another judges it to be on the other side. You may as wll leave it to the judge completely, since he can simply judge the way he likes anyway. Just name a percentage on the side of the border that you want to rule. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Ira" <ira...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:500e74e.04072...@posting.google.com... > I'm proposing that given the same situation, > skilled judges will estimate relatively similar numbers, This assumption seems flawed. At the very least, it is not a "goes without saying" sort of thing. That assumption is the cornerstone of your argument, so is fairly crucial for you to validate. [ quoted text not captured ]

Hey Colin, > Consistent rulings are better. OK, we agree. > But giving a number will not make things > any more consistent than they are now. What if we ran my proposed experiment a bunch of times, and it showed that skilled players would indeed come up with similar estimated chances of winning given the same situation? If such an experiment did show that, then are you open to the possibility that providing a number for "reasonable" may increase consistency? I'm not suggesting that it would fix everything, I'm suggesting that it might improve things a little. On the other hand, do you see any *harm* in providing a number? I suspect Bad Things(tm) may happen, but I don't see what they are. LSJ is pretty much always right, and since he's unwilling to provide a number, I assume there is a good reason I don't yet understand. LSJ, do you think providing a specific number for "reasonable chance" would do no good, do some harm, both, or neither? Then again, maybe you are unwilling to provide a number because you think it's mathematically ridiculous and illogical to provide a number. If that's the only thing holding you back, and you agree that consistent rulings are better, and that providing a number may possibly increase consistency with no negative consequences, then I think you should force yourself to use your magical black box and come up with a number; that's what many of us do, and while it may not be a definable or purely logical process, it's still a process that can and does occur. Ira

"Ira" <ira...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:500e74e.04072...@posting.google.com... > LSJ, do you think providing a specific number for "reasonable chance" > would do no good, do some harm, both, or neither? Then again, maybe In that it may provide ammunition (resources, leverage) for players who wish to cheat, it would do some harm. > you are unwilling to provide a number because you think it's > mathematically ridiculous and illogical to provide a number. That, too. "Reasonable" is reasonable. It is not a fixed probability to be applied blindly to all cases. Results of failure (and the disparity of such results between various choices) should be factored in, for example. In short, it's a judgment call. [ quoted text not captured ]

Ira wrote: > What if we ran my proposed experiment a bunch of times, and it showed > that skilled players would indeed come up with similar estimated > chances of winning given the same situation? And what if it didn't? Do your experiment and report back with the results, and I may change my mind. But, until then, just talking about it isn't really going to have much effect on me. > If such an experiment did show that, then are you open to the > possibility that providing a number for "reasonable" may increase > consistency? I'm not suggesting that it would fix everything, I'm > suggesting that it might improve things a little. Sure. And if it showed the opposite, would you back down likewise? > On the other hand, do you see any *harm* in providing a number? I > suspect Bad Things(tm) may happen, but I don't see what they are. LSJ > is pretty much always right, and since he's unwilling to provide a > number, I assume there is a good reason I don't yet understand. The harm I could see is that people who are willing to be flexible for "reasonable" will become ornery vicious bastards for "25%". And I also, to repeat myself, see no benefit. Run your experiment and prove me wrong. --Colin McGuigan

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:<2m73enF...@uni-berlin.de>... > "Wouter Kuyper" <Wouter...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:44a2da05.04072...@posting.google.com... > > I would also like to argue that when it comes to rules kind of things > > (like tax-laws for rich) these words are not used BECAUSE they are too > > easy interpreted in different ways. The "rules" for taxes don't say > > "when you are rich pay this amount of taxes" they say "when you earn x > > pay y%" > > > I've never heard anyone hold up the complexities and subsequent loop holes > of tax law as a feature to be desired. Would you rather have a multi-volume > set of tax law documents for V:EKN play-to-win judgments (the use of which > still hinges on the judge's judgment, and makes judging harder or the system > more prone to abuse by the letter lawyers who desire to take things out of > context for personal gain), or a simple acknowledgment that the judge's > judgment is to be used? I doubt that we would need "a multi-volume set of tax law documents". but if you are more comfortable with one of the other examples Colin gave: height. "you are only allowed to ride the bumbingcars at the yearly fair if you are tall enough" or you are only allowed to ride the bumpingcars at the fair when taller then 1m50. (don't know if you know this bumbingcars thing, but you can insert anything that children cannot do because of there height). And as i said, i think it is not my intention to give judges the option of playing ones cards, it is just meant as a rule that players themselves can follow. W

LSJ expounded: > Nice try, but now you've changed the topic from "reasonable" in terms > of describing a chance/likelyhood to "reasonable" in terms of > describing rational behavior. "Reasonable doubt" doesn't refer to the > jurors' misguided emotional responses. Thank you for making the distinction in definitions so clear. I've never heard of it but I doubt it would be wrong: The 'Lectric Law Library's Lexicon On REASONABLE DOUBT - The level of certainty a juror must have to find a defendant guilty of a crime. A real doubt, based upon reason and common sense after careful and impartial consideration of all the evidence, or lack of evidence, in a case. "based upon reason and common sense" "real doubt" not "significant doubt" not "considerable doubt" not substantial doubt".

"Timlagor" <TimSl...@yaMhoo.co.uk> wrote in message news:MPG.1b69c3f4c...@news.eclipse.co.uk... [ quoted text not captured ] The "level", yes. The amount. The size of the likelyhood (based upon a reasonable, impartial person's judgment, of course). [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ expounded: > That, too. "Reasonable" is reasonable. It is not a fixed probability > to be applied blindly to all cases. Results of failure (and the disparity > of such results between various choices) should be factored in, for > example. Aha! So you are allowed to give weight to the Vp you will get if you don't win?

"Timlagor" <TimSl...@yaMhoo.co.uk> wrote in message news:MPG.1b69c6dff...@news.eclipse.co.uk... [ quoted text not captured ] The judge is allowed to give weight to anything within reason, by definition, yes. [ quoted text not captured ]

Wouter Kuyper wrote: > I doubt that we would need "a multi-volume set of tax law documents". > but if you are more comfortable with one of the other examples Colin > gave: > height. "you are only allowed to ride the bumbingcars at the yearly > fair if you are tall enough" or you are only allowed to ride the > bumpingcars at the fair when taller then 1m50. > (don't know if you know this bumbingcars thing, but you can insert > anything that children cannot do because of there height). You realize, of course, that the "You must be this tall to ride," rules are unfair, and only used for their simplicity? As a safety device, they are set _well_ within the "safe" range, so there is a group of children who are actually within the "safe" range, but not within the "very safe" range set by the sign, who are not allowed to ride. --Colin McGuigan

> > I'm proposing that given the same situation, > > skilled judges will estimate relatively similar numbers, > > This assumption seems flawed. At the very least, it is not a > "goes without saying" sort of thing. That assumption is the > cornerstone of your argument, so is fairly crucial for you to > validate. Yes, as you and Colin have both pointed out, my argument does rest heavily on this assumption. I will attempt to validate it at my earliest opportunity. Unfortunately, that may be a long time from now. I rarely find 15 V:TES players in the same place, with 10 of them who are willing to observe a game. Also, "relatively similar numbers," is a bit difficult to define, though certain statistics can probably address that. Then again, all I really want to show is that picking a specific number for "reasonable chance" will provide more consistent rulings than leaving it as simply "reasonable chance." If I run the experiment, I should also have the observers note whether or not each player has a reasonable chance along with the percentages. Ira

Hey LSJ, > In that it may provide ammunition (resources, leverage) for > players who wish to cheat, it would do some harm. I don't understand how it provides any ammunition. Could you give an example? It seems to me that the effect would be shifting the player's argument from "I don't have a reasonable chance," to "I don't have a 5% chance," and in both cases the judge's judgement is required and used. The theoretical benefit of the latter is more consistent rulings.* * This assumption will be validated or invalidated later. For the sake of this discussion, let's just assume it. I realize that's a big assuption. > "Reasonable" is reasonable. haha. > It is not a fixed probability Oh. Right. I knew this at one point, and apparently forgot it. OK, so I guess what I'm really suggesting is an approximate number for "reasonable," not a specific definition. Your last point is so significant that it deserves a new thread, which I will start in a moment. Ira

Colin McGuigan <magu...@BGONEspeakeasy.net> wrote in message news:<08OdnW8ys4b...@speakeasy.net>... [ quoted text not captured ] i would be happy with a "safe" or "very safe" number. It will still be up to the judge to decide probably. Perhaps my troubles just lie in the fact that i am not english speaking, and my system doesn't know how to react when it reads "reasonable". I don't know, i am tired, will get some sleep, CU, W

Hey All, Buried within the Origins 2004 Tournament Reports thread, LSJ is endulging me in a play-to-win discussion. He recently made a point that was new and profound to me. Furthermore, it's my perception (perhaps totally inaccurate) that many people are not aware of the following consideration. LSJ wrote: > "Reasonable" is reasonable. It is not a fixed probability > to be applied blindly to all cases. Results of failure > (and the disparity of such results between various choices) > should be factored in, for example. That last sentence is key - the results of failure should be considered within "reasonable chance to win!" LSJ, could you elaborate on that point? I don't understand how my chance to win becomes more or less reasonable based on the consequences of failure. Clearly I'm thinking about this the wrong way. I would greatly appreciate it if you could clarify what's wrong with this line of thinking: 1) At every point in the game, I have some (impossible-to-calculate) chance that I will win. 2) The consequences of failing to win do not influence my chance to win. If the results of failure don't affect my actual chance of winning, how do they affect whether or not that chance is reasonable? Perhaps because the whole "play to win" rule comes from the sportsmanship rules (2.3 in the tournament rules), the consequences of failure can be considered in making sportsmanlike decisions? Ira, who is attempting to understand the play-to-win rules.

Hey Colin, > Sure. And if it showed the opposite, would you back down likewise? Sure, though I may later (or at the same time) attempt to demonstrate that picking an approximate number will result in more consistent rulings than simply leaving it as "reasonable," in which case I think my point would also be proven. Then again, I think it'll be difficult to demonstrate either of those points. :) > The harm I could see is that people who are willing to be flexible for > "reasonable" will become ornery vicious bastards for "25%". Interesting. I don't know enough about pyschology to debate that difference. Of course, picking "25%" as a ballpark for "reasonable" doesn't make much sense, but I understand your point. Ira

Ira wrote: > LSJ wrote: >>"Reasonable" is reasonable. It is not a fixed probability >>to be applied blindly to all cases. Results of failure >>(and the disparity of such results between various choices) >>should be factored in, for example. > > That last sentence is key - the results of failure should be > considered within "reasonable chance to win!" > > LSJ, could you elaborate on that point? I don't understand how my > chance to win becomes more or less reasonable based on the > consequences of failure. Risk analysis. If you have a X% chance of getting the GW if you do <thing Y>, should you? If the other (100-X)% is entirely composed of game ends with you getting 0 VPs, the answer may be different than if the other (100-X)% is half you sharing a 2-2-1 win and half you roping a 3-2 second place finish. > Clearly I'm thinking about this the wrong way. I would greatly > appreciate it if you could clarify what's wrong with this line of > thinking: > > 1) At every point in the game, I have some (impossible-to-calculate) > chance that I will win. > > 2) The consequences of failing to win do not influence my chance to > win. > > If the results of failure don't affect my actual chance of winning, > how do they affect whether or not that chance is reasonable? It determines if path X is a reasonable path to victory. > Perhaps because the whole "play to win" rule comes from the > sportsmanship rules (2.3 in the tournament rules), the consequences of > failure can be considered in making sportsmanlike decisions? > > Ira, who is attempting to understand the play-to-win rules. [ quoted text not captured ]

Hey LSJ, Thanks for the clarifications. Given this new information (at least new to me), I no longer see any way to pick even a ballpark number for "reasonable chance." It simply doesn't make sense - you're not comparing your chance of winning to a given number, you're doing risk analysis on the outcome of the game. I greatly appreciate your patience! Ira, who sometimes feels really slow.

ira...@yahoo.com (Ira) wrote in message news:<500e74e.04072...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] I don't understand the point yet, Colin, could you explain a bit? W

LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:<sGYLc.305861$Gx4.1...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>... [ quoted text not captured ] If you are not willing to put a number on reasonable, would you consider this for rules: (i think it gets close to what you wrote above) Playing to Win. Every player has to play to get a Gamewin. If at some point in the game the player has to make a choice whether to take a path that might lead to a GW, but has a low estimated value of VP's he is free to take the path that he thinks has a higher estimated value of VP's. W

Wouter Kuyper wrote: > If you are not willing to put a number on reasonable, would you > consider this for rules: > > (i think it gets close to what you wrote above) > > Playing to Win. > Every player has to play to get a Gamewin. > If at some point in the game the player has to make a choice whether > to take a path that might lead to a GW, but has a low estimated value > of VP's he is free to take the path that he thinks has a higher > estimated value of VP's. Everyone has to play to win (GW). Players who do not have a reasonable chance at a GW must attempt to maximize their VPs (as reasonably possible). Where "reasonable/y" involves risk analysis. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 00:08:56 GMT, LSJ wrote: >Risk analysis. > >If you have a X% chance of getting the GW if you do <thing Y>, >should you? > >If the other (100-X)% is entirely composed of game ends with you >getting 0 VPs, the answer may be different than if the other >(100-X)% is half you sharing a 2-2-1 win and half you roping >a 3-2 second place finish. This thinking is the antithesis of play-to-win. Supposing I'm in a game with top players like Ben Peal, say. I might reasonably conclude at the outset that my best chance of getting something out of the game would be to accept the small end of a 3-2 table split. If those 2 VPs are worth something - a better chance of making the finals or a prize for placing - then I have a good rational reason to play for second. But this wouldn't be playing to win - it would be playing for second place. So, you either have a strong play-to-win rule which is worthy of the name or you have table splitting. It appears that you want the latter. Andrew

Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: > [Risk analysis] is the antithesis of play-to-win. Supposing I'm in a > game with top players like Ben Peal, say. I might reasonably conclude > at the outset that my best chance of getting something out of the game > would be to accept the small end of a 3-2 table split. If those 2 VPs > are worth something - a better chance of making the finals or a prize > for placing - then I have a good rational reason to play for second. > But this wouldn't be playing to win - it would be playing for second > place. Come on, Andrew. You know better than this. You say that risk analysis "is the antithesis of play-to-win" and then you give an example where you are, by definition, playing-to-LOSE, and this is supposed to somehow support your position?!? > So, you either have a strong play-to-win rule which is worthy of the > name or you have table splitting. It appears that you want the > latter. <sigh> Resolve your contradictory analysis first, THEN you can come to us with a play-to-win problem. > Andrew 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

On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 03:49:20 -0700, Kevin M. wrote: >Come on, Andrew. You know better than this. I do indeed - it's called Shadowfist :) In that multiplayer game, the issue of playing to win scarcely arises. Even when there is a nominal second place, players will strive to win and there's no need to call a judge to make them do so. Having seen a real play-to-win environment, the inadequacy of what's being suggested here is blatant. >You say that risk analysis "is the antithesis of play-to-win" and then you >give an example where you are, by definition, playing-to-LOSE, and this is >supposed to somehow support your position?!? As I understand LSJ, he's saying that I'm allowed to play to lose in VEKN events provided that my risk analysis indicates that losing will give me the best expected payoff in VPs, boosters or whatever. I reckon that I can often make that calculation on the first turn. This undermines the essential structure of the game which relies upon players making some sporting effort to be the winner. The game then collapses into competitive arbitrage and cliquish deal-making. Bleah! Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:o6o1g0d5aoas74gq2...@4ax.com... > So, you either have a strong play-to-win rule which is worthy of the > name or you have table splitting. It appears that you want the > latter. Only to you. I consistently and repeatedly side with the former. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <5vt1g05ce07ncniid...@4ax.com>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> mumbled something about: >On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 03:49:20 -0700, Kevin M. wrote: > >>Come on, Andrew. You know better than this. > >I do indeed - it's called Shadowfist :) In that multiplayer game, the >issue of playing to win scarcely arises. Even when there is a nominal That sounds like a boring game then. I like to try to win. >As I understand LSJ, he's saying that I'm allowed to play to lose in >VEKN events provided that my risk analysis indicates that losing will No, provided that both yours AND the judge's risk analysis indicate so. Devil's in the details, Andy. Got to pay attention! >give me the best expected payoff in VPs, boosters or whatever. I >reckon that I can often make that calculation on the first turn. This And as a judge, I reckon that you're wrong. I rule that you need to play your deck and see how the cards fall. Obey or be DQed and leave with ZERO VPs, boosters, and whatever. The rule itself doesn't need teeth; the judges are the ones who will make all the difference. -- 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

Wouter Kuyper wrote: > I don't understand the point yet, Colin, could you explain a bit? Er, which point? The "vicious, ornery bastards" point? Simply, the more rules you put down, the greater chance that someone is going to argue with the judge. If you say something is the judge's call, there's no room to argue with it. But if you put down a number -- even if its a meaningless number that can't be calculated -- you're suddenly giving problem players a position to argue from. If you, eg, say that "reasonable" == "25%", the problem player can now sit and attempt to argue that their chance of winning is only 24.99%, and thus they should be allowed to do whatever it was they wanted to do. In role playing games, they're known as "rules lawyers". --Colin McGuigan

Wouter Kuyper wrote: > If you are not willing to put a number on reasonable, would you > consider this for rules: How could you possibly assign a quantifyable number to "how likely am I to win"? People keep asking for a percentage as a cutoff or something. Which strikes me as completely absurd. Even if someone arbitrarily decided that "A 20% chance of winning is a reasonable as you need to have to try and win the game" or something, how do you determine if you have a 20% chance of winning? Really? In a game of, say, poker, you can look at everyone's hand, look at the flop, look at all the discarded cards, and determine the exact percentage chance of a given player drawing into a win. In that situation, you can say "Well, player X has a 62.5% chance of winning this hand" and be accurate. VTES does not work like this. There is no way to determine legitimate odds of winning. There are simply too many variables, many of which have nothing to do with "odds". Playing to win means "Play the game and try your best to win". > Playing to Win. > Every player has to play to get a Gamewin. > If at some point in the game the player has to make a choice whether > to take a path that might lead to a GW, but has a low estimated value > of VP's he is free to take the path that he thinks has a higher > estimated value of VP's. It means that given the choice between "Playing for a game win" and "Playing for a not game win", the player should go for the game win, if he feels he has a reasonable chance to do so. If given a choice between "Playing for a game win" and "Playing for a game win with fewer VPs than the first option", he can do whichever makes him happy. If given the choice between "playing for a game win that you have no significnat chance of getting, based on, primarily, guesswork" or "choosing the form of your destruction", you can go with either. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6 "Mr. President, ask not what your rest home can do for you. Ask what you can do for your rest home." -Elvis

Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > I do indeed - it's called Shadowfist :) In that multiplayer game, the > issue of playing to win scarcely arises. Very true--but then Shadowfist suffers horribly (in a competetive situation) from not having any reasonable way of determining second place, or whatever. Shadowfist is really good at encouraging folks to try and win, as there *isn't* a second place finisher, in any realistic sense. Which is good in some ways (as it encourages really, truly, playing to win, and provides considerable disincentive to helping other people win) but in other ways (i.e. trying to structure a tournament play system that gives a value to second/third/fourth place to make a seeding system in a multi round event work) it fails in ways that VTES succeeds wildly. I suppose it just comes down to what you want in a game :-) > As I understand LSJ, he's saying that I'm allowed to play to lose in > VEKN events provided that my risk analysis indicates that losing will > give me the best expected payoff in VPs, boosters or whatever. I > reckon that I can often make that calculation on the first turn. This > undermines the essential structure of the game which relies upon > players making some sporting effort to be the winner. The game then > collapses into competitive arbitrage and cliquish deal-making. Bleah! I suppose if you really wanted to, then yeah, there is some argument to be made for this. And this whole, incredibly lengthy "play to win" discussion (which strikes me as completely absurd, really) would go a long way to convincing people of this point. But in practice, I really don't think that it is that much of an issue, currently, in competetive VTES play. I occasionally see deal making happen, but I can't remember the last game I was in that had a significant deal get made that wasn't likely to happen anyway (granted, it is certainly possible that my views are skewed, as when any sort of lengthy deal making discussion starts in any game I'm in, I'll start suggesting loudly "kill your prey!" until the game is back on...). And I can't remember seeing a situation where someone who was in a "likely to win" position give that position up for a "second place" position due to deals being made. I suspect it happens some times, but not that often. Probably about as often as someone "accidentally" helps someone else win a game of Shadowfist :-) [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > That sounds like a boring game then. I like to try to win. I think you misunderstood (or, ya know, were being snarky :-)--Andrew meant that in Shadowfist, you never have to remind anyone to "play to win" and there is no meta discussion about when it is or is not appropriate to "play to win", as in Shadowfist, there is no measurable second place. Either you win, or you don't. So everyone is (theoretically) *always* playing to win, and you have zero incentive to make deals and help other people win, as second place isn't any better than 4th place, really. But as I mentioned elsewhere, this makes tournament seeding and prize awarding very difficult--because there is no realistic way to establish "second place" or whatever, it makes multi round tournaments kind of wacky. Shadowfist has tried multiple different tournament systems for valuing second thru fourth place, and they are still yet to come up with a solid system. But as opposed to VTES, they have *never* had trouble with getting people to "play to win". [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:<t_4Mc.126271$OB3....@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>... > Wouter Kuyper wrote: > > If you are not willing to put a number on reasonable, would you > > consider this for rules: > > > > (i think it gets close to what you wrote above) > > > > Playing to Win. > > Every player has to play to get a Gamewin. > > If at some point in the game the player has to make a choice whether > > to take a path that might lead to a GW, but has a lower estimated value > > of VP's he is free to take the path that he thinks has a higher > > estimated value of VP's. > > Everyone has to play to win (GW). > Players who do not have a reasonable chance at a GW must attempt > to maximize their VPs (as reasonably possible). > > Where "reasonable/y" involves risk analysis. Fine. Does my interpretation (see above) cover the same options and outcomes? I mean, could there be different outcomes of situations if my interpretation were used? Because if that is not the case, i think i am getting to understand "reasonable", and am perfectly happy with it. If my interpretation doesn't cover all options and gives the same outcomes, could you point me to that? perhaps with examples? W

just an example that comes to mind: A - 1 vp B - 1 vp C - 0 vp a) A could easily oust B, but then C would easily oust A. - A would get 2 vp's. and no game win. C would get 2 vp's and no game win. b) A could also wait for B to oust C, which could happen, but is far from certain. A would then have to oust B to get 3 vp's and a game win, and how that would go is very difficult to predict and B thinks that this is unlikely to go his way. - A could possibly get 3 vp's and a game win - A could also get 1 vp and no game win. C would get 3 vp's and a game win. to summarise: a) will not lead to a game win, but is almost certain. b) is very unpredictable and seems to be unlikely to succeed but could possibly lead to a game win. the penalty for failing in b) is 1 vp. the gain for succedeing in b) is 1 vp and a game win. IMO: in this case it would be entirely up to B to decide whether to go for a) or b), depending on how much risk he is willing to take.

On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 09:34:47 -0400, Peter D Bakija wrote: >But as I mentioned elsewhere, this makes tournament seeding and prize >awarding very difficult--because there is no realistic way to establish >"second place" or whatever, it makes multi round tournaments kind of wacky. >Shadowfist has tried multiple different tournament systems for valuing >second thru fourth place, and they are still yet to come up with a solid >system. The Daedalus system was double-elimination rather than Swiss and that's what I've always used. Its only weakness was the need for tie-break when a game goes to time and there isn't a good natural tie-break in that game. I got round that by allowing enough time for most games to finish properly. And to help that happen I now provide some incentive for players to play quickly - a booster for the fastest player in each round, for example. Z-Man has a Swiss system which does give a game score to every player in the game, not just the winner, and this is commonly used in their events. I don't like it because it provides an incentive for players to make table-splitting deals of the VEKN kind. But what's interesting is that, with few exceptions, this just doesn't happen. It appears that the games have developed two different cultures. VTES players have become accustomed to playing for VPs rather than wins and making deals to squeeze out an extra VP in a game. They have now have trouble accepting or even understanding the idea that you're supposed to play to win. While Shadowfist players are used to playing purely for the victory and the idea of making a compromise deal is so alien to them that they don't even consider it. But this is a generalisation which depends upon the players and the local etiquette so YMMV, of course. Andrew

"Wouter Kuyper" <Wouter...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:44a2da05.04072...@posting.google.com... > LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:<t_4Mc.126271$OB3....@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>... > > Wouter Kuyper wrote: > > > If you are not willing to put a number on reasonable, would you > > > consider this for rules: > > > > > > (i think it gets close to what you wrote above) > > > > > > Playing to Win. > > > Every player has to play to get a Gamewin. > > > If at some point in the game the player has to make a choice whether > > > to take a path that might lead to a GW, but has a lower estimated value > > > of VP's he is free to take the path that he thinks has a higher > > > estimated value of VP's. > > > > Everyone has to play to win (GW). > > Players who do not have a reasonable chance at a GW must attempt > > to maximize their VPs (as reasonably possible). > > > > Where "reasonable/y" involves risk analysis. > > Fine. Does my interpretation (see above) cover the same options and > outcomes? I'm not at liberty to take the time required for a full analysis of all the different possible phrasologies and situations at this time, sorry. If it does, OK. If it doesn't, use mine. Either way, using mine will work, so let's just keep it simple. [ quoted text not captured ]

Hey LSJ, In thinking more about what Andrew wrote, I see how table splitting deals are facilitated by the ability to consider what happens if you fail to get a GW. LSJ wrote: > If you have a X% chance of getting the GW if you do <thing Y>, > should you? > > If the other (100-X)% is entirely composed of game ends with you > getting 0 VPs, the answer may be different than if the other > (100-X)% is half you sharing a 2-2-1 win and half you roping > a 3-2 second place finish. You write, "the answer **may** be different." In actual practice, is the answer ever different? I'm trying to understand how much weight I should give the failure results. If I give great (any?) weight to it, then I see Andrew's point clearly and table splits would be more possible. If I give no weight to it, then I'm not really considering the failure results as you said we should. I realize you can't give any numbers, so I guess what I'm really hoping for is an illustrative case study where the consequences of failure swayed the Judge's play-to-win ruling. Thanks, Ira

"Ira" <ira...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:500e74e.04072...@posting.google.com... > LSJ wrote: > > If you have a X% chance of getting the GW if you do <thing Y>, > > should you? > > > > If the other (100-X)% is entirely composed of game ends with you > > getting 0 VPs, the answer may be different than if the other > > (100-X)% is half you sharing a 2-2-1 win and half you roping > > a 3-2 second place finish. > > You write, "the answer **may** be different." In actual practice, is > the answer ever different? Of course. Why risk 2VPs on a infinitessimal chance at a GW? Why not risk nothing on a healthy chance at a GW? Then you simply move those two together until you find the line that separates them. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <BD268C37.1864E%pd...@lightlink.com>, Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> mumbled something about: >Derek Ray wrote: > >> That sounds like a boring game then. I like to try to win. > >I think you misunderstood (or, ya know, were being snarky :-)--Andrew meant I'm big on snarky, especially where people are clearly trying to restart a holy war in order to distract from the real topic. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ expounded: > "Timlagor" <TimSl...@yaMhoo.co.uk> wrote in message news:MPG.1b69c6dff...@news.eclipse.co.uk... > > LSJ expounded: > > > That, too. "Reasonable" is reasonable. It is not a fixed probability > > > to be applied blindly to all cases. Results of failure (and the disparity > > > of such results between various choices) should be factored in, for > > > example. > > > > Aha! So you are allowed to give weight to the Vp you will get if you > > don't win? > > The judge is allowed to give weight to anything within reason, > by definition, yes. You have just said that people can play for tournament victory.

Derek Ray wrote: > I'm big on snarky, especially where people are clearly trying to restart > a holy war in order to distract from the real topic. Yeah, I figured :-) [ quoted text not captured ]

Timlagor wrote: > LSJ expounded: >>The judge is allowed to give weight to anything within reason, >>by definition, yes. > > You have just said that people can play for tournament victory. That one doesn't even rate a "nice, try", sorry. [ quoted text not captured ]

Kevin M. wrote: > Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: > > [Risk analysis] is the antithesis of play-to-win. Supposing I'm in a > > game with top players like Ben Peal, say. I might reasonably conclude > > at the outset that my best chance of getting something out of the game > > would be to accept the small end of a 3-2 table split. If those 2 VPs > > are worth something - a better chance of making the finals or a prize > > for placing - then I have a good rational reason to play for second. > > But this wouldn't be playing to win - it would be playing for second > > place. > > Come on, Andrew. You know better than this. > > You say that risk analysis "is the antithesis of play-to-win" and then you > give an example where you are, by definition, playing-to-LOSE, and this is > supposed to somehow support your position?!? Dude, shut up. You're ruining EVERYTHING. - Ben Peal fu...@mindstorm.com

In message <bf72a12e.04072...@posting.google.com>, fu...@optical.mindstorm.com (Ben Peal) mumbled something about: >Kevin M. wrote: >> Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >> > [Risk analysis] is the antithesis of play-to-win. Supposing I'm in a >> > game with top players like Ben Peal, say. I might reasonably conclude >> > at the outset that my best chance of getting something out of the game >> > would be to accept the small end of a 3-2 table split. If those 2 VPs >> >> You say that risk analysis "is the antithesis of play-to-win" and then you >> give an example where you are, by definition, playing-to-LOSE, and this is >> supposed to somehow support your position?!? > > Dude, shut up. You're ruining EVERYTHING. "Saddened that people have seen through his nefarious scheme, Ben retires to his Fortress of Solitude and begins concocting a NEW plan to Take Over the V:TES World." [ quoted text not captured ]

Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > Z-Man has a Swiss system which does give a game score to every player > in the game, not just the winner, and this is commonly used in their > events. I don't like it because it provides an incentive for players > to make table-splitting deals of the VEKN kind. But what's > interesting is that, with few exceptions, this just doesn't happen. Yeah--it is the Z-Man system that is sketchy, and has gone through many different changes and incarnations if I recall correctly. While there are points for "second place" (which is a sketchy distinction, at best), there still seems only *very* limited incentive to help someone win intentionally so as to get second place. > > It appears that the games have developed two different cultures. VTES > players have become accustomed to playing for VPs rather than wins and > making deals to squeeze out an extra VP in a game. They have now have > trouble accepting or even understanding the idea that you're supposed > to play to win. Again, I don't really think this is as big of an issue as it appears--the endless, endless discussions of late about "playing to win" and what that means and when can you not play to win and whatever regardless, I really don't think (nor have I seen in my experience) that table splitting deals come up often, let alone even occasionally. The vast majority of the time, people who are winning or are likely to win continue to win, and people who are very unlikely to win will wheedle and scheme to get a single VP instead of zero, or 2 VPs instead of 1. But only very, very rarely, (internet conversation be damned) to people try to give up a viably winning position for a certain losing position. >While Shadowfist players are used to playing purely > for the victory and the idea of making a compromise deal is so alien > to them that they don't even consider it. 'Cause compromise deals in Shadowfist don't do you any good, even with the Z-Man system, really. Coming in second is certainly better than coming in 4th, sure, but not by much, and rarely will there ever be incentive to help someone else win. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:<t_4Mc.126271$OB3....@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>... > Wouter Kuyper wrote: > > If you are not willing to put a number on reasonable, would you > > consider this for rules: > > > > (i think it gets close to what you wrote above) > > > > Playing to Win. > > Every player has to play to get a Gamewin. > > If at some point in the game the player has to make a choice whether > > to take a path that might lead to a GW, but has a low estimated value > > of VP's he is free to take the path that he thinks has a higher > > estimated value of VP's. > > Everyone has to play to win (GW). > Players who do not have a reasonable chance at a GW must attempt > to maximize their VPs (as reasonably possible). > > Where "reasonable/y" involves risk analysis. It looks to me like the problem lies in the proclamation requiring the maximization of VP's. If one looks just at the single game, you either 1)win, 2)lose, or 3)do not win. The only win is getting the Game Win. At a table where a player gets a game win, everyone else loses. But, at a table where no one gets a game win, then no one wins and no one loses. 'Winning' is better than 'not winning' is better than 'losing'. Therefore, for single game considerations, if you are left with only the choice of A) 'losing', or B) 'not winning'; then 'not winning' is the superior outcome. You are then free to make a choice which denies someone the Game Win, at the expense of any additional victory points you may get. Example: If you allow someone to withdraw, and they get 2 vp and you get 1.5vp. Outcome: they win, and you lose. If you do not allow them to withdraw, they get 1.5vp and you get 0.5vp. Outcome: no one wins.

[ quoted text not captured ] Well, maybe next year, if LSJ is able to attend Origins, I can give him a free badge in return for promising to debate Andrew S. Davidson in front of a live audience. I could make up the difference by videotaping it and selling it to VTES players across the world. Actually, we have enough VTES luminaries at Origins to do this as a round-table discussion format. Imagine, asking 10 rules/ethics questions of the following players: LSJ Ben Peal Josh Duffin Trey Morita Peter Bakija Noal McDonald Bernie Bresnahan David McCarty Matt Flint John Bell Jay Kristoff Xian The Strait Brothers The Tatus Matt Heslin Cameron Domer Dave Buerger (had to throw my Madison crew in there :) We're talking serious information gathering, here! We could even add Chad Brown and Steve Wieck for good measure. I could sell the tape for a million billion dollars! I'd have to bury it in a time vault, to be opened only after Group 6 hits. Derek Ray and the LA crew might even show up for this! hehee;) > - Ben Peal > fu...@mindstorm.com [ quoted text not captured ]

Kevin M. wrote: > Actually, we have enough VTES luminaries at Origins to do this as a > round-table discussion format. Imagine, asking 10 rules/ethics questions > of the following players: > > LSJ > Ben Peal > Josh Duffin > Trey Morita > Peter Bakija > Noal McDonald > Bernie Bresnahan > David McCarty > Matt Flint > John Bell > Jay Kristoff > Xian > The Strait Brothers > The Tatus > Matt Heslin > Cameron Domer > Dave Buerger (had to throw my Madison crew in there :) Hey your playing favorites again! If your going to include the Strait's, you HAVE to include the Kristoff's! Its only fair. Oh wait. This game isn't supposed to be fair is it. ;) Raille

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:<2mcn8nF...@uni-berlin.de>... > "Wouter Kuyper" <Wouter...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:44a2da05.04072...@posting.google.com... > > LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:<t_4Mc.126271$OB3....@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>... > > > Wouter Kuyper wrote: > > > > If you are not willing to put a number on reasonable, would you > > > > consider this for rules: > > > > > > > > (i think it gets close to what you wrote above) > > > > > > > > Playing to Win. > > > > Every player has to play to get a Gamewin. > > > > If at some point in the game the player has to make a choice whether > > > > to take a path that might lead to a GW, but has a lower estimated value > > > > of VP's he is free to take the path that he thinks has a higher > > > > estimated value of VP's. > > > > > > Everyone has to play to win (GW). > > > Players who do not have a reasonable chance at a GW must attempt > > > to maximize their VPs (as reasonably possible). > > > > > > Where "reasonable/y" involves risk analysis. > > > > Fine. Does my interpretation (see above) cover the same options and > > outcomes? > > I'm not at liberty to take the time required for a full analysis > of all the different possible phrasologies and situations at this > time, sorry. > > If it does, OK. > If it doesn't, use mine. > > Either way, using mine will work, so let's just keep it simple. The problem is that i am having trouble using yours... W

Hey Stuart, > 'Winning' is better than 'not winning' is better than 'losing'. This isn't the way it works. You must attempt to get the GW, and if you can't get the GW, then attempt to maximize VPs. There's nothing about this "not winning" state you've created (though I understand you're point.) > Example: If you allow someone to withdraw, and they get 2 vp and you > get 1.5vp. Outcome: they win, and you lose. If you do not allow them > to withdraw, they get 1.5vp and you get 0.5vp. Outcome: no one wins. In this example, if you have no reasonable chance at the GW yourself, you must allow them to withdraw to maximize your VPs. I provided a cornercase example of this that LSJ answered in this post: http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl3473466833d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=_UXjc.61210%24um3.1173028%40bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net I realize it's difficult to enforce except in the craziest corner cases, but for the players who want to willingly follow the rules, you're not supposed to prevent someone from winning at the expense of your own VPs, unless you think you still have a reasonable chance at winning. Then again, since you can do a risk analysis of "reasonable chance" of winning and consider the failure states, that may give you a strong case to never let anyone get the GW even if it nets you more VPs. IMO, the failure case of "someone else wins" is a really bad outcome for me, so I still have a reasonable chance at winning. Ira

> > You write, "the answer **may** be different." In actual practice, is > > the answer ever different? > > Of course. > > Why risk 2VPs on a infinitessimal chance at a GW? > > Why not risk nothing on a healthy chance at a GW? > > Then you simply move those two together until you find the line > that separates them. I must ask, then: Once a judge is called over for a "playing to win" ruling, and once he believes he has found the line that separates the two, and assuming he believes that the current situation is VERY near that line (i.e. neither decision is strongly supported by the game state), should the judge err on the side of letting the player do what he/she wants? I worry that in such close cases, a judge may unintentionally undermine the value of allowing a player play his/her own game. If I were judging, I would feel uncomfortable telling a player what he/she could not do unless I believed my decision was fairly well founded. (i.e., when they ask "Do you think he/she is playing to win" I can say "Definitely not" as opposed to "unsure, on the side of probably not") Still worried about unenforceability, -- Brian

"Brian" <firstco...@aol.com> wrote in message news:80bafd85.0407...@posting.google.com... > I worry that in such close cases, a judge may unintentionally > undermine the value of allowing a player play his/her own game. > If I were judging, I would feel uncomfortable telling a player what > he/she could not do unless I believed my decision was fairly well > founded. That's where "reasonable" comes in - the line is therefore not a razor's edge upon which to teeter. > Still worried about unenforceability, The judge rules. The ruling is abided. I've enforced it and seen it enforced. It is enforceable. [ quoted text not captured ]

ira...@yahoo.com (Ira) wrote in message news:<500e74e.04072...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] My point is that the ruling to maximize VP should not exist, because it forces you to help an opponent improve their game state.

Hey Stuart, > My point is that the ruling to maximize VP should not exist, because > it forces you to help an opponent improve their game state. In that case, your point is a different discussion. I'm not debating or considering what *should* be, I'm trying to understand what *is*. Hopefully along the way other interested people will also gain some understanding of the current rules as well. To respond to your perception that the max VP rule shouldn't exist because it forces you to help an opponent - remember that you're really doing a risk analysis when considering "reasonable" courses of action, so if one outcome is especially unpleasant for you, then you can "reasonably" avoid it. That is, I think it's extremely rare for a judge to correctly rule that you must help an opponent get more VPs if that path doesn't appeal to you. Ira