See, there is the other side that this affects, that I just can't shake. If this just affected the matchups (or bracket) a player would face, I wouldn't have an issue. But there are 2 more players that this affects. The player would would've gotten in if the game had played out as it should've, and the player who gets in because his opponent forfeits. Can someone tell me with a straight face that if somone gets into the final 4 because of a situation like this, they truly deserve to be there?
This was almost done to me. And if I had found out, I would be pissed, because the player who tossed a game to me had just wasted my time. But again, the wins are secondary to me. I play at these events to compete. I want to face peoples A games, whether I win or lose. I know I can't push those feelings onto others, can't codify them into the floor rules. People play for a whole lot of different reasons.

+1 to Sithborg.

That's actually not what I was saying. Outactivating and/or locking doors wasn't the issue. Stalling was the issue. How many times does a seasoned player really need to count to 24, only to spin a piece and declare the one activation of the phase? It wasn't about solid strategy of locking out for the win, it was the amount of time spent between phases thinking about Lancer moves long before it was ever going to actually be activated.

Having taken the evening to think about it, it really comes down to one issue. This isn't about Tim or any player, for that matter, choosing to lose a game in order to seed the top 4 with easier-to-beat players. It's about the fact that he stalled the game to time in order to only allow a 2 pt. win, and the fact that his opponent realized what was happening and was not only okay with it but bragged about it as some sort of brilliant manuever. But stalling is stalling and THAT is clearly against the rules. The creation of a 2 pt. win was never intended as a way of allowing a player to force a game to go to time, but as a penalty for a player who couldn't win in less than 1 hour. To intentionally force a game to go to time is stalling. If Tim had wanted to lose, he should have simply conceded the match. But he didn't want to just lose. He wanted to lose in a 2 pt. game. (Again, according to his opponent's report of the match, since Tim has chosen not to post.)

@greentime: Nothing I said was a "personal attack," as Bill labeled it. I stated facts about past experiences with Tim, and you quoted them. Use of the word "manipulative" has an obvious negative connotation to it, I admit, but I'm not sure what other adjective might be used to describe the approach Tim has taken with regards to the rules. According to his opponent, he did manipulate the outcome of their game intentionally - and he has put up more than one thread that address rules loophoples over the last few months, so there is an established history of manipulation. Some people will say that is prudent, some will have a sour taste in their mouth about it, but regardless of which side you fall on, its still a manipulation of the rules. That is neither positive nor negative, it is simply the way to describe it. In any case, as someone else stated in a post to me, I cannot control what you choose to believe about what I say or write. But I have nothing against Tim personally, I just think he pushes the boundaries of what is fair play (and I am not talking about solid in-game tactics for those who still don't understand that point).

Like Bill, I'm done here too. Further comments on the subject from me will be made directly and privately to the rules committee and will address generic issues arising from this incident.

To me this is basically the paint-by-numbers definition of stalling. You're playing in such a way not to win but to force a tiebreaker. There have been lots of discussions about stalling in the past and I think it's generally agreed that you don't have to be playing slowly to be stalling, stalling is more precisely defined as playing in such a way that you win by specifically NOT really playing the game. The intent of the 5 rounds of no rolls rule has always seemed to me to deal with situations like one player has Lobot and a Treadwell Droid and the other player has Darth Sidious Hologram and a couple R7s; that game ends in 5 rounds because it's dumb to make the players keep playing until someone has 200 points from Gambit. If you're using that part of the rules to actually win a game where you could be out there making an honest attempt to NOT force a tiebreaker, you're stalling.

Obviously this reading of the rules isn't shared by everyone, which segues nicely into my more on-topic point.

I think losing on purpose IS poor sportsmanship. Well, maybe not poor sportsmanship per se, but it's absolutely poor gamesmanship. The problem is that you're basically devaluing the entire tournament. The purpose of a tournament is to determine who here are the best players, more or less in order. That's why we have standings. If you lose a game on purpose so that the best player isn't in the best player's spot, or the 4th best player isn't in the 4th best spot, you're artificially rigging the tournament. Tournaments are to measure player skill; if you prevent that from happening, it's almost tautologically bad. It's not about a player doing what is best for them. I've always been of the opinion that you can basically do whatever you want within the rules, and that arguments about the "spirit of the game" are ridiculous. You override your opponent out of your room, out activate, then pop out and shoot them before retreating and locking the door again? That's cool. You play the Lancer, out activate, then strafe somebody to death? That's cool too. I'm sure everyone knows that some people call this against the "spirit of the game", but I 100% disagree with that and think it's a fine strategy. The difference is that you aren't compromising the integrity of the tournament.

This isn't really about Tim losing to Wes, it's about the other ramifications. If Tim had beaten Wes, I'm pretty sure Mike Giles would have gotten into the top 4 instead of Wes (Mike was 5th place). Instead, Tim lost on purpose, putting Wes in the top 4 and knocking Mike out. Mike played in such a way that he really EARNED his place in the top 4, and it's not fair that it's taken away from him because Tim wanted to lose for whatever reason. Mike proved through his own play that he deserved to be considered the 4th ranked player there after Swiss, but instead he was the 5th ranked player. That sucks, and I think that kind of stuff happening really hurts tournament play in general. We're here to play Star Wars Minis and see who the best is, but you're playing a different game; you're gaming the system. That's not what I signed up for. If I were in Mike's position, frankly, I would be pissed.

At the Maryland regional last year I played David in the final round of Swiss and I was undefeated, but he had 1 loss. At this point basically if I lost I was still in the top 4, but he needed a win to get in. He suggested that I throw the game so that we could both get in. David is one of my best friends, and I would have loved for us both to get into the top 4, but my response was "Screw you, you gotta beat me if you want in". Why? Because me throwing the game would have been unfair to the other players. Whoever got knocked out of the top 4 because I threw a game would be denied their shot in the playoffs because of a deal I made that had nothing to really do with the game. It would have been collusion, and it would have been wrong. It would have been poor sportsmanship. It would have been gaming the system. Maybe it isn't directly against the rules, but I absolutely believe it would have been unfair.

The problem is that Bill is partially right (that's always a problem, isn't it? ). How in the world are you going to enforce this? It would be so easy for a judge to be wrong about this, and DQ'ing a person is a really big move to make. Should judges have that kind of power explicitly given? I dunno. It certainly does make me uneasy. I generally trust our judges, but they're only human, and there will always been different interpretations of certain rules. This rule in particular would be almost completely subjective, unless a player actually said "Yeah I'm losing on purpose". Judges shouldn't be put in that position.


Is losing on purpose wrong and an example of poor sportsmanship? I believe so, yes. It compromises the entire tournament and undermines the primary reason they exist. Is it something that should be policed by judges with the authority to DQ people if they suspect it? I'm not so sure. I think if a judge were told explicitly by a player that they were losing on purpose, that player should be DQ'd. Outside of that, though, I'm not really comfortable with judges determining whether or not a player is losing on purpose.

Quick afterthought: What if player A were to say, I don't need to get a 3 pt. win in order to knock the guy at the next table over out of the top 4. What if player A's opponent was being forced to lose the game to him/her instead of player A losing to his/her opponent?


Would it be called stalling then? That's the question

And agree with Daniel. It will be hard for a judge to determine if someone is playing to lose. What matters is how that player has been doing so far, what their playstyle has been for the rest of the tournament, and if they are suddenly playing far more sloppily/slower than they have been the rest of the tournament.

It's both good and bad that we already know which people will take this approach based on their attitudes and past history with the game. It's good because it means a judge doesn't have to glare at every player's game, just the ones who are prone, who have demonstrated, an intent to stall and/or lose in key match-ups. It's bad because it means those people will have to work twice as hard to prove themselves in their games. Some judges may unwittingly show bias or behave unfairly toward them. We have seen this happen before. I had to be extra careful about issuing warnings to players in the past because of who they were. People tended to complain about them because they recognized their names, or because of past experiences with them.

What's worse than that though, is that the presence of these players at events can be discouraging for people who just want to have fun. One thing Dean has always been right about, we will always need the fun crowd around if we want this game to keep going. This goes back to what I said yesterday. We can't ask or expect everyone to have a roughly identical sense of fair play about the game. It's just not realistic. There will always be people with a rules were made to be bent philosophy. That's just a part of life. It's why the 2 pt. rule was created, to bring the game back toward what was believed to be the spirit of the game. And it's creation offered a loophole in the system that made it possible to do something that wasn't possible before: to penalize the winner of a particular game while losing. Many of us have known it was possible for a long time, but how many of us ever actually used that to gain an advantage? Ask yourself: had you ever thought about doing that before yesterday? I am banking that the majority of you will say no.

And so this is why these silly rules changes have to be made sometimes, to deal with that minority of players who don't care if the concept of the manipulation is a turn-off for players when they see someone who is willing to do that show up for the tournament. It's for the greater good, to maintain a sense of fair play and a spirit of winning and losing fairly in a way that is fun for everyone.

All I have to say about the stalling conversation is no one called me over and said. "Hey Les, I think Tim is stalling" So, if at the time no one complained then I don't see why people are complaining now. Well besides that gamers have to bitch about something.

So here is different problem that I faced as a judge. At the beginning of the day I announced that once everyone was seated i would start a 10 minute time giving everyone the similar amount of time to set up before we started. After the 10 minutes the round would start. I feel that Tim brings up a good point on this issue and I know that many times I have needed one more round to win, or that one more round would have changed the outcome. So this is why I decided to do this.

In round 5 Eric (Engineer) and Graham (Greentime) decided to ignore this for what ever reason. I told them to stop. They continued. Then I had to sternly tell them to stop and got some body language and facial experssions that was telling me they thought this was stupid. To but this into context just about all of Eric's game through out the day had went to time. I am not sure about Grahm's. But I would have expected that experienced gamers wouldn't have to be told twice.

Here's what I'm thinking as a compromise without going into any long winded diatribe over balancing the two sides and protecting both, trying to enforce the legality/illegality of it all etc.:

616. End-of-Match Procedure
A match ends when:
1. a player meets the victory condition, or
2. the match time limit runs out, or
3. no side takes damage, makes an attack roll, or makes a saving throw for 5 complete rounds.
3a. In the case of a match ending in this way, the judge may award a 3 point win if the initiating player is the eventual loser of the match.


Definately more enforceable, and like lockout victories, it is not entirely discouraged to lose your game on purpose. However, the non-initiating player has some protection against this being abused.

Will there be some instances where it's not clear cut, sure. I can think of my Epic Duo match against Chris Freeman last year at Gencon. We played on Rancor Pen and I took left. He had Luke and I had Mace. Knowing Chris' style of play I knew I had to pop force to make gambit first round or he'd spin luke in the back until he had enough force for his heal power. Chris still did this for three rounds at which point I called Lou the judge over and informed him it was round 3. Round 4 Chris starts to bring his guys up but still too far to make an attack. Round5 I win init and have him go first, he moves han to get in a 6th round Cunning attack and I spin my non-Epic. He then moves12-14 to base Mace with his Luke and I spin Mace to end the game.

Who was the initiating player? I can see a strong argument for Chris, but I would not feel comfortable accepting a 3 point win in this case as that became my plan when I called Lou over.

Add in the fact that I HAD AN ATTACK OPTION and I would say no 3, but others may argue it differently. That's going to happen just like it always has.

I'd say its pretty definate in the offending situation though, and at it's heart I think that's somethign we need to work to avoid, but not cutting out the option to purposefully lose altogether...

Thoughts??

Good. I feel like this fits my point about each judge running things differently. I don't like the idea of adding 40-50 minutes to a tournament and will generally call time when about 2/3 of the players are set. Virtually, no one has time to start early at this point.

You had clear reasons for doing it differently, and I want that to continue.



I count two warnings, plus you had clearly stated your intent prior to the tournament starting. You had grounds to take further measures, whether that be DQ, or simply deducting the 3 to a two (unless of course it ended 20 minutes early or so).

I get that people are on different sides of that argument, but you are the judge and in the end to fairly satisfy both parties in that debate, you MUST BE respected.

Interesting turn of events but I dont know what is so hard to interpret.

From the player report itself:



That is your answer. He took the time to explain the benfit he was gaining. That would be collusion to manipulate the outcome of a tournament. How do you know? He won the tournament. He got the matchup he wanted.

I am not even going to mention names or squads. I have been out of the game long enough I would not have a clue what would win or lose if they had played straight up. I know enough about the players to know that one have played better. Seriously though, take the names and personality out of the picture. You have one player explaining to his opponent the benefits of throwing a game to gain a better seed to win the tournament.

This is not professional sports where losing might get you a first round draft pick. This is not resting your starters for a playoff run. Niether of these things happened. There is no team. Only one person can play. So if he needed rest for the playoffs he should have taken it. So I dont see the similarity there. If you want to make an example pick something like Chess and what players do there.

EDIT: Using sports as analogy is just bad. Whenever a team benches their starters to rest them, you can bet the 2nd and 3rd stringers are doing their best to win and prove they belong on the team. A better analogy for sports would be more like point shaving. That is where members of the team conspire to lose the game. That would be a better sports comparison although it would not make your argument stronger. If you are going to compare sports try using the Chicago Black Sox scandal from the World Series. They conspired to lose the World Series and it cost them dearly. To be clear they did not involve the other team... they chose to do it themselves. That would be a closer frame of reference if you want to use sports.

I don't beleive this should tear the community apart. It was wrong and something should have and still be done. Graham should be named tourney winner. If you do nothing then it will continue to happen and people will feel upset. I thought being this was a game and the idea of playing in a tournament was to do your best. Not throw a game here or there. Throwing a game is something you do with a younger player to build confidence in a non tournament setting.

By not playing his best he disrespected first his opponent. Second everyone else there at the tourney who was playing competitively and trying their best. Third it was manipulative.

You are playing in a competitive tournament. If you entered you have an obligation to try. No one is forcing you to play. If he wasnt interested in playing competitively then why did once the playoffs stated did he try again? Obviously by throwing the game he gained something....

I have am working up a response to all this, but no doubt it will be long. I am very busy in the real world right now, and some of those things are much more important.

On top of it being the crazy busiest time of year at work for me . . .
My sister just had a baby (Hooray, I am an uncle now!)
Also a pair of my best friends are having baby number two literally any moment now (Deri aka fingersandteeth and his wife Lydia), and I have been trying to arrange babysitting for their daughter Seren, so Deri and Lydia's mom can be at the hospital with her. Tell Deri congrats!

Anyway - just didn't want people to think I was ignoring all this - I just wanted a thorough response which time won't allow me at the moment. I have another tab open where I am compiling thoughts in my free moments. May be a few days before it's complete.

I want to make something perfectly clear(unfortunately I wasn't here to point this out sooner) Tim and I never actually discussed his reason for letting me win. I was quite dumbfounded at the time of the game. I realized later on what he did and why he did it. I don't want it to seem like Tim plotted with me, because that is not the truth. I'm sorry for the misconception in my write up I posted a few days ago.
As for the losing on purpose debate, I know most of you won't want to here what I have to say since I was on the benifitial side of it this time. In all honesty I agree with Bill and Graham. Tim is a great guy and olayer, he earned his regional title fair and square. Simple as that.

This is why I did my best to reserve judgement, and stated several times that we only had your word to go on about what happened. You certainly did make it sound like he told you he did.



Just because I think you should have been dq'd from the event on the grounds of collusion and allowing your opponent to cheat for your benefit (stalling) doesn't mean I don't want you to try to defend yourself and your reasoning. Who knows, maybe you will persuade me to see things differently...



Doesn't get any clearer than that. (emphasis added)

Sorry about that. We were being morons. Your point is well taken and I will strive to set a better example in the future.

As for the main topic of the thread, my feelings are this:

1. There is nothing inherently wrong with playing your games as you see fit, whether that makes sense to your opponent or the judge or people on the Internet, as long as you are within the rules.
2. There is nothing in the rules, however much some people want to cast around and find it, that demands that Person A who "should" win a game must win it, or even has to try as hard as they can to win it. There is no way to judge intent in such a case anyway, so it should absolutely never be within the purview of any judge.
3. The first rule of the game, as I see it, is that you have to fight each other. If you have pieces that can fight, you must use them to fight.

Looking at point three, there were two things that happened at Kokomo that I do not think were kosher. The first was Tim manipulating his game to ensure a timed win. Throwing away a game is one thing. Doing so in a meticulous way to guarantee a non-interactive finish is another. The second was the runner-up game, which Shawn ended by lockout in 15 minutes. I am with Daniel on this point. When you have pieces that can fight, you have to fight. You cannot lock your opponent out and win on points just because it's physically possible. Even if all you do is open the door, shoot someone, then close the door again, you have to make the effort to finish them off.

Now I am a little torn because I appear to be contradicting myself. Ruthlessly losing in a manner of your choosing is OK, unless you do so by lockout BS. But hey, there it is.

I have long said there is a simple solution to what you call "lockout BS."

The only way to score points is through what we now refer to as Gambit. Characters are not worth points.

Think about for a day or two and then we'll discuss it.

The problem with the lockout win is how do you deal with it in elimination portion of the event? In the Swiss it takes care of itself by being only a 2pt win. This was discussed inlength at the inception of the 3/2 system and been discussed many times since under different guises. Which is really the non-engagement issue.

If I have gambit and am earning points (and am winning) then why do I have to actively try and chase down my opp who is setting up a death trap in the next room over? This has been discussed in many different spots (tank squads controlling gambit, lockouts, etc) and the answer that I have seen has always been that the 3/2 system takes care of that. Which it does in Swiss to an extent. The problem comes in the elimination rounds.

Many have made it abundantly clear that nobody should have to run into their opps death trap (esp if they have the lead) just because their opp won't/doesn't want to/whatever. Which leads to some games bogging down and time running out (or a 5 round non-engagment win).

And then the question is does this mean I can just bring a squad with no door control and when my opp overrides a door closed just call over the judge and complain of non-engagement? Of course not. It means that I need to make sure I know how to engage my opp or risk being locked out. I have been on both sides of this coin before. T4 at IL regional, I sniped the guys only R7 and played open/close door games with him the whole time. I could just as easily locked the doors and had a 5 round win.

And I can't wait for set 4 to come out because there are 2 great pieces to help ensure that lockouts are a thing of the past.

Please see my revised suggestion.

I agree with most of what you have said. And I have NO PROBLEM with someone playing door games - making you run back and forth across the map, opening-shooting-closing with Atton or an ERC, etc. Those things are a vital part of the game, and a big reason to make sure that you bring door control. The problem is locking someone out of gambit/engagement and just kicking back. During Swiss, in the finale, it's no nevermind to me.

I appreciate the flipside to this argument - I have outplayed my opponent and put them in a losing condition, they're building a deathtrap next door, why should I have to subsidize their weak play? My answer to that is this - you can't just lock down every avenue of approach. You cannot give up on engagement. Make your opponent run between doors trying to find an open one. If they set up a deathtrap next door, leave one door open and call over the judge for non-engagement. As long as they can get to you, they have to try, even if you both know that you're going to just lock that door and open another one later on. As long as you attack them somewhere in there, I'm fine with it.

I would fully support changing the floor rules so that a playoff game cannot end by five turns non-engagement unless at least one player has no pieces which can attack. In fact, I think we ought to do that. And to emphasize that a player who refuses to fight is engaging in stall play and ought to be warned until they start using their pieces to fight instead of hide.

As long as some kind of fighting is happening, I have no problem. The absence of fighting is my only issue.

I'm a little confused. Me and Tim finished our game quite early. How would that be stalling? We didn't even get near time. Maybe that's just my lack of knowledge to the tournament rules(this has been my first major tourny in...over a year, so I'm a little rusty with the more detailed stuff) If there is a link you guys could give me to a floor rules for regionals it'd be much appreciated

What you highlighted above was my mistake, I wrote that write up close to 12 am in the morning as I was headed home/got home, I figured it be a good idea since everything was fresh in my mind. BIG mistake.
Yes Tim explained, and I also figured out on my own why he did what he did, but not until AFTER the game was completely finished. I could go back and edit my write up but it's far too late to do so. There was no "plotting" or "discussion" of how the game was gonna go. I didn't realize what the heck was going on until midway through.
There was discussion, but not until after the game was finished, that's what I'm trying to explain here.

the lockout discussion (at least my part of it) is more based on your 3rd/4th place game.