Can you oust yourself by accidentally playing a card with a pool cost that would kill you?

I was equating this with the "Bakija Gambit" (Happy birthday, Peter, btw!) wherein you have invested pool on the wrong uncontrolled minion, suddenly flip over an Anarch Convert with 10 pool on him, and lose it all. Oops! There's no rollback in that situation.

Of course, in reality with VTES, even in a tournament there is an aire of casualness. If the table agrees it's OK to rollback, then it's probably OK. But when there are only 2 players left, a judge has to be called and make the decision.

Xaddam wrote:

In any reasonable interpretation of the play-to-win rule there must be room for mistakes. If you don't allow mistakes a judge would have to correct obvious mistakes. And what is obvious? How do you draw that line? We can't very well enforce a rule where everyone has to play perfectly.

Which is why the play-to-win rules have never, ever required this, under any circumstances, ever. At all. At any point.

For example, back in 2001, LSJ addressed the issue of a judge using judgement when enforcing the Sportsmanlike Conduct rule (from where Play-To-Win derives). In this instance, to distinguish between things such as: collusion; random and disruptive play; and poor logic on the part of a player. So the player who is roleplaying a Malkavian and making strange noises and rolling dice to determine what to do gets dealt with, and the player who is just making poor decisions gets left alone. Obviously, at some point, a judge may get a judgement call wrong, but in the absence of psychic probes, that's what we do - have a judge who exercises judgement, to the best of his or her ability.

To short-circuit the next likely steps in the conversation:

Q. How does a judge determine what is bad play vs what is play-to-lose?
A. Judgement.

Q. But players must be allowed to play for a really solid 2VP, rather than risking everything on a tiny chance of getting 3VP, surely?!
A. Yes, they're allowed to do that. The Play-To-Win rule allows for players to do risk analysis.

Q. But what level of risk is acceptable? I demand you provide a precise percentage, to seven decimal places.
A. Since you can't calculate the exact percentage in a tournament, this is an irrelevant discussion.

Q. But if you won't tell us a number, how do we determine this?
A. The judge uses his or her judgement, taking all available information into account.

The playing to win means optimizing victory points in every table but tournament finals, which take into account other stuff.

So, ive seen good players do things like rush other good players cross table, or in one case, i rcall Mergen telling i think Norm "i cant win with you here, get off my table" before aiming krc damage to him crosstable.

If you percieve a baxkrush, kindred spirits bleex at yoir prey, etc, to be your best course of action, you are playing to win. Ive ks bled my predator at the LCQ for the nac, because my prey was walled up and my prey coulda got me without the poolgain.

Mistakes of play, ie collecting for the edge or using metro undervround, or a homoculous, is not the same as self ousting by playing a hunting groumd. Pascal may neex to comment here. Delibertly gaining your 0 vps in yoir chosen manner, whether to salt up someone you feels needs it or prop up someone who helped you, is the players perogative, as they are certain of the maximum vps being none, and can prove it to some degree. However, accidentally, or allegedly qccidentally, self ousting is dicferwnt in my opinion. Transfwring out is like intentionally self ousting, the accidental kind should require judges approval if its fishy, imo

Also, bad play cant be illegal in most cases, but the malk roleplaying example: players have jokimgly used the magic 8 ball i use as an edge to "make decisions" i doubt a judge will need consulted there.

Id say: its the players perogative to maximize vps, the judges perogative to decide if that was fulfilled at least in spirit if there arises a situation. Neither deck composition, poor play, or illogical axtions can be called not playing to win, but anything that self ousts while theres real chance of gaining vps in part or whole feasibly where the play wasnt deliberate and based on 0 vp maximum could be questionable. This doesnt mean crosstable ousts, because its not a self oust, but could mean acxidentally playing a card and self ousting, since technically you cant if you areatill trying to play to win by stayimg in the game in theory, but you cant backtraxk things like poolgain and using cards if yoir window is passex.
And its up to a judge.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

The playing to win means optimizing victory points in every table but tournament finals, which take into account other stuff.

No, this is not how play-to-win works.

On a normal table, you must play to win. That is, you must try to get the Game Win, if you reasonably can. If you get the Game Win, you do not have to get the most VPs you can. Clearly, that can benefit you (giving you a higher ranking later in the tournament, for example), but if you win, you can get 3/2 or 5/0 or 2-1-1-1-0 and the Play-To-Win rule does not care.

If you cannot get the Game Win, you must attempt to maximize your VPs. This includes holding on for 0.5VP on a timeout. You're not allowed to play slowly to achieve that (as in, violating the Slow Play rules), but you can take steps that lead to you surviving longer. You're not required, for example, to make a kamikaze run at your prey for no reason.

If you cannot reasonably get any more VPs - that is, you are in a truly lost position - you can oust yourself, or take any other action, and Play-To-Win will not care. Of course, if you hang around in the game, a miracle might occur, but the Play-To-Win rules do not care about miracles, just what's reasonable in, if there's a dispute, the judge's judgement.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

On a normal table, you must play to win. That is, you must try to get the Game Win, if you reasonably can. If you get the Game Win, you do not have to get the most VPs you can. Clearly, that can benefit you (giving you a higher ranking later in the tournament, for example), but if you win, you can get 3/2 or 5/0 or 2-1-1-1-0 and the Play-To-Win rule does not care.

And this is why I can offer 2vp to my predator if I get 3vp out from the deal. Still everytime I offer this deal, there is atleast one who says that I can't offer this kinda deal because they are in assumption that rules say that I have to try to maximize my vps even after I already have a gw.

Malachy wrote:

Greets!

The story was the following... 2 players left, A and B.

A has 2 pool, B's pool is irrelevant.

Player A forgets to utalize Vessel, and plays a master card that costs 2 pool. Realizing the mistake player A backs out almost immediately, but player B insists on the thesis, that you can kill yourself accidentally and that is what player A just did.

Is player B's argument valid?

LSJ covered a similar situation in this classic discussion:
LSJ-2009-030-4

The relevant quote is under LSJ, " "legally played" is debatable", 3/4/09. In this case, someone ousted himself by playing Aaron's Feeding Razor while at 1 pool, apparently without realizing it would oust him. LSJ's answer to the question was that "the action announced was for a zero-cost equipping of Feeding Razor, when, in fact, the Razor costs 1 pool. So: card improperly played."

LSJ's philosophy seemed to be that if a player made an egregious, seemingly inadvertent, and critically self-damaging error, the judge should find some reason from the rule book to let the player rewind. In this case, the rulebook definitely says that the cost of an actin must be declared (Section 6.2.1). In practice, no one announces the cost of an action unless the cost has a variable that must be specified or the cost has been altered by some effect. And LSJ said that players who made mistakes on purpose couldn't get a rewind.

Another example of this philosophy was LSJ's attitude that people who forgot to take their transfers should get to go back because every phase had to occur and a forgotten phase hadn't occurred. LSJ-2002-06-02

Anyway, this doesn't really apply in the case of playing a master card, since the rulebook doesn not require you to announce the cost of a master card. Mr. Zephyr found an appropriately LSJ-esque response: self-outing in this case violates the Play to Win rules, and thus should be disallowed!