About deals and withdrawing

Reyda wrote:

Without te Vp crumbles, the only option remaining would be : Play. The. Game.

Playing for VPs is playing the game.

If vp's don't matter, what is the goal of the game when you can't get the game win? Ousting doesn't help you. Surviving doesn't help you. Helping someone else doesn't help you. There's no game to the player who can't get the game win.

I agree that kingmaking is often inevitable. If you have no chance to win or only a negligeable chance to win, anything you do may still help or hurt someone else. I don't see a way around that. It's the age-old question: do you "poolsack" or do you push forward until the end?

The nice thing about pre-final tournament games is that you can usually work towards a constructive goal, regardless of your position. You can try for 1 VP, 0.5 VPs, or even for more table points. Heck, I'd rather see rankings based on final table positions in the finals, too. (Sorry, Reyda )

From all this lenghty discussion, I don't understand, why would keeping a deal which would not be valid in two player situation is not playing against rules?

In the spirit of the game, where grudges should not be carried from table to table, why would winner "feed" someone else VPs?

kombainas wrote:

From all this lenghty discussion, I don't understand, why would keeping a deal which would not be valid in two player situation is not playing against rules?

Because there is a loophole in the PTW rules: once someone has a GW, he can do whatever he wants, including keeping the now invalid deal.

Note that if that loophole was fixed, it would not force the player to break the deal, it would prevent the deal from being made in the first place. Any deal would at most end by "and then we'll see how the duel goes."

AaronC wrote:

The nice thing about pre-final tournament games is that you can usually work towards a constructive goal, regardless of your position. You can try for 1 VP, 0.5 VPs, or even for more table points.

And this is in essence what the OP was about: How can a withdraw deal work within the context of PTW and the current tournament rules? I don't think there's much argument that tournament games could end up with those results (positive statement). I think the discussion here devolved into whether games should end up with those results (normative debate).

AaronC wrote:

Heck, I'd rather see rankings based on final table positions in the finals, too. (Sorry, Reyda )

I would tend to agree with AaronC here as well. But, the complicating factor is THE GAME WIN.

The game win is the most important part of standings in a tournament. However, Game wins can be earned even if the ultimate outcome of a game is in doubt. Many times people "earn" game wins with 2.5 VPs, even though there are still 3 people left in the game! One can only assume how the table reached such an outcome, possibly including deal-making.

The problem is that once a player is close to locking in a game win, their incentives to "finish the game" rapidly diminish. Why continue to be aggressive and overextending in front of a predator who lunges? Why alienate cross-table "allies" and get everyone to turn against you? Why not take the easier path and play defensive, friendly V:TES? With 12 additional pool, you are likely in a strong position anyway.

These situations are very common. Reyda has a particular aversion to them, and he is not alone in this opinion. There is a bit of "hate the game, not the player" going on here. We have a set of tournament rules and in order to come out on top, it is necessary to work them to your advantage. People just do this.

But, it's not necessarily the case that the existing rules are the best set of rules. As Americans sometimes say, "...in order to form a more perfect union..." What we have is very good. But it can probably be improved with a few touches around the edges. I think it's worth exploring those options with all due deliberation.

Jeff wrote:

The game win is the most important part of standings in a tournament. However, Game wins can be earned even if the ultimate outcome of a game is in doubt. Many times people "earn" game wins with 2.5 VPs, even though there are still 3 people left in the game! One can only assume how the table reached such an outcome, possibly including deal-making.

I think it's unfair to implicate deal making as a cause for timeouts. From what I've seen, negotiating out of gridlocks is more likely to resolve the game and prevent timeouts than cause them.

But I do agree that timing out during finals is a real problem, it's just not a problem related to deal making.