Tournament rules regarding different backs on cards.

Kushiel wrote:

Xaddam wrote:

You want to prove a rule's efficacy with its history of not catching cheaters? That doesn't mean anything. If it's been faulty it would have failed to catch cheaters because it's faulty.

So, if we haven't been catching the cheaters our there, whom we know must be out there cheating without getting caught because uh well actually we don't know that, but anyway, we'd better toughen up the rules to catch them?

No. I'm intentionally not talking about whether or not anyone's cheating or not, because I know that it's not fruitful. The matter of whether or not people are cheating can never prove whether or not a rule is functional.

To make this totally clear, so you don't misunderstand again, I don't think anyone is cheating. I don't think anyone is not cheating. It's a non-topic. Let's talk about whether or not the rule is functional.

That's police state mentality. Yuck.

I'm sorry. Let's not have any rules at all.

Oh, did I misinterpret you and make your opinion seem more extreme than it actually is?

Kushiel wrote:

Yes. But you're approaching an institution with the intent of changing one of its rules, without being able to point out even one actual real world example of how that rule isn't working.

Every single deck with visibly different backs is a "real world example of how that rule isn't working", since it gives everyone information they shouldn't have. And the deck builders' best intentions doesn't affect this. All the other players around the table who wants to does get the information "this player does not have enkil cog on his hand" when they see seven Jyhad-backed cards on his/her hand. Even if I don't consider this, I can be the third part when the first player plays with visibly differently backed cards and a second player uses this information to his/her advantage.

henrik wrote:

As for the discussion at hand though, it's not so much about actual cheating as the allowance of differently backed cards (which gives information, whether that is used or not).

Here's the thing. I do believe you when you say that you're not talking about cheating, but rather about the information available to players who don't sleeve their decks. But what you don't seem to be understanding is that these two are implicitly the same thing.

When you say, "I'm not calling people who don't sleeve their decks cheaters," I nod and agree. But then you go on to say, "But those people have the potential to gain an unfair advantage by not sleeving their decks," and there are only two ways to interpret that.

1) You think that there's the potential for people to gain an unfair advantage by not sleeing their decks, but that they're not doing so. If that's the case, there wouldn't have been a reason for you to start this thread, because there's no actual problem there. Since you did start this thread, it seems that this isn't the case. Which brings us to:

2) You think that people are gaining an unfair advantage by sleeving their decks. "Gaining an unfair advantage" is the exact definition of cheating, and since you're concerned enough that it's happening to start this thread, you must be worried that people are cheating by not sleeving their decks.

Kushiel wrote:

No, sorry. I'm not being deliberately obtuse about the topic, I only know next to nothing about it. Early in this thread (I think it was in this thread?), Kevin mentioned some French players who were known cheats and Ankha replied that they were retired now. But that's all I know, and those are the only known cases of cheating that I know anything about (aside from that idiot who explained to Brum how he was going to cheat).

Sure. But even if they were cheating by means of their card sleeves somehow, I don't think that really matters.
I think we all agree that cheating can (and will, I guess) be possible no matter what the rules state. At least as far as sleeving/not sleeving goes.

The thing I find bad about this tournament rules is that it allows for more information to be gained based on sleeving/not sleeving your cards. I don't see how anyone can think this is good, since it's creating an uneven playing field for competitions (even if it might be a small advantage, that's discussable as well).
Fact still stands that it can be changed rather easy. Either by enforcing mandatory sleeves, or by allowing different colours of sleeves in the same deck.

Kushiel wrote:

When you say, "I'm not calling people who don't sleeve their decks cheaters," I nod and agree. But then you go on to say, "But those people have the potential to gain an unfair advantage by not sleeving their decks," and there are only two ways to interpret that.

1) You think that there's the potential for people to gain an unfair advantage by not sleeing their decks, but that they're not doing so. If that's the case, there wouldn't have been a reason for you to start this thread, because there's no actual problem there. Since you did start this thread, it seems that this isn't the case. Which brings us to:

2) You think that people are gaining an unfair advantage by sleeving their decks. "Gaining an unfair advantage" is the exact definition of cheating, and since you're concerned enough that it's happening to start this thread, you must be worried that people are cheating by not sleeving their decks.

That's a false dilemma. What I'm sure Henrik means and what I mean is this solution:
3) You think the rules should make it as hard as reasonably possible to gain an unfair advantage. The current rules can reasonably be changed to make it harder to gain an unfair advantage.

Xaddam wrote:

To make this totally clear, so you don't misunderstand again, I don't think anyone is cheating. I don't think anyone is not cheating. It's a non-topic. Let's talk about whether or not the rule is functional.

The point of the rule is to prevent cheating. Talking about whether or not it's funtional requires talking about whether or not people are cheating.

Xaddam wrote:

Every single deck with visibly different backs is a "real world example of how that rule isn't working", since it gives everyone information they shouldn't have.

The rule doesn't say anything abot information they should or shouldn't have, only "unfair advantage." As our very own rulesmonger has stated in this thread, the advantage gleaned by different cardbacks isn't considered unfair. So, by the standard that the rule sets for itself, it's working.

The onus on you is not to prove whether or not different cardbacks give out information to people. I haven't seen anyone here argue that they don't. The onus on you is to prove that said information grants an unfair advantage which the rule on mixing sets doesn't prevent.

Kushiel wrote:

henrik wrote:

As for the discussion at hand though, it's not so much about actual cheating as the allowance of differently backed cards (which gives information, whether that is used or not).

Here's the thing. I do believe you when you say that you're not talking about cheating, but rather about the information available to players who don't sleeve their decks. But what you don't seem to be understanding is that these two are implicitly the same thing.

When you say, "I'm not calling people who don't sleeve their decks cheaters," I nod and agree. But then you go on to say, "But those people have the potential to gain an unfair advantage by not sleeving their decks," and there are only two ways to interpret that.

Xaddam summed up this pretty much.

Kushiel wrote:

1) You think that there's the potential for people to gain an unfair advantage by not sleeing their decks, but that they're not doing so. If that's the case, there wouldn't have been a reason for you to start this thread, because there's no actual problem there. Since you did start this thread, it seems that this isn't the case. Which brings us to:

I don't really consider this something "I think". I consider this a fact (except for the unfair part since that implies some sort of value, but any advantage could be considered unfair if it's aribrarily prohibited for some players).
The actual problem is that the rules allow people different amounts of information based on whether or not they use sleeves on their cards.

Kushiel wrote:

2) You think that people are gaining an unfair advantage by sleeving their decks. "Gaining an unfair advantage" is the exact definition of cheating, and since you're concerned enough that it's happening to start this thread, you must be worried that people are cheating by not sleeving their decks.

This may or may not happen. It may or may not have happened. I don't know, you don't know. There's no real way of finding out. Either way it doesn't really matter. The issue here is about the rules, and why they're not constructed create a playing field that's as even as possible.