Concerning PTW

Mephistopheles wrote:

Ashur wrote:

Mephistopheles wrote:

Try to stay in game for as long as possible, because maybe something totally unpredictable happens.

I think this should be the second best think, if you cannot win. That is what a vampire would do

But I´ve heard that sometimes it is better for you tournament result to self-oust, although I have never been in such a situation myself.

I think that would be an out of game consideration, which is illegal as far as I know. Pascal could you please confirm that?

PTW doesn't include out of game considerations. PTW is about the current game, and getting the best of it.

I hardly see how the current game affects your tournament position, except, perhaps, in the case when you're going to get 0, and you self-oust to avoid having a GW given to someone else.
This is perfectly OK with PTW - if you're going to get X VPs(in this case, X=0), you can get it with whatever path you choose. Self-oust, regular oust, cross-table oust are all valid methods, as long as you get the 0 you were aiming at.

Some players consider table points when they're about to be ousted, and they try to maximize their TPs at the current game. That is: if you're going to get 0, try to have the maximum players get 0, so that, instead of a mere 12 TPs, you get 30.
This is not covered by the PTW. You are free to act to maximize your TPs, but you don't have to do it.

@ Yaggo: I'm considering your remark. Didn't notice it was finals in the first place. Maybe VPs are worth nothing in a final, PTW-wisely. I need to think on that.
The reason for the initial change of the rule was that players would struggle to be second or third, and would give the GW to whomever was most able to give them that second/third place.

In smaller tournaments I prefer to have one player have the GW with a perfect sweep rather than let's say a 2-2-1, or 1,5-1,5-0,5-0-0 with me being 1 or 0,5 (or even worse) in the example, since less players will be in front of you in the ranking.

This time I actually did talk about general observation and not about personal experience only. What I consider ethical play is 100% subjective and I know and accept that other players have other ideas about that. I don't really know why I am writing all this. I think I better just shut up in the future.

Pascal wrote:

@ Yaggo: I'm considering your remark. Didn't notice it was finals in the first place. Maybe VPs are worth nothing in a final, PTW-wisely. I need to think on that.
The reason for the initial change of the rule was that players would struggle to be second or third, and would give the GW to whomever was most able to give them that second/third place.

No, VP are worthless during the final table unless they make you win. Four players share second place. There is no such thing as third place unless something VERY strange happened since the 2008 tournament rules. This is also the underlying reason behind the LSJ ruling. You have absolutely nothing to lose by struggling to win the game from even an idiotically lost position. Worst case you get second place, which is exactly what you gain from NOT attempting to win.

Indirectly, and slightly off-topic, I think the judge could decide to terminate the final table the moment one player has mathematically won the tournament (usually by getting three VP). This very much like when the five deciding penalty shots are terminated prematurely in a football match as soon as one team leads by a mathematically guaranteed win (3 - 0 and two penalty shots remaining for each team. Those will never be shot).

On-topic, the LSJ ruling also means that any table split deal during the final table is illegal unless the 'losing' party makes it explicitly clear that he/she intends to break it (ie both parties make it clear they aim at winning the game).

yappo wrote:

No, VP are worthless during the final table unless they make you win. Four players share second place. There is no such thing as third place unless something VERY strange happened since the 2008 tournament rules. This is also the underlying reason behind the LSJ ruling. You have absolutely nothing to lose by struggling to win the game from even an idiotically lost position.

It also addresses table-splitting deals in the finals, which were thought to be very unpopular. With a fully-ranked final (1st place through 5th place), I have an incentive to 'settle' for 2nd place. This is especially the case when there are differential prizes - by settling for second, I get 10 boosters, instead of the 3 boosters for fifth (or whatever).

At the time, that sort of issue was addressed by the ruling that tournament finalists were assumed to be playing to 'win', in the sense that there was nothing else to try to achieve so we assume they're doing the best for themselves. With the current everyone-else-is-joint-second setup, you have to rely on that ruling a whole lot less because the behaviour is seen a lot less.