Octavious, you're saying it was a strong strategic move in an anonymous tournament to ruin a game in order to boost 1 country that you muted that game in order to eliminate another 1.
And he doesn't even know my result in my other game. I may still beat him for all he knows.

If he was that interested in the dynamics of the tournament and that brilliant in his strategizing, I'm sure he'd be discussing it here like a grown up. It's not like he's shy about chatting on the forum.

Stackelberg - gameID=156309

Looks like a fun game there.

Also, I just want to make it clear that I don't think throwing the game is never a reasonable move. If it's something you're forced into, then it's something you're forced into. Valis, however, was not.

@ Yonni

Good lord, no. I disagree on almost all of that :p.

Firstly, in what way was the game ruined? The game must be seen as what it is, which is a single part of a long tournament. From Valis' perspective nothing is ruined. It may not be the ideal result, but it is unlikely to impact his tournament adversely. From Jim's perspective nothing has been ruined. The only people who might complain are those who failed to understand their fellow players, handled them badly, and lost because of it.

You may or may not be one of those ejected from the tournament in round 1. Indeed, I rather hope you're not. But if you are it is because you failed to understand Valis and his individual motivations and foibles. Not all games are equal. Some are far harder to do well in than others. The reason behind this is that we are all human and we are all different. Hell, I tend to do badly in games Valis is in as he is immune to most of my tricks. He makes life bloody difficult, but this I celebrate. It keeps the game interesting.

In the final analysis the only stat that matters is who makes round 2. If Valis makes it then he has played well by definition. If he hasn't, then he has played poorly. It is that simple.

Yeah, I guess I just don't like tournaments then because he undeniably ruined a game of diplomacy. I joined the tournament so I could have some fun games of diplomacy with some new players . Valis played half a game and then gave up and flipped the board. That's not fun. It's like someone kicking your basketball down the street because they're bored of playing with you. When you only play a game or two at at time and the games take a couple of months to complete, it's really shitty when the game is ruined. And make no mistake, the game of diplomacy was ruined. He was playing his own game - whatever it was.

Also, after two years of throwing the game, Valis then started trying to get the draw. I'm not sure how to explain that part of it away.

Isn't that a fairly conventional strategy when you are losing? You throw the game enough to make it necessary for others to support a draw, and then you try to get the draw after they agree. I would only add that I have very rarely ever seen this strategy yield that exact payoff.

Some of the comments here by others not involved in the game may be missing some key points:

1. The primary reason Yonni lost is not because of Valis's bad play in throwing the game. Yonni was already in a poor position and had maybe a 10% chance of being involved in a 4 or 5 way draw prior to Valis's antics. So I don't think Yonni's comments should be treated as sour grapes.

2. The 2 players who lost most from Valis's antics are France (JamesYanik) and Valis himself. Stack says "isn't it a conventional stratgey when losing". The point is he wasn't losing. Prior to Valis throwing the game, the 3 major powers were Fra, Aut, Ger. (See map end of 1906). Then in 1907, he decides to start throwing me the game. Very odd. Even as the beneficiary of this tactic, I see it as terrible play.

3. Anyone who thinks this is a masterstroke from Valis to eliminate players he clashes with is missing the fact that I clashed with him as much as anyone. He started a crazy argument with me then decided to mute a load of my messages and went rambling on about "respect". Very odd behaviour - as I told him in no uncertain terms

Anyway, Valis... if you are around feel free to defend yourself, or at least explain what was going through your head.

Yonni: I'm sad to hear you are probably going out. I was hoping your other game would bail you out. I'm not planning to play much. But if you could set up a one-off game with other good players, then I'd be interested.

@Jimbo - Those points aren't lost at all, I come armed with a perspective of somebody who's experienced the Valis silent strategy in the past. I didn't see any strategy to it either.

But yeah, no point in all of us putting words into a players mouth or reverse engineering his game philosophy. He's not generally this quiet (in the forum anyways) so i'd assume sooner or later he'll come in and speak his mind. That's assuming he's got a good reason anyways, it's always possible it was just irrational emotional flare up.

Wouldn't be the first time somebody just plain stuck it to other players out of pure spitefullness, especially when they knew they could afford the hit.

Join my game let's play right now it starts in 17 mins just for fun it's 5 with 5 min phases

Jim (or is it Jimbo?) I'll set one up as soon as I'm certain I'm not in the next round. I don't want to be saddled with 3 games. Hopefully you can grab a few fun PlayDip people I've never played with and I'll find a couple good WebDip ones for you.

Shnoodle: please keep live game advertisements in the dedicated thread.

Jimbo: congrats on the win. See you in the semis (or maybe we'll be seeded high enough to avoid each other!).

@Stackelberg - I suppose, but me and Yonni aren't stupid. We would've helped against the solo if he would've said "hey, Germany's going to win if we don't stop him, let's work together to force the draw!" instead of the hostage-situation game he played instead.

(Just noticed the redundancy in my last sentence and officially apologize to the English Language and my fellow speakers of it.)

@Stack - Would highly recommend watching that game, it's been just plain awesome. Naturally can't get into specifics since it's still going but the one really cool thing I will highlight is that at one point Turkey was down to only 1 center.

Polar opposite of "flipping the monopoly board" when things go bad. Super impressive.

@Yonni - I'm afraid I don't have people I can ask. Including this tournament I've played maybe 5 games of diplomacy in the last 3 years and have been inactive on playdip for at least a year. So I'm afraid, it would be down to you. I've come out of retirement for this tournament - at the persuasion of an old sparring partner called gsmx (although he probably goes by a different name on this site)

@peterwiggin. Cheers. My guess is we'll both be top 3 and hence avoid each other.

Hm, guess he's not going to chime in after all.

I suspect he has muted this thread and everyone associated with it.
Seriously

If you're talking about Valis, he told me he was not willing to talk about it so I do not expect him to post here

Weird.

@dyager: haha - love it. And you could well be right. He seemed to take a peculiar satisfaction in muting my messages. Not quite sure why - all it did was make me look for other plans instead of allying with him. Anyway, it's his loss - he needed our alliance much more than I did.

I expect him not wanting to contribute is a sign that he knows he made a bit of a mess of things. Although it would have been nice if he made an appearance - if just to say "Sorry, I got things wrong" or something to that effect

Or "see you in round 2", perhaps? Three people who played in that game have definitely made a mess of things. Two people may have made a mess of things or may not. Two people have have succeeded. Valis belongs to the succeeded group.