I will say, to back up Agent K's point, that I do think that live games are absolutely a GR farm. I don't consider myself particularly good at live games, but in the 11 or 12 live games I have played, I have never been knocked out, and have won all but 2 or 3 of them (lots of them WTA). There are just so many bad players in live games (and probably slow typists) that it really should be a different category (although I do think my rating would suffer a bit).

He has an 80% win rate, get off his nuts

Like really, I know live games are a different beast and uclabb is right in that they probably warrant a different category, but how do you get an 80% win rate and not get highly rated?

@Agent K,
Instead of complaining about it, why don't you invite him to a 36-48 hour phase game and duke it out?

My ADD dictates I play live games. I have a note from mr Dr. and everything.

By the way, this is why many of us are advocating for additional calculations of GR for live, full press, wta and so forth.

As much as I hate to say it, there are some 'naturals' in Diplomacy. I play games like Modern Combat 2 & 3 plus some other games, and there are some noobies that will gun down expierenced players, just because they are skillful at it.

Live games are just as real as any other (if not more so), and far harder to get a high GR rank out of than 36/48 hour phase games. When I played mostly live games I ranked consistantly around 100th place. When I switched to mostly 36 hr phase games I moved rapidly up to around 30th.

In short, to get a ranking of 11th purly from live games is a stunning achievement.

I would like to see a GR that does not count any game where a player has been banned by a mod. How many of us have been screwed because of 1 or more multis?

@Eden: When you said "get off his nuts," you meant the exact opposite. Lol! Please learn the meanings of idioms that you use

@TheCzech: I would like to see a GR that does not count any games. Are you in?

^ I would be first there. Not alone but that's no problem. I'm no Caesar, sharing is caring.

Hmmmm. Apparently live games aren't "real", although the original board version is primarily played live. Herp Derp.

Good point, Tom.

Furthermore, "real" non-live games allow diploming during retreat phase, unlike other "not real" type, gunboats. Which is really in the spirit of the origi... wait a second...

Dizzy's quick rise certainly adds new meaning to the phrase 'dizzy heights'.

There's nothing like a good joke... and that was nothing like a good joke.

No, I am firmly with Agent K here. Actually *look* at his games, not who he's played. Yes, he's played great players, but there were only one or two of them in each of those games. in three of the games, the same f***up gave Dizzy the solo due to his tactical ineptness, not to any tactical or strategic prowess of Dizzy's.

Every game has either been thrown to him in revenge, or given to him on a platter do to the stupidity of others. I've only done cursory scan of global press and came across 3 mutli/meta accusations. So no, live games should not get him that GR boost. A degree of rationality is lost when its played on that short of a phase length. I've only done a few FTF with my friends, but we usually do 10-15 minute phases, not 5 minutes. 5 minutes is simply not enough time for proper diplomacy to be conducted via typing.

Fuck I mixed up 'get off his back' and 'get off his nuts.' lol.

mixing up nuts and backs, that's kind of embarrassing

Better than sacks and cracks.

If I were you PE, I would get that straighten out before you get serious with the model. :)

@goldfinger - as a player who has a little bit of experience with live games... your points are somewhat well-made, but I can tell you from experience that even factoring that, you don't get to 80% win rate. I had that going for me and went for a couple of good streaks, but it's just unsustainable, you won't get those conditions all or even most of the time. maybe a larger sample would help here though

Wow 79% win rate. This kid is the new Mike Tyson of diplomacy. KO!

Laugh it up, Octavious. Laugh it up.

Eden, while surely not *all* of his wins were tainted (in my eyes) but let me go through them all. (Sorry, but I really don't want to study for my marketing exam. This is my excuse to myself for not doing it)

gameID=76419 - Alex the great Caeser gives him the win by pretending this is PPSC when its WTA

gameID=76323 - He won due to an Italian CD. The game should have been drawn then and there.

gameID=71418 - Sarg and Lando had the line against him by 1907, but Alex the great Caeser didn't recognize this and kept attacking them, and the proceeded to do the worst stab I've ever seen in Diplomacy.

gameID=66354 - This one he earned, but I only say that because no single person on the board can be blamed for that solo, it was all of their fault. I mean, I just don't know how they didn't see it coming back in 1905-6

gameID=66291 - Alex the great Caeser give yet another win to him.

gameID=60886 - German CD at the end of the game let Italy win. Obi could have formed a stalemate line otherwise.

gameID=55954 - MichiganMan had a fit at jmeyersd and threw the game

gameID=55588 - This one was solid. Not really much Italy could do in this situation.

gameID=55486 - A painfully, painfully tactically inept alliance against him. A critical French NMR, England being comatose with his units up north. So much that even average players could have done better.

gameID=55366 - Oh come on. This shouldn't count. Everyone else CD'd!

gameID=55400 - Carthage and Egypt both CD'd. That's half of the players gone. Should have been drawn.

To be clear, this guy obviously plays a really good opening game to live that long in all of these, and is most likely a good player, but he's not as good as his stats make it out to be. I mean, many of these games should have been drawn due to CDs/NMRs.

This is important research.

I'm just saying, this is why we should have separate GRs. Or the GR system should have some sort of weighting for wins like that one where everyone else in the game CD'd! I know its pointless, but I was just trying to prove a point (realizing the irony of that sentence now)

Pointlessly trying to prove a point. hehehe

The game where everyone else CD'd ended before 1904 (several thousand years before), so it isn't included in his GR.

" is most likely a good player, but he's not as good as his stats make it out to be."

I have problems with this conclusion. You cannot judge the quality of his play by saying his wins are cheap. He can do nothing more than win to prove his ranking is just. I hate the argument that you have to play long games with well known players to be good. Its an argument that supports the idea that if your win percentage is high, you don't deserve the ranking. To me, it seems as though people only respect those who play in games that end in 3-way draws.