Yeah. And not a single team purposfully draws unless they are colluding. Teams play to win.

It is not appropriate to be punished for doing well in the league.

The point of the leagues is to have fun. Being a victim of your own success isn't fun, so I think its a problem.

"Yeah. And not a single team purposfully draws unless they are colluding. Teams play to win."

Really, you clearly haven't followed any league of any professional sport that includes draws as a viable option.

"It is not appropriate to be punished for doing well in the league."

You're not being punished, you're being put in a difficult diplomatic position that you will have to learn to deal with.

@ghost is it possible to code so that player names are removed? see my post above.

@Xapi: When would a team prefer a draw to a win? Can you give examples?

Maniac: Yes, anon. games are in the pipeline.

@gjdip: It's not that they prefer a draw to a win, it's just that they play for a draw. Sure, they might get lucky and score, but they went to the field thinking about taking that one point home.

In the leagues, it's also best to take the solo compared to any other result, so? You might still play for a three-way because it's convinient in the leagues context, and I consider this to be a valid strategy.

@Xapi: Aha! That's what happens when rubbish teams like Chelsea visit Anfield. They play for the draw because they don't want to lose. Get 11 men behind the ball. Like you said, they will take the win but first and foremost they're trying not lose.

@gjdip - i think there was a world cup game involving germeny and they played out a boring 0-0 game so that both teams would qualify for the next stage. A win for the stronger team (germany) would have seen another team (i can't remember who) qualify alongside them. Tactically germany played it right, but it was considered bad form.

@Maniac: You are referring to the match between West Germany and Austria at the World Cup in Spain in 1982. Germany needed a win and Austria could afford to lose. Germany scored after 10 minutes and after that nothing happened for 80 minutes and both teams advanced at the expense of Algeria or Tunisia.

After this happened they changed the format so the last games were played simultaneously.

Maybe the League could do something similar; play G1 and G2 with the current format and then start G3 and G4 simultaneously. Probably neither G1 nor G2 will be over by then so there would be less chance of a tall poppy/early leader syndrome.

@wooooo - Does The Nature Boy, Ric Flair, charge you for using his expression?

lol @ mapleleaf

at the bar last night we were having an extended walk down memory lane about those characters. who was the "canadian" wrestler? i can't remember. but wow, guys like the million dollar man (he had a black servant!!) and brutus "the barber" beefcake were pretty exceptional.

10 cents a hit.

I also think that using league standings to decide who you ally with is sub-optimal. I'd prefer to be playing X number of games individually. Sure, I'd learn about my opponents tactics along the way, and they'd learn mine - I see no problem with that, but the actual league positions shouldn't be a factor.

There are ways to avoid some cross game influences that has not been discussed here. here are some ideas:

1. Run the games in the DARK... that is there is no public access to each game other than the specific players. Players could still try to rat out each other and copy and past the game on to public forums etc but this would have to be addressed as a NO NO

2. Run the games with unique aliases for each country and allow the players to play the game. This way the GM would assign the names of the players such as G4F *Game 4 France, The players would be asked NOT to reveal the identities to the other players, players still negotiate and play through the website but each player would then have a separate account. This way no player knows what other games the same player is playing in the League/Tournament so that the cross gaming is less of a factor.

Several other websites have this sort of capability, but not here easily.
However, you could have separate multiple accounts assigned by the League guy with the Moderators knowing that they are not multiple accounts as each account would be limited to one game.

It take a little manual league work to compile the results but it would address the cross gaming as well as the Gunslinger Affects of jumping on the higher rated players. Then again the priorities of the Code Team here may not correspond with the work that such a capacity would provide so you would have to do it manually.

RE: unique aliases: players should be encouraged to reveal their identities, and possibly to lie about it. Perfectly in keeping with diplomacies play-sytle.

Everyone can claim to be the poor guy in last place...

This in my opinion is sligthly better than banning players from talking about their identity. ONLY beause it is much easier to enforce.

@djbent - There were a lot of Canadian wrestlers. The Hart family from Calgary were famous. The Rougeau brothers, Ray and Jacques from Quebec, were famous as well......but EVERYBODY had a price for the Million Dollar Man!

you're proposing a metagaming variant

The problem will be mostly gone when we have anonymous play.

I don't think the tall poppy syndrome is so bad... Yes, there's the argument that you should take down the League leader, but with the way the Leagues are set up, some players can't expect to be playing to win their entire League. Many are playing simply to avoid demotion. They have to get ahead of the other players, and it can be to their advantage to team up with the tall poppy because they have no realistic shot at catching up to the tall poppy anyway, but working with the tall poppy might yield results that would give them an advantage over some of the other shorter poppies.

In the Leagues qualifying round, my league group played with explicit metagaming, including cross-board agreements. Nobody had an unfair advantage because it was all the same players involved, and inter-game agreements were not binding just like intra-game agreements. It was actually fun for me, and added a very interesting dynamic to the Leagues, as it was like one gigantic game. TGM has made it clear that this is not the way it should be.

I agree with Chrisp in everything he said.

Although I am strongy against anonymous play.

what league are you talking about chisp?

What's a meta-game?

you killed the thread maple

alamothe, it was Group C of the qualifying round of the Leagues. It was pretty overtly agreed that metagaming would be permitted amongst us, and definite cross-game alliances arose.

Xapi.... careful with the sitting...

Sorry...

I agree with Chrisp in everything he said.

Although I am strongy against anonymous play.

why are people against anonymous play. I assume we are only talking about anonymous play in the league, not for every game.