Would the champ like to say a few words, please?! :-)

Hi All
First of all thank you to MadMarx for organizing the games. I have found them to be great fun. A mix of very high calibre opponents, with lots of twists and turns along the way.
Not sure if I deserve to win, but will certainly not turn it down :).

Thank you to my allies and foes, and hope to all meet you on the battlefield again. I might just post this accolade on my profile!!

Thanks all.

Thanks KJII!

If anyone has any feedback on the ABGRCT, please post it here, it will be taken into consideration the next time around, and thanks in advance!

Great tournament, MM. Good games with solid players, far above the caliber one normally encounters here.

Generally speaking the tournament was really good, and it was great to take part. I liked the randomness of it, and the quality of the opponents.

The only constructive criticism I would potentially have is a discussion of how people made the championship round (don't get me wrong I'm happy I made it, just curious), and how one becomes 'champion'.

Just questions realy, it was a nice tournament to partake in.

A few chippy words towards the end of my game, but overall a very enjoyable one. It's not often that I get to play with the Big Dogs, so it was nice to watch how things unfolded. I agree with Socrates about the need for more definition about who makes the final cut -- though to be fair, the tournament started so long ago that I've forgotten if this was discussed ahead of time.

The trouble with clearly defining who makes the championship game is then all the anonimity gets taken away from the championship game, which is not in the spirit of the tournament.

Congratulations to KingJohnII, and thanks to MadMarx for setting up the tournament.

Personally, I don't really care about the criteria for who makes the championship game or who is designated champion (just pretend you're in preschool: "you're all champions!"). In my mind, the point is just to have fun and have a good game with hopefully a higher reliability and skill level than you would find in an unorganized random game.

My favorite part is the blind invitational aspect. It's better than semi-anon, and you really have no idea who the other players are or if you've played with them before. In my case, I think I had only played with the other participants 0 or 1 time previously.

I personally thoroughly enjoyed these games. I know the one game I participate in was very competitive, with great press and high caliber competition. In fact, most of the people in that game decided to have a 'rematch' so to speak (where I fared much better haha!).

I would be happy to play a similar caliber game at any time. Thanks again for having me MM.

First of all...thanks MadMarx for organizing the tournament!! Great job!

I really enjoyed the game. It was really competitive. i love the quality of the players!

I would be interested in some clue as to how the champ even made the final round. He had 4 SCs as part of a five way draw. My game had a 4 way draw with two of us (one being me) having 5 SCs. Seems odd is all.

Thanks for the feedback, keep it coming!

THM summarizes my intent for these games perfectly.

Draugnar, THM made the championship game and he was defeated in a game that ended in a five-way draw in round one, go figure! ;-)

So, round 1 was meaningless and just a pool of players you could randomly pick to move onto the finals. OK. Count me out next time. If performance has no contribution whatsoever to advancement, then it isn't an actual tournament.

Draugnar, I will definitely count you out next time, thanks for the heads up.

Round 1 was not meaningless, but it wasn't so cut and dried that anyone that got a solo would advance first, then the largest participants of the smallest draws, then... When I introduced the "tournament", I stated that the players selected to advance to the championship would not be obvious, to keep the championship as anonymous as possible, and that even defeated players from the first round *could* advance based on their play in round 1 (as I saw it).

I agree, it isn't an "actual" tournament, no points are awarded by this site for the champ, it's more about the enjoyment of quality games and having fun without knowing who you are having fun with, it is *not* about beating your chest and bragging, though if I had won I'm confident that element would have been pulled in to a greater or lesser extent! :-P

So, my seeing and pointing out the stalemate line and helping to coordinate it didn't count... OK.

I would definitely participate again. Everyone in my game was really talkative, and that made it a lot more fun to play.

I played in this game: gameID=127115

The game ended December 7th so tbh I can't remember too much specifics, but Marx asked me to comment. There were excellent players and high quality press, quite a line up.

Some thoughts:
I always have issues coordinating and allying with players in other time zones. I guess I suffer from swaying my trust and allegiance to the player I speak with last/most frequently and it is easier to have conversation style rapid fire press with someone that is online at the same time as you. I was actually getting along with MarekP quite well but turned on him b/c of this difficulty.

I thought the completely anonymous portion of the tournament was a neat idea. However, I had player two previous games with uclabb and MadMarx and found that I am able to identify them pretty quickly by their style of press so I did know who each were by 1902 probably.

I continue to be impressed by the psychological games Mr. Marx plays in this game. He has an excellent grasp of how to win friends and influence people. And when he gets caught with his pants down he makes the game as emotionally draining as possible to achieve a positive result. That is what happened here. I distinctly remember thinking I will never again play this guy...but then 4 months later that's not true, I'm more fascinated with his methods.

As for the game, I allied with Germany and Italy early and basically hoodwinked Turkey and Russia each thinking I was their ally but neither being exspecially available to be able to coordinate well after that. I showed goodwill by allowing each G/I a center of my own. I turned on Italy when Turkey was down to his last man basically b/c Austria cant solo without italan centers and that requires a navy. I was looking to keep my Germany alliance going a little longer until I had the pieces to make a real push into the med. But I trusted Germany one turn too long. He stabbed me in his typical "that wasnt a stab, Im just keeping things even, calm down" condescending way ;-). This began the rage portion of the game where I intended to work with Germanys other pissed off neighbors in order to eliminate him from the game out of spite. This lasted very briefly, i cant remember why, I think I just realized that the end result was not very favorable and felt I could still have a shot at a solo if I could reconcile. Reconciliation also lasted briefly and then we move back to emotional tornado and rage play...which ended in everyone getting a little tired of the game and drawing prematurely.

Well, it was fun even if my description doesn't make it sound that way, at least early on! Thanks for putting this on and thanks for the great match up.

Thanks for the mini EoG, Gen. Lee!

To be fair, I think the extent of my "emotionally draining" methods are largely influenced by the mindset of the person making such accusations! :-P

You are correct, hindsight is definitely a good thing. As I recall, the "rage" started 100% from you, and it's blatantly obvious to me now that it had nothing to do with the *fact* that I did *not* stab you, the reason you flipped out is because you were extremely focused on a solo and I moved in such a way to minimize your risk of winning, end of story. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame you for attempting to solo, that's the point of the game, which is exactly the point of why I did what I did, to prevent you from the solo you so obviously coveted.

Again, after reconciliation, it was clear you were still looking to solo (as you have just stated yourself), so I took some actions, again, to minimize your shot at a solo, and you flipped out again...

In the future, you might consider tipping your hat when someone prevents you from taking advantage, rather than throwing a little temper tantrum because everyone isn't content with letting win?! :-P

It's fun reading Gen. Lee's sorta EOG because it describes playing MM perfectly. From playing with you, MM, I learned that making other players miserable is an extremely effective diplomatic technique (that's a compliment, I promise!). I tried to explain that to Gen. Lee, but he thought that he could salvage a solo working with MM, which was ridiculous. Ah well.

Damnit, uclabb, you glossed over my point, I'm not the bad guy, Gen. lee is!! ;-)

Here's my translation of Gen. Lee's EoG:

1. Gen. Lee thought he could solo.
2. MM realized Gen. Lee could solo, so MM entered orders accordingly, to prevent a solo, but not in an attempt to eliminate Gen. Lee.
3. Gen. Lee went bat crap crazy because his solo attempt took a blow, so he went suicidal against MM hoping to get everyone else to join him.
4. Gen. Lee didn't think he would eliminate MM, but thought if he allied with MM short-term he may yet solo.
5. MM realized Gen. Lee could solo, so MM entered orders accordingly, to prevent a solo, but not in an attempt to eliminate Gen. Lee.
6. Gen. Lee went bat crap crazy because his solo attempt took a blow, so he went suicidal against MM hoping to get everyone else to join him.

See how things are starting to repeat?!

Hmmm... Maybe that is a compliment, uclabb, maybe I did make Gen. Lee miserable, but *he* started it, I was merely reacting to him, Gen. Lee *made* me do it, so I don't see why he got so Mad at me, I was merely playing the game!! :-)

Here's my kinda EOG:
1. I miss the spring 1901 moves. I'm an idiot. Gen. Lee says that he recognizes me. The only games I'd lost in the past year had Gen. Lee in them. Ugh.
2. Unsurprisingly, you two jump on me, and I'm dying quickly. I finally convince France to move on you. I take a long time each turn explaining tactics to him and we stalemate you (MM) despite Italy attacking France as well. I talk to Austria every turn explaining to him that you (MM) aren't going to let him solo, and making it clear that I'm willing to carve out a solo shot for him so that I can have space to potentially get my footing back in the game.
3. France decides he's done with me. Whatever. Then MM asks me to beg him to vote for a draw like a dick (no offense!).

I was France, my kinda EOG
I liked working with Germany, until they decided to stab me
I was hoping to take out england and move east but for a reason I still don't get Italy decided to attack me whilst Austria balooned in size. Good on MM for keeping him downsize wise. This meant that I decided to work with England. Which was good because soon MM would try to solo through my scs. England was consistently whiney and bitchy, so he had to go for a smaller draw. I think I had a misorder or something in there too - my bad. Good game, all in all, as was the championship round.

MM: "To be fair, I think the extent of my "emotionally draining" methods are largely influenced by the mindset of the person making such accusations! :-P
You are correct, hindsight is definitely a good thing. As I recall, the "rage" started 100% from you"

First, I fully recognize that the rage portion was my doing. Although, had I listened to uclabb and stabbed you the rage would have come from you - I have experienced it the opposite way as well. I am however, tipping my hat now for a well played game.

Here's the thing though, MM can't beat me, and it's only a matter of time before I find the formula to take him out. ;-)

Good luck figuring out your formula, Gen. Lee, but it honestly can't be that difficult. If all you really care about is eliminating one specific individual from a game that involves seven people, the odds are heavily stacked in your favor.

Personally, when I join a game, it is never my intent to figure out how to eliminate one specific individual. My goal is to win, play each game on its own merits, and do everything in my power to prevent someone else from a solo. When I play you in a game, it's true that I pay attention to you and what you are doing to some extent, but my main focus is on myself and how to advance myself in the game to the best of my abilities. Perhaps this is why I set up these super anonymous games, I couldn't care less exactly who each person is (provided they submit orders and chat, give the game a decent go), I play the game to react to whatever comes my way in an attempt to maximize my result, always hopeful there is an answer to any situation, it's just a matter of me figuring it out in time... Yeah, I'm rambling, but you're not the first to adopt an attitude of "Kill MM", and I tend to find that a bit annoying and short-sighted, though I try not to shy away from the challenge, depending on the person and the extent of their disease! ;-)

I rather liked my game :)

Nah my goal is to solo every game I play. If I beat you it will be bc I solo.

For what it's worth, I did have fun in my game. I just wish I would have made the next round.

Draugnar, if you had fun in your game, why would you not want to play in the future?

OK, I'll play, but I won't expect to male it out of the first round even if I solo in 3 years.

Gen. Lee, I'm still trying to figure out how I traumatized you to such an extent in that game that you never wanted to play me again.

You admit that you were putting yourself into position to solo. I moved to limit your ability to solo, and then you intentionally and admittedly "rage" at me. Then you claim to be disgusted by *my* psychological games?! How are you not making the game emotionally draining when you intentionally rage at someone to achieve a positive result? Why is it perfectly fine and acceptable for you to escalate a cordial game with rage, yet if I escalate your rage, all of a sudden I'm the biggest asshole you've ever played against?

Hm, that all was kind of confusing. I *think* you are all talking about the same first round game, but maybe not. Just in case anyone has it all straight in their head, I'll throw more EOG into the mix.

ABGRCT#: Ugh. I drew Austria, and set up a very nice relationship with Italy. Germany let Russia have Sweden, and I was the meat shield against a Russo-Turkish alliance. I did the best I could for as long as I could, but eventually succumbed.

ABGRCT!: Ugh, I drew Italy, and set up a very nice relationship with Austria. Germany let Russia (the same person, KingJohnII, who played Russia in my first round game!) have Sweden, and Austria was my meat shield against an imbalanced Russo-Turkish alliance. Austria did the best he could for as long as he could, but eventually succumbed. Russia was so far ahead it was ridiculous, and the western powers seemed to not care. Since nobody was trying to stop Russia, I pushed my forces westward to set Russia up to easily take my home centers. This was an attempt to galvanize a joint effort to stop the leader, rather than fight Russia by myself and slowly get eaten. France and Germany finally came around, and we ended up in a 4wd. IMO, letting Russia get so far ahead pretty much ensured a draw, assuming the other players didn't botch the defense.

Re communication with players in different time zones, I find this usually is not an issue on my end. I keep pretty erratic hours, usually have internet access at all times, and often am in multiple time zones each week. Sometimes I'm going to bed at 3am in California, sometimes I'm waking up at 3am in California, and sometimes I'm waking up at 6am in New York, and it's all the same time. I also frequently misrepresent in press what time it supposedly is wherever I supposedly am, whether I'm at work, going to dinner, etc.

Marx, I never said I was disgusted, I said I was impressed. There was a point I was so frustrated with the back and forth with you I declared to myself I would never put myself throughout that experience again. But I sit here now removed from the moment and would definitely play you again. I learn a lot from playing you.

I think the recent conversation gives a small view into what I'm talking about with emotionally draining, and others who have played you may agree. I made a small goofy comment about defeating you next time and it turned into a topic for discussion. Then I said nah I'm kidding my goal is only to solo and you brought it back up for mor discussion. Now take hits type of interaction and put it into the lense of an intense game of diplomacy with time crunches and trust issues and the back and forth can be emotionally draining.

Now don't take all this the wrong way. The only reason we are discussing it is bc you are *the* top dog of the site. As I said earlier I am facsinated with your methods and I admittedly try to duplicate your play and learn from you. I'm not calling you an asshole at all. And I definitely do not think so highly of myself to pretend that I am not intolerable to play with in my own ways. This is only my tip of the hat and open discussion of the methods and mind games that make the best player on the site.

Very odd. You make little sense to me, at times, Gen. Lee!!

I admittedly struggle at times to identify subtleties of text I read on a computer screen, such as goofy comments... The fact that you were openly challenging my "delusion" that I am a decent and reasonable person to play a game of diplomacy with was disappointing enough that I wanted to understand (i.e. agree with) the reason why so I could think about how I might adjust my game play a bit...

Regardless, I'm liking the EoGs that people are posting, please continue with that if anyone else can remember any part of their game!

I really enjoyed my game (gameID=127116) - I knew from the beginning I (England) was up a tough Germany and France. There were a couple of times at the beginning of the game that I thought I was doomed. I actually felt Germany was an exceptionally strong player and therefore thought he was the biggest threat and needed to be eliminated. I think my biggest accomplishment of the game was convincing Russia, Austria and France that Germany needed to be eliminated because he was allying with everyone while pitting them against each other. I haven't played a tonne of games compared to other people, but this was the first one I've played that there was a very strong English-Russian alliance, which I think ultimately was my saving grace, but perhaps also one of the reasons I didn't solo.

I was close to a solo, but I messed up a couple of very important turns, which ultimately led to the large draw. This perhaps speaks to my still nascent tactical skills in the game. I find I am a better negotiator than tactician, and when I'm by myself things can fall apart. Kudos to Italy and Austria, who were also both very good players. They were able to draw the stalemate line quickly, and get everyone else on side. As always when I play high calibre games like this, I learn a lot.

My apologies for not joining the final game - real life got somewhat hectic with a new job. Unfortunately as well, my work had already blocked webdiplomacy before I started (which I kind of think is hilarious as well), and with a busy out-of-work life I'm finding it difficult to keep up with games. Hopefully next time!

Draugnar, I know you're just flicking me shit, but I will give out a bit of info on how I selected the people to play in the championship. First, whoever performs the best in a game will typically (but not always!) get an invite, so if you solo, that would definitely be you. In a draw, the person with the most SCs will likely get invited to the championship, especially if you have many more SCs than anyone else, someone like guy~~. This year we had four games, so once I pick one person from each game, there are only three spots left.

Now, let's say you are in a draw, and you have the second most SCs, and let's also say you worked with the guy that had the most SCs in the draw for most of the game. It's *highly* unlikely that I'd invite both of you, since you likely got to know each other fairly well in that game, so you may quickly recognize each other in the championship game, and form a long-term alliance again, which is something I want to avoid.

Bottom line, if you want to advance to the championship, either solo or have *many* more SCs than anyone else in your draw. Even if you have the most SCs in a draw, if another person has nearly as many SCs as you, I would be happy to take the guy with the second most SCs nearly as often as the guy with the most, since I will view those two performances as nearly equal.

See, now that is a valid determination that doesn't guarantee we will know who is in the final game except for any solos.

Did you think I was just throwing darts at the participant list to create the championship game? Just because I did not reveal my system, it didn't mean there wasn't one. I have other criteria, but I've shared too much already, I just assume people won't remember this by the time the next "tournament" rolls around.

No, I figured you were playing favorites in your selection and letting people.im despite better performances in other games.

That's an odd thing to figure... Unless, of course, that's how you'd do it...

You are confusing cause and effect. I am asserting that the reason you kept your "secret decision criteria" secret was that you didn't want your bias revealed. I see secrets as something humans keep because their revelations are damaging to reputations and relationships (or to plans and plots as is the case in game). In short, if it is going to personally damage your position in life or the game, you keep it secret. If not, you open up. Nothing about your decision making criteria hurts you or your tournament as it still has am amount of personal decision making that no one can predict. So why keep it a secret? Because the reality was that you cherry picked friends. Or at least that is the perception to those of us who saw a 4 SC layer get selected over ourselves and go on to win it.

You make good points, Draugnar, from the outside looking in. My "tournament" is all about not knowing, perhaps I took that and ran a little too much. I do think it's valid to not give out my entire strategy when picking out players to be in the championship, since, as I said from the start, I want the championship to be as anonymous as possible. I did share some insights, and I have at least another dozen or so criteria I take into consideration, as I'm all about overthinking things for little (but some!) gain.

Anyway, thanks for helping me bump this thread a bit more, congrats again to KingJohnII, well played, and well deserved ABGRCT Champion!! :-)

Glad to help.

@MM "My "tournament" is all about not knowing,since, as I said from the start, I want the championship to be as anonymous as possible."
You mean anon for all who you invite in but non-anon for you?
A game can't possibly be anon if it's invitational.The one who creates it knows all the others so it can't be "all about not knowing" anyhow.
For example,when I organize a game and give passwords to people I send them all a PM with the complete roster in it.Or I announce the list of all participants in a forum thread.Because it seems unfair to me that the one who creates a game plays a semi-anon game and the invited ones play an anon game.

Split, you may play semi-anon when you invite people to play with you, but I don't in this tournament. I don't want to know who I'm playing, and luckily I have a horrible memory. For these four games, I sent out 26 invitations. I divided people up into games, sent those invitations, then got rid of the list of people, and just played diplomacy. It's true I remembered a couple of people's names that were in my two games, but I'm crap at figuring those kinds of things out, and I didn't try.

In all honesty, people knowing that I was in a game and/or figuring out who I was took away from the anonymity at least ten fold (though I'd estimate over 100 fold!) more than me remembering who might be in a certain game and how that influenced my game play. There were a couple people that made a point to suggest to me that I was MadMarx during game play, which gave me a sense of who those people were, so if you take that out of the equation, my two games were, for all intents and purposes, completely anonymous to me, I had no clue who any of my other opponents were. Furthermore, I intend (I say intend, since I may not remember!) to blacklist those people from future ABGRCT's, since their press was in complete violation of the nature of the tournament.

Obviously I can't make it perfect, when I run the tournament and play in it, but I put forth a concerted effort to give it my very best shot. Also, I think I remember sending out a few PMs asking if certain people were interested, but the majority of participants PM'd me their interest based on my idea I put forth in a thread. So, if anyone has/had an issue with how things were structured, they obviously didn't need to sign up. If you have any issues with how I set things up, thanks for sharing, I may even mull some of what you said over a bit! ;-)

Hi. I played in this one: http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=127114. Really enjoyed it. Since it has been a while, I'll only provide a brief summary. Russia and France impressed me the most from this game (based on cumulative quality of communication, strategy...). 01-04: Jugger was not effective as much (for Turkey 4T:9R), I/A were holding me, France (or E/F) grew strong and G was quickly out. At that time I managed to kill Aus fleet and it became a bit easier, but still at 4 centers with no clear opportunities. Finally convinced Italy to divide Austria in 06-07 and RIT was formed vs EF. It was clear to me that F is leading the E/F alliance, however I did not know it was MM, since I have never played with him before. For 2 years we were IRT/EF, quite an interesting experience (from Turkey's prospective). In 1910 I decided to race France for the leadership. It worked ok for a while, but Russia was not agreeable to my plans (understandable after my stab, and I guess payed of since he was chosen to the final game and "won" it). In later stages I had to stop France's solo, it was done and we finished 5way. There were many interesting twists in this game, interesting communications, discussions. My only regret is that I was not given such an opportunity to participate in a final. No complains though. I don't see how Austria impressed MM, while he played well, I'd not call it impressive to deserve a spot in a final.

gameID=127590

I really enjoyed the format, the idea of having no idea who was playing was particularly appealing.

I played in the game that got restarted after our first game had an early CD. I had a nice first game started as France, but then drew Turkey in the reboot.

I basically did everything possible wrong, from going to Armenia in SP '01, to building an army to convince Italy I wanted to work with him. I would love to take credit for causing the eastern triple that formed and won the game.

I played in the rematch that formed after the MM game (gameID=130340) and didn't do much better there.