Can we stop conceding with one move to go?

[Kaladry]

Thank you for the bug report. One issue could be how statistics are counted from an early concession if the game is not 100% complete (in game progress) or final scoring hasn't been counted. This would vary from game to game. In Carcassone I would expect a 1-move away concession to skip farm scoring, then apply it as 0.

This isn't really the correct place, but I'd argue that the fields should be scored as is if the game is conceded and not skipped. That was what I meant by scoring as if it were a normal game end as best it can. I want my fields tallied up!

Of course for some games it might be difficult to tally up an end game score without it actually having been completed but that's where maybe in the end game script that's run it just skips those parts as necessary. And of course there'll always be some games that don't really have end game scoring and can keep their 1-0 score but there may still be other statistics that can be displayed.

[Archisian]

So you are proving my point from my last post. The games you play don't matter that much to you and you are just looking to have fun, not admire them as art objects and respect the culture around them. That's okay, but that shouldn't go at the expense of the people who care, that's a basic rule we apply to most things in life, so why should board games be different.

You should at the very least ask your opponent before conceding what they think about it. If they are like you, then you will both happily end the game, and if they are not, then it's basic decency to respect the wishes of someone who cares more about something than you do.

Let's shift this to a different medium. Let's say you and I are watching Citizen Kane. We decided to sit down and watch it together. However, you find the movie boring and don't want to watch it anymore. You want to leave, but I stop you and say "You can't leave. If you do, you are disrespecting the importance this movie had on cinema." Would you agree with me?

That's not the right analogy. Stopping a movie doesn't destroy the art object, it only affects the person who decided to leave. A game is an art object that, on top of the general game itself being an art object, gets created by the players as they play through it.

So, the right comparison would be Touch of Evil and The Magnificent Ambersons, which Orson Welles never finished to edit while he was alive. We know they would have been great, but we never got to see his own final versions. That's what happens when a game of high importance is interrupted before it can be completed. You're left forever wondering what it would have looked like if it had ended the way it was supposed to end.

And if you're the one playing and you were about to finish a masterpiece, it creates a sense of loss the same way as when a movie director is never able to finish their movie.

Highly disagree. A game is a game. A creation of art lasts and stands the test of time, as long as it's preserved. A game ends and the table is wiped clean, unless for some strange reason you decided to never clean it up and preserve it. At that point though, it's most likely being preserved not because of the game itself, but possibly due to the person who played it, an original, etc. If it's being preserved to show someone's victory, then that is glorifying the ego of the person who won.

In your second paragraph, you said a game of "high importance". Can you explain the high importance of game number 3.576 of your favorite board game against some random person on the internet where you aren't playing for anything?

[tbhp]

Highly disagree. A game is a game. A creation of art lasts and stands the test of time, as long as it's preserved. A game ends and the table is wiped clean, unless for some strange reason you decided to never clean it up and preserve it. At that point though, it's most likely being preserved not because of the game itself, but possibly due to the person who played it, an original, etc. If it's being preserved to show someone's victory, then that is glorifying the ego of the person who won.

In your second paragraph, you said a game of "high importance". Can you explain the high importance of game number 3.576 of your favorite board game against some random person on the internet where you aren't playing for anything?

We preserve chess games the same way we preserve movies and all other forms of art. Other board games that have major scenes in real life probably have their official games preserved too. I'm sure you understand that the preservation of those games in those cases is not just a matter of satisfying someone's ego, but something that is considered very important for our culture at large.

Now onto BGA, since most of the games on here probably don't have a big scene in the real world, what happens on this site becomes pretty much the scene for the game. BGA literally saves all the games, and the players who are highly ranked, or win arena seasons or major tournaments, are considered the best players of the game in question (as far as we know it). Other people may want to watch all the replays of a player who won one of those things. It's also relatively common for people to watch games in spectator mode, for reasons that go from strategic to simply wanting to enjoy the spectacle.

I may not care as much if you concede a random normal mode game I didn't put much thought into, but if someone is to do that with one of the more important games happening on this site, this is the BGA equivalent of someone trying to ruin things on a game's scene in the real world.

[Archisian]

Highly disagree. A game is a game. A creation of art lasts and stands the test of time, as long as it's preserved. A game ends and the table is wiped clean, unless for some strange reason you decided to never clean it up and preserve it. At that point though, it's most likely being preserved not because of the game itself, but possibly due to the person who played it, an original, etc. If it's being preserved to show someone's victory, then that is glorifying the ego of the person who won.

In your second paragraph, you said a game of "high importance". Can you explain the high importance of game number 3.576 of your favorite board game against some random person on the internet where you aren't playing for anything?

We preserve chess games the same way we preserve movies and all other forms of art. Other board games that have major scenes in real life probably have their official games preserved too. I'm sure you understand that the preservation of those games in those cases is not just a matter of satisfying someone's ego, but something that is considered very important for our culture at large.

Now onto BGA, since most of the games on here probably don't have a big scene in the real world, what happens on this site becomes pretty much the scene for the game. BGA literally saves all the games, and the players who are highly ranked, or win arena seasons or major tournaments, are considered the best players of the game in question (as far as we know it). Other people may want to watch all the replays of a player who won one of those things. It's also relatively common for people to watch games in spectator mode, for reasons that go from strategic to simply wanting to enjoy the spectacle.

I may not care as much if you concede a random normal mode game I didn't put much thought into, but if someone is to do that with one of the more important games happening on this site, this is the BGA equivalent of someone trying to ruin things on a game's scene in the real world.

No, I don't understand how a chess game with someone like Magnus Carlsen has some cultural effect on me, or anyone else for that matter. Could you explain how this has some effect on me and my life or society? Seems to me that the only people would care about that are those who are obsessed with chess. I like chess, but I'm not crazy about it. The vast majority of people aren't either. Unless we are just some cultural ingrates who simply don't understand the importance of such a game. Magnus Carlsen is an amazing chess player, I don't deny that. But I don't think his mere presence nor any of the games he's played has had any impact on my life or how I play some random game of chess.

Again, you bring up important games like tournaments. I don't disagree with you that those games are important as they have stakes to them. Maybe most people won't concede during those events because there is money and ranking (which could lead to money) on the line. But this discussion is about conceding generally. Nothing of any real value is lost when someone concedes a random game with nothing being played for. The only thing lost is one person's perceived value and maybe a hurt ego. The majority of games here aren't being preserved for the ages. It's all just data. If this website were to shut down, everything that was saved in its systems would vaporize into the void.

[RobertBr]

We preserve chess games the same way we preserve movies and all other forms of art ... Other people may want to watch all the replays of a player who won one of those things. It's also relatively common for people to watch games in spectator mode ...

Congratulations on demonstrating you have no understanding of what you are talking about.

Chess games are recorded. Those games are replayed and analysed with regularity. And Chess players at the level people care about routinely concede games just before the actual winning move (almost every commentary ends with saying that one player resigned, not with a winning move). As people have repeatedly pointed out it is appropriate etiquette to concede when the only possibility of victory is for your opponent to cooperate, as everyone with any knowledge of Chess already knows.

[Meeplelowda]

And Chess players at the level people care about routinely concede games just before the actual winning move

Not only that, but they often resign well before mere mortals even recognize that it's a lost game.

But as discussed above, I've come around to the thinking that it's a false equivalency to say all games should be treated like chess. There one end of the spectrum with purely abstract games where only trolls say you shouldn't concede, and another end where it's kind of a jerk move to concede (such as when you have no more moves to make). I have no idea where in the mushy middle the inflection point is.

[FrankJones]

Chess is definitely not a good comparison (as has been discussed often throughout the 21 pages of this thread).
A concession in a game of chess results in a score of 1-0 or 0-1, which is exactly how a chess game is scored anyway. And no data or statistics are lost.

In Carcassonne, a game someone mentioned recently, a last-move concession negates the entire game score and statistics (not just the field scoring).

When a game is conceded, the result shows 1-0 and all statistics are blank, as though the game did not occur at all.


Note that conceding is not allowed in a 3-player game. Why not? Because it's inconvenient, unfair, etc. to the other players.

So, in a 3-player (or more) game, when one player is having a miserable time and losing badly, that player is "forced" to finish the game. Yet, in a 2-player game, it has been suggested in this thread that a player who is expected to finish the game is being put through some unbearable hardship.

[tbhp]

We preserve chess games the same way we preserve movies and all other forms of art ... Other people may want to watch all the replays of a player who won one of those things. It's also relatively common for people to watch games in spectator mode ...

Congratulations on demonstrating you have no understanding of what you are talking about.

Chess games are recorded. Those games are replayed and analysed with regularity. And Chess players at the level people care about routinely concede games just before the actual winning move (almost every commentary ends with saying that one player resigned, not with a winning move). As people have repeatedly pointed out it is appropriate etiquette to concede when the only possibility of victory is for your opponent to cooperate, as everyone with any knowledge of Chess already knows.

The discussion wasn't about whether conceding is okay in chess (I already talked about that in earlier posts), it was about the cultural importance of board games, and I used chess as an example of how board games should be treated.

Respecting a game means playing it according to its rules, and for some games like chess conceding happens to be part of them, while for most games it isn't. I believe BGA should only implement conceding when it's a feature of the game that actually exists in the rulebook.

[ChiefPointThief]

So, in a 3-player (or more) game, when one player is having a miserable time and losing badly, that player is "forced" to finish the game. Yet, in a 2-player game, it has been suggested in this thread that a player who is expected to finish the game is being put through some unbearable hardship.

I’m not going to go back and read the whole thread but I’ve conceded at times while losing and it had nothing to do with being a sore loser. Sometimes I play strictly to see who will win. Once it becomes clear who has won that objective was accomplished. I may just want to get back into lobby as fast as possible. This can be even more relevant if someone is grinding in arena which requires a ton of games to win.

This topic is last move only. What constitutes as last move for the sake of this discussion? If it is a trick taking game does that count as the last hand? Living forest after both players draw cards you can see who will win and no need for both players to take final actions. In some games I wouldn’t mind a fast forward as the victor.

[Fuchur]

Sorry, still off-topic.

Fuchur, you are a very rude person (constantly asking me if I have a memory problem, and often taking a needlessly aggressive tone).

Well, I'm just reflecting your way of writing. Did you ever re-read your posts before posting them ? Did the language you've used seem appropriate to you ? Do you talk like that when you aren't behind your keyboard ?

I have answered your questions, and yet you keep re-asking them or phrasing them in slightly different ways.

You haven't answered them -- i'm still waiting to get ONE example of a statistics provided by this site for Earth which can help someone to improve his play.

What I said with regard to chess is that I personally have never seen chess statistics referenced or used in my many years of playing and studying chess. (If a master or grandmaster level chess player, or even strong player wrote a post saying that chess statistics are useful, I would eagerly read the post and perhaps learn something,

If you want to build an algorithm which is a good chess player you might let him calculate several moves ahead (as far as memory and speed can take you), and then you'll have to use some sort of an "oracle" which associates a value to the obtained game-state (as it is generally not possible to calculate all the moves until one players wins or there is a draw). This "oracle" is obtained with statistical methods -- so, in a way there ARE useful statistics for chess but you're certainly right : BGA doesn't provide this but only useless countings.

rather than taking your approach of dismissing the statement based on an opinionated position of personal ignorance.) As usual, you completely changed the intent and meaning of my statement.

I return your compliment.