Tied games - who advances?

[Meeplelowda]

In multi-elimination tournaments, it seems that age of account determines who advances where the game page indicates a tie: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=35946 (Again, this has not been confirmed by BGA, but I am not aware of any counterexample, in a multiplayer elimination tournament.)

There still remains some account age denialism out there, but after a certain point it is incumbent on the person denying it to explain how it is that account age fits all observations without exception, yet isn't what is actually happening. I'm specifically talking about ties resulting from a player being expelled.

[BananaHarambe]

So it’s confirmed that who advances in a tie is random?

You mean for single-elimination tournaments? No, BGA has never confirmed this (as far as I know).

Thanks for confirming that SE tournaments appear to work correctly as random. Looks like multiplayer elimination have some coding issues with account age always winning.

Ideally I wish multi-elimination tournaments were more flexible with how to handle skips in general. I would prefer at least an option to keep all non skipped players in the tournament.

[era13]

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=652617520

FWIW, I just tied a championship game in Barenpark and was given 2nd place. We even tied Barenpark's tiebreaker. I don't understand it when they can award ties for other places like 3rd place? Why can't 1st place be a tie?

[Meeplelowda]

I don't understand it when they can award ties for other places like 3rd place?

Those in third place are the players eliminated in the semi-finals. BGA doesn't have a bronze medal game, so it's not like they played each other for third place and their game ended in a tie. In other words, the semi-final losers in a single-elimination bracket for a two-player game are always going to be tied for third.

[era13]

I understand how the 3rd places came to be; no, they don't play. What I am pointing out is that the system allows for ties. The tournament results show both as 3rd place and rewards them as such. Therefore, it should show ties for two 1st places and reward as such. I didn't lose the game, nor did I win, same for the other player, but I got 2nd place in the tournament and they got 1st. That's wrong.

[Meeplelowda]

Therefore, it should show ties for two 1st places and reward as such.

This would be fair. I don't know if there is an active bug report for this specific issue, but nothing is likely to change without one because I have the feeling that there's no one at BGA who cares enough about tournaments to be actively reading the forums to see issues like this discussed. There hasn't been a major update to tournaments in a loooooong time. The last update was fairly minor (changing how the karma filter for tournaments gets applied).

[Mathew5000]

I'm not aware of a bug report proposing that if the final game in a single-elimination tournament is a tie, the software should report that the players tied for 1st in the tournament (rather than arbitrarily giving one player first place and one second), other than this one which was rejected as being game-specific: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=111210

Here's a more general proposal relating to ties in single-elimination tournaments: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=26098

[BananaHarambe]

Therefore, it should show ties for two 1st places and reward as such.

This would be fair. I don't know if there is an active bug report for this specific issue, but nothing is likely to change without one because I have the feeling that there's no one at BGA who cares enough about tournaments to be actively reading the forums to see issues like this discussed. There hasn't been a major update to tournaments in a loooooong time. The last update was fairly minor (changing how the karma filter for tournaments gets applied).

How does the karma filter get applied now? I heard it doesn’t do anything except restrict registration to certain karma level.

[Meeplelowda]

Therefore, it should show ties for two 1st places and reward as such.

This would be fair. I don't know if there is an active bug report for this specific issue, but nothing is likely to change without one because I have the feeling that there's no one at BGA who cares enough about tournaments to be actively reading the forums to see issues like this discussed. There hasn't been a major update to tournaments in a loooooong time. The last update was fairly minor (changing how the karma filter for tournaments gets applied).

How does the karma filter get applied now? I heard it doesn’t do anything except restrict registration to certain karma level.

This is the release summary I was thinking of:

Release 6th July 2022 220706-1001

• preferences: turn-based email preference for players running out of time
• async emails: notify player when eliminated from a turn-based table (for games with player elimination)
• framework undo: fix to prevent undoing time jokers
• translations: do not list non translatable alpha games for translation
• tournaments: expel players 24h before tournament starts if they do not match karma requirements
• tournaments: limit number of (TB) tournaments per player + FAQ entry about tournaments & karma
• game page: show more specific info in header for reviewers of alpha games
• game page: show premium feature popup on creating tournament as non-premium
• game page: show latest updates from players group
• game page: add tournaments panel showing upcoming tournaments
• lobby: fix some games becoming unplayable in matchmaking (for example, Hawaii turn-based)

(emphasis added)

This update was made to address a problematic player who signed up for 100s of tournaments just to sit them out. It used to be that you just had to meet the karma requirement to join the tournament, so as long as they rebuilt their karma before mega-registering everything in sight they could sabotage a bunch more tournaments. Now you have to maintain your karma after registering at least up until 24h before the tournament starts, which somewhat mitigates the effects of this behavior.

I believe the limit on TB tournaments was meant to address this as well.

There hasn't been a major update to tournaments in a loooooong time. The last update was fairly minor (changing how the karma filter for tournaments gets applied).

I stand by saying there hasn't been a major update, but the karma thing wasn't the most recent. Since 6 July 2022 there have been six more release notes labeled "tournament" or "tournaments."

[BananaHarambe]

Interesting they did that update because there’s no way they are still applying it. I’ve seen way too many examples that disagree.

Players who are inactive and already destroyed their reputation still regularly get started in tournaments they signed up a long time ago (you know which ones) and proceed to stay in tournaments way longer than they should.