Board Game Arena

Hi,

I just discovered what happens when, in a tournament, the total time has been reached
(https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=61332120).

The way it is implemented doesn't seem fair : this is the last game of the tournament and I cannot go lower that my current position, nor can my opponent. On the other end, if I win, I can (will) finish 2 places upper. Besides, abandonned games doesn't imply ELO loss or win. Thus, my opponent has no interest in finishing the game (I surely never say nor think he lost time on purpose, absolutly not my point here) whereas I have everything to lose not to finish it. Problem : the abandonned game gives a 1-0 result where average Lewis and Clark is probably higher than 45-0... ^^

Shouldn't the result at least be the lowest possible result ? 44-0 according to the way Lewis and Clark is implemented, no ?

Just put it here to share my thoughts, would be glad to discuss it !

DA

A 'default score' would be quite arbitrary. It would be better to use the average score difference excluding abandoned games, and a score difference penalty should probably be given to the losing party of an abandoned game.

N_Faker wrote: ↑24 December 2019, 18:09 A 'default score' would be quite arbitrary. It would be better to use the average score difference excluding abandoned games, and a score difference penalty should probably be given to the losing party of an abandoned game.

Well I guess this could work in many games. Problem with actual implementation of Lewis and Clark is it's a all or nothing, so the average score is highly impacted by one single game.

This would of course be better if it was implemented with the final camp position as the score for losing parts, even in a game like Lewis and Clark where it is stated that there is one winner and all the rest are losers...

There will be pros and cons for any method.
Strictly speaking, you didn't earn your victory against the timed-out opponent, where everyone else that played him did.
You did receive the most significant part of the result, a victory, but you were perhaps short changed on the score.

The only truly fair thing I can think, is that you need to remove all the results from any timed out player, as if they didn't take part. If you do this then your final position would remain the same.

The more you look at the tournament scoring formats with different games, the more cracks will appear. But I think most people play regardless of the little idiosyncrasies, by in large the best people rise to the top.

Maybe most significantly, the tournament fixed timing formats also don't lend itself very well to this particular problem.

It also reminds me of playing Sunday league football where one of the players was the referee and there was no linesman. You either take it on the chin and laugh, or you just don't bother playing. There is also an apt boxing metaphor - don't leave it to the judges.

yes this is an unfortunate side effect of the tournament system and online play in general. For Round Robin, I'd propose adding a tiebreak layer for games lost by abandonment in the tiebreaker, so you can't abandon (or not finish) games you are losing in order to maximize your point diff. It would encourage players who are behind to still try to finish a game in time (assuming they are also behind on time)...if you are over time but in a winning position unfortunately not much can be done there to force the game to finish...which is okay because you agreed to play in the allotted time and failed to do so, so you don't get the win.