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        Team Games >> 2012 Arimaa World League >> Rescheduled Games
        
(Message started by: megajester on Aug 14^th, 2012, 6:20am)

Title: Rescheduled Games
Post by megajester on Aug 14^th, 2012, 6:20am

This thread is for players to announce that they have agreed to reschedule their game. Please see the League Rules (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/mwiki/index.php?title=2012_AWL_League_Rules) for more information.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by woh on Aug 23^rd, 2012, 4:27pm

ginrunner and I agreed to reschedule our game.
We will play our game 15 hours later, at 9 pm GMT Saturday.

woh

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by ginrunner on Aug 23^rd, 2012, 7:30pm

^yes

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by Adanac on Aug 24^th, 2012, 2:18pm

Browni3141 and I are re-scheduling our game for Monday night at 9pm EDT. I believe that's Tuesday 01:00 GMT.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by browni3141 on Aug 24^th, 2012, 3:45pm

I confirm what Adanac said, but I don't know if Monday 9:00 EDT is Tuesday 1:00 GMT because of the evils of daylight savings.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by Eggman on Aug 31^st, 2012, 4:15pm

Just FYI...Ring of Fire arranged for me to substitute for Ivers0n in today's AWL match against knak. I invited knak to a game, explaining that I was substituting, but he declined saying that he was already playing Ivers0n. Ivers0n doesn't appear to be logged into the game room so I believe there's a bit of misunderstanding going on.

I should be available to play for a bit longer or I can play a rescheduled game later on this weekend. I mainly wanted to post this as "evidence" that I was here in time for the match.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by Eggman on Aug 31^st, 2012, 4:18pm

on 08/31/12 at 16:15:18, Eggman wrote:

Heh. Disregard. I still don't see Ivers0n logged into the game room (I do see knak logged in) but the match is being played, so carry on. ;)

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by Adanac on Sep 1^st, 2012, 11:14am

Megajester: Can we get a ruling on what should be done in the future in this scenario. Ivers0n said he wouldn't be able to play this weekend and I announced in our club forum page that Eggman would be the substitute. Ivers0n never told me or posted on the forum that he still wanted to play.

Question: When both Eggman & Ivers0n showed up to play the game, should the official match have been Knak versus Eggman? That's my understanding, despite the original game with Ivers0n still being displayed in the gameroom.

I know that there are a lot of people that volunteered for administrative duty. Does anyone have admin rights that could update the gameroom AWL scheduled games after reading announcements in the forum?

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by megajester on Sep 1^st, 2012, 11:46am

on 09/01/12 at 11:14:42, Adanac wrote:

Assuming everything really did take place as stated, you are right, the official player was Eggman. The rules are clear on this point:

8.1 Player Resignation

8.1.1 The official player must state in his team's forum clubhouse thread that he will be unable to play his scheduled game. All subsequent discussion takes place in the clubhouse thread, or the results of any discussion that takes place elsewhere must be recorded in this thread.

[...]

8.1.3 If the manager is available, he has the final decision as to who will be the substitute. After announcing his decision he may not change it unless the substitute subsequently resigns his position as per step 8.1.1. If the manager is unavailable a subsitution can only be made at the game time as per section 8.2.

So technically Ivers0n should have posted his resignation publicly, but that's a side point. The point here is that he did resign. From that point forward he was no longer the official player. The official player is then whoever is approved by the manager. The new official player stays the official player unless he resigns, notwithstanding the originally rostered player discovering he is, in fact, available.

(If Eggman hadn't turned up, then Ivers0n could have stepped forward to take his place. But he would not have taken any precedence over any other available player; the fact he was the originally rostered player would still have been irrelevant.)

Technically knak forfeits because he declined the invitation from Eggman. However, if all parties concerned are agreed that the Ivers0n v. knak game should stand, and there are no objections, I am prepared to make an exception in this instance.

on 09/01/12 at 11:14:42, Adanac wrote:

I know that there are a lot of people that volunteered for administrative duty. Does anyone have admin rights that could update the gameroom AWL scheduled games after reading announcements in the forum?

I have no objection to people volunteering for this, although of course it will be difficult to guarantee consistency.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by Fritzlein on Sep 1^st, 2012, 6:16pm

on 09/01/12 at 11:46:30, megajester wrote:

Technically knak forfeits because he declined the invitation from Eggman. However, if all parties concerned are agreed that the Ivers0n v. knak game should stand, and there are no objections, I am prepared to make an exception in this instance.

Please count Iverson vs. knak as the official game. Given a situation that has never occurred before, given that you weren't there to make a ruling, given that the players present did something very reasonable that might have been in accordance with the rules under a different interpretation (e.g. that strictly Eggman would not be allowed to substitute until Iverson fails to show up, which he didn't), it would seem silly to assign a forfeit.

Having procedures in place should protect both teams from being treated unfairly. It would be a sad day if both teams were in fact treated fairly, and the role of having procedures in place was to create opportunities to forfeit someone for not following procedures.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by knak on Sep 1^st, 2012, 11:29pm

I had no idea that Ivers0n had asked for a replacement, thus "forfeiting" the game. I entered the official game room at about a minute before the scheduled time. Ivers0n submitted his first move, and the game proceeded normally.

Several minutes into the game, I received a challenge from Eggman. Given that I was playing what seemed to be the official game by every indication, I declined the game and disregarded the challenge, which stated "Ivers0n couldn't make it," since this seemed obviously to be false. The clock on the live game was ticking, and I didn't want to take too much time to chat with Eggman or sort out what the misunderstanding was.

Eggman then challenged again, and at this point it became very distracting from the game so I declined, asking that no further challenges be made. I don't think it would be reasonable to expect me to have, mid-game, with the clock running, searched the forums to see whether Ivers0n asked for a sub, then studied the AWL rules to see who the correct player would be.

If a game is rescheduled or a player is substituted, at the very least the opponent needs to know before the game starts. Receiving a challenge mid-game stating something like "this is the official game, not the one you are playing" should not be the first and only way that players are informed when and whom they are playing.

Consider if I had accepted Eggman's challenge, and, say resigned or timed out against Ivers0n, but later learned that Eggman had only provisionally and not officially been substituted. I certainly couldn't be expected to have played both games at once.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by megajester on Sep 2^nd, 2012, 1:01am

I agree, Fritz, that it would be unfair in the spirit of the rules to say knak forfeits. Strictly speaking I see no other way of interpreting rules 8.1.1 and 8.1.3, but when the rules were being drafted nobody envisioned that a player might resign, and then turn up and play the game anyway. I mean, who would do that, right? I completely agree and sympathize with knak that there is nothing else he could reasonably have been expected to do.

So if there are no reasonable objections before the end of today, Ivers0n v. knak will stand.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by Eggman on Sep 2^nd, 2012, 9:54am

I'm perfectly content to have the Ivers0n vs knak game stand. I want to mention, however, that I had emailed knak Wednesday about potentially rescheduling the game and sent him an Arimaa message on the same topic Thursday so I'm not sure what more I could have done to prevent him from being surprised by my game invitation. That was nowhere near as out of the blue as he apparently thought.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by knak on Sep 2^nd, 2012, 10:12am

Ah, thanks Eggman. That does sound perfectly reasonable. I don't check the email associated with Arimaa very often. Due to the number of emails that Arimaa sends me (about postal game moves, etc.) and the fact that it is shared with anyone whom I play, it is not my normal email address. Arimaa messages are also just email messages (I think) to the same address. I check forum messages somewhat regularly (during the AWL), but maybe I wouldn't have noticed that either.

Now that I have had this experience I will certainly check for email messages and forum posts before my next scheduled game. But I also think that in a similar situation in the future, another player may have the same problem and confusion that I did.

I'm not sure what people think the best way to fix this would be, but the suggestion that the AWL scheduled games be updated after someone officially forfeits seems totally reasonable to me. I (mistakenly) thought those were the official games. I also (mistakenly) thought that if a game was to be rescheduled or altered, then both parties had to agree to it publicly beforehand.

If it helps, I would be happy to play a new, rescheduled game against Eggman.

EDIT: I have just read the messages and I feel bad for not checking that email ahead of the match. Again, I won't make this mistake in the future, and I'm sorry for the confusion that my ignorance of those messages caused.

Ironically Arimaa messages are no different or better than email messages. There is absolutely no indication anywhere on the Arimaa site (forums or anywhere) that a message has been sent.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by Eggman on Sep 2^nd, 2012, 10:57am

No worries, knak. I don't see a need to replay that game (it's very unlikely the result would change, anyway ;) ). The crux of the problem seems to be making everyone involved aware when a substitution is made. If/when I'm in that position again, my plan will be to start a "Substitutions" thread (assuming my account has permission to start new threads in this forum) and announce my substitution there.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by Nombril on Sep 4^th, 2012, 9:26pm

Maybe this should be moved to another forum... but I thought I would continue the above discussion by pointing out:

on 10/11/10 at 14:11:21, Nombril wrote:

...
Since the gameroom already has an automatic 15 min grace period, I suggest that a forfeit be automatic after 15 min. A substitution can be prepared in the meantime, but should NOT start until after the 15 min window has run out. Probably a 5 min window (so 15-20 min after the original scheduled time) would be sufficient time for the game with the sub to be started.
...

I still think there should be a clear line between when the original game should start and when substitutions should start, now we have an example for what can happen ::)

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by megajester on Sep 5^th, 2012, 12:17am

If anybody is confused, please read the following except from the official rules (click on the link in my signature to read the full text):

8. SUBSTITUTION

Either one of the following procedures must be followed in order.

8.1 Player Resignation

8.1.1 The official player must state in his team's forum clubhouse thread that he will be unable to play his scheduled game. All subsequent discussion takes place in the clubhouse thread, or the results of any discussion that takes place elsewhere must be recorded in this thread.

[...]

8.1.3 If the manager is available, he has the final decision as to who will be the substitute. After announcing his decision he may not change it unless the substitute subsequently resigns his position as per step 8.1.1. If the manager is unavailable a subsitution can only be made at the game time as per section 8.2.

[...]

8.2 Player Absence

8.2.1 Within an hour before the game time, an official player's teammates may follow the procedure below as a precaution. However the player selected by the following procedure only becomes the official player when 15 minutes have passed after the official game time, and the official player has failed to turn up.

As you can see, there are two circumstances under which a substitution can take place:

1. The player indicates beforehand he will not be able to play his game (resignation). A player who has resigned is no longer the official player, even if he turns up at the game time. His replacement is the official player as long as he wants to be.

2. The player just goes AWOL and is nowhere to be seen at the game time (absence). Wait 15 minutes, and then any teammate can stand in.

Title: Rescheduled Game: balaclava vs. wabbott
Post by wabbott on Sep 7^th, 2012, 1:30pm

balaclava and I have agreed to reschedule our game originally scheduled for 8 PM US Eastern Daylight Time on 9/8/2012

The new time is 1 PM US Eastern Daylight Time on 9/8/2012

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by balaclava on Sep 7^th, 2012, 2:58pm

I confirm what wabbott said. Our game is now scheduled for 1PM EDT on 9/8/2012.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by Fritzlein on Sep 8^th, 2012, 1:41am

I just read the chat archive and learned what happened with the scheduled round 3 game of Aamir vs. clyring. Oh boy. Megajester, I don't envy you in trying to make a ruling about it.

I am writing this post, not to advocate a particular decision, but to suggest that no matter what the ruling is for the present, there is a fundamental flaw in the rules.

on 09/05/12 at 00:17:24, megajester wrote:

As you can see, there are two circumstances under which a substitution can take place:

1. The player indicates beforehand he will not be able to play his game (resignation). A player who has resigned is no longer the official player, even if he turns up at the game time. His replacement is the official player as long as he wants to be.

2. The player just goes AWOL and is nowhere to be seen at the game time (absence). Wait 15 minutes, and then any teammate can stand in.

The situation tonight makes it clear that a team can gain advantage by not officially designating a substitute in advance, even when the scheduled player knows in advance he will not be able to play. The optimal strategy is to have multiple substitutes standing ready and only make a call as to which to use after fifteen minutes since the scheduled game time have elapsed.

Why wait? Because you might learn something useful before deciding. For example, if the opponent fails to show up and the opposing team has no substitute present, you should substitute someone rated lower than the original player to collect the forfeit win without any budget penalty. You're just shooting yourself in the foot if you unnecessarily substitute in a higher-rated player.

Another reason to wait is that the opposing team might also know in advanced that they need to make a substitution. If the opponents are foolish enough to publicly declare who their substitute will be, the strength of the new opponent could affect the optimal substitute for your side.

It is a problem in itself that the rules make it advantageous to wait to the last minute to sort things out, insofar as it creates confusion and (potentially) hard feelings. Unfortunately, the rule gap is worse than that. What if both original players can't (or don't) make it to the game? Then both teams have an incentive not to give away their substitution strategy.

If I understood correctly, the Atlantics had the option of replacing clyring with aaaa or browni3141, although neither would be optimal because aaaa would not have time to play a complete game, and browni3141 would be rather expensive. The Rockies had the option of replacing Aamir with ChrisB or forfeiting, although ChrisB would be expensive and the forfeit would incur a negative point. But which team should be required to make the decision first?

If the Rockies decide first and accept a forfeit, then of course the Atlantics should substitute in aaaa to collect the win with no chance of aaaa having to leave and lose by time out. But if the Rockies decide first and play ChrisB, then the Atlantics would rather substitute in browni3141 to have a good chance of winning, despite the cost.

If the Atlantics decide first and substitute in browni3141, then the Rockies should definitely choose to forfeit, since there is a chance ChrisB would lose even after busting the budget to play. On the other hand, if the Atlantics had first decided to substitute in aaaa, then the Rockies should probably sub in ChrisB to collect the timeout win instead of forfeiting. (Yes, the swing between forfeit and win is only 3 League points and the budget hit is slightly greater, but taking into account that the Atlantics would lose 2 league points tips the balance in favor of ChrisB playing. Anyway, the ratings could well have been slightly different making it a clear-cut case that whichever team decides last does better.)

It is now clear to me that whenever both teams need to substitute, and both teams have a choice, the situation can quickly become untenable. Everyone involved in this situation tried to be sporting, with ChrisB saying he would forfeit (since that is what the team should do without knowing the Atlantics' situation) and with browni3141 saying he would substitute (since that is what the team should do without knowing the Rockies' situation). Now that the issue has come up, however, it would be asking for trouble to leave the rules as they are and hope for a good outcome next time.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by ChrisB on Sep 8^th, 2012, 9:21am

on 09/08/12 at 01:41:12, Fritzlein wrote:

Another reason to wait is that the opposing team might also know in advanced that they need to make a substitution. If the opponents are foolish enough to publicly declare who their substitute will be, the strength of the new opponent could affect the optimal substitute for your side.

It is a problem in itself that the rules make it advantageous to wait to the last minute to sort things out, insofar as it creates confusion and (potentially) hard feelings. Unfortunately, the rule gap is worse than that. What if both original players can't (or don't) make it to the game? Then both teams have an incentive not to give away their substitution strategy.

Would this be a fix?

Allow teams to only declare publically that "Player X has been substituted" but not say by whom. But before making this declaration the team would need to name the particular substitute in a private message to a reliable third party (say, megajester). Then the team could reveal the name of the substitute at any time where the timestamp of this revealation is after the timestamp of the private message.

If a team forgets to send the private message first, they will need to send a second public message after the private message has been sent.

If a team decides to forfeit, that sub could simply be no one.

If the manager is available, the manager's decision would take precedence over any other team member's decision.

In a chatroom situation, such as what occured about 12 hours ago, team members could agree on their decision by sending private messages to each other.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by megajester on Sep 8^th, 2012, 2:56pm

Oh. My. Giddy. Aunt.

First things first...

Aamir vs. browni3141 stands, and here's why:

8.2.1 [...] the player selected by the following procedure only becomes the official player when 15 minutes have passed after the official game time, and the official player has failed to turn up.

This means that at the point in time where all three conditions have been met, the original player is considered substituted:

A substitute player has been selected,
15 minutes have passed after the official game time,
the official player has failed to turn up.

Therefore it doesn't matter that Aamir turned up after the 15 minutes; he was still the official player because no substitute player had been selected.

By the same token browni3141 was the substitute for clyring, because he had been selected, "by consensus" (8.2.2.1), and the other two conditions had been met. 15 minutes had passed, and clyring was absent.

Of course another good reason for making this ruling is that all representatives of both teams present were agreed on the solution. As always, my ears are open to objections.

(A note: This rule was kind of accidentally-on-purpose written so that if there was nobody around to substitute, both players could turn up almost an hour late and still play [because the game would still be on the system], whereas if there were substitutes around they would not have to wait a whole hour. Which is another debate. Perhaps a better idea would be to say that teammates have until T+15 mins to select a substitute who is fielded at T+15 mins if the original player is absent, otherwise the game is forfeited even if the original player turns up.)

Now to the real debate... I agree something needs to be done.

We already have 8.2.2.1 to guide teams to when making a substitute selection in case of player absence: The manager has the final decision. However if the manager is unavailable to decide who will play, the other players will try to reach a consensus. If they fail to reach a consensus the highest rated eligible volunteer takes precedence. For clarity, we could amend this to say that if the manager is absent the highest ranking team member present makes the final decision.

Paradoxical situations such as today's only occur when both players are absent and two selections must be made simultaneously. However I think ChrisB's solution is a bit complicated. My personal suggestion for a quick-and-easy solution is to say the Gold team must select its substitute first then Silver. We already have an inherent imbalance between the Gold and Silver pieces that is compensated by playing once with each against each team throughout the season; we could say this compensates Gold for being at a slight disadvantage.

We are still left with the fact that it may be advantageous for a team to defer a substitution on player resignation to the actual game time. But if we have a clear way to solve scenarios such as today's I don't see a reason to remove the option to appoint a sub in advance if the teams want to keep it.

I would like to thank everyone for their patience this season, we have had many a glitch on the wiki, and two rounds of controversy because of rules that could have been written better.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by Fritzlein on Sep 8^th, 2012, 3:30pm

Good plan, Joel. Making the Gold team declare first is simple, clear, and prevents a standoff. In this case, ChrisB would have had to go first and say he wouldn't sub, after which the Atlantics could have selected aaaa to be their sub, collecting a forfeit win. Not good for the Gold team, but good for the league to avoid building an infrastructure for secret, simultaneous submissions.

I think a simple, clear solution is all we need at present, given the high degree of sportsmanship on display in the AWL. If the procedure breaks down again later, we can deal with the fallout then. (And by "we" I mean "megajester" ;-))

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by browni3141 on Sep 8^th, 2012, 3:35pm

on 09/08/12 at 14:56:46, megajester wrote:

My personal suggestion for a quick-and-easy solution is to say the Gold team must select its substitute first then Silver. We already have an inherent imbalance between the Gold and Silver pieces that is compensated by playing once with each against each team throughout the season; we could say this compensates Gold for being at a slight disadvantage.

I don't understand. Gold is at a disadvantage since they have to commit to a sub before silver does, but I don't see where he is compensated for it.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by megajester on Sep 8^th, 2012, 3:48pm

Maybe this time Gold would have been at a disadvantage in practice, but in theory Gold will have the advantage of knowing exactly who Silver has available, and possibly using that knowledge to force an advantageous outcome. Fortune will still favour the team that has more people available.

Note: Any way of moving replies 19-24 on this thread to the Roundtable thread?

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by Fritzlein on Sep 8^th, 2012, 6:41pm

on 09/08/12 at 15:48:26, megajester wrote:

Note: Any way of moving replies 19-24 on this thread to the Roundtable thread?

Yes, but I have forgotten the admin password. Maybe aaaa remembers from when he re-organized all the categories for us.

Quote:

No, I'm pretty sure that, whatever the options available to each team, Gold would do worse declaring first than declaring second.

Quote:

Fortune will still favour the team that has more people available.

True. If you have only one option available, that's just like having to declare first. But as both sides get more options, the advantage of going second grows.

I'm not bothered by hanging this disadvantage on the Gold team. (A) It only matters when both teams substitute, and (B) everyone has to be the Gold team an equal number of times.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by aaaa on Sep 8^th, 2012, 7:24pm

on 09/08/12 at 18:41:57, Fritzlein wrote:

Yes, but I have forgotten the admin password. Maybe aaaa remembers from when he re-organized all the categories for us.

Same thing here, but I do think that moving whole threads to different boards is nowhere near as dubious as moving posts from one thread to another, as that feels tantamount to rewriting a conversation.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by megajester on Sep 17^th, 2012, 7:41am

Wiki has been updated with Round 3 standings and Round 4 ("Next Round") ratings. Managers may revise their rosters if necessary.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by ginrunner on Sep 20^th, 2012, 11:38am

VinceS and I are rescheduling our game to 4pm Saturday (Arizona), 1am Sunday(GMT).

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by VinceS on Sep 21^st, 2012, 4:31am

I agree to the new gametime, but I think I am in GMT+1 (Germany). But 4 pm Arizona = 1 am Germany should be right.

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by clyring on Sep 21^st, 2012, 3:29pm

4 PM Arizonan time = 11 PM GMT/UTC = 1 AM German summer time

Does that clear up any confusion?

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by ginrunner on Sep 21^st, 2012, 6:47pm

Yep, all I know is I am in Arizona and I'll be logging in at 4pm on Sat. I list it as Arizona because unlike just about the rest of the US Arizona does not do daylight savings time. ::)

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by clyring on Sep 21^st, 2012, 7:36pm

...except for the Navajo Nation. Daylight savings time causes enough stress and confusion already when it is practiced identically across regions... :P

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by ginrunner on Sep 22^nd, 2012, 12:02pm

So my appointment got pushed back today making it difficult to make my scheduled time. I am going to try my hardest to make it but if I can't hopefully someone from the Rockies can substitute. I would try to reschedule the game again but this was the only possible time we saw. Sorry

Title: Re: Rescheduled Games
Post by browni3141 on Sep 22^nd, 2012, 12:10pm

on 09/22/12 at 12:02:59, ginrunner wrote:

You should have told them you were already booked for that time ;)