When someone leaves a tournament either by surrendering or getting booted, do any games they played previously get converted into losses?    I ask, because if not, then those who play tournaments slowly have an advantage over those who play fast, because those who play fast risk losing to someone who might later leave the tournament and give a free pass to his remaining opponents.

Of course, this only applies to round-robin tournaments as I'm not sure how you can correct a path in an elimination tournament once it has gotten a game past when you got eliminated.  In that case, like just sucks sometimes.

I prefer to play tournaments fast and so I've changed my setting to play multiple tournament games at one time.  But, I'm thinking that that's probably not the best strategy.   Even if booted players' games do get converted to losses, there is something to be said for purposely playing a tournament slowly so as to be  able to view a larger sample set of your opponent's games before you play them.    There's also the benefit that once you see you're mathematically eliminated, you can surrender and save time (but, I'm not advocating that if doing so skews games of those still competitive).   While it seems to be "smart" to play tournaments slow, I'd hate to see tournaments slow down more if everyone started playing slowly just because it might give you an edge. 

I've noticed this too. I don't know if they do it on purpose or just give up once they've realized they can't win. Either way, it sucks because it has a bearing on the outcome of the tournament.

if a game is played, it counts. if someone leaves the tourney voluntarily (surrenders is the only way --getting booted for no shows is on a per game invite basis) only the subsequent games get counted as a loss for the player that left. if they're found to be cheaters, well that's another story...

at first read, i thought to try to refute your claims; but thinking about it more, i think what you say is accurate. Although I'm not sure there's anything that can be done about it. while your statement "because those who play fast risk losing to someone who might later leave the tournament and give a free pass to his remaining opponents" is true, it's also more than likely that those games played will be against someone of lesser skill (only exception is if a 'good' player gets booted for forgetting to log in and again that's a 1 game at a time basis.)

The answer to this may be in this thread:

http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/1392p2/Solution_for_Tournament_Tiebreaker_Method

At post 92 tom says "All the figures are continuously recalculated as each game is completed. So timing doesn't matter."

Amidon37 wrote:

The answer to this may be in this thread:

http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/1392p2/Solution_for_Tournament_Tiebreaker_Method

At post 92 tom says "All the figures are continuously recalculated as each game is completed. So timing doesn't matter."

see that's where my first instinct went too, but it's not about scoring.

it's about pacing of your turns so you dont play a person who surrenders after three games (for example). you play slowly so you minimize the chances that you play one of those types. my point is the only type this affects are those that surrender. those that forget vacation, or just walk away from the site all get booted from each individual game and have a chance to come back at some point...

http://www.wargear.net/tournaments/view/1337

Good example here.  ChupaChups beat me one game, then surrendered the tourney. I would at least have been able to Chase MB if not for that loss. But everyone else was guaranteed one win. 

ratsy wrote:

http://www.wargear.net/tournaments/view/1337

Good example here.  ChupaChups beat me one game, then surrendered the tourney. I would at least have been able to Chase MB if not for that loss. But everyone else was guaranteed one win. 

Your argument would have even have been stronger if MB got the win because of the tournament surrender, but, it was an in-game surrender.  Might even have been the one that discouraged ChupaChups from completing the tournament after seeing the MB got to start the game with Oceania... Disgustingly filthy luck on his part there!  ;-)

Yes, I have thought about this as well, I think that if someone surrenders from a tourney all the games they played should be losses, even those already completed (except for elimination tourneys)

SquintGnome wrote:

Yes, I have thought about this as well, I think that if someone surrenders from a tourney all the games they played should be losses, even those already completed (except for elimination tourneys)

+1

I was thinking about arguing that some players enter tournaments to audition or learn boards because it doesn't affect their rating (which BTW should change should there ever be an aggregate, etc.), but really, players who enter  tournaments just to try out a board should just enter an elim tourney.

Summary: Enter a tourney - play the games.  Leave the tourney - forfeit all the games.

Here's something to consider - When you surrender from a tournament, don['t all of your phantom losses not count against your Tournament (GP) rating?  I'm thinking they do not count because what order - or "when" are those loses recorded? I.e., how are the points allocated?  Consider the implications of this when a player in a tournament sees that they will probably lose most of the games, resulting in a lower rating - so he surrenders.

M57 wrote:

SquintGnome wrote:

Yes, I have thought about this as well, I think that if someone surrenders from a tourney all the games they played should be losses, even those already completed (except for elimination tourneys)

+1

I was thinking about arguing that some players enter tournaments to audition or learn boards because it doesn't affect their rating (which BTW should change should there ever be an aggregate, etc.), but really, players who enter  tournaments just to try out a board should just enter an elim tourney.

Summary: Enter a tourney - play the games.  Leave the tourney - forfeit all the games.

Here's something to consider - When you surrender from a tournament, don['t all of your phantom losses not count against your Tournament (GP) rating?  I'm thinking they do not count because what order - or "when" are those loses recorded? I.e., how are the points allocated?  Consider the implications of this when a player in a tournament sees that they will probably lose most of the games, resulting in a lower rating - so he surrenders.

I have always thought that playing tournament games to learn the board was a bit of a cop out of an excuse to downplay the tourney ranking.  If someone wants to learn a board, that's what private games are designed for.

I completely agree with you about what the consequences of surrendering a tournament.  First, as you said, no losses should be phantom losses.  Besides the games that they have already completed, the remaining games on their docket should be deducted from his/her score and added to the winners' via the order of rounds at the time of their surrender.  If you were supposed to play him/her in an earlier round then = more points from their surrender, later round = less points, luck of the draw based on the rounds which are randomly generated when the tourney is launched, without prejudice.  Second, I also agree with Squint that in the event of surrender then all previous wins should be converted to losses so as not to bias in favour of the rest of the field nor encourage slow play.

The only downside to this is that in the past I have surrendered tourneys after I had completed ALL my games, yet the tourney was still running (because of slow players).  I did this so that I could enter a new tourney as standard members are limited to 10, only.  So, it was not really a surrender as much as freeing myself up to start another tournament.  Obviously, this would no longer be possible if that surrender would then convert all my wins to losses.  This also means that such a change could not be retroactive as obviously I wouldn't have surrendered at that time if this were the case and would have just let the tourney finish to free me from it (I don't know how commonly this tactic is used by standard members to expand their ability to enter tournaments?).  As of such, if surrender were made to convert all wins to losses I would also suggest that to make up for this handcuffing standard members from entering new tournaments, even tough they have already finished all their games in one, or more, of their ten tournaments, I'd recommend that once a player has completed all their own games in a tournament that that in itself frees them to join another.

EDIT: It just hit me that wins can not so easily be converted to losses for multi-player games.  Perhaps in that case the game would re-launch minus the surrendered player, or something like that, to settle who the new winner might be?

... in the past I have surrendered tourneys after I had completed ALL my games, yet the tourney was still running (because of slow players).  I did this so that I could enter a new tourney as standard members are limited to 10, only.  So, it was not really a surrender as much as freeing myself up to start another tournament. 

I feel like there should be a way for tourneys where you have completed all games to not count against your active tournament total. 

Especially if we are making changes in order to discourage slow tournament play (which I support).

BTdubs wrote:

... in the past I have surrendered tourneys after I had completed ALL my games, yet the tourney was still running (because of slow players).  I did this so that I could enter a new tourney as standard members are limited to 10, only.  So, it was not really a surrender as much as freeing myself up to start another tournament. 

I feel like there should be a way for tourneys where you have completed all games to not count against your active tournament total. 

Especially if we are making changes in order to discourage slow tournament play (which I support).

For instance, no stats are calculated until the tourney is over?  ..at which point all points would be calculated in the order that they occurred, but globally at the time the tournament ended?