Petition

Originally posted by Very Rusty
Sir,
We should shortly have the stats on what your SANDBAGGING POINTS have given to "EASY RIDERS" stay tuned, my friend.

You obviously do not see the difference between resigning a game at the beginning of a CLAN CHALLENGE, and resigning game(s) when the challenge has already been decided.

One can lead a horse to water, but you can't ...[text shortened]... sult.

Kindest Regards,
Karma is nipping harder at your butt now, my friend,
Sincerely,
-VR

Originally posted by Very Rusty
Sir,
We should shortly have the stats on what your SANDBAGGING POINTS have given to "EASY RIDERS" stay tuned, my friend.

You obviously do not see the difference between resigning a game at the beginning of a CLAN CHALLENGE, and resigning game(s) when the challenge has already been decided.

One can lead a horse to water, but you can't ...[text shortened]... sult.

Kindest Regards,
Karma is nipping harder at your butt now, my friend,
Sincerely,
-VR

Originally posted by Mctayto
You are too thick to understand that resigning at any time during a game has the same outcome thus members of metallica resigning or throwing games when the outcome has already been determined is SANDBAGGING

Therefore Metallica are admitted sandbaggers
ReplyReply & QuoteEdit

Originally posted by Very Rusty
Sir,
You are talking apple and oranges. You are RESIGNING GAME(S) before the challenge has even get underway. I have seen at least one Won game that you RESIGNED at the start of a CHALLENGE to give "EASY RIDERS" points, THAT IS CHEATING & SANDBAGGING.

Good luck trying to convince the membership that it is the same thing!
Perhaps I give you t ...[text shortened]... riend,
Don't listen to robbie you keep posting all you want,
Kindest Regards,
Sincerely,
-VR

Originally posted by Mctayto
Resigning a game at any time during a game has the same result thus no difference if beginning, middle or end of a game.

[b]Metallica members are therefore SANDBAGGERS[/b]

Originally posted by Mctayto

Metallica members are therefore SANDBAGGERS[/b]

Originally posted by roma45
i can see why you would prefer a different system
your clan having 12 players has only managed to finish three so far this year, with another three in progress.
plus you have not lost yet, do you think a clan like that deserves to be champions?

Originally posted by moonbus
What I think is that all clans, including small ones, deserve a level playing field, one not dominated by sheer weight of numbers.

Maybe you think an Oscar should be awarded to the actor who appears in the most movies. I don't.

Originally posted by moonbus
What I think is that all clans, including small ones, deserve a level playing field, one not dominated by sheer weight of numbers.

Maybe you think an Oscar should be awarded to the actor who appears in the most movies. I don't.

Originally posted by Very Rusty
Sir,
I answered that by saying what would be wrong with having X number of games for smaller Clans, and X number of games for larger clans? That would equal the field!!! Make a lot more work for the admins though!
Kind Regards,
Sincerely,
-VR

Originally posted by roma45
i can see why you would prefer a different system
your clan having 12 players has only managed to finish three so far this year, with another three in progress.
plus you have not lost yet, do you think a clan like that deserves to be champions?

Originally posted by moonbus
Are you proposing a two-tier clan system?

Originally posted by moonbus
What I think is that all clans, including small ones, deserve a level playing field, one not dominated by sheer weight of numbers.

Maybe you think an Oscar should be awarded to the actor who appears in the most movies. I don't.

roma45:

<<first football now the oscars? ...
what this thread is about, i will clarify again.four clans easy riders anti-metallica breaking bad and the arrow, have come together to cheat, no other word to describe it.three clans are giving the easy riders points without even trying, i have posted many links to games, resigning when one move from check mate, resigning after only a few moves.
i know its not against the rules to resign, but for the same players against the same clan over and over, never mind a level playing field, they should not be allowed to play.
the same thing happened last year, both clans involved got suspended, now the same players are doing it again, but much worse and are on boosting about it.
simple solution would be suspend the clans involved remove the points and give each player a warning it will happen again
i don't want players banned, seeing they cant loop hole win will be punishment enough.
if you come up with a level playing idea for the system i will support you most on here would
in the mean time can we at least try and send a message to admin and the cheats, we will not accept it. to me a no voter is a supporter of those who cheat. >>


I take your point that metaphors have gotten mixed up, so I will stick to chess.

Let me illustrate what I mean by a level playing field, and explain why I think suspending clans and removing ill-gotten points doesn’t address the root problem.

First, how player strength and clan standings are reckoned is highly relevant to why certain clans are throwing games and colluding. Without addressing this issue, and redressing a perceived grievance, the collusion will continue. Elucidation follows.

I have gathered some figures from chessgames.com:

Efim Geller has 2,241 games in the database, with 805 gross wins; Magnus Carlsen has 2,316 games in the database, with 632 gross wins. If you reckon gross wins as the measure of a player’s strength, then Geller must be/have been stronger than Carlsen.

Ah, I hear the objection already: “Geller actively played a lot longer than Carlsen has; just wait, Carlsen will top Geller’s gross wins yet.” Right? Wrong. Even if Carlsen were to retire from professional chess tomorrow and never play again, never topping Geller’s 805 gross wins, he would still be the stronger player.

And yes, I hear the next objection already, too: “Geller and Carlsen were cherry picked to try to prove a point. Pick any two other players, and the result might be different.” Yes! Of course! That is exactly my point. Gross wins is arbitrary. It does not necessarily correlate to player strength, it merely incidentally does so in some cases. It may merely correlate to how many tournaments a player entered. Gross wins is not the criterion which determines player strength (in chess anyway). The criteria are: ELO rating, or, if no rating is available (e.g. for historical reasons), then win ratio (expressed as % wins). (Geller’s, by the way, is 60%, Carlsen’s is 62%.)

Now apply that same principle to the clan system. Gross wins may correlate to how hard a clan captain worked to get challenges set up, but it is no measure of clan strength. This is not a level playing field, since large clans (which play more games at shorter time limits) are unfairly favored to garner more gross wins (compared to smaller clans, or those which play fewer games, or at longer time limits), and this has led to resentment and ultimately to a situation in which some people are prepared to try to scuttle the entire system.

The proposal to divide the clan system into two tiers, one for large clans and another for small clans, does not solve the problem. Instead of having one tilted field, we would then have two tilted fields, and within each field the relatively larger clans which play more games at shorter time limits would still be unfairly favored to amass more gross wins than relatively smaller clans which play fewer games at longer time limits.

To bring this to a point: the issue is not clan size. Clan size merely highlights a symptom of the real issue. The issue is the metric for gauging clan standings.

Second, sandbagging. If the only measure applied to counteract sandbagging consists in banning players who do it, that merely temporarily ameliorates the symptom retro-actively. As you yourself point out, it does not prevent a recurrence and it requires constant policing to keep it in check. It is ad hoc and therefore arbitrary, because some instances of sandbagging are bound to go unnoticed. Banning and removal of ill-gotten points also requires human intervention after the fact, which is time-consuming and inherently unsatisfactory (‘justice delayed is justice denied’ ).

Third, if the clan standings were determined not by gross wins, but rather by win ratio or net rating change, then if players threw games, they would not only lower their own individual ratings (or win ratios), but also thereby the standings of their own clans. This would occur automatically as part of the normal operation of the system; not ad hoc, not after the fact, and requiring no human intervention or policing, because the system itself would account for it as part of its normal operation. There would be no need to police the system to ferret out sandbaggers. Players could sandbag all they wanted, but this would bring no advantage to their clans any more. Every thrown game would be automatically debited from the clan standings as part of the normal operation of the system. The issue of sandbagging would thereby be directly addressed and redressed at its root cause.

That is the general idea, namely to peg clan standings to the same criteria which otherwise apply in the rest of the chess world: either (ELO) rating or %wins.

Obviously this would require some minor adaptations and some fine tuning to get it to work properly. If ratings are to be used, then, obviously, simply summing the ratings of the players to arrive at a clan aggregate rating would be nonsense. Similarly nonsensical would be the average or median rating of a clan’s members. What is required must not be a snapshot in time and must not favor clans with higher-rated players, but must accurately reflect performance over the period of a clan season.

I suggested net rating change as one possible metric. A clan which showed a net rating change of +100 by the end of a challenge-season would stand higher than a clan with a net rating change of +99. This would be relatively easy to calculate and would be completely independent of clan size or numbers of games played or individual’s ratings (high or low). (Of course, we can set some arbitrary minimum of games to be played and challenges to be met, to eliminate the absurd case of a one-man clan playing one game, winning it, and claiming the championship.) That would be a level playing field.

Some further points: if clan standings were to be pegged to net rating change, then clan ratings of members would have to be separated from non-clan member ratings calculations, to render sandbagging outside the clan system irrelevant to clan standings. As has been pointed out, separate individual ratings are already in force elsewhere at RHP, so nothing new or strange there. A clan-member provisional rating system would have to be implemented over some arbitrary number of clan-games (say 10), same as for provisional non-clan individual ratings (20). Nothing new there either. Once the clan individual ratings stabilized, and clan standings were pegged to net rating change, sandbagging would cease to offer any advantage to clans.

Alternatively, if clan standings were pegged to win ratio, rather than gross wins, this too would establish a level playing field, given the same provisos above (separation of clan individual ratings from non-clan individual ratings, minimum number of clan challenges/games, etc.).

Fourth, collusion. I strongly suspect that if a level playing field were established, then the motive for collusion would disappear. But just in case it did not, a few simple provisions could be implemented to render collusion irrelevant to clan standings. A maximum number of challenges could be set between any two clans involving the same players; maybe two (to allow a rematch). Large clans could play several challenges against the same smaller one, provided the larger clan fielded different players each time. Furthermore, clans which simply like to play each other repeatedly could do so, but only the maximum number of challenges would count towards the standings. Etc.

It has also been suggested that a player should belong to only one clan. I do not see a need for this particular proviso, certainly not if those two clans never meet in a challenge. But even if they should meet, it could be left up to clan captains to settle the issue, which player(s) would play on which side (or be sidelined for that particular challenge).

Sorry this is so long, but the issue is complex. The “simple solution,” re-allocating points ad hoc, will not fix what is wrong with the system.

Originally posted by moonbus
roma45:

<<first football now the oscars? ...
what this thread is about, i will clarify again.four clans easy riders anti-metallica breaking bad and the arrow, have come together to cheat, no other word to describe it.three clans are giving the easy riders points without even trying, i have posted many links to games, resigning when one move from check ma ...[text shortened]... The “simple solution,” re-allocating points ad hoc, will not fix what is wrong with the system.