On Thu, Jul 06, 2006 at 01:40:12PM -0400, kerry_and_ryan wrote: > -------------- Original message ---------------------- > From: Marc Hartstein <marc.hartstein@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > > How would the structure used for the Icehouse tournament work? I wasn't > > entirely satisfied with it for Icehouse (as Pace pointed out, it's > > gameable), but Martian Chess scores differently than Icehouse. I guess > > it still has a problem, though, because not all of the 18 points/player > > are awarded. > > While I haven't actually tried it, I'm convinced that the Icehouse > calculation would be god-awful for Martian Chess. In fact, I would > argue that someone who wins a game of Martian Chess with a LOW score > did better than someone who won with a high score. I disagree with you there (the second part). If somebody does extraordinarily well in the midgame, they could end up with an abnormally high score giving them a commanding lead for the win. That wouldn't be worse play than eking the game out to an 18/17/17/16. I'm convinced, especially after thinking about scores, that my idea doesn't play well. Raw score isn't an important enough aspect of the game (and the game isn't zero-sum). (Incidentally, the more I think about this the more I think a structure like that is ideal for a game like Icetowers, where every game has the exact same number of points to give out.) > Is the [total * (wins+1)] formula "gameable" for Icehouse? Sure. > Going into the final game of the finals, Julian knew that he had to > beat Joshua by five or more point to win the while thing. I was thinking of Pace's suggestion that if we all agreed to play only defenders from the beginning of the game, we'd all contribute 30 points and 1/4 win to our scores. This score for a game actually puts you ahead of the curve, so it's a good idea. The system also rewards play which leads to higher-scoring games overall, which I'm not convinced is a good thing. (Incidentally, it would be *terrible* for a Volcano tournament, where a really high score suggests very little about how well you did.)
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