SpielByWeb

[joaotorres]

I've been away from SBW for a while (unfortunately , and I'm glad to see lots of tourneys popping up.

I guess a lot could be done here to support it, but a feature to provide fully automated support for tourneys certainly would demand a lot of work.

But in my opinion, a nice feature that should be easy to implement is an option to "anonymize" the games until they're finished. I mean, once the game starts you don't know which player is playing with each color. So that you can't change your game based on who's winning the tourney.

My suggestion is to add an option to play the games in an anonymous way, so that you'll know who's playing but not who's each player in the game itself.

Guess that must be easy to do and a nice addition to tourneys. And as it will be optional, if you want to run a tourney the regular way, you still can.

Thanks in advance..

[jmucchiello]

I second this. Shouldn't be too hard to list everyone has "Player 1" until the game ends. It would eliminate the advantage playing to the players' weaknesses which is an unfair advantage since it generally cannot be reciprocated.

[t_o_m9]

knowing who you are playing against is a big part of the strategy though... especially in auction games.

[bearsfan]

This is a good idea. Often a player might not be able to win a game, but can influence who does. Allowing the option for anonymous tournament play with identities revealed at the conclusion would help prevent gaming the tourney system by one player delaying making the last few moves in a game to see how your opponents rankings are doing and then favoring one player in that game to help yourself in the tournament rankings. Or, having players gang up against whoever is ranked #1 in the tournament.

[jmucchiello]

Play more poker. It isn't fair to the people who know less about their opponents. If you've played with Tom 100 times and can predict his play, that isn't fair to Steve who's never played against Tom. Using knowledge from outside the game to influence events in the game is usually considered outside the rules. You can't avoid it in a face-to-face game. But as an option on a pbw game, especially a tournament, it levels the playing field.

[Carmilla]

You just used "fair" and "poker" in the same post?

In a poker game, I'm all OVER knowing everything about my opponent (at least in theory.)

Still -- it's an interesting point. I'm not that worried about the kingmaking aspect, but it would be intriguing to see if it would make a difference.

Truth to tell, though, if you DO know a player well, and you know he/she is in the game, odds are you'll have them pegged in short order anyway. Not to mention if Player #1 in game 1, Player #2 in game 3, and Player #5 in game6 all go away at the same time (with the same return date), you're gonna draw some conclusions ...

In fact, it might have the opposite effect from what you intend. If I've played with X a jillion times, I'll recognize X's style. If you haven't, you can't even use what little you MIGHT know (by reputation, or a handful of plays that you could study) because you don't know who X is. Still favors the one who knows the player better, and probably even more than it does now.

If the problem is knowledge of the player -- anybody can research the archives. If it's kingmaking -- well, that's a whole 'nother issue.

[jmucchiello]

I use "fair" and "poker" in opposite contexts in the same post. Although I've never though about fairness and poker at all. Fairness doesn't enter into it. The outcome is pre-determined after the shuffle. The question you have to answer is "What is finding out the outcome worth to you?" What could be more fair than that?

[Rebelslayer]

Blind would be great!

How would you water block me then Tom???

[t_o_m9]

I find it interesting that german style board games were designed to bring the family together and get a feel for different play styles. Likewise, you get to know people and enjoy their style when you play. It seems like it takes the soul out of the game. If I'm going to spend money to block rebel, it better be rebel that I'm blocking.

[jmucchiello]

The point is when you play in your living room, you know everybody there. Part of the fun is just being with friends and family. Would you stand for two players exchanging emails and colluding against the other 1-3 players? If you know your friend well enough taking advantage of his foibles is no different to the outside observer from him "helping" you. For the normal games, this isn't really an issue. For tournament style games, it is better to remove the appearance or even availability of collusion. (Granted, you could still send an email to your friend saying "I'm in prague. Where are you?" But I think at that point we agree that is cheating.)

[sekos88435]

1sdfsdf

[aricjoshua]

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