[Icehouse] [Martian Chess] End of Tournament Games

[Marc Hartstein]

On Thu, Jul 06, 2006 at 01:40:12PM -0400, kerry_and_ryan wrote:
>  -------------- Original message ----------------------
> From: Marc Hartstein <marc.hartstein at alum.vassar.edu>
> > 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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