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Thursday, July 1, 2010

Some thoughts from the Battlefield

Good evening folks, I have a question for you that first seriously occurred to me this Saturday. I was playing at the Game Preserve tournament with many of you and a situation came up where my sportsmanship and desire to win were at odds.

Ishmael and I played our second game since he has started his new Tau army and it was a both a good game and a solid win for me. Because of this win I was matched up with Lucas. Before the game, during the lunch break, I was walking back into the game room and saw the matchup sheet and found out that Lucas and I were in the winner's bracket along with Loki and Lucas' brother. While Lucas and I took our time with playing the game and while the game was still going on we found out that Lucas' brother had beaten Loki.

Now I was faced with a dilemma: If I won Lucas' brother and I would be the only two undefeated players in the tournament and would square off for the grand prize. I might have been able to pull out at least third place with a loss and two wins, but if I tied Lucas there was a possibility I would be able to play someone else. Lucas' brother's army is based on the use of Capt. Shrike making his army fleet, a horrible thing for Tau, especially when used with twenty terminators and twenty assault marines. So the question became "do I want to win and play Zach or tie and face some unknown opponent?" As I've said before I view playing your best game as a way of honoring your opponent and showing that you believe they are a worthwhile player.

Which is more important to you, giving your opponent the best game you can or playing in the hopes of winning the tournament as a whole?

5 comments:

  1. my opinion is was your goal to win the whole tourney? I say that as in if it was a whole new 1500 pt army up for grabs what would you have done. Me. If an army I know I would be playing is a bad matchup if I win or get max points. Then I avoid it like a plague to play something different. If my whole goal is to win it all. Now if just looking for good games then give it your all.

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  2. I look at it a somewhat different way compared to Brodrick. Now the main issue here was that the matchup sheet was left out by the TO for people to look at which shouldn't happen in the first place. And because of the Curiosity (being a thunderhammer of course) killed the cat. Using that knowlege is usually viewed as bad sportsmanship. Now on the flip side of this, during if you had through asking around been able to extrapolate (yay for fun words) that zach had won his first game and used that knowelege as best you could it doesn't take a bright mind to figure out the same information you got from the sheet. In which case your playing to win a tournament. playing that second game to a draw could work in your benifit.. but theres always risk in that.

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  3. ^I agree completely with the above.

    Just because you are not playing for a win, but the most tactically sound option is to go for a draw, you are giving your opponent your "best game" in my opinion because you are still working hard for that draw to occur, and your opponent has to see this. Even if losing was winning in this case, the definition of winning has changed, but the win result hasn't, but now we are really getting complicated lol.

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  4. Baring the fact that you saw the TO's sheet, because he didn't put it up like he should have, I would have to say that if you are playing to win the tournament, and you can figure out the information that you had without using the sheet, which has already been discussed prior to this, and you know you are facing someone you have very little chance of beating, then there is no reason not to tactically draw game two. I would do the same thing back when I played Magic. I would purposely draw a game just so I didn't have to play certain decks that I knew I couldn't beat. If this was impossible, then I would do my best to win against them, but I would never go as far as quitting out or something of that nature. So go for it next time, just do whatever you can do to make it so you don't have to deal with it.

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  5. Thank you all for your thoughts, they've given me something to consider for the next tournament. I'm sorry I've been so long in getting back to you, but it's been a crazy week.

    The more I think about it, the more I think you guys have made very good arguments for playing the tournament more than any one game. Thank you all for your insights and time.

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