Neo Ladder

[blanci1]

well if you lose, then later on i beat excrim (in fog) then that would be good for me ... leap frogging in the fog ..he he.
But my point really is that if excrimophaleus hates fog, then while he is below me i can keep insisting on fog ! (he..he).. so im just wondering if that is really a good rule. Maybe we could at least put an alternation clause or something (obviously i would alternate conditions as i dont want to force fog on everyone especially those who prefer non-fog... but why not have a little add-on in the rules to make it a norm rather than a grace).

Generally i would agree with ichbinselber in not changing rules once a competition is underway, but i think this has exceptional grounds if it is perhaps unfair or infringing the original idea of the neoladder? (imagine im sitting at the top and i only will play in fog, chuckling away, ... im not sure if that was the idea of a mixed conditions ladder, or perhaps it was?)

[ichbinsehselber]

Well, excrimo challenged you, so if excrimo beats me before you end your game, the challenge of excrimo to you would become irrelevant. At least in my interpretation of the rules.
Do you interpret the rules differently? That the challenge would be converted automatically during the game into a challenge from you to him?

[blanci1]

mmm thats a curious point. Yes i think i see what youre saying. You are suggesting that if someone challenges you and meanwhile leap-frogs over you (by beating someone higher) that the game you have ongoing with that person suddenly becomes irrelevant !? curious. yeah i never thought about it much before. (it actually wont matter in our case since my game with excrimophalus isnt going/will finish soon as i think excrim really doesnt care to play in the fog which i chose). However the principle is important to get clarified for the ladder...

The key may be rule 5 which states
rule 5 . ..the winner takes the place of the loser..
One might assume the change of wording from challenger/defender to winner/loser was specifically for such cases as where there was various changes of ladder-positions during the course of possibly several varying duration games ... and it makes sense to not to have to "abandon" ongoing games and re-challenge that same person that had just challenged you.

However rule 5 may be slightly inconsistent or incomplete. So we may have an interpretation problem. Does anyone recall what people did before in these circumstances? surely it has happened before or in the old ladder. I ll try and check back through the records (gulp!).

[Walker]

No, that's not how it works. If you challenge someone above you but then you leapfrog over them while your game is still going, if you lose that game then the person you challenged moves ahead of you. It doesn't matter who challenged who; the winner of the game takes the place of the loser regardless who made the original challenge.

[blanci1]

No, that's not how it works. If you challenge someone above you but then you leapfrog over them while your game is still going, if you lose that game then the person you challenged moves ahead of you. It doesn't matter who challenged who; the winner of the game takes the place of the loser regardless who made the original challenge.

presumably that "no" refers to ichbinselbers interpretation. So it seems walker agrees with my interpretation. Just wonder if anyone recalls if it actually happened before ?

Also rule 5 then needs to be reworded slightly to be consistent and complete...

rule 5. the winner takes the place of the loser if and only if the loser is higher placed in the ladder at the finish of the game.

we obviously dont want people to argue that the winner must take the place of the loser even if the loser is lower down!

[ichbinsehselber]

While I have to accept that walker should be the ultimate person to interpret the rules of the Neoladder, I would like to state the problematic implication of that interpretation:
Assume that Excrimo wins against me and loses against blanci1. When he sees the standings in the games he would want to resign rather earlier than later against blanci1.

So with my interpretation such a problem does not occur. Nobody would want to resign early.

With your interpretation challengers could possibly also try to speed up one game while slowing down the other.

So 2 stability arguments...

[Walker]

Why would he want to resign earlier against blanci? If excrimo beats you, excrimo's #1 and will want to still win against blanci in any case.

Also this has happened before, and I am only repeating what was told to me then. Go down to my first post (4-5 down). viewtopic.php?f=31&t=12212&start=90

For clarification, I challenged funwes and duelstriker (#10 and #12 respectively). Then I beat wes, and was told that if duelstriker beat me, he would move into the #10 spot regardless.

[blanci1]

well thanks walker for facts and precedents about this, and for giving the current ruling.

As i said before ichbinselber neednt worry as im sure my game will actually finish earlier than it should (not later) and will thus be totally irrelevant... however if i did have a long and hard game v excrimophalus surely it would be somewhat unfair if in the end i manage to win only to find he has gone past me and i then see that my win at that moment counts for zilch.

However it is an interesting topic and i think ichbin does raise valid points too. I think these debates sometimes need a bit of time while we consider arguments and counter-arguments. There may be ways for "unsporting" behaviour even under ichbins suggestion, or maybe not?

[Walker]

Well, excrimo challenged you, so if excrimo beats me before you end your game, the challenge of excrimo to you would become irrelevant.

If you think about it, nulling the challenge has no purpose though. If excrimo beats ichbin and his challenge to blanci is voided, blanci would theoretically just challenge excrimo right away again anyways. So why start a new challenge game when they're already playing one? You can't say that the current game is any less valid, because both sides should be taking it seriously. All that nulling the challenge does is waste time and end perfectly valid games for little reason.

[blanci1]

Thats a very nice explanation by walker (thanks) and basically what i was trying to get at ... and presumably the reason why that was the reason this was done previously in neoladder and old ladder.
I do think that ichbinselber is correct in that the system is open to some unsporting behaviour, and probably with the ichbin system it is not possible to do such manipulation. So in that i think he is correct. And possibly if there is a lot of such abuse the ichbin system may be logical. However for proper sporting players who properly play to win, and are not dragging or doing anything to manipulate then i think the present system is honourable and much fairer and doesnt waste effort and time with potentially pointless and de-motivating "voiding" of clearly significant games.
So although i believe ichbinselber is correct in his analysis, I would definitely still prefer the current system as explained by walker (at least until such a time that the neoladder fills up with rats !! )

[ichbinsehselber]

Defended my spot successfully vs Excrimophalus1

A very close and long game. Honestly I was on the verge of resigning. But apparently the dead can rise and capture the HQ
http://awbw.amarriner.com/game.php?games_id=148252

Thanks for a very interesting game to Excrimophalus1!

(Your message box on the site is full by the way)

[LadderAdmin]

Updated the first page

New interested people can enter the neoladder any time

[Mort_Kawasaki]

Question:
What does the number in front of the busy people mean, since they are not on the ladder?

[Walker]

It is the place they would reenter the ladder at if they were to rejoin. The Neo Ladder is very dead though, so it's more or less irrelevant.