[MrCrabbs]

*Strokes metaphorical beard*

[bezma2]

Bill ,
Most of sim5 points in last year are from tournaments , and you know that . I Have nothing against sim5 . He is good player (especially multiplayer games) and he played some good tournaments . Iam against the way someone get on top , and thats tournaments prizes way . Thats my opinion .

[DavidNobre]

Bez i agree with u about tournys points but for Prab points its about 80% from games and just 20% from tourneys , he have 5 acc in top10 , 4 with more or less 150k and 1 with 220, if u add all points its around 800k, have he got all these points from torneys? we know he diddnot, so its right to say that prab is prob the more complet player( if u analise all style 2 3 4 5p games) of ever
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Just enjoying the life ;~~

[bezma2]

Yes David , maby you'r right but I took sim only for example and you must admit that , in last year , he gain many points in tournaments . My point is that increasing tour points we will lost a fair competition to be top player on the list . You know that I dont care about list and points , but I do care for fair competition for other members on GM community . You played so hard 2-3 years to be on top . Is it fair for you, David , that someone in half year go on top . With this big prizes in tours now its possible , dont you agree ?

[MrCrabbs]

Sim is good at 4/5. But he is not THAT good. I beat him about 50% of the time in 4/5. As for 2p, he's nothing special. I usually beat him in 2p, and he rarely if ever uses his top accounts to play 2p because he knows he is not very strong.

Overall your claim that Sim is the best all-round player of GM is not convincing, althhough it is very modest of you.

Sorry Sim, I only say this to discuss the points system, and the effect of tournaments on them - it's nothing personal, but you know it's true

David - you say Sim got 80% of his points from tournaments.

1) How do you know this

2) In my detailed analysis at the top of this thread, I explain how many of his points (and yours) are likely to have been gained by playing other players who got lucky and won tournaments, and taking their points.

Thus, you have to consider both the points he directly won in tournaments, and the points he got by beating not very good players who got lucky and scooped 50k in a tournament win.

[DavidNobre]

I said 20% of tourneysn not 80%, and to know it u just need to look for tourneys results, there have how many points each player has earn from here. Well i do agree with u bez and id like to see how each player has earn their points, but is it acessible? i hope so
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Just enjoying the life ;~~

[Bill2k06]

i not sure if it is possible without just going through each tourny post on forum for the last 12months,
some of them have been deleted,or vanished, so not sure if it would be possible.
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[MrCrabbs]

[Yiles]

[MrCrabbs]

More than two yeasr after I made this thread, and I have returned to the game for a spell.

I can see that, while tournaments have become more diverse (2/3/4/5p all now exist), the problems caused by them - a falling average score for players, the points system being a less and less reliable measure of a player's skill, and a game being more difficult to find, have all got considerably worse.

Whereas two years ago, it was common to log in and find multiple 30k+ players online, and to have 4/5p games where every player had a score in the ball park, the reality is that that's now very rare.

Meanwhile, the top ten players remains unchanged, month after month.

And the most recent tournament was won, as seems to be traditional, by the head mod.

Trace is a brilliant mod, but the situation is getting worse and worse. This is not just a function of declining player numbers, it is directly because of the mathematical effect of tournaments, as currently set-up, on the average points of players, and the difficulty in finding a game.

[trace567]

As you know I have been here day in day out for few years. I watched rises and falls, rises and falls.....sudden peeks out of the blue, sudden massive drops out of the blue.

Anyway, tournaments (pre monthly competitions) had a real decrease of interest (apart from xmas and new year specials). Therefore they have had no impact I believe in recent times. If anything the competitions are at times helping increase activity, its not ideal....but then nothing is with so little to work with.
Competitions are in more or less trial phase, this current is the 3rd one. They maybe removed for a bit, or modified etc, don't really know. Just seeing how it goes at the moment and work from there.

I believe the problems are by far more complex and cannot be attributed to any one thing, person, or cause but collectively we have what we have.

I am unhappy with low user numbers, have tried various methods to try and help with that, but a one woman mission against a growing level of apathy all round....Sigh

[MrCrabbs]

I do now agree that having special events, competitions and so on increases interest in the game.

I am mainly concerned with the effect on scores of giving big prizes away to big accounts, where they don't get used again.

Arguably, if tournaments had never been the big thing they once were, we would never have had such a dramatic fall in the average points of players online, points would instead have continued a general upward trend, and the top 10 would be fluid, not static.

You do a fantastic job as head mod Trace. Don't think for a minute I'm criticising for the sake of it, I am just highlighting the mathematical effect of tournaments, and the impact if them on aspects of everyday GM gameplay.

The points could be done differently, so that we got all the glam of big events, without the strange distortions of points. And if that happenened, in two years time from now, we would see the points situation dramatically improved, and it would be far easier to find a game.

Points would also, over time, start reflecting players' abilities more accurately, as once they did.

I get beat by sub-10k players all the time. The players deserve more points, but the system's rigged to lock the points away from them!

[MrCrabbs]

I'd also say that in some ways, the scoring for tournaments has actually got worse.

In the current tournament, I think you are letting players pay for entry from one account, and receive the winnings in a different account?

Surely that just encourages hoarding of points even more?

[trace567]

[MrCrabbs]

Right, I hadn't understood that the points went to a new 1000 point account, thus making them more likely to be used.

I thought you were letting the points be added to any account a player chose.