Grudge Rules as Tournament Rules

von Marwitz

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I hate to destroy your illusions, but it happened to me at the Grenadier tournament. On the last turn my opponent started one of those infamous suicide charges. I saw him arrange his dice to snakeeyes. Then he placed the dice at the top of his dice rolling device. The device was no dice tower but rather just an oblique plane made of Lego bricks. In my book this is active cheating though it didn't work out for him, he failed to pass his MCs.

When he showed up at the Conscripts tournament we advised his opponents to take care that he shakes his dice before dropping them into his device.
Sorry to hear that.

Yet, as you report, it still didn't work out for him apparently.

And again, we need to remember - what we are arguing about originally was if there is any relevance of the difference of outcomes between precision dice vs. non-precision dice - without attempting to cheat and without slippery dice towers, which would justify the mandating of precision dice (and a particular type of precision dice at that).

The chances for that to have any impact are irrelevant in game terms.

von Marwitz
 

STAVKA

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In the Albany Tournament in New York, their tournament rule about Precision Dice is similiar to Backgammon tournaments.

- If Precision Dice are available, a player can demand that precision dice are used in preference to other dice.

But I cannot find their compiled Tournament Rule page, is it because its on Facebook ?
 

bergwall

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Because they're objectively stupid rules?

No, really, they are. They have NOTHING to do with "balance". It's all about "I don't like that, I'm in charge, so screw what anyone else might think, I'm enforcing this so ha ha ha you suck I'm the best."
This is SO wrong. All TD's I know are organizing tournaments for the love of the game and are doing a huge effort to achieve a good gaming experience for the attending players. Most TD's do not even get the time to play during the tournaments and are in fact using their free time, parts of their vacation and also money to run tournaments in a good way. The tournament rules are a way to minimize friction between players and improve the game by some few slightly better rules.
 

von Marwitz

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The main issue was speed of play and mixing the symbol with the 1 bip.
All right.

Precision dice do not roll faster than normal dice, and if symbols instead of pips were the issue, then it could have entirely and reasonably be addressed by solely banning dice with symbols instead of pips.

von Marwitz
 

Sparafucil3

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All right.

Precision dice do not roll faster than normal dice, and if symbols instead of pips were the issue, then it could have entirely and reasonably be addressed by solely banning dice with symbols instead of pips.

von Marwitz
Nothing is banned. A player may use whatever he wishes unless his opponent objects. It really isn't a rule as I have seen it worked out both here in the US and at the European tournaments I have attended. -- jim
 

von Marwitz

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Nothing is banned. A player may use whatever he wishes unless his opponent objects. It really isn't a rule as I have seen it worked out both here in the US and at the European tournaments I have attended. -- jim
I should have been more precise:

Precision dice do not roll faster than normal dice, and if symbols instead of pips were the issue, then it could have entirely and reasonably be addressed by solely banning mandating dice with symbols instead of pips if a player objects to dice with symbols.


However, when re-checking the exact wording of the Arnhem tournament SSR, I have made an interesting observation:

The Arnhem TDs have apparently changed the wording of the SSR in question:

Upthread in post #118 as of last Monday, that rule read:

30252

Today, on the Arnhem Tournament website, it has been changed and currently reads as:

30253

The changes include eliminating the expressive mentioning of Battle School dice and the inclusion of dice cups beside dice towers.

So we can see that the Arnhem TDs apparently follow the discussion in this thread here, are open and willing to listen to the concerns of both sides, and are willing to adapt their tournament SSR taking some ideas into account.

Kudos for that! 👍

von Marwitz
 

Fort

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First of all, the situations described in the linked papers refer to situations in which someone is actively trying to cheat or to manipulate the dice, for example holding the dice close together and rolling them in a way that lessens the probability of their turning about one of the three axes, making certain outcomes more probable than others.

I think it is safe to assume that ASL players using non-precision dice (or precision dice for that matter) are not actively trying to cheat. And if they were, they could apply some of the methods described in the papers both on precision and non-precision dice.


Regarding dice towers, there might be some (this is personal guesswork) that might be more suspectible to dice sliding down the slopes inside rather than rolling - maybe acryl-material types. If you combine such a "sliding rather than rolling" dice tower with the method of entering the dice in a way that reduces movement around one of the three axes, then you might, just might bring about some changes in the outcome that could be statistically relevant.



Yet, we have to remember, that the main argument is about requiring precision dice.
And the papers you link note that you have to be a skilled dice controller for relevant effects. Which we have to reasonably assume is simply not there in our ASL tournament situation. And even if so, that skill will be at least partly negated by the use of any dice tower, or even completely by dice cups, leaving already nothing relevant to worry about. But on top of that and more importantly, can a skilled dice controller better/less control precision dice than normal dice?

With all due respect, but I have my doubts about that.

von Marwitz
Removing deliberate active cheating out of the equation, with dice that are not as fair as possible there is an element of influenced outcomes introduced.

A die that is not precision and that has an imperfection that isn't readily apparent will cause skewed results. It's amazing how often folks find these 'lucky' dice and use them with no thought to their fairness in possibilities. If your 'lucky' die gave you a reason to earn it's name due to lots of times where it bailed you out with a string of 'lucky' ROFs or whatever then there is likely something wrong with that die. Why would one wish to use that die over all others, if not to give an outcome that is tilted in one's favor?

As far as casino dice being used in dice cups or poorly designed towers:

On a personal anecdote, out of curiosity, just this week while playing at ASLOK I witnessed an event that could be considered an outlier result using casino dice. I do not believe my opponent was deliberately cheating whatsoever. However, there was an instance of multiple consecutive rolls needed for MC results in which the first roll was shaken in hand above the dice cup with the following rolls of that event made by picking up the dice and dropping them back into the cup without a shake in the hand. I didn't say anything on the first few such instances as I was curious if I could notice any strange results from the interaction of 'not being shaken, square-edged large casino dice and a very flat bottomed surface'. On the first multiple consecutive roll instance that I observed, the first roll was shaken in hand above the cup, then picked up and dropped back down. On the folow up rolls the dice bounced about very little and the result came up with one die again rolling the same '4' and the other die rolling a different result. A consecutive rolling of the dice in that instance resulted in the '4' showing up again with the other die having a different result that on the previous rolling. The third instance the '4' on the white die changed to a '2' but the other die remained the same as the previous '3'. I recorded that result and we continued on. The next series of dice rolls were 4 PTC's in a row with the same die results on the colored die on only 3 of these rolls and the white die not having same results that were consecutive. I did watch the bouncing and there was no flipping from the colored die as it jostled around in the container. It bounced about a bit, but the '2' result remained clearly on top throughout the bouncing.
The next instance, was a similar result with the initial roll result being repeated on one of the dice throughout the series of the 2 follow up rolls with little or no bouncing of the one or the other of the dice that had identical values from their previous roll value.
On the next such instance of 4 NMC's the resulting rolls had the white die roll 4 consecutive '2's and the colored die roll a '3', '3', '2', '2'. I was fixated on the white die so I didn't really notice the 'bounce' pattern of the colored die, just the result. The white die did not bounce from the '2' at all after the first roll. It bounced up in the air and off the bottom a bit with each roll. but the '2' result was on top throughout each discrete the roll.
I pointed this out to my opponent and asked him to shake the dice between each roll instead of only the first, then dropping them into the cup after that first roll.
I do not believe he was cheating as he picked up the dice in this manner on bad results as well as good results and repeated the high results on some of his rolls by the dropping method on several instances.

Following my request of asking that he remove the dice from the cup between each roll, invert his hand with the dice and shake them a little before dropping them back in the cup I did not notice any such repeat results as the dice bounced about without notice of a side remaining on top of each bounce for either die.

This is not, by any means, a valid test of die fairness. But, it is an example of how such observations of outlier results can cause concern at the table...this concern does not automatically mean that suspicion of cheating is in play. It's almost always a concern over the fairness of poorly crafted dice or a flaw in the roll mechanic. And, who needs to feel concern or be the cause of such concern when the ability to alleviate such is as simple as using known fair dice in the method they were designed for?

Precision backgammon dice in a dice tower or glass container with a bit of a shake in a palms up hand before every drop is simple enough to do and it is fair for both players.
 

Fort

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The changes include eliminating the expressive mentioning of Battle School dice and the inclusion of dice cups beside dice towers.

So we can see that the Arnhem TDs apparently follow the discussion in this thread here, are open and willing to listen to the concerns of both sides, and are willing to adapt their tournament SSR taking some ideas into account.

Kudos for that! 👍

von Marwitz
The mentioning Battle School dice by name was avoided with the same result by the 'only dots' clause. While there are Battle School dice without the emblems, the vast majority of folks use the ones with emblems.
I have tested the hell out of these dice with emblems as I kinda like the 'Grofaz' ones. Including the slat water dip into a container. I used a 23 inch deep glass vase filled with water and one-half of box of Morton's salt so I could observe the dice on the way down the water column. I did this on quite a few other dice including the Grofaz ones. The results were that I didn't find any glaring issues with any of the Battle School dice fairness. The Schwerpunkt dice, above all others, did have major issues in the water test. I bought a pair of 'trick' loaded dice to test if the water made any difference at all and it was readily visible with the loaded dice. I also did this test with d20's and other polygonal dice and some where much more suspect than others. I had a 'd10', "Ol' Billy Barou" that had been my lucky 'd10' for years that sadly met his end that day as the '0' result came up with a frequency too often to deny it's unfairness.
I also kept a book of dice rolls where i marked the result of each roll as best I remembered to do, but that exercise never became reflexively automatic enough to consistently record every rolls. While it did have some use, I gave it up after 9-10 years of use. The most recorded pair of dice had 7867 rolls recorded over the years and the resulting bell curve was very close to perfect. These were a pair of Battle School Grofaz dice as well...the Blue White German pair.

One thing I did notice that in keeping track of my snakes and boxcars over the years, especially in events where those rolls could result in awards, that the old Avalon Hill dice gave disproportionate results of one or the other of that spectrum. I had a set of red and white AH dice that won me more than one 'Pvt Rottenroller' award with one 5 day event rolling 88 boxcars to only 19 snake eyes. While the Yellow die with a different white die (both AH) resulted in, over a 3 day event, rolling 63 snakes and 31 boxcars.

When I switched to the Battleschool 'Grofaz' dice I never won another award for such rolls again. notable resutls with the Grofaz dice German pair were 44 boxcars and 42 snakes over the course of one 7 day ASloK. I switched up between the German and Russian Grofaz dice depending on which side I was playing (Axis or Allied) and the red pair gave results of 32 snakes and 36 boxcars over that 7 days. the grand total was: 74 snakes to 80 boxcars.
 

Sparafucil3

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So we can see that the Arnhem TDs apparently follow the discussion in this thread here, are open and willing to listen to the concerns of both sides, and are willing to adapt their tournament SSR taking some ideas into account.
The first question I ask in return; will you be coming? In the American courts there is a decision about "standing". If the courts find that you have no standing, it means you cannot appeal the rule because the application of the rule has/will not caused you harm (in this case, the "harm" is you not being able to use the dice you wish). If I am the TD, then no, I would not be willing to discuss the issue with people not coming. They have no standing before the rules committee. Why should the committee consider your input if you won't ever be there to be affected by it? Just my .02€

Have a good week. -- jim

Edit to ADD: perhaps it would be more fair to say I would consider your opinion were I a TD but I would give it very little weight. You may have a great idea, but if all you want to do is tell me how I could improve my rule to your specification I would likely be very dismissive of it given that there is no sense accommodating your desires if you won't be there. It makes little sense to change existing standards that attendees seem to get along with for someone who isn't coming to join us.
 
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von Marwitz

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The first question I ask in return; will you be coming?
I was planning to come this year, but there was a conflict with another appointment.

I am planning to come next year, as Arnhem is one of two tournaments which lies close to me and thus to cut down on travel expenses.

If I am the TD, then no, I would not be willing to discuss the issue with people not coming. They have no standing before the rules committee. Why should the committee consider your input if you won't ever be there to be affected by it? Just my .02€
Quite simple. Because someone will be affected by such rules.

The legal systems in the US and most parts of Europe differ. To illustrate the point: In the US, private companies have much more leeway introducing genetically manipulated seed. If things go wrong, then the companies can get sued. This risk of personal damage is placed on the consumer. Over here, companies are much more compelled to prove that things will not go wrong before they could introduce genetically manipulated seed. The consumer is more protected from personal damage.

These are different philosophies to approach matters, and both have their pros and cons.
In any case, it is worth to see beyond the end of one's nose.

von Marwitz
 

Sparafucil3

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Quite simple. Because someone will be affected by such rules.
Perhaps, but it would be up to them to request the hearing. Not a random person walking by.

In any case, it is worth to see beyond the end of one's nose.
Why do you presume you're the only one here doing that? Melvin and Andreas have both posted at length regarding their reasoning. It is rather presumptuous to think the other person is being the myopic one.

Given that you're attending, I hope your arguments are heard. But as I said above, I have never seen anyone challenged for the dice they are using at these tournaments and I have seen some VERY wonky dice being used at these tournaments. My "gripe" (such that it is) is that the TD does not actively enforce the rule. It sets the person who complains up as the bad guy. A rule not enforced is not a rule. -- jim
 

Robin Reeve

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I find this debate entertaining and stimulating.
Restricting it to people who attend a specific tournament seems excessive.
Should only prisoners on the Death Row have their word to say about death penalty?
The present debate won't have a lot of weight on the actual tournaments, but it allows us to think out, collectively, the question of generalized rules changes – and the difference of opinions are part of the richness of the discussion, as they introduce to complex thought.
 

Vic Provost

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The mentioning Battle School dice by name was avoided with the same result by the 'only dots' clause. While there are Battle School dice without the emblems, the vast majority of folks use the ones with emblems.
I have tested the hell out of these dice with emblems as I kinda like the 'Grofaz' ones. Including the slat water dip into a container. I used a 23 inch deep glass vase filled with water and one-half of box of Morton's salt so I could observe the dice on the way down the water column. I did this on quite a few other dice including the Grofaz ones. The results were that I didn't find any glaring issues with any of the Battle School dice fairness. The Schwerpunkt dice, above all others, did have major issues in the water test. I bought a pair of 'trick' loaded dice to test if the water made any difference at all and it was readily visible with the loaded dice. I also did this test with d20's and other polygonal dice and some where much more suspect than others. I had a 'd10', "Ol' Billy Barou" that had been my lucky 'd10' for years that sadly met his end that day as the '0' result came up with a frequency too often to deny it's unfairness.
I also kept a book of dice rolls where i marked the result of each roll as best I remembered to do, but that exercise never became reflexively automatic enough to consistently record every rolls. While it did have some use, I gave it up after 9-10 years of use. The most recorded pair of dice had 7867 rolls recorded over the years and the resulting bell curve was very close to perfect. These were a pair of Battle School Grofaz dice as well...the Blue White German pair.

One thing I did notice that in keeping track of my snakes and boxcars over the years, especially in events where those rolls could result in awards, that the old Avalon Hill dice gave disproportionate results of one or the other of that spectrum. I had a set of red and white AH dice that won me more than one 'Pvt Rottenroller' award with one 5 day event rolling 88 boxcars to only 19 snake eyes. While the Yellow die with a different white die (both AH) resulted in, over a 3 day event, rolling 63 snakes and 31 boxcars.

When I switched to the Battleschool 'Grofaz' dice I never won another award for such rolls again. notable resutls with the Grofaz dice German pair were 44 boxcars and 42 snakes over the course of one 7 day ASloK. I switched up between the German and Russian Grofaz dice depending on which side I was playing (Axis or Allied) and the red pair gave results of 32 snakes and 36 boxcars over that 7 days. the grand total was: 74 snakes to 80 boxcars.
I love my Battleschool Dice, no matter what they do to me, LOL! I have never had a reason to doubt their fairness and will use them until the day I can't play any longer.
 

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The main issue was speed of play and mixing the symbol with the 1 bip.
And the tarnished symbol and even non-symbols blank side the symbol had vanished, the Tournament Director in Copenhagen allowed it, since then I rarely attend.

Won I pair of Battle-School Dice at Friendly Fire, used my nail to test the symbol durability, immediately foil-strip under my nail. They went into the Trash at once.
 

lluis61

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And the tarnished symbol and even non-symbols blank side the symbol had vanished, the Tournament Director in Copenhagen allowed it, since then I rarely attend.

Won I pair of Battle-School Dice at Friendly Fire, used my nail to test the symbol durability, immediately foil-strip under my nail. They went into the Trash at once.
How long the nail? How hard you scratched the foil? And, above all: Why you treat your dice that way? And do you with all your dice?
 
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