Rulebook writing philosophy and asking opponent to resign

[bbentrup]

I’ve become a decent Magic the Gathering card player and fan, and it seems like they need a lot of work on writing tournaments specific rules (the card laws themselves seem very well written and cross-referenced) as problems keep on occuring, but, hey, the game is only 10 years old. My first question to you guys is how, philosophically, you would approach the task of writing a tournament player rulebook?..be it for chess, for Magic, for tiddly-winks or whatever. Obviously certain facets of a tournament are unique to the game being played, but others seem much more broad like player communication in a game, logistics, tournament structure, pairings, etc. If you would like to contribute to this question of rulebook writing from scratch, but are hesitant to answer for other games, just stick to how you would approach writing the tournament rules for chess in broad strokes.

Secondly, and unrelated, although I don’t have a rulebook in front of me, I’m pretty sure it is against the rules, based on perceived immorality, to ask your opponent to resign. Perhaps two players with 3/4 during the 5th round have a drawish position. A prize (monetary, qualification, or whatever) can be had by either if a decisive result is achieved, but a draw would knock both out of competetion. Now in the general thinking of the Magic playing community, it is ok to ask your opponent politely to concede as long as this given takes place: no collusion or bribery takes place - “at least one of us will benefit.” Sometimes this action won’t even deprive someone else of a prize/qualification in an example where any players who have a record of, say, X-3 advance to Day 2, but records of X-2-1 do not. My question is this: is this unethical, and assuming it is, how would you construct an argument supporting your decision? Right now, their ratings are affected when one player gets a “gift” concession, but suppose I even say in this hypothetical situation that gift concessions are scored as unrated forfeit wins? Can an argument against it still be construed? I would answer in the affirmative, because even something as innocent as advancing to the next stage would not have been strictly earned, and if you allow ‘asking for resignations’, you leave the door open to unnoticed collusion and unwanted bullying, and thus it is better to err on the side of prohibiting this action altogether. Did I answer myself well, or is there something else that can be said?

Thanks guys, and cheers to all those good folks on here I haven’t saluted in awhile. Ben Bentrup

[thunderchicken]

Let the flaming begin:

indianachess.org/portal/Help … fault.aspx

[Matt_Phelps]

If you have mate in one, and you don’t press your clock and it expires, you can lose your game!

That’s not true. Assuming you execute the checkmate move on the board, and let go of the piece, that’s it. The game is over immediately, and nothing that happens after that (including a flag fall) matters.

-Matt

[dmforsythe]

@Matt Phelps

If you have mate in one, and you don’t press your clock and it expires, you can lose your game!

That’s not true. Assuming you execute the checkmate move on the board, and let go of the piece, that’s it. The game is over immediately, and nothing that happens after that (including a flag fall) matters.

-Matt

How can you have mate in one and checkmate at the same time

[timjust]

@bbentrup

I’ve become a decent Magic the Gathering card player and fan, and it seems like they need a lot of work on writing tournaments specific rules (the card laws themselves seem very well written and cross-referenced) as problems keep on occuring, but, hey, the game is only 10 years old. My first question to you guys is how, philosophically, you would approach the task of writing a tournament player rulebook?..be it for chess, for Magic, for tiddly-winks or whatever. Obviously certain facets of a tournament are unique to the game being played, but others seem much more broad like player communication in a game, logistics, tournament structure, pairings, etc. If you would like to contribute to this question of rulebook writing from scratch, but are hesitant to answer for other games, just stick to how you would approach writing the tournament rules for chess in broad strokes.

Secondly, and unrelated, although I don’t have a rulebook in front of me, I’m pretty sure it is against the rules, based on perceived immorality, to ask your opponent to resign. Perhaps two players with 3/4 during the 5th round have a drawish position. A prize (monetary, qualification, or whatever) can be had by either if a decisive result is achieved, but a draw would knock both out of competetion. Now in the general thinking of the Magic playing community, it is ok to ask your opponent politely to concede as long as this given takes place: no collusion or bribery takes place - “at least one of us will benefit.” Sometimes this action won’t even deprive someone else of a prize/qualification in an example where any players who have a record of, say, X-3 advance to Day 2, but records of X-2-1 do not. My question is this: is this unethical, and assuming it is, how would you construct an argument supporting your decision? Right now, their ratings are affected when one player gets a “gift” concession, but suppose I even say in this hypothetical situation that gift concessions are scored as unrated forfeit wins? Can an argument against it still be construed? I would answer in the affirmative, because even something as innocent as advancing to the next stage would not have been strictly earned, and if you allow ‘asking for resignations’, you leave the door open to unnoticed collusion and unwanted bullying, and thus it is better to err on the side of prohibiting this action altogether. Did I answer myself well, or is there something else that can be said?

Thanks guys, and cheers to all those good folks on here I haven’t saluted in awhile. Ben Bentrup

In theory the player being asked to resign might consider making a 20G “Annoying Behavior prohibited” claim; however, in practice I suspect most players would just decline the “resignation” offer.

Tim