2015 League Rules Discussion Thread

@Gamerman01:

Difference from chess is that their chess rating is based on hundreds or thousands of games.  If somebody like me loses a playoff game and plays about 8-12 games a year, that’s a pretty significant setback on next year’s rating.

With all due respect (and with a FIDE rating of 2023), this statement is not true.  Mathematically speaking, except for the very elite whose ratings move more slowly, about 95% of a chess rating (using the ELO system) is a direct reflection of the last 25 games played.  I can get you an exact figure on that if you like :D, but the idea is that if a player is under-rated or over-rated by 400 points, this will self-correct over his/her next 25 games.

I would very much encourage a default bidding rule – for example, I was bidding my first 15L game with Whack, and I think I forgot about 5 of the normal parameters for bidding (thankfully, he’s a cool player and also had the same parameters in mind).  For example, make the default "no tech, no rerolls, 1 unit per territory, etc. etc. (this doesn’t have to be it, but it would be nice to have a standard and vary from that, instead of having to make the standard every time someone bids).  I’m still not sure what the bidding rules are if no one specifies… ;)

Thanks, yes the bidding rules will be clarified and a default set

I’ve played a lot of chess, but either wasn’t on the ELO system or didn’t understand it.
Regardless, my point is sound, that a single game carries a lot of weight in our system when the typical player finishes about 8-15 games a year.
This was related to the discussion about playoff games counting toward 2015 league, and currently it’s looking like that is what’s going to happen, and I’m not opposed, so my statement about chess ratings not being accurate is actually irrelevant, but thanks  :-)  I stand corrected

Hey, no worries Gamer!  You have been wonderful for this league and for all of the players who enjoy it.

You have actually now inspired me to do something.  I really like your system, and I would like to see how it would stack up next to a modified ELO system (the mistake for systems using a full ELO system for Axis & Allies ratings is that there is a chance factor, however small, that chess doesn’t have).  With your blessing, I may take that up as a side project “off the grid” for the 2015 League….  :)

I do understand what you are saying about having a dicing in a game in essence counting twice, leading to a doubly negative result.  I don’t really see why 8 games is such a burden for players dedicated to the league, but then again I’m not a top player… :D

@DizzKneeLand33:

Hey, no worries Gamer!  You have been wonderful for this league and for all of the players who enjoy it.

Great, I appreciate the encouragement

You have actually now inspired me to do something.  I really like your system, and I would like to see how it would stack up next to a modified ELO system (the mistake for systems using a full ELO system for Axis & Allies ratings is that there is a chance factor, however small, that chess doesn’t have).  With your blessing, I may take that up as a side project “off the grid” for the 2015 League….  :)

Frankly, the system was just my first attempt at reflecting strength of schedule, as opposed to no reflection at all.  To my surprise, it has actually stood the test of time and worked very well and accurately, which is why 2014 was the first year that it was actually officially used.  I would encourage your off the grid rating - that’s how mine started, basically.  2013 it was a side show, for informational purposes, and I made it available to all players.

I do understand what you are saying about having a dicing in a game in essence counting twice, leading to a doubly negative result.  I don’t really see why 8 games is such a burden for players dedicated to the league, but then again I’m not a top player…. :D

Good to know at least one person understands what I was trying to say - 8 games is not a burden, I agree with that.  One of the reasons I’ve had a lot of success is because I am thorough and careful, and that takes time, effort and energy.  Resulting in fewer games played

That was very insightful and helpful, thank you.

One solution is for me to track that games were playoff games between the players and do not count against the maximum.  I was going to say I didn’t want to do this, but now I realize it would be pretty easy to track.  I can just put a comment in the cell in the standings matrix for playoff games.

That’s a great point that previously there was a cap of best of 3 between any 2 players, so that could mean only 1 additional game during the year between those 2 players.  However, this year we have an adjustable cap, where if you’ve both played 13+ games, you can go best of 5.  We had multiple players this year eligible to play best of THIRTEEN!

So a second alternative is to ignore this factor, since it is not too hard to open up best of 5 or best of 7 possibilities.

Either way, it sounds like both moderators say it’s a go - all playoff games will also count in 2015 standings.
We just need to decide if they will count against the maximum head to head limits.

So the traditional reason for keeping them separate doesn’t have as much traction as it used to.

I know I am late, but I need to voice my thoughts about this:

I’m completely against counting the playoff games as league games as long as we call it a “league”.
It violates the definitions of both playoff and league. The fact that a game counts as a game in two different tournaments, separated by two years doesn’t make any sense, at least from my viewpoint. With a deep understanding of both US and European versions of Playoffs/Leagues in addition to understanding of Tennis, Chess and Boxing, I just can’t see how counting for BOTH “last year’s playoff” AND next year’s league makes any sense. I’ll explain a tad below, before offering my “solution” by drawing parallels to other sports.

In the US, sports play for a league/conference/division that ultimately ends, and THEN playoffs are kicked off as a separate season. No games count as “double”.

In Europe (and the world) the league is a separate entity, with no subsequent playoff on a national level.
And the “cups/national playoffs” are ran at the same time as the league, as a separate tournament.
There are also annual tournaments on the European level running and ending at the same time as the league, but teams are in these based on the results of the PREVIOUS year. So there you have the “two-year” element, which actually turns into qualifying for a third tournament in the third year, if you win a European Cup and then the Supercut to go to the World Club Cup (speaking Football/Soccer right now). But again, no games count as double.

A “league” and a “playoff” doesn’t leave room for this. It would violate the premise of the definitions for “playoffs”!!!

BUT, we can solve this by changing the NAME of our official “competition” from League to “Gamerman’s World Rankings”.

That is the only way we can justify the games counting twice. And we can draw from the Tennis world for this.

We aren’t a “league” anyway, since in a league, each team/player plays the same amount of game, and have to play each other in a systematic way to determine who comes out on top with the best amount of games.

We aren’t really competing that way. We’re individual players that compete H2H and get a score for the collective ranking based on the outcome. That is what they do in Tennis.

In Tennis, the amount of points collected from the various tournaments in a year sums up into the “rolling” 1 year rankings, counting a full year’s rankings. But they’re ALSO keeping score of the RACE TO LONDON, counting ONLY the points earned in a Calendar Year, to reach The World Tour Finals,  which is an EXTRA tournament for ONLY the 8 best players. These games is a “playoff”, but the games ALSO count in BOTH the H2H between players AND in the World Rankings".  (http://www.atpworldtour.com/Rankings/Rankings-Home.aspx) (1 Full Year ranking (rolling) -http://www.atpworldtour.com/Rankings/Singles.aspx) (YTD - Race to final top 8 tournament - http://www.atpworldtour.com/Rankings/YTD-Singles.aspx)

Tennis players play different amount of tournaments and games in a year, but they are all in the same ranking system, so it is easy to determine who’s world no. 1,2,3 etc, AND it is easy at the end of the official season to see which players are the highest ranked players, that get to play the extra tournament AND have the extra points there counted toward their world ranking. And of course, the is a World Tour Final (WTF) Winner crowned as well :)

Btw, I have a possible SOLUTION for the “double negative” that might come from losing a playoff game AND having it count double as suggested. What if ONLY the winning score is counted?
In the Tennis WTF you can’t get NEGATIVE points, but you can go through the Top 8 Tournament WITHOUT a point.
Just a suggestion. Only playoff WINS also count in the League (Or World Rankings as I want to name it).

Anyway, I make a motion to rename the “league” to a properly named "Gamerman’s World Rankings, which will conclude on an annual basis, leaving the Top 8 players a chance for an extra tournament that will BOTH crown the Champion AND let the games count twice without violating any definitions.

Some may ask, WHY “GAMERMAN’S World Rankings”?

Well, most tournaments/rankings has a sponsor (Barclays Premier League, Emirates ATP Race to London, Liga BBVA).
And no sponsor has more personal investments than Gamer has had making this happen.
So it is only right to name it such.

Let’s get rid of the wrongfully applied “league” and introduce the correctly used “World Rankings” that will accommodate for the will of the people without annoying the people with respect for definitions ;)

(I apologise for typos and minor grammatical mistakes - writing out this much on an iPhone isn’t the best idea)

He’s kinda right. We definitely don’t play out a “league”.

Well, I agree with playoff games not counting, but disagree with the premise that this is a “world ranking system”.  Gamerman’s rankings are used in a league-specific format, meaning that no part of your ranking carries over from year to year.  You may be estimated to be in a certain tier based on last year, but that estimation carries no merit once you have played a certain amount of games.  And, his system is very good for league because of this – one bad year in no way influences your next year – you start with a clean slate.

For global rankings that would carry over from year to year, that would be a rating system.  I am in the process of automating a ratings database for the 2015 league, and along with that any other PBEM/PBF games that people would like to be rated here (still under construction but the forums are up):

http://cellargaming.com/

This will eventually include ratings for all versions of Axis & Allies (anyone for an anniversary game?!  I still am ;)  ), and for other games played via TripleA (if you would like your other games rated, simply sign up and post them on a thread, and then you can play them here (or via email) as usual).  Our league will really help me pin down where ratings should fall in a more global context.

That being said, this system in no way would be a replacement for what Gamerman is doing now.  I really, really like what he has done with the ranking system here, and it is on a year by year basis – global ratings would be irrelevant to qualifying for a playoff from a leauge / regular season format.  My hope is that players who aren’t yet ready to step up to league will play a few rated games, see where they stand, and then take a stab at the league.  I bet we can have 100 players next year.  :mrgreen:

So, my vote is no to counting playoff games at all for the next year’s league, and no to changing the league ranking system otherwise from what Gamerman has created.  The final can still be called the “World Championship” tho… :D

Well but we DO have a ranking System. It includes seasons, yes, but it’s still a ranking System and not a league.

A league would require us to Play a certain amount of games against each other. That would be impossible for our community.

But actually I don’t think it’s a big deal how our competition is branded. In the end it’s just a Name.

You’re slightly missing the point I’m making.

We’re not organised as a league - we’re just called a league. A league constitutes of a certain amount of teams/players playing a fixed amount of games against a set amount of opponents (1Xall, 2Xall, just some, etc). And with an equal amount of games played, it is easier

We’re actually organised closer to how the ATP tour for Tennis players is organised.

Tennis players are ranked in two ways: YTD and Full Year (A cycling 52 week ranking).
We can easily adapt the YTD which would fit perfectly with how Gamer is letting the previous year’s ranking count until they’ve completed 4 games.

We wouldn’t be changing the format, we would only change the name to properly identify the competition for what it really is.

Remember, the year before last, the League standings and Gamerman’s rankings were two VERY different things.
Only by majority vote did we agree to fuse the two prior to the 2014 year.

I am making the motion to revert to calling Gamerman’s rankings what they were called two years ago, and just get rid of the incorrect name “League”.

And by adapting the WTF tournament for the top 8 only players on the Tennis tour as a “playoff system” to follow Gamerman’s rankings, we can both create an exclusive “playoff” for the top 8, while also listening to popular demand and let the games count toward rankings as well.

I personally think that only WINS should count toward ranking from the Playoff games, but that is just my opinion.

MrRoboto, my comment was not directed at yours, but you commented while I was writing it out :)

Well, this is the right time to be talking about this, especially since 2015 league rules are not finalized.

As to calling it a “league”, consider the definition of the word, from dictionary.com

4. a group of athletic teams organized to promote mutual interests and to compete chiefly among themselves. “a bowling league”

Maybe in Europe, the word “league” is associated strongly with having a schedule where all players play each other, but that is not the case in the USA.

The “league” was started on A&&.org several years ago, before my time here, and has always been known as a league.  It is properly named because it is a group of competitors who have mutual interests and compete chiefly among themselves.  That’s what league means in America.  :-)

In regard to the playoff games also counting in the 2015 standings, I am glad that some of the “anti’s” have spoken out and supported their points.  So far, I’m pretty sure they’re still in the minority AND, significantly, Arathorn and Dizz are not signed up as participants in the playoffs.  I think I should listen to the opinions of those who it would more significantly and directly affect - players who are actually playing in the 2 or 3 playoffs that will be started tomorrow.

I considered the suggestion of only counting wins toward 2015, and I don’t like it.  If wins count toward next year, losses should too.  Thanks for the suggestion - very interesting.

@Gamerman01:

Well, this is the right time to be talking about this, especially since 2015 league rules are not finalized.

As to calling it a “league”, consider the definition of the word, from dictionary.com

4. a group of athletic teams organized to promote mutual interests and to compete chiefly among themselves. “a bowling league”

Maybe in Europe, the word “league” is associated strongly with having a schedule where all players play each other, but that is not the case in the USA.

The “league” was started on A&&.org several years ago, before my time here, and has always been known as a league.� It is properly named because it is a group of competitors who have mutual interests and compete chiefly among themselves.� That’s what league means in America.� :-)

Every sanctioned League I’ve seen in history has a set amount of games against a set amount of competitors.
In the absence of the minimum games required being met, byes and forfeits and automatic results (in soccer 3-0 to the winning side) was invented.

Also, your rankings were called rankings until last year, as 2013 was still determined by win %.
It was by popular demand that the playoffs and league position adapted your RANKING SYSTEM as the determining factor.

I believe we should give up the league name and revert to only rankings, as that is what it really is.

As long as we can have a set amount of exact same games against a set amount of various opponents, it really isn’t a league :)

I meant to say I think I should listen more to those who are participating.  I didn’t mean to give the impression that I’m disregarding your opinions and suggestions.

But you didn’t respond to the very definition of the word “league”.  This league meets the definition.

Basically a league is a group of competitors who compete chiefly among themselves.  That’s all.  The dictionary has spoken.

I didn’t think I qualified having played only 4 games last year – but I definitely plan to step up that number for 2015, provided tax season doesn’t kill me in this election year… ;)

But, as you said, I would definitely go with what the top players think there – I guess I haven’t heard too many in support of counting the games, but maybe I’m late to the party lol…