TimmerB123 wrote:
Regardless, I think we're getting hung up on a secondary thing. It seems to me if the remaining top 4 AND the TO/judge agree, then it's their decision. But honestly, that part isn't the real issue.
The important thing is to never allow the finals NOT to be played because someone has to leave. THAT is the most important issue. The remaining top 4 have the right to compete for gold, and that should not be taken away.
If the top 4 and the TO can agree to bump up the 5th place person, why can't they agree to skip the playoffs and do final standings based on Swiss? Why does the TO and the players involved have the power to make one unfair decision but not another?
It might be the secondary thing to you, it's definitely the primary thing to me. Maybe it's because if I were in the situation where someone needed to leave but I wanted to stay and play I would have no problem whatsoever saying "Well, then you have to forfeit". Yeah, it sucks that that person would have to forfeit, but them's the breaks.
We need to either have strict rules about what the TO gets to decide and/or let happen or not. We shouldn't have strict rules saying that the finals MUST ALWAYS be played but then be super lenient on whether a 5th place (or lower) player can get bumped up and just let that be a TO decision. In the past we have allowed a lot of leniency to the TO, which I'm ok with. I think it's totally unfair and bad form to bump up the 5th place player, but if that's the the TO decided, then that's that, I guess. I also think it's unfair that the finals don't get played at all because one player has to leave, but if the TO decides that's what they're gonna do, then again, that's that.
On the other hand, if we want to start getting strict on how we enforce these situations (which I think is what this thread is about, or at least for discussing that), then lets get strict about all of it:
1) Playoffs must ALWAYS be played unless A) something uncontrolled and/or catastrophic happens (the venue being played in is closing, the venue being played in is burning down, whatever) or B) all of the top 4 have to leave for good reason (deciding to leave for not a good reason is tantamount to throwing the game and collusion/manipulation, and grounds for disqualification). If A or B happen, the results fall back to whatever the standings were at the latest point played.
2) Nobody EVER gets bumped up for any reason. If a player has to leave, or forfeits, or whatever, you don't change player positions because of that.
3) Throwing a game is manipulation of a tournament. Conceding a game because you know you're going to win is manipulation of a tournament. These things are collusion, and will result in a DQ.
4) People stalling in their game are burned at the stake.
I think picking and choosing what we require TOs to stick by is a bad idea. We need to either do all of the above and more (ok, I'm flexible on #4
), or just leave everything up to the TO's discretion. We've left everything to the TO and it's worked out so far, so I'm reasonably ok with that, although in all honesty I would rather codify everything and have everyone be more strict about everything, but that will probably never happen because that would require everybody agreeing on certain things that realistically won't be agreed upon.