Tournament Etiquette?

I’m still concerned about how to cut my game down to 25 minutes per player! Other than one or two instances, most games I’ve played last well over an hour.

Well, mines lasted between 45 minutes and 75 minutes. So indeed 50 minutes is on the short side.

It does seem like there’s a necessity to strike a balance between the cross purposes of not feeling rushed and being able to finish a tournament eventually. If 25 minutes per player winds up just not being enough time overall, I’m sure that the official tournament rules can be reviewed and revised.

If you start playing with a chess clock (maybe start with 30 or even 35 minutes per player to get used to it), that time will probably go down quickly :wink:

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I still don’t see what the problem is. I mean, the box clearly says “25–30 mins” ; )

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Are clear back sleeves allowed (the artwork on the back of the cards is so gorgeous :+1:), or opaque is required?

@Sirlin will you make a Tournament Rules .pdf or something like that so we can reference it?

There’s no reason to disallow clear sleeves.

I am not currently working on a tournament rules document. The document from several years ago covers general tournament structure.

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Assuming that chess clocks are Standard Operating Procedure for FSX Qualifier events, what happens when a player runs out of time? Do they immediately lose?

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It occurred to me today that as a almost exclusively PbF player, were I ever to play in a real-time Codex tourney, I would be highly crippled without my odds calculator and spreadsheet keeping track of what’s left in the deck for me, as well as what teched cards I’ve seen from my opponent thus far!

Would it be against the rules (officially or socially) to bring a laptop to something like FSX, to track these things? It’s highly doubtful I will ever play in a real-life tournament (mostly because I’m a busy dad, partly because I’d get wrecked ^_^) but I was curious what others thought about this anyway

I think you’re allowed a notepad but not much else…

I suppose that’d work, I could just write the formula down for hypergeometrics and do it longhand each time. The cardDB would be nice to have access to though, so you don’t have to memorize the exact detail and rulings on each card

I didn’t realize this thread existed, but it has some interesting info.

If you want to consider ‘what someone would do to win a million dollars’ then its clear that using any non-tournament provided means of keeping track of players time would not be a good idea (i.e using players cell phones, clocks, etc). There are plenty of reasons for this. (Note: Depending on the TO, even the equipment they provided could purposely be faulty.)

Side: +1 for people ‘arguing’ for logical things. Always nice to be reminded that there are a few of us out there.

Rather than recompute the hypergeometric distribution formula each time, it might be better to presolve it and make a table to consult, with total deck population down one side, and number of draws on the other axis, then put 2 values in each box one for if you have one copy of the card and one for if you have 2

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I haven’t played by forum, I only play IRL. About remembering opponents teched cards etc, it helps make the game enjoyable. You can watch your opponent, see when he cycles, and although you don’t get a perfect count of his discard pile in the back of your head you know ‘I killed his taxman last turn, he could have it again in this hand or the next’ or ‘he played undo two turns ago, there’s a good chance it’s back in his hand’ etc.

you can also read the opponent. And I admit, I’m very easy to read. The way I move my coins to count how much each action would take (2 for arg, 4 to maxband etc) prior to playing out my turn you can watch and then guess where I’m going with it. Or playing against @GRAG he had geiger out, and is flipping back and forth through his codex, you just know he’s considering temporal distortion. He ended up playing it, so the secret was spoiled but if he decided against it, I would still know he had it teched in.

The problem with running formulas or working out exact probabilities is time. You’ve only got 25 minutes in a tournament game!

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I am nothing if not easy to read

I never played pbf yet but I have spectated quite a bunch.
Pbf to me is more like a friendly ‘experiment’ between two (or more) players. The can use whatever tools available to do all sort of analytical hardwork and at the end , the turn comes out optimized. The matches tend to be high level with few mistakes. This makes PBF matches very fun for playing , spectataing and improving in strategy.

IRL matches are the real deal and how the game is meant to be played. Bluffing and misdirection can happen here. Trying to math out the board comes at the cost of time and giving hints to the other player. You cannot stealthy check how many cards left in a draw or discard pile.
I think IRL any use of tools such as computer, calculators, notes, should be frowned upon and even banned in some cases.
I think the only fair tool to use is the card database to check rulings etc

If you spend a lot of time thinking out a turn in pbf, the pressure in a real life game will make you make more mistakes and lose. The human side is much more clear for real life matches and that makes them interesting and fun to play and spectate.

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I’ve certainly tried to start playing my PbF games as if I need to make “snappy decisions”, so I’ve been trying to get a better feel for my probabilities. I feel like a little notebook where you keep a ref probability table, as well as take notes about deck / discard state and techs during your opponent’s turn would be acceptable and sufficient for the “real world speed” of games. It’d be nice to be able to type the notes though XD My chicken scratch isn’t all that great

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I think if I was playing in a Tournament, I’d definitely want to track no of cards in both my and my opponents hand/deck/discard - cycling is really important. Luckily you have time during your opponents turn to do those things.

Are games at FSX 25 minute chess clocks? And you lose if you run out of time? I think I’d find limiting myself to 5 minute turns tough…

You’d need to be faster than that even! If your average game is 7-8 turns, you’ve got about 3 mins per turn! You can make up some of that average with fast first cycles, but still… Yea, you’ve got to be pretty on top of it!