verbalobe (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} pilgrim_eye) wrote,@ 2008-02-26 00:28:00 |
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Hitting the clock
Let's not get distracted. This is not about accidentally hitting the clock.
Nor is this about random acts of kindness. Kindness would have been if Player A had said nothing, and Player B volunteered, "76 points? Maybe you meant to add a 7th tile? Here, why don't I restart your clock, and let you do that."
Kindness is allowing this sort of thing with a newbie in a club.
Kindness is often a component of "spirit of the game" exceptions, especially when they're volunteered, and especially in the lower divisions. We all want Scrabble to have a spirit of comity. This type of comity is about extending courtesies with the expectation (real or imagined) that they will be reciprocated. It makes our community a nicer place, which is important for a lot of players who aren't just about cutthroat competition.
Not relevant here, where someone requested a courtesy.
What is this really about? It's about five things:
1. What's right? And if there are shades of rightness, then it's about what's most right. With that in mind, I invite folks to consider:
More to the point, asking in itself implies that there is validity to the question -- an implication that carries all the more weight if Player A happens to be in a position of influence with respect to the rules.
Asking implies that Player A doesn't in fact know what Player B's response should be, which is patently dishonest -- he knows that Player B's answer should be no. The only reason to ask has nothing to do with any judgment call about what may be allowed (unless we want the rules to devolve to whatever individual opponents permit each other) -- it is solely to recapture the bingo score.
I could well imagine, if Player B says no, that Player A would wryly grin and say, "Nah, I didn't think so." Well, if you don't think so, you don't ask. No game should turn on such a blatant fling of gamesmanship, when the bulk of the rules go so far to try to ensure that outcomes derive solely from skill, knowledge, and the definitive plays made by each player, each turn.
Asking the question put Player A's score for that turn in Player B's hands, which should never happen.
3. The cause of the distraction should not be a factor, because that's so subjective, but it is. Unfortunately for Player A, the cause was not a car bomb going off in the hotel parking lot. (Presumably a few plays around the tournament room would have to be reviewed in such an event.) The cause here was Player A's own carelessness. I would even surmise from accounts of the incident that his carelessness caused tiles to be drawn out of turn (albeit possibly in Player B's favor, since Player A's discards had not been returned to the bag).
But at the instant of discovery -- which happened to coincide with the misplay/mis-score -- here's what I would expect Player A to do:
4. Imagine that in this case Player A happens to be famous for his mental discipline. He rarely makes such errors, rarely gets distracted, rarely loses focus. In addition, imagine he is a famous and vocal proponent of mental focus, and has often attributed his winning ways, in part, to a variety of techniques that minimize distraction.
If this were the actual scenario, the incident becomes even more outrageous: for a player so well-known for insisting that failures of focus should be considered a primary cause of losses and suboptimal performance, to request special dispensation, in defiance of the rulebook, to erase just such a lapse.
This player could never afterward really take the same pedagogical stance, could they? Maybe they would have to add a chapter to their book (if they had one) on Bonus Kindness Techniques for minimizing the effects of errors and lapses on tournament performance:
5. The fifth thing that this is about, to me, has to do with Player A's real identity, and the aftermath to these disclosures. I could imagine, if Player A were just some run-of-the-mill player, more interested in self-defense than in the principle of the thing, that she would argue with my point (1) above, thusly: "Look, this wasn't a final, this wasn't a semifinal, this wasn't [insert high stakes scenario here]. This was just [insert self-serving description of why such a remarkable exception to the rules should not be remarkable here]."
But the Director of Tournaments, Rules Committee member, majority scribe of the rulebook, many-times champion, book author, hero and leader of men, would never take the tack of seeking a loophole for a situation that would not pass muster at the game's highest levels. Would they? Such a player would be honor-bound, if this incident had occurred as described, to concede that it was ill-advised and should in no wise be taken as precedent for any sort of regular expert conduct.
That Player A instead continues to assert the appropriateness of his actions in this case raises profound doubts in my mind as to his capacity to judge what is and what is not proper, and if he were a candidate for a position of leadership I would withhold my support.
P.S. Why are so many of us so indignant about this? Here is exactly why: We all screw up. We all put IX or OT or leave a tile on the board or spill the bag or overdraw or mis-score. And every time it happens, every one of us takes it as an express invitation to do the right thing.
We're all smart and we're all competitive. None of us has any trouble (witness some of the things that get concocted on CGP) imagining Player A/Player B scenarios where someone could derive some unfair advantage. But most of us, regularly and with unswerving integrity, deliberately do the right thing -- and it's usually personally painful.
And here comes this incident -- just about the most painful flub that I've ever heard of -- and the one guy who is supposed to set the pace, blows it. It's a dream case for demonstrating one's integrity, and he totally blows it, and refuses to acknowledge that he blew it.
Let's not get distracted. This is not about accidentally hitting the clock.
Nor is this about random acts of kindness. Kindness would have been if Player A had said nothing, and Player B volunteered, "76 points? Maybe you meant to add a 7th tile? Here, why don't I restart your clock, and let you do that."
Kindness is allowing this sort of thing with a newbie in a club.
Kindness is often a component of "spirit of the game" exceptions, especially when they're volunteered, and especially in the lower divisions. We all want Scrabble to have a spirit of comity. This type of comity is about extending courtesies with the expectation (real or imagined) that they will be reciprocated. It makes our community a nicer place, which is important for a lot of players who aren't just about cutthroat competition.
Not relevant here, where someone requested a courtesy.
What is this really about? It's about five things:
1. What's right? And if there are shades of rightness, then it's about what's most right. With that in mind, I invite folks to consider:
- Player A and Player B are at the Nationals finals table, being taped for television. Player A gets distracted, calls a score of 76 for a 20-pt play, and starts Player B's clock. Would Player A be in the right to interrupt Player B's time to request that he be allowed to make a different play from the one he made?
- Player A and Player B are in 3rd and 4th place in one of the KOTH rounds of a prominent regional tournament. The players in 1st and 2nd are at the next table, and all four are separated only by spread. Player A gets distracted, calls a score of 76 for a 20-pt play, and starts Player B's clock. Would Player A be in the right to interrupt Player B's time to request that he be allowed to make a different play from the one he made?
- Players A and B are in the middle ranks of Div C, early in a backwater one-day tournament -- top prize, dinner for two at Denny's. Player A gets distracted, calls a score of 76 for a 20-pt play, and starts Player B's clock. Would Player A be in the right to interrupt Player B's time to request that he be allowed to make a different play from the one he made?
More to the point, asking in itself implies that there is validity to the question -- an implication that carries all the more weight if Player A happens to be in a position of influence with respect to the rules.
Asking implies that Player A doesn't in fact know what Player B's response should be, which is patently dishonest -- he knows that Player B's answer should be no. The only reason to ask has nothing to do with any judgment call about what may be allowed (unless we want the rules to devolve to whatever individual opponents permit each other) -- it is solely to recapture the bingo score.
I could well imagine, if Player B says no, that Player A would wryly grin and say, "Nah, I didn't think so." Well, if you don't think so, you don't ask. No game should turn on such a blatant fling of gamesmanship, when the bulk of the rules go so far to try to ensure that outcomes derive solely from skill, knowledge, and the definitive plays made by each player, each turn.
Asking the question put Player A's score for that turn in Player B's hands, which should never happen.
3. The cause of the distraction should not be a factor, because that's so subjective, but it is. Unfortunately for Player A, the cause was not a car bomb going off in the hotel parking lot. (Presumably a few plays around the tournament room would have to be reviewed in such an event.) The cause here was Player A's own carelessness. I would even surmise from accounts of the incident that his carelessness caused tiles to be drawn out of turn (albeit possibly in Player B's favor, since Player A's discards had not been returned to the bag).
But at the instant of discovery -- which happened to coincide with the misplay/mis-score -- here's what I would expect Player A to do:
Player A: "Ugh... jeez... 20 points? Right. Ugh." [Pauses clock.] "Director!"Summary: Two things had gone wrong. One was a mechanical error in the order of play, and the second was a subsequent mental lapse by Player A that affected only himself. The priority should have been on correcting the error in procedure and getting the game back on track -- not on erasing Player A's mental lapse by a compounded error of procedure.
[To Player B]: "I didn't return my tiles to the bag after exchanging."
[Director arrives -- situation explained -- tiles returned to bag -- play resumes with Player A replenishing 6 tiles, and Player B's clock restarted. No mention made of misplay/mis-score.]
[After game, in hallway, to Player B]: "You know that play...? I had the S...." [groans and laughs all around].
4. Imagine that in this case Player A happens to be famous for his mental discipline. He rarely makes such errors, rarely gets distracted, rarely loses focus. In addition, imagine he is a famous and vocal proponent of mental focus, and has often attributed his winning ways, in part, to a variety of techniques that minimize distraction.
If this were the actual scenario, the incident becomes even more outrageous: for a player so well-known for insisting that failures of focus should be considered a primary cause of losses and suboptimal performance, to request special dispensation, in defiance of the rulebook, to erase just such a lapse.
This player could never afterward really take the same pedagogical stance, could they? Maybe they would have to add a chapter to their book (if they had one) on Bonus Kindness Techniques for minimizing the effects of errors and lapses on tournament performance:
Now that you have mastered my techniques for maintaining focus, let's look at how to get out of trouble in those rare cases where you will, inevitably, still screw up...A rare, one-of-a-kind error? All the more reason to let it stand, rather than seek to circumvent it.
5. The fifth thing that this is about, to me, has to do with Player A's real identity, and the aftermath to these disclosures. I could imagine, if Player A were just some run-of-the-mill player, more interested in self-defense than in the principle of the thing, that she would argue with my point (1) above, thusly: "Look, this wasn't a final, this wasn't a semifinal, this wasn't [insert high stakes scenario here]. This was just [insert self-serving description of why such a remarkable exception to the rules should not be remarkable here]."
But the Director of Tournaments, Rules Committee member, majority scribe of the rulebook, many-times champion, book author, hero and leader of men, would never take the tack of seeking a loophole for a situation that would not pass muster at the game's highest levels. Would they? Such a player would be honor-bound, if this incident had occurred as described, to concede that it was ill-advised and should in no wise be taken as precedent for any sort of regular expert conduct.
That Player A instead continues to assert the appropriateness of his actions in this case raises profound doubts in my mind as to his capacity to judge what is and what is not proper, and if he were a candidate for a position of leadership I would withhold my support.
P.S. Why are so many of us so indignant about this? Here is exactly why: We all screw up. We all put IX or OT or leave a tile on the board or spill the bag or overdraw or mis-score. And every time it happens, every one of us takes it as an express invitation to do the right thing.
We're all smart and we're all competitive. None of us has any trouble (witness some of the things that get concocted on CGP) imagining Player A/Player B scenarios where someone could derive some unfair advantage. But most of us, regularly and with unswerving integrity, deliberately do the right thing -- and it's usually personally painful.
And here comes this incident -- just about the most painful flub that I've ever heard of -- and the one guy who is supposed to set the pace, blows it. It's a dream case for demonstrating one's integrity, and he totally blows it, and refuses to acknowledge that he blew it.
