Ethics of sort

Often the situation arises that two players are left and the 2nd (ranked 3rd at that moment) player can't catch up to the 1st player (me in this case) by a long shot. The 3rd ranked player however, is ranked a few points below the currently 2nd ranked on points. I just kept on playing for a bit to so that the 3rd ranked player would catch up. I could have claimed a win, but thought the other player should be rewarded for his fighting. It was nothing like teaming during the game, but once we were the only players left, I allowed the other player to catch up to 2nd by playing until this player reached the necessary points.

Would you (and the team) consider this acceptable? I got some pretty ugly threats following the game by PM, so I want this clarified.

This is one of the drawbacks to the points system, and I'm not sure I see a good solution.  The guy with a won game is then in a position to decide, at no cost to himself, who is in second.  Whoever he puts in third is going to get mad at him, either for cutting the game short or for dragging it on.

In other multiplayer games, such as Diplomacy, you're expected to pursue your own self-interest as you perceive it; that may help or hurt other players through no fault of their own, but you're just trying to further your own cause.  Sometimes you might misunderstand your own self-interest due to tactical oversights, deception from other players, or unforeseen events outside your control, but if you're following your own self-interest as you understand it at the time, nobody can make any plausible claim of any violation of the spirit of the game.

That doesn't help us here.  The guy in first has a won game, and neither helps nor harms himself by cutting off the game immediately or playing on to the death.  His actions, then, are essentially random - and have a significant positive impact on one player and a negative impact on the other player.

I don't see any strong grounds for ethical guidelines either way.  But it would be nice if we could come up with a way to tweak the rules to avoid situations where someone who doesn't have a dog in the fight can make a decision that has such a significant impact on others.  I just can't think of a solution right now...

I saw the end of the game, didnt see the whole game though.  I dont believe you had bad intentions.

I've had the same kind of situation happen to me quite often.  I guess the 'right way' depends on the sitution.  From what I saw,   what you did  trying to reward a player looked more unfair to the player who ended up finishing 3rd because of this than it was fair to the player who ended up in second.

Here is what I do:   Sometimes I play on,  sometimes I claim my win.   But when I do play on, I play to try to win,  I dont just give material away to affect the result of the game.   I play as good as I can,  and if the player can find the way to squeeze enough point to end up second,  good for him,  but if he can't, well tough luck ... That way, I keep it fair for the other players in the game. 

In your game today,  the player had no chance at all to catch up to second place if you had  played to win once there was only 2 players left. So I would think that it was unacceptable.  But then, there are no rules written down about this yet, and I dont doubt that you had good intentions.

Also, any threaths that you have received are completely unacceptable.

I hope this helps

cheers

agree with Ne2willdo

The way I saw it, the player who was there at the end was fighting hard all game after getting screwed in the opening (he was the lowest rated by quite a stretch). The fact that he did not resign early on was quite heroic. Also he played great once he was in the bad position.

I have claimed my wins most of the time, but I have also "gifted" the other player a 2nd place when I felt like he deserved it, and it was close enough on the points. 

I don't feel like it was more unfair to the 3rd player than it was fair to the 2nd, but I was quite indifferent to the standings in general. The only way I see to fairly change this possibility is to force an automatic claim of win if a player is in such a position. I did it because I do not think it's unfair, but if it is, then a better system must come in place.

As far as I'm concerned, if the game design makes it possible, it's acceptable (whether it's ethical is a different question). An automated game like this should be designed so that any rule breaking is automatically caught. And yes, to clarify, by my logic, teaming up is acceptable because it's possible via the chat. Of course, if you want to prevent the possibility of teaming, you have the option of disabling chat. 

To clarify further, I believe the game is designed and implemented well, and I have virtually no complaints. What icystun described is simply an artifact of the game, just as analogous scenarios would be possible in other multiplayer games (e.g. board games like Risk, video games, etc.).

@icystun 

As I said,  I only saw the end of the game.    Considering this new information, I guess what you did was fine, and I might have done the same thing depending on how I feel.

i've adressed this along time ago (1st gets to decide who gets 2nd and 3rd), but not much feedback received. i really dislike how it is possible to claim early. i wish you could only claim when there is no way possible for the standings to change. when you resign you shouldn't just lose 20 pts for you king, but 20+the value of all your remaining material. you also shouldn't be able to claim if the remaining player could catch up from 3rd to 2nd (but not to you)

as for getting pms its totally ridiculous, as the game stands you can clearly claim or not as you like.

Two things. 

First, I agree with @_-__-__-___- : claiming a win should more difficult.  However, any idea of factoring in the "value of all remaining material" of a resigning player just has too much baggage (after advocating for similar ideas, I've been convinced by the counter-arguments that such factors simply muddy the waters too much to be worthwhile).

I think there's a simpler idea: a "survivor bonus".  Any time any player is knocked out - for any reason (independent of usual points awarded for check-mate and king-capture) - all remaining players receive a bonus +10 for outlasting that player.  This would immediately bump the "claim-win" gap from +20 to +30 (or +40 against two remainign players)  I think the idea would drive better play; a lot of "doomed" players might be significantly more motivated to tenaciously hold on longer than other troubled players.  I also think it's very much in keeping with the spirit of chess: it directly rewards survival and perseverance over one's "enemies", sort of a "ying" to the 4-player-chess "yang" of considering captures/exchanges primarily in terms of point value, not strategic value.

Second, regardless of whether any changes are made to the point system, I feel all this ethical hand-wringing goes away with an obvious solution: don't make it optional.  Make "gaining a sufficiently large lead that you can't be caught" BE the end-game.  We're not cats that need to toss the mouse around a few times before dinner...

Kevinkirkpat, I like the survivor bonus (no idea if it then impacts other things though). 

Not sure this will add a lot but.. One tactic seems to be come out swinging and rack up a lot of points early then die (*did not say it was a good tactic )those that do it sometimes do enough damage to others and rack up enough points leaving a strong player to take everyone out. I have seen them get 2nd a number of times with this style. So did they deserve to be bumped to 3rd because they were outlasted? (*Personally I would say yes only because it annoys me ) but I think you can see the point its still a way of playing the game and trying to get 2nd and they worked for it. Not to mention it does add to the early game action that the Developer's want to promote (and I personally agree with). So where it applies here I believe is if you do auto claim win I think you slow this type of play down and thus slow the game down which lowers the excitement/rush level or at least we're at risk of that. 

Overall icystun I like your decision on this and would do the same myself and Ne2willdo I think your solution of playing tough is a great one as well. At the end of the day this is a wild west crazy game so not having everything as a rule and letting people play sheriff once in awhile I don't see as a bad thing. 

You can't implement auto-claim, imagine this scenario:

Green is dead

Blue just dead right now

It's yellow turn and he has mate in three (or mate in one, or whatever) but Red has enough material to get the auto win.

What is the right thing to do there?

@CheeseGT, red claiming the win during his turn sounds right there. If yellow has a move before reds turn he could try to grab as many points as possible during that move to either just get as many points as possible or preventing red from claiming a win. I don't really see issues with an auto win feature other than that it might confuse some players. Sounds completely fair in terms of balance.

When it comes to ethics, I agree with @Ne2willdo

I have been slightly annoyed when a player with pretty much only king left was given points to get ahead of me in points (making me finish 3rd instead of 2nd). The part that annoyed me the most was that the player begged for points in chat (which of course I could not disable after being eliminated).

I guess I was punished for not disabling chat before I was mated 

However, despite what happened I did not feel any particular grudge against any of the players. Just unfortunate that such decisions exist where one player can decide the outcome of other players.

@kevinkirkpat    I really dont like  your idea of a survivor bonus for this reason:   it would encourage passive play. And that's already somewhat of a problem.

@_-__-__-___- I like the idea of factoring in the points for all your material when you resign, I had thought about it too.  But only when there are just 2 players left of course. 

>  I got some pretty ugly threats following the game by PM, so I want this clarified.

If you'll take a look at my profile page you'll see a similar comment. No, not some ugly threats, but a resentful speech starting with: "Why did you let DWduck2 win more points than me in 4 way chess?" 

This sort of situations arise often. We may need to write our "4 Player Chess Pirate Code". 

In short: You can not satisfy them all. Want to be good to all people - do not play 4 Player Chess. 

Played a game a few minutes ago. I was red, so yellow was opposite to me and green at right. Yellow attacked green. And the green invented a chess combination: "I (green) leave my rook unprotected, yellow will eat the rook with his queen, then red will check yellow king. I will attack yellow queen and then capture it because yellow king is checked and the queen can not run away." So, he left his rook unprotected, as a trap. But for some reason the red (me  ) did not check yellow king. As a result, the green lost his rook, wrote accusations to me in the chat ("unfair play", etc.) and resigned.

The green's calculations were wrong. Yes, I could check the yellow. But it was risky. The blue could move his pawn breaking the connection between my queens and then yellow could eat the queen with his king. Or blue could attack my pieces at the left flank. So, it was beneficial to the green, but questionable to me.

Moreover, the green supposed that I am 100% focused, see the same moves as he sees, share his ideas, have the same targets with him etc. It is all wrong. Like other players I can blunder a queen (or checkmate), do have different ideas, and care about my score, not about the others'.

It is not possible to satisfy them all. This is the nature of the game. Help the green and you offend the yellow. Help the yellow and you offend the green.

P.S. Red is a natural enemy for green. Yellow is a backstabber for green. See the Martin0's classification of players. In this particular game green expected his enemy to help him and protect from backstabber. Isn't it strange  More optimal strategy for the red (from me in this case) was to team up with yellow to kill the green. I did not help yellow. But the green was not satisfied. Imagine what would he write in the chat in case I team up with the yellow  

Green's strategy was reasonable, but risky.  Taking risks - and knowing when not to take risks - is part of a game with more than two players.  And sometimes it all goes wrong due to events outside your control.

In a three-player variant where we played until the king was captured (thus ignoring check and checkmate) and where, when you take someone's king their pieces become part of your army, I once tried a similar strategy, with higher stakes. I'm player 1. Player 3 put me in check. I decided to leave myself in check, forcing Player 2 to intervene to prevent Player 3 gaining control of a large, combined army. The only way Player 2 could intervene was to sacrifice his queen for one of the pawns in front of Player 3's king. Thus, leaving myself in check would cost Player 2 his queen and open up Player 3's king.
Player 3 was a weaker player. Player 2 decided to preserve his queen, let Player 3 take my king, and then try to out-play Player 3 enough to make up for Player 3's material advantage (after Player 3 combined my pieces into his army).
Player 2's gamble backfired. Player 3 won. And I thought it served Player 2 right.
Of course, all three of us were pursuing our own self-interest. Player 2 didn't intentionally throw the game. He was trying to win the game, but he took a risk that was unsound. My assumption that he wouldn't take unsound risks therefore proved to be unsound. Thus, the weakest player of the three of us ended up being gifted the win. That can happen.

Here is a case of a player begging for free points from the 1st player. He wants 6 points to steal the 2nd place. The 1st player did the right thing and checkmated him in cold blood.

@willdo yes exactly, when it's heads up. btw awesome nick i assume you play holdem

offtopic quesition is it true stalemate now gets everyone +10 except the stalemated player?

Yeah, if you're not going to claim a win, you should play as if it's a game of last man standing and try to checkmate him.  Giving away free points without a fight isn't really quite right.