This, much like "tourny strat" is something you can use to justify a plethora of actions. You have carte blanche to do whatever you want in this situation. B could take first if he wanted.

whoever is best at chatting wins in this case. usually.

A flag, to me, means "I will take a position lower than you." So, if I were person B, and we were the only three left in the game, I'd kill A and secure my second.

copy/pasted from my comment in verm's excellent blog post (http://kdice.com/blog/48):

(a more seasoned player's perspective...)

in my experience there is a community of dicers who strongly believe that flags are transitive, i.e. if a flags to b, and b flags to c, then a is implicitly flagged to c. however, there is also a significantly-sized community who believes the opposite, that in this scenario, a is allowed to fight c for 1st/3rd, while b sits still for 2nd.

if you are player a:
if you fall into camp 1, your best finish is a high dom 3rd.
if you fall into camp 2, you beg player b to sit still, because, hey, you dont want his 2nd place, and you will fight for 1st/3rd with player c.

if you are player b:
camp 1: you inform player a that he is implicitly flagging 3rd. basically, it is your role to defend the person you flagged to. because if he starts to die, it is your duty and honor to flag out before him. so if player c dies, you get 3rd, and he gets 2nd. so you must fight for him if anyone tries to kill him, even if that potential killer has flagged to you already and is currently begging you to sit still for an unchallenged 2nd.
camp 2: you sit still for an unchallenged 2nd.

player c:
camp 1: as soon as you see someone offer a flag to player b, you (smartassedly) say, "thank you player a, i accept that flag." when player a is dumbfounded, because he didnt flag to you, you explain the transitive property, and inform him that you will demand that player b help you kill player a if player a decides to try to attack you.
camp 2: honest this hardly ever happens that someone in 1st will volunteer to join a 1/3 fight, because there is little to nothing to gain. the only time ive seen this happen is when its obvious that player c has a huge advantage, and he will gain more points from dom by engaging in a 1/3 fight which he is 99% sure to win.


but, i'll be honest again (i've made this point somewhere in the past 160 posts), seasoned players will manipulate the shit out of the flagging system. i.e. if they are player a, chances are they will try to convince the noob to sit for 2nd while they try for 1st, since that is the correct play. if they are player c, they will try to convince the noob in 2nd to attack 3rd, since that is the correct play.

as for myself, i typically say that flags are transitive like 90%* of the time, while the other 10%* ill be the manipulative bitch.

*+/- 80%

CLIFFS:
integrity says that flags are transitive
maximizing points says that flags are transitive when it gains you more points, and intransitive when it gains you more points.

that was my feeling, thank you. Let's fight the fight for truth and integrity and keep flags transitive!

I would like to follow this up with a kmontessay ;), but my opinion is ethically and honourably flags are transitive, i know in practice this is not always the case.

Honestly, it's whatever you can make the best case for. Flags were only introduced to help the game end faster, and you under no actual requirements to act a certain way because of them.

(my two cents, which I know many disagree with)

I would like to write a short comment on this issue since you, rimini and I, had the big discussion in the tourney when you challenged my place and eventually made me 6th instead of 1st or 2n (I don't remember exactly).

I found it VERY unfair and unreasonable as I had all other flags around, having been nice at a fairly early stage and not taking away their (even small stacked) lands.

So I ended up fully stacking 6 lands + 32 on stock whereas all others started teir fight for position. In the meantime you had defeated a weak neighboring player and just n a rush occupied them so you had 8 low stacked yet connected lands (whereas I was even cut to permit a position fight)

Certainly i assumed you would have a resonable approach to the situation where I could only attack you by destroying one of the smaller guys fighting for a position to keep them in tourney
After dragging this on with some chit chat and fully stacking them, you suddenly claimed you wanted to go for my position which was about 4 or 5 rounds later.

I found this very upsetting as you took advantage of the situation that I had been nice to my neighbors (by accepting their flags) as well as not disturbing them in their fights. Moreover you counted onthem just sitting when you would attack me as each of them was afraid to lose their place....

Well, at least 2 of them didn`t, yet eventually you won this fight which I refused to accept until I was down to 2 lands and the 2 guys fought for me... with the result that players who had flagged me stayed in the tourney whereas I was out.

There was no reason it should happen this way and I sure learnt my lesson never to trust you again since you had exploited my kindness and treated me like a gullible idiot.

The way I see it, if accepting my flag prevented the player I flagged from expanding, then I feel obliged to help them fight for their position. This is usually the case with early flags, which are almost always weak.
This principle is consistent with the notion that an early flag is tantamount to a truce.

If you can't trust the person weak flagging you to defend your position later in the game, then its better not to accept their flag.

My 2 cents:

A flag TO a player is just that... you are flagging to that player and thus guarantee that you will take a lower position.

A flag FOR a position is just that... you are saying you will take, say, second place.

So by my definition, flags are transitive.
If A flags to B, and I'm C, I flag to A and fight B. But I know that's just me.