Is backstabbing allowed in kdice now? If not, monte totally deserved this.

ummmmmmm...those rolls aren't even that bad.

its not about the rolls. its about montecarlo dropping out of the tournament for no reason but not finishing the 2nd he logical should.

ah

yeah, Ryan definitely chose to kick me out of that tournament, although he has yet to explain why.

As far as conflict resolution goes, the way I always approach a conflict personally (you can ask my wife this... well actually you can't ask her, I'm not giving out her contact info) is that I first look at myself and see what I have done wrong. Most source of conflicts is rarely one-sided, and most of the time lies in the 50/50 range, or due to something external such as miscommunication. Before I attack the other person, I try to examine myself and see what wrongs I have committed that could have caused the conflict, as well as examine the situation to see how it couldve caused the conflict. Only then do I examine what the other person did to cause the conflict, and I don't like assuming to know why they did what they did. I always try to listen to their perspective first, instead of prejudging. This approach usually leads to resolution of the conflict, at least in my personal experience. Hardly anyone can hold a grudge against me, thankfully.

So, back to the tournament. Let's see what I did that could've led to the punishment.

I won the first round game by trucing cryptocracy and outexpanding him while everyone else fought for 3rd, so he flagged 2nd to me.

In the 2nd game I could be perceived as doing something underhanded. There was a very large player (kdiceking*), in the SW. I loudly truced Buttevar in the north (i.e. using the chatbox a few times). I thought this would lead kdiceking* to asking the one remaining player, start1, to counter, which I believed start1 would immediately accept, since it would have a ~90% chance of giving him 2nd. start1 was 2based: one large stack in the south, and a 2-territory group right up my ass in the NE. When kdiceking* was silent for a round or two, I asked start1 what his plans were, and he said he was still making up his mind. I asked him what it would take to buy him off (from joining kdiceking and taknig 2nd, and probably putting me into 4th). He said, if you give me 3rd, I won't attack you. Buttevar and I immediately said sure. Now it was a 50/50 against kdiceking*. Buttevar and I won. kdiceking* was extremely pissed that we were giving him 4th under start1. I tried to explain the reasoning, and also tried to explain that he really missed his huge opportunity to try to organize a counter when Buttever and I truced in chatbox. He was angry and said that I should've just fought Buttevar for 2nd/3rd, and both of us should've just flagged to him. So kdiceking* got 4th, and was eliminated from the tourney. He was and probably still is pissed at me. So there is one thing that I did in the tournament that potentially was wrong, given that a player was pissed at me because of that decision.

In the 3rd game, I had a bad start, and was trapped between Rorschach and jpc4p, who were both huge, and they truced in like round 2, leaving me with no outs. Buttevar was a clear 3rd and flagged in that position in the middle. Rors and jpc had said I could perhaps have 3rd if I stayed still. I said nah, that's unfair. I have to fight for 3rd. After a way-too-long scuffle with Buttevar (I got really lucky), I was killed and got last, and said gga and took my big negative hit like a man. Everyone was happy with how I played this game.

Fourth game, I pissed off Rorschach more than I have ever seen him pissed off before. He started off the game in the NE trapped between me and jpc. I told him not to take my island, and he said ok. I took one of his 1stacks to connect to it, and he was like wtf, why did you take that when you couldve taken a grey instead. I was upset that he was upset at me for this (if I had taken the grey stack, I wouldve trapped him and effectively been a meatshield for him to get an easy placement above me). At this point my memory goes bad since I was distracted by work. Rors said that I told him if he went south then I wouldn't eat his tail (I don't recall telling him this, but Rors is an upstanding guy, and if he said I said this, I believe him). Anyways, he went south and pwnd jpc. I hadn't realized I had told him this, and so I gobbled up his tail and trapped him helplessly on a peninsula. Meanwhile DG took 1st in the SW, and I told her I would flag 2nd. start1 ended up beating jpc for 3rd, and jpc and Rors both lost out of the tourney. Rors bitched a ton because he said I backstabbed him. I understand how it could be seen as a backstab, and I really do apologize to you Rors because I really don't remember telling you that if you went south I wouldn't eat your tail.

Game 5, I started in the NE with ching-a-ling next to me, both of us with 5stacks. I said the standard, lets not destroy each other, and he said okay. So he went south, and left me the NE. yellowfin had huge stacks, and ching and I basically told him if you don't destroy us with those huge stacks, then we will be more than happy with 2nd and 3rd. fin agreed, and went west, and on to an easy 1st. ching killed off DG in the east, then killed off Rors and Fisto who were down to 1 8stack and 1 7stack, respectively. I stayed in the NE with 4 territories and eventually +32, since I couldn't come SE to fight with ching against our enemies. I had an island in the SW, and I tried to fight with it against start1, until he agreed to flag 4th. After all the flags got processed, ching and I had to decide who gets 2nd. yellowfin decided to attack ching only, and I said stop stop stop. Let us fight like gentlemen and let the dice decide who gets 2nd. ching said no, I'm happy with 3rd if 3rd is positive. So I ate a couple of his lands, and sure enough his 3rd was positive, so he flagged 3rd (the agreement was that if his 3rd was negative, I would flag 3rd and give him 2nd).

So now the tourney was down to the final 4 players: yellowfin in a commanding 1st with like 2000, I think I was 2nd/3rd with like 400, and then ching was 4th heading into the next round.

Except at that point, at the end of that game, the following line popped up:

montecarlo finished the tournament 4th

with about 25 witnesses, who had mixed reactions ranging from:
Rors: thats what you get for backstabbing me. backstabbing is cheating is what Ryan is saying.
lots of gallery people: HAHAHAHAHA! (I've come to accept the fact that people get a good deal of enjoyment watching me die, and I think it's neat).
lots of gallery people and myself: WTF??? what did monte do wrong?

So I don't know what I did wrong. Perhaps it was the trucing against kdiceking*. Perhaps it was the apparent backstab against Rorschach. But I doubt it was either of those, since I wasn't kicked out of the tourney after those games. I was kicked out after the fin/ching/monte game. But I digress, I shouldn't be trying to assume reasons why I got kicked out, when I can just hear it from the judge's keyboard: Ryan, why was I kicked out?

This is not me bitching about points. This isn't even me bitching about my reputation. This is me trying to understand what you saw that was a kick-out-worthy offense, so that next time I join a tourney, I will know how to play so that I don't get kicked out again. I honestly feel that ever since I cleaned up my game after flagfest '07, I have been adapting my game continuously to stay fair according to Ryan's rules, and lots of the time before he even makes them rules. So I need to keep updated on the change in policy that resulted in me getting kicked out. I try to be a fair player, but I need to have the explanations of judgment so I know how to act before I get judged again.

did anyone really read monte's posting?
hm, maybe ill gonna do tomorrow.

but until: ryan wrecked monte's karma, there are no german illuminati, 9/11 never happened, and rnd is really the name of ryan's child...

best regards
a fuckin drunk... (not kreuz today)