SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

On ACL and game throwing
 

Right apparently there's a bit of shit going round about this so let's go.

I was 2-2 in groups at ACL before I had to play my team mate Pokerface. If was lucky, a 3-2 finish might be enough to put me through to top 8, assuming everyone else except ninja was 3-2 or worse. Benji did not know my results properly though and thought I had no chance at all of making top 8 so he asked that I throw my games to pokerface purposefully to smooth his way through.

I explained that whilst I had a chance to possibly make top 8 I wouldn't do that. But if I had definitely no chance of making top 8 at all in any way then I would gladly throw the series to a team mate, like I assume anyone else would do for theirs. So I played him properly, won 2-0 and the end result was that poker got top 8 and I did not. No harm done at all, unless you don't like all Zerg top 8's. I myself have been the beneficiary of intentional game throwing in the past and that's perfectly ok.

That's it. That's the entirety of it. Benji is not going to ask someone to purposefully lose a tournament, such a thing is ******* insane and benji is not, it turns out, ******* insane. I dunno how this became a rumour or whatever but it's complete bullshit, so cut it out.

At least that's my view on this. Perhaps I have missed something.

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

I am not keen on match throwing for teammates no matter the circumstances.

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

Throwing games is a controversial subject, many say no its wrong, many say yes its okay.

Personally i think it's okay, as long as the player wants to thow it and is not being forced to.

But if you are going to throw a game, do it right like SenSei... 1 base carrier rush or something entertaining.

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

edit: sticky situation but looking forward, best case scenario is for this to be avoided

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

I can almost guarantee that if the situation arises, team mates will do it; especially close team mates/friends. Best way to stop it is to not let it get to that point in the first place - Best way to fix it is, as PiG said, to get team mates to play each other first. Simple as that.

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

LoSt, that's not really an option in this instance though, I had to play poker last cuz he came up through open bracket.

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

Even if you just think of it as: "Iaguz is mathematically eliminated now and hence just doesn't really focus and play his best any more". Regardless of whether you are playing teammates that can and will happen (*cough*Naniwa*cough*).

Try as hard as we can to get the format right to avoid it affecting the outcome, that's all we can do.

EDIT: gimli, poker's first matchup after coming out of the open bracket should have been against you, I think he means... before you know how the group is shaping up for both of you.

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

My fault for not realizing that iaguz was ahead of deth on maps, after iaguz pointed this out I believe i retracted what I said and let them play it out.

Del, I understand that you do not like it, but its a massive dick move to knock your teammate out of an event when you have no chance of advancing.

I misunderstood the group standings (I was trying to track all 4 brackets for my players) and made an error and I apologize to iaguz who I hope wasn't offended by my comment.

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

This is one of the reasons why i was saying that the pro pool groups shouldn't start before the open bracket finishes (in perfect circumstances) because people can choose groups based off current scores in groups. If they wait they can also make teammates play each other first. Hopefully next ACL when theres more time pro pool won't start until the open bracket is done if they are going to continue along the lines of better seed chooses which group they want to go in.

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

Great point. But yeah guys sounds like there's no drama here and it's hapened before on the world stage. So let's just all relax and say ok, theres a small change to the format for next time to make sure nothing goes wrong.

Benji was completely fine in approaching it how he did, im sure most teams players/managers would do the same thing as Iaguz stated.

Edit: Just discussing this in alt chat and actually now I've thought it through.

I think that it seems ok if you think "hey my teammate can progress and I can't so WHY would I take a win for myself?"

Yeah sure that sounds fine. But you're basically saying I tried my hardest against some players and not others. I gave free wins to one player, potentially giving him a spot he didn't earn and did not deserve.

If I were to get through cos a friend played like crap against me and admitted it afterwards you know what? I'd feel like I cheated a little. Why? Because I didn't deserve to be there. I didn't earn my spot and basically just because I'm friends or teammates with the other player some other guy who is more deserving misses out.

Now that's impossible to enforce you might say? And EVERYONE would do it in the same circumstances cos of loyalties. So therefore its stupid to say its wrong? **** no. It ruins the integrity of the game and the players involved and should be avoided at all costs.

So ultimately, formats should avoid this at ALL Costs. And if it does happen the player throwing the match better damn well make it look like a serious attempt and not admit publicly that they threw the match.

When I played my clanmate and friend YoonYJ I had already beaten Jazbas so I had jazbas pleading that I play my best even though I was through already so that he had a chance to beat yoon to 2nd place. As it was I tried hard when I played but also did some slightly risky and non-standard play as there was no pressure on me to win, not for my own results anyway.

I lost 0-2 and felt pretty bad when I realised it almost looked like I'd thrown the matches to anyone who knew we were friends. However I didn't and even if I did I wouldn't admit it because it would be an insult to him as a player and Jazbas as a competitor because I'm hurting his chances simply because I personally am closer with YoonYJ. Luckily Jazbas is a boss who came 2nd anyway so I didn't need to feel bad about my crappy play.

Summary: Managers shouldn't be telling people to throw games. Keep that shit under wraps if you're going to do it. If tournament organisers find out about anything like that players or teams should be penalized/DQ for unsportsmanlike conduct. It won't stop it from happening but it makes it harder to do, and especially harder to do blatantly.

Oh and just cos i decided its bad to talk about it/do it. I still have no info that Benji did anything particularly wrong here or close to what was being rumoured.

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

did you?

if i recall correctly you did no such thing, but instead stormed over to iaguz after he won with ur voice a' crackin and ur feathers in a puff and asked him WTF?!?

its fine you made a mistake with ur calculations and its great you're apologising but you handled it poorly, if you truly knew that u had made a mistake before they played their games, you would not have reacted the way you did after the match, so either im missing something, or you're lying...?

Also, imo if ur gonna throw ur games for the benefit of ur team mate after having no chance to proceed, to do it in an entertaining fashion, otherwise your letting the audience down, theres no harm in having fun with it if your not playing for your tournament life =)

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

iaguz will tell you that I said nothing of the sort to him. I went over to make sure Poker remained positive and to make sure he knew that he could still advance.

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

I'm with deL on this, yea you are team mates but this is an individual tournament and I see throwing games as bad and unsportsman like in any situation.

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

I don't actually recall having a conversation with benji after the pokerface series at all Champi. I remember walking around and feeling happy after the second game, I don't recall getting yelled at or any such thing.

This is debatable, I wouldn't call it a dick move. You're at a tournament, you have to play games, it's expected. That you can get out of it is an unexpected courtesy and not something you should force or look negatively upon if it's not agreed to. The whole point of a Starcraft tournament is to play Starcraft, not just to win (which is nice too).

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

Match throwing between team mates to help eachother advance - isn't a great thing to do, as it cheats someone else out of the spot they otherwise would have earnt.. However, it is something implicit between the players and it happens... Let them decided if they are going to throw the game or play it out - no one external to the two players in that match should try and influence the decision. We all know SenSei also tried to help deth get out of his group, However I didn't tell sensei to throw his games.. and when I heard that he was - I asked them to play a macro game and put on a show for the stream and fans watching at ACL.

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

in that case i apologise, i must have misunderstood what i thought i was seeing

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

I was standing with Benji when iaguz came off casting and Benji mentioned that he could throw the series to ensure poker got through, and iaguz correctly pointed out that it if he won that series he could still advance, seeing as he would beat deth on map score (and assuming poker then beat delete, i guess.). All I saw was Benji accept that he couldn't ask iaguz to throw it while he still had a chance and move on.

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

Would up rep this if it wasn't a blog.

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

Edit

10char

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

You can't really stop is as its easy to be like "herp derp I cant believe i put my army on move command", so the best way is probably to have team mates play each other first wherever possible.

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

Maybe for future events we don't publish results until the group play is completed? It's not a fix but it'd be damn annoying asking everyone where they're at in score.
Also group play shouldn't start until the open bracket is completed. Time is a serious issue here, and maybe ACL needs for SC2 to start earlier than the rest of the event, i'm sure some things will be sorted for melb, it is ACL's second sc2 event ever, give it some time and we'll have an MLG

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

As a fan watching I feel this kind of shit sucks. I don't watch a stream for over twelve hours staying awake til 4am to see anything other than the best games played.

As a fan I would be hugely disappointed to see games thrown regardless of whether the players were to advance or not. If you aren't going to play good games, then don't waste peoples time by entering. It is spitting in the faces of everyone who is supporting you and has spent hours watching the competition.

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

^This x 100

Throwing games shows how poor a [E]sportsman you are. U wanna commercialise it and stuff yet u think its okay to purposely lose a game and then go talk abt it like its the right thing to do.

If u wanna do it, at least be humble about it.

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

This is what I've been trying to find the words to say for the last hour or so. Thanks Rogue.

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

I think I already said this in the primary ACL thread, but we're gonna force team mates to play eachother as a priority from now on. In this case it was a bit difficult because the open bracket was sooooooooooo freakin' delayed, but in future we'll be enforcing it.

Also for the record, when I asked Yoon what group he wanted, he said, "I'd feel more comfortable in Group A, but I don't want to potentially ruin deth's chances of getting through the group, so I'll just take group C and try my best against Pinder." I was really happy to hear him say this!

Re: On ACL and game throwing
 

It's an avoidable situation and when it comes down to it, if I had a absolutely zero chance of advancing left whereas a teammate still did I would throw the game without a second thought (in an entertaining way ala sensei). Dox's solution solves it (in terms of team/clanmates play each other first), so there's really nothing to discuss here.

Even if you did make a rule against match throwing, you could never ever prove it, as kez said, "I just played bad" and you cant prove anything.

Edit: regarding the initial op, props to iaguz for putting an end to the rumours etc. When i first heard the rumours they were more along the lines of "Benji told iaguz he has to throw, regardless of iaguz still having a chance!" or w/e. What he did do is far more reasonable