Elliott C. "Eeyore" Evans, wrote:

First off, the tourney was delayed for some time as two participants wished to compete in the Falling tournament that had been scheduled concurrently. Jake was willing to postpone the tournament since he was one of the two people. =^>

Six people competed in the tournament, five experienced competitors and one dark horse. One competitor from last year showed up too late to compete, but it was good to see him (Hi JazzFish!). Andy "Zarf" Plotkin was our erstwhile and highly skilled judge. We played six Ice-off games, each player participating in four of them. Ratings for the Ice-offs were calculated based on each player's best three scores.

The snowball opening is basically dead. If you, like me, tend to rely on the snowball to get an early fortress, you will find it very difficult to get anywhere in the tournament finals these days. A snowball or two would sometimes develop later in the game, but not usually at the very beginning.

I don't remember too much about the Ice-offs. I did notice a couple of strangers getting very interested in the game. Maybe next year we should run some demos or something. You can see in the score sheet that coming out of the Ice-offs, Andy already had a clear intention of dominating this tournament.

In one finals game, John "Dr. Cool" Cooper and Andy "The Emperor" Looney developed a new strategy for dealing with Jake Davenport's shotgun strategy. This strategy involves "sharing the pain." In short, all attacks made on shotgun pieces were cooperative attacks involving pieces of two colors. This cooperative attacking yielded a board situation of "or we will all go down together." If Jake were to get a prisoner, the pain of the subsequent restructuring would be shared among those participating.

In another game, I saw Jake counting up John's pieces, and realized that if I didn't do something quickly, John was going to be put in the Icehouse. So, I did the only thing I could do; I took a prisoner of John's color (Red, BTW) off my stash pad and played it stealthily about an inch to the right of my stash pad. Jake's subsequent call of "Icehouse" was incorrect, forcing him to give away the last piece from his stash pad (a 1-pointer).

In that same game (I think, the second one of the finals) that piece became the last piece on Andy's stash pad near the end of the game. I had a few pieces left, so I played them quickly to minmize the impact he could have with that prisoner. (you can't restructure with the final piece of the game, because as soon as it's played, the game is over.) Reading the board, I was going to win the game by one point (and consequently the tournament) and there was nothing Andy could do. Nothing, that is, except tip-block a red 3-pointer that was attacking one of his 3-pointers. I was participating in that attack with a green 1-pointer, so that single action squandered 3-points of red, one point of green, one point of yellow, and saved three points of blue. Andy won that game. It was a beautiful thing.

In the last game of the finals. Things didn't go very well for me. I failed to get a fortress early, since the snowball failed to develop sufficiently. After several thwarted attempts to get a fortress, I was down to seven pieces on my stash pad, and looking for something to do. I could have called "Icehouse" on myself, but I needed to win the game if I wanted to win the tournament. Eventually, I noticed Jake counting pieces on my stash pad and then judging my position on the board. I braced myself for the call, but it never came. *Shrug*. A minute or two later, Dr. Cool did the same counting thing, and called me into the Icehouse, sealing the tomb door on my hopes. It turns out that Jake thought "7" was the stash limit (it's "8"). Jake went on to win the game anyway, but nobody's overall performance was anywhere near Andy's.

After the tournament, a secret ballot was taken of the six participants to determine the CTI and I was chosen. I thank everybody who voted for me. Hey, I can't be too disappointed at not winning if there's this kind of consolation.

Then, Andy lent all of us Hawaiian shirts and we went to dinner at a historic (no, really, it's a historic landmark) Polynesian restaurant. I got a drink that came in a skull mug, and later used a LONG straw to drink from the flaming "Mystery Bowl".

It was a good day.

Andrew "Zarf" Plotkin wrote:

Well, I suppose I should write a little more. (If only because I had to concentrate on nine straight games of Icehouse, which is more than anyone else at the tournament. :-)

First point: judging style.

I went with the policy of not calling an illegal move until the piece was actually played -- fingers off the piece. For example, there were two meltdown situations in the tournament. In one, I watched the offending offensive piece being positioned -- which took a while -- and I called "meltdown" as soon as the player let go. In the other, another player called it during positioning, before the move was complete, so I never said anything at all.

(Actually the latter case happened earlier in the tournament.)

Similarly, if someone was confused enough to play an attacker in a squandered position, I wouldn't call it until the piece was placed (and therefore stuck there.) (Of course this is a rarer mistake even than melting down.)

Anyone object to this? Is this how judging was done in the early tournaments?

Elliott C. Evans wrote:

In another game, I saw Jake counting up John's pieces, and realized that if I didn't do something quickly, John was going to be put in the Icehouse. So, I did the only thing I could do; I took a prisoner of John's color (Red, BTW) off my stash pad and played it stealthily about an inch to the right of my stash pad. Jake's subsequent call of "Icehouse" was incorrect, forcing him to give away the last piece from his stash pad (a 1-pointer).

This thought (and action) took my notice. If you see player A about to put B in the icehouse, it may be reasonable to call "icehouse" first, and snag the prisoners yourself. On the other hand, it may be worth *saving* B -- by this means or some other -- possibly tricking A into a false "icehouse" call.

The choice is obviously down to individual play style. Eeyore, you wanna comment on why you decided as you did? Just because Jake, with a single piece on his stash, was unusually vulnerable to the false-icehouse penalty?

At the very least, the *possibility* of this strategy forces aggressive icehousers to pay more attention.

Elliott C. "Eeyore" Evans, wrote:

Andrew Plotkin wrote:

I went with the policy of not calling an illegal move until the piece was actually played -- fingers off the piece.

Until the fingers are removed, the piece is not played (at all), so it cannot be "played illegally" until the fingers are removed.

Similarly, if someone was confused enough to play an attacker in a squandered position, I wouldn't call it until the piece was placed.

Actually, unless you're asked to make a floss call, you're under no obligation to say anything until scoring.

Is this how judging was done in the early tournaments?

As I recall them, yes. I remember that at least once, a judge refused to make a call on the legality of an attack until the attacker was officially "played".

The choice is obviously down to individual play style. Eeyore, you wanna comment on why you decided as you did? Just because Jake, with a single piece on his stash, was unusually vulnerable to the false-icehouse penalty?

I must admit that it never occurred to me to do anything other than what I did. Foolish, actually. I should have called "Icehouse" on John myself and used the prisoners to assure my victory. Maybe there was some reason I didn't, but I can't figure what it might have been. Maybe John had no pieces left on his stash pad?

I did get a big hug from John for saving him from the Icehouse. Fat lot of good it did me later, though, when he called "Icehouse" on *me*. =^>

Jacob Davenport wrote:

John had a bunch of pieces on his pad, or I wouldn't have bothered to put him in the icehouse. I assumed that you didn't call icehouse yourself because you weren't the one working towards putting him in the icehouse. As such, you couldn't call icehouse at the moment I attacked his last defender (or what I thought was his last defender) as well as I could.

I've often worried that I would spend half my pieces attacking an opponent to toss him in the icehouse, just to have someone else come along and call icehouse right before I did. I need not worry, since I can call it the instant I remove my finger from my last attacker. An opponent might call it too early, and probably would call it too late, if they tried to steal my attempt.

You could have been really sneaky by icing the prisoner that you had played so secretly, and then call icehouse yourself. That would be a real "ice pirate" move.