A newsletter for Icehouse players

An Introduction by Dr Cool

Hello again, folks.

If you missed The Fourth International Icehouse Tournament, you missed a heck of a tourney. A complete debriefing is included in this issue, but here's the gist of what happened: The Bates Discordians (four guys representing a collegiate Icehouse club) came to the tournament and blew everybody away. And knowing that they practiced months beforehand (and had last year's champion as their mentor) didn't stop one nagging thought from going through everyone's head: TEAMS DO BETTER. And it's true. As a diplomatic strategy, nothing beats using unbreakable allies. Which is exactly what the Bates team was trying to point out. Some people had difficulty dealing with this "team" thingy. I didn't.

Icehouse is young and still tactically evolving. There are a vast number of untapped strategies out there waiting to be found. "Teaming up" was just one of those strategies which happened to work well at a tournament.

But is the team-up-and-stomp-'em strategy an overwhelming and "unfair" one? In other words, could a bunch of mediocre icers have done the same thing and walked away with the prizes? If that's true (and I for one believe it may be), then some reworking of the tournament placement system is needed. Lucky for us, the Bates Discordians were not mediocre, and deserved their victory, fair and square (congrats again, Bates). However, in order for future teaming up to be considered a "fair" advantage by the general Icehouse crowd, I believe slight changes should be made to the way next year's tourney is run. I also figure there'll be more teams at next year's shindig. More on that in this issue.

The other things we didn't expect at the latest tournament were the unbelievably cool tactics, the incredibly agile placement of pieces, and the amazing number of expert icers. At tourneys 1, 2, and 3, we were used to absolute beginners doing pretty well; sometimes even placing as finalists. That eta is over, folks. No more can we say that "it doesn't matter if you don't practice before the meet". No more can we tell people that "you can learn the game in a day, and do well in the tournament". It just ain't so. I have a feeling that future tourneys will feature excellent players who will squash anybody who isn't up on the latest moves. But, since we still want the tournament to be fun for everyone, changes may take place. Icehouse Games is toying with the idea of a combination tournament, with novice and expert class competitions. More on that in a later issue.

Well, enough of my yabbering. In this issue, you will find:

• An informative report from Andrew Looney on the last tournament (including a brief analysis of the sneaky Discordian subterfuges).
• A clever strategy which has been used at the last few tournaments (but somehow got overlooked).
• A great psychological analysis of the tournament by Ellen Broxmeyer, MSW.
• And a couple of questions brought up at the tournament (with answers, even!).

I will enthusiastically read any comments, questions, or ideas you folks have regarding anything (especially past and future tournaments, those wise-guys from Bates, interesting places you've played Icehouse, neato motorcycles, etc.)

Take care, watch your stash, and keep icing! - DOC

THE REPORT ON TOURNAMENT #4

Well, another tournament has come and gone. The Fourth International Icehouse Tournament was a huge success, of course, but it was also very different from the previous three tournaments, in ways we planned and in ways we found surprising. As a result, there's a lot to say about it, so I'll be breaking this article down into several, more manageable pieces.

Executive Summary

This year's tournament was won, not by a single person (as in all previous years) but by a team, namely the Bates Discordians; (Keith Baker, Rob Bryan, Craig Mackey, and Daniel Russett). How did this happen? Well, after a lot of skillful gaming and some secret planning, the entire team wound up in the final match, at which point, by pre-arranged agreement, they played the five games out to a 4 way fie. The refs, who were caught totally off guard by the Bates Discordians' coup, agreed to award the winning game set and the Icehouse Scepter to the team. However, they also decreed that the team play a tie breaker so that the champion's medallion (which replaces the "I Won" t-shirt awarded in previous years) could be given to an individual. The winner of the tie breaker was Craig Mackey. Also, this year's Cooler Than Ice award was given to Dan Efran.

The Official Tournament results are shown in the accompanying scoreboard. It should be noted that Tim Roberge and Lisa Padol also competed but did not manage to qualify, and that Greg Crowe and John White successfully qualified but did not compete in the Ice-Offs.

What Was New In 1992

This year's tournament brought with it a number of changes. Perhaps the most obvious was the fact that it was held in a different hotel. Because the Disclave convention moved downtown, the Icehouse Tournament did too. But this change led to others, Because the Washington Hilton is a much larger hotel than that place in New Carrollton, we finally had a chance to get real hotel function space, instead of running the event in a regular hotel room.

This was a real plus. Not only did we have more space to operate in, we also didn't have to move the beds out of the way, we had plenty of light (from chandeliers yet!) and we had a little marble top bar with pitchers of ice water, with the hotel staff keeping them filled up.

This year we also had a new batch of Icehouse tables. The low-slung felt top tables were fine that first year, when we were sitting around the pool, bit this year we decided that we really should have tables that one could use while sitting in a chair. Overall, the players seemed happy with the new tables.

Also this year, the rules for walls for tournament games were dropped. This was not as uniformly approved as the choice of new tables; however, despite the occasional howl of "my kingdom for the wall rules!" the games did not seem to suffer despite the lack of this element of the game. In fact, many staunch wall supporters changed their tune when they saw first hand that intense games of Icehouse do not rely on walls.

Lastly, this year we presented our winners with Olympic-style medallions, each a hand-painted original created for the tournament by Skip Sonesen, The six awards included a medal for the Champion and the Cooler Than Ice recipient, as well as for each of the four finalists.

The Secret Agenda of the Bates Discordians

Now we turn to the meat of this article: How a team won, and why. Let's think about the second question first. Why did this team choose to share a 4 way victory? Why weren't each of them more concerned with a personal victory?

There seem to be two reasons. First, they wanted to prove the importance of teamwork, and to show that a team, united, could defeat anyone standing on their own. Second, they wanted to donate their victory spoils to the rest of the Bates Discordians, back in Maine. (The four members of the Bates team who won the tournament are members of a much larger Icehouse club at Bates college.

So it was that the Bates Discordians had a secret agenda. They would work together to help each member of the team do as well as possible, and if they all got into the finals, they would arrange a four way tie, allowing the team to win as a team.

Tactical Analysis

The Bates Discordians agenda succeeded for a number of reasons. First, each member of the team was very skilled at Icehouse. As the saying goes, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and if any member of this team bad been a weak player, the team as a whole would not have succeeded. How'd they get to be so good? They practiced extensively. In gearing up for the tourney, they got together to play Icehouse at least three times a week.

The second reason for their success is, of course, teamwork. Teamwork is a basic element of Icehouse, and always has been; however, teamwork in Icehouse usually takes the form of isolated transactions ("You help me now and I'll return the favor") rather than alliances which endure until the end of the game. In discussing the events afterwards with the guys from Bates, they said they would not have won if other players had teamed up to oppose them. For example, in a game with 2 Bates players and 2 other competitors, when it became clear that the Bates guys were working together, the other 2 should have teamed up. However, they usually didn't, and even if they did, one of them would usually end up stabbing the other in the back before the game was over.

Lastly, the Bates team was very good at mental score keeping. Far from just adding up near the end to see who was ahead, the Bates players were always aware of the scores of each of the individual players. Like a card shark counting cards in a blackjack game at Vegas, this gave them a real advantage.

The Bates Discordians (left to right): Daniel Russett, Rob Bryan, Keith Baker, and Craig Mackey

Fun And Games In The Final Match

The final match was a farce. Since the Bates Discordians had a prior, secret agreement to share the victory if they all made it into the final match, they had to pretend to be playing a series of teal games when in fact they were trying to set up a complex 4 way tic.

To see how they did this, take a look at the scoreboard. In the first match, each player's score is equal to his registration number. (Well, almost; Dan goofed and got an extra point, but he corrected this in the next round.) In each of the next 3 rounds, they took turns getting scores equal to the other 3 players' registration numbers, so that after 4 games, the scores came out equal. Then in the fifth and final game, they set out all of their pieces standing up (arranged in the pattern of a big smiling face) giving them a four way fie.

Playing out these games was more like a four-way interactive puzzle than a game. They were each trying to get a specific score, while making sure that each of the others also got their special score, To help them, they had a set of secret passwords, which they could mention conversationally, that meant different things, like "I've got my score," or "I'm close" or "I'm way off." They also had a special stash pad code. They'd each arrange their stash pads so that the number of pieces on one side of the pad was equal to the number of points they still needed to lose in that round.

For the refs and other spectators watching all of this, it was very puzzling. They could tell that something was up, since it was obvious that they weren't playing their best and that the level of stress was no where near as high as it should have been; yet the secret agenda was so well hidden and so unpredictable that no one could figure out what was going on until the final match.

The refs insisted on a tie breaker for a couple of reasons. First, they didn't want to set a precedent that might cause problems in future years, namely that a tie results in a shared victory. That's fine for a team that desired a shared victory, but wouldn't be so good for a pair of players who had been going head to head. Also, the refs had sat through 5 lackluster games, which they'd expected to be knock-down drag-out battles. They wanted to see some blood!

How Does This Affect Next Year's Tournament?

The implications of the events of this year's tournament are still to be resolved. Will this change our tournaments forever, limiting them only to those players who train and practice for months in advance? Well, we certainly hope not. For one thing, that would make our tournaments a good deal smaller, and we'd like for them to get bigger instead. Furthermore, it just wouldn't be as much fun that way - It's like letting professional athletes compete in the Olympics. So we intend to continue encouraging everyone to compete.

We're also considering making a few changes, which would make a repeat of this year's results difficult to accomplish. The ideas we currently have include counting a tie only as a partial win when calculating ratings, instead of a full win as we do now, and also increasing the number of different players each person must compete against during the Ice-Offs. (However, it may not be necessary - the members of the Bates team pointed out that if there'd been another team competing as they were, they'd probably have ended up dragging each other down and clearing the path for players working on their own.)

Another change we are considering is establishing two categories of players, Novice and Expert. We'd still run the tournament as a single event, and Novice and Expert players could play against each other in the same games, however there'd be separate awards for the best player in each category. More on this when the 5th tournament isn't so far in the future.

And we are of course keen to hear other suggestions, so if you've got any other ideas or observations, please send them in.

One point that ought to be made, in closing, is that while some people may bemoan the extensive use of teamwork in this tournament, it is a part of Icehouse and should not be "fixed". From the very original roots of the game, teamwork has been an important element of Icehouse.

This year's Cooler Than Ice recipient, Dan Efran, hanging out with Dr Cool

It is not at all surprising that someone finally made it work to their advantage, and it should definitely not be discouraged.

In fact, never has the real-life game more closely resembled its fictional counterpart than when played by these four guys from Bates. The level of skill and enthusiasm, the secret passwords, the teamwork... heck, if they ever make a movie out of The Empty City, they should cast these guys as The Four.

A HELPFUL TIP: THE THREAD TEST

If you're having a hard time figuring out which piece a skewed attack piece is pointing at, or whether or not a wall is being broken, you might want to try the thread test. Stretch a piece of thread over the playing area. When you look down on the table, the thread will let you see exactly where those invisible lines of attack really fall. Use a black thread on light colored tables and a white thread on dark tables. Also, close one eye. But be careful not to hold the thread too close to the table, otherwise you may crash the pieces.

The thread test, also called a "Floss Check" by some, was used extensively by the referees at the most recent Icehouse tournament and it really does make it clear what's what. Many was the time when a ref would say something like "It looks like it's hitting the green piece, but let me check with the thread... no, wait I Its hitting the blue piece."

THE 4TH INTERNATIONAL ICEHOUSE TOURNAMENT:
AN ANALYSIS BY ELLEN "INNOCENT BYSTANDER" BROXMEYER

I probably don't know enough about Icehouse (or politics, for that matter) to write an analysis, however, having witnessed the tournament, I feel compelled to attempt it. My hypothesis is that the victory of the Bates team went beyond the boundaries as defined by the tournament runners; it was a political and psychological event.

Having not attended any previous tournaments, I have relied on secondhand accounts to deduce that in the past 1) All players assumed from the rules that only one player could win and 2) All players proceeded accordingly, working in teams when it was beneficial but not playing as a team throughout the tournament. Not so in the fourth tournament, where 1) The Bates team worked consistently as a team and thought of itself as such and 2) The Bates team had a secret agenda which was hidden from the tournament staff and other players until the final game.

By deliberately tying the final round, the Bates team made a political statement about Icehouse as a team-oriented game rather than one which highlighted individual performance. They also, however, made a statement to the tournament staff regarding who was in control--while not exactly seizing control, the surprise ending seemed to shake the staffs sense of control enough that a final compromise was deemed necessary, with both the Bates team and the tournament staff tempering their original plan. Thus, a psychological struggle for control occurred as well as a political statement. Fortunately for all, the willingness of the two forces to compromise caused the tournament to close on a harmonious note.

This Innocent Bystander applauds all parties involved for a fascinating spectacle and commends everyone for their maturity and willingness to compromise. We can only wait and see what ramifications this will have on future tournaments; I hope that next year's will prove as interesting as the one we have recently witnessed.

Q Is there an Icehouse gamer's association in my area? Or is there any way to find other players nearby (except by screaming out of the window of my car)?

A The only Icehouse gamer's association we are aware of is the Bates Discordians, at Bates College in Maine. (For more information about their exploits, read the report on this year's tournament.) The reason that no others exist yet, and the cause of your difficulty in finding other players, is that Icehouse is still such a new game and the number of people with game sets is still very small. Thus, the only advice we can give you right now is this: TEACH PEOPLE THE GAME, Use your interest in the game to inspire enthusiasm in others. Get your friends hooked, and they'll teach their friends to play. Throw an Icehouse party, or better yet start a weekly game night with your friends. Soon you'll be able to form your own Icehouse gainer's association.

Q Please clarify the rules regarding placement of illegal attacks. Suppose I'm tryin attack a piece in a hard-to-get-at area, and after I've done my best at positioning it and I've let go, the other players tell Me that I'm actually pointing at a nearby defender of my own color. According to the rules, this is an illegal attack. Do I take it back, or leave it where it's played?

A In this case, it stays where you put it, and it is squandered. Remember that, according to the rules, a piece cannot be moved once you've let go of it (unless it's over-iced). Since you believed you were making a legal play, the piece cannot be moved even if closer examination reveals that it wasn't a legal attack after all.

Your confusion probably stems from the fact that it also says in the rules that an illegally placed piece must be taken back. However, this line is primarily directed at new players, who often forget, during their first few games, that you cannot attack other attack pieces, or their own defenders. For a new player who hasn't quite learned all of the rules, an illegal attack should be taken back. But a skilled player who believes that he or she is making an acceptable attack must live with the consequences if it turns out to be an illegal play.

THE STEALTH PIECE

This is a simple little strategy that often works surprisingly well. Although it involves playing a piece am your stash pad, it should not be confused with the Cheeseball Maneuver, which is a very different kettle of fish.

What you do is watch for a moment when no one is looking at what you are doing, like when someone's breaking a fortress and everyone else is concentrating on the pieces in the middle of the table. Then, just slide one of your pieces off of your stash pad and onto the table right next to the stash pad. With luck, the other players won't look closely enough at your stash pad to notice that the piece has been played. Sometimes, of course, you'll get caught right away and the piece will get iced, but often it will go unnoticed for a very long time, sometimes until the very end of the game.

The good thing about this maneuver is that if you get nabbed, it's no big deal, but if you survive undetected you have a small insurance policy against being put in the Icehouse. IN a blast when someone thinks they've got you and they call Icehouse, and you then point to your stealth piece and say "You missed this one! 'I Of course, they'll soon be scrambling to ice it and make the call again, leaving you in Icehouse Panic mode, tossing out the last of your pieces defensively, hoping they run out of ammo - but the fun of revealing your hidden piece can almost make up for the pain of being put in the Icehouse. Or perhaps the diversion will allow you to build a fortress while they're icing your stealth piece.

On the other hand, if you get to the end of the game without anyone noticing it, then it got you some hassle-free points.