Welcome to Oograh Boike's unofficial Thud!®-page.
The Totally New and Improved Rules for
a pilot project for
The Totally New and Improved International Thud Tournament, edition 2009
These new Rules are very different to previous versions, so I would like to propose a pilot project to see if it catches on, and if so, whether it is more succesful than previous editions. This pilot will last for all of 2009, and somewhere in third quarter we can decide to have an alternative classic ITT as well. Yes, I'm leaving all options open, for now. At the end (of both?), we can choose between versions for 2010 (no, I'm not going to do two seperate ITTs forever, we will need to choose ;-) ).
So without further ado, here are the Rules for ITT2009:
The International Thud Tournament 2009 (ITT2009) is the next and fourth installment of the International Thud Tournament, a follow-up to ITT06, ITT07 and ITT08.
The way things went during those earlier editions, especially the low number of players who joined and the high number of dropouts (a whopping 3 out of 23 in all editons, or 13%), made us think of another way to allow more players to join, and hope for far less dropouts. As such, ITT2009 Rules are totally different from previous editions.
Terminology:
- Slowfire Thud is another name for Forum Thud, that is games played in forum;
- Online Thud and online or Live is playing games live and online in the Thud games client. Please do not refer to online as Quickfire, because that is a another, very different type of playing;
- Thudguild is the group of Thud afficionados, all paying members of thudgame.com;
- Double means you have to play both sides, Trolls and dwarfs, at the same time instead of one after the other;
- unlimited means there is no limit to the number of moves;
- ThudBoard is an application that helps you keep track of your moves in several games at once;
- locked, a topic no one can post in anymore.
How to play:
All games must be played via pre-arranged Slowfire Thud on the forum or via Online Thud. These Rules stand for Slowfire Thud, the default. For online games the game result will stand from the database results.
Who, and How:
Oograh Boike will set up the tournament; he, Lee Alley and Dewi Morgan are the referees for the duration of the tournament. They will, as a consequence, not partake in ITT2009.
Who can join:
a. Anyone can join. Yes, you too! (or rather &U! :-D). However: players MUST join or be members of the Thudguild to be eligible to play Round Two and onwards. Details on how to do this are at https://www.thudgame.com/shop.
b. When non-Thudguild players make it to Round Two, and they're still not Thudguild, next best Thudguild player gets their slot. It's best to become Thudguild quite early on in the ITT, do not expect communications between your internet payment method and Thudgame.com on the one hand, and Thudgame.com and Referee on the other to be as fast as you would like.
Double unlimited, and Forum Default:
All games MUST be double unlimited. All games MUST be played on forum until an online game has been played. Forum is default! Even if you agreed to play online sometime in the near future, you still need to play according to the One-Week Rule (see below).
Time-schedule
a. The time-span for ITT2009 is one full year, january to december.
b. Players can sign up for all of the first five months (january-may), allowing late joiners to have at least a month of playing before start of Round Two (see below). At the end of every month, the Harvest will be allotted to pools in Round One, where any player plays the other two in the same pool.
c. As a consequence, january is for signing up only, first ITT2009 pool(s) and games of Round One will start first week of february.
d. Round One will end in the next before last week of june, allowing referee a week to score and assign players to Round Two.
e. Third quarter, or july-september, is for Round Two, where best two—or one, depending on numbers of players—of each pool go on to fight each other in a next (set of) pool(s).
f. Fourth Quarter, or october-december, is for (semi-)Finals, where best four get to play their next best to define Thudmeister 2009, runner up and number three.
Secrecy
a. To avoid players from selecting or avoiding particular opponents, the names of players who joined will not be divulged to anyone until start of pool(s).
b. Everyone who joins will need to keep this secret until they have been allotted pool and games. Posting, or otherwise advertising your intention to join, will result in disqualification for the duration of at least two months, after which you are welcome to join again if time allows.
c. Players will get notification by e-mail of start of their pool a week before start (if time allows; could be less because of late joiners). Again, posting or advertising this information beforehand will lead to disqualification for at least two months!
Pools
a. All pools will number exactly three players, no more, no less, who will play each other in two simultaneous double unlimited games.
b. First ones to join get first chance to play. If the Harvest for january or any other month is a multiple of three, players get assigned to pools at random.
c. If the first three (or any multiple of three) have been allotted their pool, and the remaining number is less than three, these remaining players will go to Holding Pen until start of next month.
c. The number of players in Holding Pen get first chance to play in next months pool, provided the number of players who joined add up to (multiples of) three in that months Harvest. If multiples of three occur, then the assigment of pools will be at random.
Simultaneous double unlimiteds
a. Participants must be able to play two simultaneous, double unlimited games until at least the end of september (depending on how far players will make it in Tournament). Simultaneous play is necessary to accommodate a fair but lengthy tournament.
b. Fourth quarter, or (semi-)Finals, are two double unlimiteds. Two best play each other, and next two best play each other; therefore no simultaneous games in (semi-)Finals.
Time management
a. One-Week Rule: to keep people from stalling games in ITT2009, we will maintain a strict time management system. All moves must be answered by an opponents move within a week. Posting early is allowed and cheered upon, but it does not buy extra time to use later on; it only keeps the game interesting and quick.
To elaborate: this rule deals with a situation in which someone might think I've taken 3 dwarfs, all I need to do now is not post until the end of the Round! Three points for me! Sorry, no cow. You need to answer within a week after your opponent's post, or you will lose a point the next day, another one the next day, and so on, until another week has expired. After that, you will be disqualified if you still have not posted.
Another thought might be hey, yesterday and the day before that I replied within the hour. That gives me at least two weeks more for this move! Again, no cow. Sorry mate, the One-Week Rule stands.
To elaborate even more (we can't stress this enough): Forum games are default. You WILL need to post every week after your opponent has posted, EVEN IF you both agreed to play online at a fixed date in the future. Only agreeing on a score will relieve you and your opponent of your duty to post every week after last post.
And yet again, to be perfectly clear on this: it is NOT that you can only post once every week after your opponent did, you must AT LEAST post once every week after (s)he did!. If you can post early, or even more than once during a day, please do.
b. Exceptions to the One-Week Rule: players holidays, exams, or any other schedules do not necessarily need to keep them from joining because of the One-Week Rule. As long as the opponent and the referee get a notice beforehand, a game can and will be paused for the duration of your time away. This notification, however, needs to be the same number of weeks beforehand as you need to be excused from playing later on! A 3-week holiday, for example, needs to be arranged with opponent and referee three or more weeks beforehand. This is because your opponents could well have plans themselves, the earlier both of you know about it, the better you can adjust your plans and rate of replies/moves.
Disqualification
When a player needs to be disqualified for any reason stated in the other Rules, his or her opponents will get a total of seven points added to the score of their game, in accordance with the One-Week Rule, section a.
Posting moves
a. We do not know of any games out of sync and this shouldn't change with the tournament. Using ThudBoard is as easy as 1, 2, 3, as far as copy/paste is concerned. Use it to your advantage. Any move and/or post you make stands as played, even if it is blatantly obvious that it is foolish—illegal moves excepted! Check and double check each post before submitting.
b. Every player gets one (that is 1) wild card or joker to use should (s)he inadvertantly post an illegal move. Any other illegal moves will be regarded as stalling the game, with disqualification as a result.
c. Do not edit your ITT2009 posts, even if it is only to change spelling. The referees can see if and when a post is edited, but not what has been edited. This necessitates that anyone editing posts has to be disqualified.
Joining ITT2009
Anyone who wishes to join, will have to notify OograhBoike.com by e-mail—no PM, and certainly no posts in forum.
Savegames and oograhboike.com
Participants playing the Slowfire (ie Forum) game in the tournament—that is all of you, untill an online game has been played and ended—must keep OograhBoike.com updated by sending savegames at least every few days, or when asked for them. As a consequence, Oograh Boike needs to know your e-mail address before ITT2009 starts. He will never, ever, give your address to anyone else, not even Lee or Dewi, without your strict approval.
Additional Rules
All games in the forum that have to do with the tournament, will have to have ITT2009 at the start of their topic line, to distinguish them from other ongoing non-tournament games. But Oograh Boike will set up each ITT2009 game topic anyway, with specifics on who gets first post and so on.
All ITT2009 games topics will be locked after each Round has been completed. You are free to continue a game if you feel it has not been concluded, but you will have to do so in another, non-ITT2009 topic. Please contact one of the tournament referees if you'd like to do so, and want a copy of all posts in your new topic. Please understand that due to the nature of the tournament they will probably only be able to comply once the tournament is finished.
Please try to keep up sportsmanship. OB, Lee and Dewi worked very hard setting all this up. Once these Rules are online, we won't change anything, as it wouldn't be right to others. However, we do keep an open mind for ideas, rants, raves and maybe even outright abuse (hey, you lost a game, we understand; if you need a place to vent, we are here for you ;-) ). Please go to the appropriate place in the forum, and post your thoughts or misgivings in the ITT2009 thread; that's also the place to be for any news about scores, updates, and savegames of (ongoing) ITT2009 games.
If, however, you feel you have been wronged by an opponent, or disagree with your opponent about something, please do not hesitate to contact the referees immediately. Head referee Oograh Boike will check for e-mails and posts regularly between 7pm and 12pm GMT every day for the duration of the tournament. Any Referee Ruling stands, and is not open for discussion.
All potential players will be asked if they have read these Rules, and need to acknowledge to be able to join.
Good luck to all!
