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[OP] Sad but true...cheating ruins the game

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MSFell

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Jun 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM6/17/97
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I'd like to discuss something that is very problematical. Something
that I never had to think about before: cheating. At the end, I'll
present what I think is a possible solution. It might not be necessary,
but if it is...

Until this past weekend, I've never personally seen or played
against anyone who cheated, nor had I ever heard of it. Of course,
I've only been to a few tournaments, so people with more experience
may have different stories to tell. But I just kind of assumed
that no one would *intentionally* cheat, so it was kind of a shock
to see it first-hand.

We all know that mistakes are made. Sometimes you accidentally don't
see the card that is placed on one of your Heroes, duplicating one
you drew. Or you make a teamwork attack and then realize you have
no legal followup. Etc. Most of us handle this in the right way...
we admit our mistake as soon as we realize it. In a tournament, the
opponent has the right to call a renege sometimes, if they want to.
Often they do not, if it doesn't affect the battle in any way.

What I'm talking about is this:

1. Denying to a judge that an illegal move was just made.
2. Intentionally stalling.
3. Fiddling with cards, like moving Mission cards.
4. Intentionally holding duplicates.

I can see the downside to getting too specific, but here's some
quick examples:

1. Your opponent does something blatantly illegal, and when you
call the judge over, he denies it. How can the judge tell?
2. Sometimes you need time to think. But 1 minute each and every
turn, if abused, is an ugly thing.
3. If you ever have the misfortune of seeing someone fiddle with
the cards on the table in an illegal, and intentional way, you
will become paranoid and not want anyone to touch your cards,
because it *can* change the game, and it only has to happen once,
and the judge(s) can't be everywhere at once.
4. There are certain special cards that it turns out make it easy
to get away with holding duplicates in the initial draw of eight.

Some will say, "well, people who play that way shouldn't be
playing in the first place, so what's the problem?". Exactly!
If you have to play a person who cheats badly, you will realize
the problem. These people need to be weeded out of the game.

The guy who got 2nd in the Seattle regional cheated. Intentionally.
Blatantly. I saw it, and so did many others. My friend Rich lost
to him. There are several cool and deserving players up there in
Seattle, and luckily one of them won the whole thing. But the
guy who got 4th actually deserves 2nd. Etc. The guy who cheated
deserved to be expelled from the tournament. Unfortunately, how
can the judges determine for sure what the rest of us observed?
I don't want someone calling me a cheater and the judges taking
their word for it. So only by watching his hand closely, without
him knowing that he was under suspicion, could they have found
him out. And you better believe that he knew it. The guy is a
scoundrel. Anyway, the whole situation sucks royally.

Rich and I came up with a possible change in play style to help
prevent the holding of duplicates. Other than a judge observing
every single draw phase, I don't know how else to do it.

Each player discards all their cards from the current battle to
a temporary stack, not the power pack and dead pile. At the
end of the battle, cards still in hand are put in this stack.
This way a judge can come over at any time and see what cards
are from this hand (who is to say if the card on the top of
the power pack is from this hand or last hand?). These consist
of cards in four places:

1. In your hand
2. In your temporary discard pile
3. Hits on opponent's current record
4. Placed cards

Placed cards are kind of a problem, maybe they could be placed
horizontally or vertically depending on if they were placed
this battle or previously. Same with hits. A very few cards
move hits amongst current/permanent records. So use an upright
vs. sideways orientation to distinguish.

Now there's only one more thing to take care of, and that is
any effect that lets you manipulate a deck (draw cards, etc).
Simple solution: you cannot touch a deck in this way without
a judge observing the cards you draw. "Hey judge, my opponent
is about to draw 3".

There it is. If you think this is ridiculous, you are right.
See how you feel when it happens to you, or when you see a
10 year old kid victimized by a cheater. Overpower has some
similarities to poker. In the old days, people who cheated
at poker got shot. Now, they just get beat up...

That's all for the soapbox this time. Thanks for reading,

Matt Fell
msf...@aol.com

Boba Fej

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Jun 19, 1997, 3:00:00 AM6/19/97
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It's disappointing that you had such a bad experience Matt. You're right
though that most of the Overpower community does not cheat. When mistakes
happen, people are usually cool about it.

It sounds to me that this guy cheated sevral times against different
people. The best way to prevent this is to call this to the attention of
the judges. If enough people do that, the guy will be discovered. Or, have
other people watching the match. The guy went to the Finals and cheated in
the Semi-Final round and wasn't caught? I know in the Chicago regional at
least 20 people were watching the semi-final matches. yes, it's tough for
the judge to take one person's word against another's, but twenty to one?

Anyways, thanks for the warning. It's too bad one guy ruined your whole
experience.

-Jeff "Waiting for a Micronauts Card" Clear
boba fej @aol.com

THE DETROIT RED WINGS ARE STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS
E-mail for OP trades/sales

Mike Sutton

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Jun 20, 1997, 3:00:00 AM6/20/97
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In article <19970617073...@ladder02.news.aol.com>, msf...@aol.com says...
>

>Rich and I came up with a possible change in play style to help
>prevent the holding of duplicates. Other than a judge observing
>every single draw phase, I don't know how else to do it.
>
>Each player discards all their cards from the current battle to
>a temporary stack, not the power pack and dead pile. At the
>end of the battle, cards still in hand are put in this stack.
>This way a judge can come over at any time and see what cards
>are from this hand (who is to say if the card on the top of
>the power pack is from this hand or last hand?). These consist
>of cards in four places:
>

Hi,

We are well aware of who this player is after a full briefing from
Fleer. I omit his name purposefully in order to avoid antagonizing
the Magic community. [This player is very well known in Magic
cirles, Black or otherwise...]

We had to ban scanning of the opponent's deadpile/powerpack, since
this was a favourite Canuck tactic. Unfortunately, it also bogs
the game. The trouble with the ban was there is now no known mechanism
for the opponent to validate discards.

We had already come up with a similar idea. Our suggestion to Fleer
was after the discard phase, that any card going to the deadpile/
power pack be discarded with a 90 degree twist. Your opponent
gets 30 seconds between hands to satisfy himself/herself that
your twisted cards were kosher. [It has to be a fast mechanism, or
the Legion won't go for it. We try to keep rounds to about 30-35
minutes...] Cards are then turned back into the proper piles,
and new hands dealt.

This issue will probably be discussed before the National in
Chicago. Right now at top-level play the ONLY alternative is to
have active judges watching each session. In my two-year
association with the OverPower tournament program, I have never
seen a serious, calculated cheating incident like this. The
players are very well behaved, and sportmanlike [sportpersonlike?],
and it has been a pleasure to referee for them. None of us want
to suddenly go to Draconian measures because of one bad apple.

Mike Sutton
Senior Judge GRS

[GRS is the official ranking service for the OverPower Legion]


MSFell

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Jun 20, 1997, 3:00:00 AM6/20/97
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I have received some more information on the specific situation I
talked about, so let me clarify a couple things:

1. It was Mark Justice, a (world?) renowned Magic player. He told a
few people that he just learned Overpower recently. He is a very
capable card player, and he probably would have done well even without
bending/breaking the rules.

2. It is possible that in his mind, he wasn't "cheating", because for
example there are many things in the rules that are not specifically
mentioned. Like the fact that intentionally holding duplicates is a
no-no (isn't it?). An unfair advantage can be gained during the Venture
phase by a player who can get away with holding dupes, if his opponent
(rightly) does not. It is partly true that it is up to a player to
catch an opponent. But when you cannot prove it, then what?

3. Part of "Justice"s playing style is to intimidate and psyche out
his opponent. He teaches classes in how to do it in Magic.

4. In hindsight, of course someone should have asked a judge to watch
him. He would have known, so they wouldn't have caught him intentionally
doing anything, but at least it would have prevented any further
cheating.

5. The judges did a good job under the circumstances. In the game that
I am most concerned about, there were a couple other things going on,
including interference by a spectator (yours truly). The judges were
in a tough situation, and they came up with a fair solution. Which was
to replay the game.

6. The cheating did not ruin the trip for my friend Rich and I. If I
made it sound like a waste, it was not. I lost fair and square in
qualifying - those Bellingham guys were just too darn clever!
We met some really cool people, and I hope to see three of the
Seattle semifinalists in Chicago...

Matt Fell
msf...@aol.com

Scott Schultz

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Jun 20, 1997, 3:00:00 AM6/20/97
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MSFell wrote:
> 2. It is possible that in his mind, he wasn't "cheating", because for
> example there are many things in the rules that are not specifically
> mentioned. Like the fact that intentionally holding duplicates is a
> no-no (isn't it?).

While the three versions of the rulebook have been vague about many
things, this is not one of them. It's quite clearly spelled out that
duplicate cards must be discarded, even in the original rulebook. It's
the major balancing factor of the game. There's nothing in any rulebook
that implies that it's okay to hold the card and bluff with it as long
as you don't play it. Certain cards (e.g., teamworks) might be confusing
if you play with an older rulebook. Power cards, though, are clear-cut.
There's simply no excuse for holding duplicate power cards. Imagine an
example from Magic: I tap a land, then distract my opponent and I don't
turn the card. I don't actually ever tap the land again before the next
hand but my opponent thinks I have the potential. Is it fair to say
"I didn't cheat because I didn't use the extra power, I just bluffed
with it"? If my opponent lost the game I don't think he would be
complimenting my bluffing abilities. If I concede a hand of Overpower
because my opponent has eight cards and I have five, I'm not going
to compliment my opponent when I find out he had two duplicates and
I might have wanted to play the hand after all. (Let's not even get
into the actual playing of duplicate cards, which would be out and
out bald-faced cheating.)

The worst thing about an event such as this one is the suspicions it
leaves behind. How many players that played this person will suspect
that they might have fared better or made the cut for the semi-finals
if this person hadn't cheated (whether he actually did or not during
their match with them.) My son played a game with me after regionals
and he tried to followup Invisible Woman's Team Coordination special
with a teamwork card as the last attack. When I asked him what he
thought he was doing, he told me that "they did it at the regionals".
A simple rules misunderstanding, probably. In light of the above,
though, maybe not.

It would ill serve a well-known player to deliberately cheat,
particularly at a game that is a sideline to his main interest. The
damage to his reputation would, IMO, simply not be worth it. The flip
side, though, is that such a player ought to be expected to read the
rulebook and know the basic rules for any game that he decides to
get involved with at a tournament level. Ignorance of the rules is
no more of an excuse in game playing than it is in real life.

Hopefully, this will be an isolated incident and the player in
question will be more careful in the future to know all of the
rules before participating in a tournament.

Scott Schultz
sc...@ceweekly.com

Mike Sutton

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Jun 22, 1997, 3:00:00 AM6/22/97
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In article <33AAA1...@ceweekly.com>, sc...@ceweekly.com says...

>
>MSFell wrote:
>> 2. It is possible that in his mind, he wasn't "cheating", because for
>> example there are many things in the rules that are not specifically
>> mentioned. Like the fact that intentionally holding duplicates is a
>> no-no (isn't it?).
>
>While the three versions of the rulebook have been vague about many
>things, this is not one of them. It's quite clearly spelled out that
>duplicate cards must be discarded, even in the original rulebook. It's
[snip]

>I might have wanted to play the hand after all. (Let's not even get
>into the actual playing of duplicate cards, which would be out and
>out bald-faced cheating.)
>

Absolutely agree. The OverPower system has ALWAYS been explicit with
what to do with duplicates, they are DISCARDED in the discard phase.
Keeping them in hand, to use Occam's Razor, is simply cheating.

>The worst thing about an event such as this one is the suspicions it
>leaves behind. How many players that played this person will suspect
>that they might have fared better or made the cut for the semi-finals

[snip]

>thought he was doing, he told me that "they did it at the regionals".
>A simple rules misunderstanding, probably. In light of the above,
>though, maybe not.
>

I also agree. From my reports, they replayed the game once it was
caught, but you can't say how many games were affected.

>It would ill serve a well-known player to deliberately cheat,
>particularly at a game that is a sideline to his main interest. The
>damage to his reputation would, IMO, simply not be worth it. The flip

[snip]


>Hopefully, this will be an isolated incident and the player in
>question will be more careful in the future to know all of the
>rules before participating in a tournament.
>

I would only understand it from the aspect of embarassing the
OverPower community. Both Magic and OverPower are great CCG's.
If Magic is the Chess/Bridge of the Hobby, OverPower is truly
the Poker. It ain't a kid game for all the Comic Book heroes,
so it deserves more recognition from 'serious' CCG players
than it gets.

I understand Mark Justice's need to play hard, and I respect that,
as a veteran 20-year gamer. If he wants to see some hard OverPower,
I suggest he come to the National, and play guys like Frank Yue,
Norman Barth, Brian Stange, John Gobeil, et al. We'd be more than
happy to have him. Believe me, these guys know every nuance of the
game, have a great game-face, yet all play a straight-up game with
a lot of grace, and sportmanship. [IMHO, we don't see enough of that
in the Hobby...]

Mike Sutton


FS NetRep

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Jun 22, 1997, 3:00:00 AM6/22/97
to

Matt Fell wrote:

>I'd like to discuss something that is very problematical. >Something
>that I never had to think about before: cheating. At the end, >I'll
>present what I think is a possible solution. It might not be

>necessary,but if it is...

>Until this past weekend, I've never personally seen or played

>against anyone who cheated, nor had I ever heard of it. Of >course,I've


only been to a few tournaments, so people with more >experience may have
different stories to tell. But I just kind >of assumed that no one would
*intentionally* cheat, so it was >kind of a shock to see it first-hand.

[snip]

You're absolutely right, Matt. It *is* a shock to see blatant cheating in
a game of OverPower. And while I was not in Seattle for this Regional,
Steve did fill me in on all the gory details. Which of course has resulted
in a change for all future Regionals and the upcoming National in Chicago.

We have adapted a policy of active judging as opposed to passive judging
(which has always been the policy in the past). Before, a judge was
summoned when a player or opponent of the player had a rules question or
an issue with some discrepancy. But that was all -- judges didn't stand
behind players counting cards and watching every move. Well, that's all
changed. We will be behind players, watching cards and making sure illegal
moves aren't being made. Should a person have a dupe in their hand which
is caught at a later time (either by the player, the opponent, or judge),
the game is called, all hits from the current battle are removed and the
player caught with the dupe moves his Missions to the defeated pile.

I have read your thoughts on possible solutions Matt and have forwarded
them along to Steve for further discussion.

I do want to add that this is the first instance of having someone so
blatantly cheat. Lots of times, in the heat of a tournament (or even
every-day play), players will forget to discard dupes, not out of
cheating, but just plain forget to do so. Now, you just have to be very
careful to get rid of those dupe cards before starting the Venture.

Oh, and one final thing: OverPower players are an honest group of people
with a genuine love of the game with a sense of decency as opposed to just
wanting to win when it's not warranted. Additionally, they're also a group
committed to winning through deck construction, strategy and skill -- not
cheating.

Hope to see you in Chicago!

Kathy Probe
OverPower Legion Commander.

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