Tuesday, June 24, 2008
My Opinion
Alright - I'd like everyone to take a look at the post below me first - who knows how long it'll be until we see another post from Sean - we may not have always agreed w/ everything he's had to say, but one thing we can't deny is that he's entertained a lot of us for many seasons. Reading Cubby's post made me feel like explaining why I didn't do a World Series recap, and also explaining my opinion on the drama that occurred. Frankly, I myself did not enjoy this World Series. It's as simple as that. There was WAY too much crap that took place, taking away from what should have been 3 great matches between the best two teams in MLP. Why didn't I do a recap? Well to be honest - I have too many friends on both teams and I didn't feel like offending them. There was also way too much shit I didn't wanna get into, and figured I'd be better off just not saying my opinion on all of this - but why not use the resources I have and shed some light on it for people.
This is my completely unbiased opinion - sure, I predicted CKP to romp PFN in 2 straight matches - but as a predictor I'm here to entertain you and after making a complete fool out of myself with that pick, I figure I did my job. ALSO - my opinions are based on how I feel and NOT the way the rules state (although, for both big instances, the rules were quite fuzzy). In Match #1, all of the talk following had to do with Kevin and Ben's game. Coincidence that a drama-filled series started right from the get-go? Highly unlikely. My Opinion? I wasn't around in Season 9 when Jammy and Scott had something similar occur in the World Series, so that had no impact on how I felt this incident should be ruled. Kevin didn't have correct cam settings (clearly) as the timestamp disappeared after 15 minutes. Wrong cam tape settings = Loss. Ben deleted the tape following the game (dumb), and wasn't able to provide a tape when Kevin's didn't clear = Loss. Two losses in a single game? Result: Cancel them out and those players lose their chance at playing again in this match - both screwed up. This is exactly what was decided on and I think it was the fairest thing. Does it suck for Poolfiction since they had won that game? Yes. Does it suck for Cuekeepers since their league is basically dead and they may not have an 8th player eligible/available? Yes. Now - apparently - there was an admin meeting after season 9 to ensure what happened with Jammy and Scott didn't happen again- what I don't get is why all of the admins weren't on the same page with regards to this kind of situation. If this really was decided on back then, there shouldn't have been any problems knowing how to handle something like this. As I said before though, the decision made was the right one in my mind - Kudos to that. Argue it tooth and nail if you want - both screwed up and it's THAT simple. I DO agree w/ Sean and his post earlier, where he talks about how the point of Cam is to make sure no one is cheating and not in trying to find a way to take a cheap win. At the same time, we all know Kevin didn't cheat (clearly), but if all of the settings are in place to stop a person from cheating, and one of these settings goes missing, than that tape loses credibility. END OF STORY.
Onto Match #2. The big controversy here? Well, without a doubt it's Roger and Matt's game. So - Matt attempts to finish off a very run-outable (that's so not a word) table and while he is mid-shot on his ball along the right rail - "time stops." I can't exactly explain what happened and really don't know to this day; I believe yahoo was changing a games server or something - either way - everyone had to leave the room and come back. Upon returning, I saw Matt's rail-runner shot was stuck 3/4 of the way up the right rail, and Roger now not only had control of the cue, but had BALL IN HAND. Surely I saw Matt had struck it w/ enough power (after reviewing the tape, this feeling was justified), to sink his ball and get the cue across the table and into position to finish off his last colour and 8 ball? Now - some people (Sean included), argue this should be ruled a glitch and handled in the same manner. Sorry - but that's laughable. I know what a glitch is, and that certainly wasn't a glitch. An entire room freezing while a player is midshot - I've never seen that in all of my interleague days! Perhaps Matt's rail-runner "stuck" along rail as it got near top? (This gets nullified after reviewing tape - he clearly had enough power and the ball stops dead due to the room freezing. How do I know this? Well if you watch the tape, the rail-runner ball AND the cue ball FREEZE at the EXACT SAME TIME!) The only "glitch" I see is the ball in hand - but why the hell should Roger even be shooting, we all know the only reason Matt's ball doesn't sink is because the room froze? lol My Opinion? Throw the rule book out on this one - it's time to improvise admins! When there is a rule made something to the tune of "in the event an entire room freezes for every person there..."then we can say "refer to rules, please." This isn't the case - so it's time to make the best decision possible. Rerack, please. But why? Well, clearly Cuekeepers (Matt specifically) held the advantage before yahoo got all whacked out and threw a curve-ball. And now, Roger is holding the advantage but only because yahoo gave it to him. If Roger takes the ball here, undeservedly, it signifies everything that's wrong w/ interleagues and further proves this game has become about much more than just having fun. But if he taps back he loses. We all know the result of all of this - I just feel with a rerack in this case, Roger doesn't have to be put in the position where his morals are tested, and both players get a clean slate to try to EARN a victory for their team - not be screwed out of one (or - on the flip side - handed one) by an outside influence. God knows what would've happened if a rerack would have occurred - perhaps Matt would have lost and Cuekeepers argued that Roger should've tapped back in the first place - OR - If Matt had won, Poolfiction has a strong case that if Roger had just been allowed to play the game out as it was, he would've won. At least with a rerack both players would've been given a fresh start, and in time, cooler heads would prevail and they would come to understand that both players were given an equal chance in the end.
I do want to touch on one last thing that really bugged me, and maybe that's due to the fact I play in a league as active as TPL. Cubby talked below about how this World Series posed a perfect contrast between two leagues where one was very active, and the other was dead or dying. He's right - Cuekeepers was on the cusp of being deleted but has since been saved and Poolfiction is a very active league hosting an average of 20 tourneys a day (give or take a few). Now don't get me wrong, I love Poolfiction and have a great respect for them as a league - I even had a brief tenure with them way back in Season 4. However, I was disgusted to see people on Poolfiction 'representing their league' with the minimum of 5 tournament games played that week - Not to mention myself going into their lobby 30 minutes before match time and seeing players there scrambling to get their games in. Seriously? That's just not right for a league as active as they are. Complain about being busy and having "other things to do" all you want - if you can't get more than 5 tournament games in a week in a league THAT active then why the hell do you deserve to REPRESENT that league. ESPECIALLY when I see some of these players on YIM, daily!!! I just searched the daily results for the Poolfiction league, and typed 3 names of people who participated in multiple World Series matches into the Daily Results link. In the last week since the final match on Monday the 16th, these 3 players have played 3 games COMBINED in the league. Andy and Cubby are also NOT names I searched, since both claim to be retiring. This makes me ask myself, WHAT IS the main purpose of interleagues? Is it not to have the "real members" for each league playing against "real members" of other leagues in friendly competition on a weekly basis? Somewhere along the road, we've lost our way. In the finals, I saw Cuekeepers players with more tourney games in that week than Poolfiction players! Considering how active Cuekeeper's was, that's so WRONG! At the same time though, it's not necessarily the player's fault because the rules are slack enough to allow them to get away with it. We need to find our way back on to the right path and the first step in doing that is by making eligibility guidelines stricter. Perhaps something like minimum 100-200 games total in league, 25 all-purpose games with a minimum of 10 tourney games per week. That's not difficult people - if you can't handle that - maybe you should step back and ask yourself if you really deserve to be representing a league you're barely a part of.
Anyways, thanks for hanging in with me if you've made it to this point in the post. I don't necessarily think you guys will agree w/ all of this - but you can't argue that some of the points I made were VERY valid. Hopefully over the next little while I'll post a few more of my suggestions for the future of MLP and you guys can comment on them - I can handle a little criticism :) 'Til Next Time!
This is my completely unbiased opinion - sure, I predicted CKP to romp PFN in 2 straight matches - but as a predictor I'm here to entertain you and after making a complete fool out of myself with that pick, I figure I did my job. ALSO - my opinions are based on how I feel and NOT the way the rules state (although, for both big instances, the rules were quite fuzzy). In Match #1, all of the talk following had to do with Kevin and Ben's game. Coincidence that a drama-filled series started right from the get-go? Highly unlikely. My Opinion? I wasn't around in Season 9 when Jammy and Scott had something similar occur in the World Series, so that had no impact on how I felt this incident should be ruled. Kevin didn't have correct cam settings (clearly) as the timestamp disappeared after 15 minutes. Wrong cam tape settings = Loss. Ben deleted the tape following the game (dumb), and wasn't able to provide a tape when Kevin's didn't clear = Loss. Two losses in a single game? Result: Cancel them out and those players lose their chance at playing again in this match - both screwed up. This is exactly what was decided on and I think it was the fairest thing. Does it suck for Poolfiction since they had won that game? Yes. Does it suck for Cuekeepers since their league is basically dead and they may not have an 8th player eligible/available? Yes. Now - apparently - there was an admin meeting after season 9 to ensure what happened with Jammy and Scott didn't happen again- what I don't get is why all of the admins weren't on the same page with regards to this kind of situation. If this really was decided on back then, there shouldn't have been any problems knowing how to handle something like this. As I said before though, the decision made was the right one in my mind - Kudos to that. Argue it tooth and nail if you want - both screwed up and it's THAT simple. I DO agree w/ Sean and his post earlier, where he talks about how the point of Cam is to make sure no one is cheating and not in trying to find a way to take a cheap win. At the same time, we all know Kevin didn't cheat (clearly), but if all of the settings are in place to stop a person from cheating, and one of these settings goes missing, than that tape loses credibility. END OF STORY.
Onto Match #2. The big controversy here? Well, without a doubt it's Roger and Matt's game. So - Matt attempts to finish off a very run-outable (that's so not a word) table and while he is mid-shot on his ball along the right rail - "time stops." I can't exactly explain what happened and really don't know to this day; I believe yahoo was changing a games server or something - either way - everyone had to leave the room and come back. Upon returning, I saw Matt's rail-runner shot was stuck 3/4 of the way up the right rail, and Roger now not only had control of the cue, but had BALL IN HAND. Surely I saw Matt had struck it w/ enough power (after reviewing the tape, this feeling was justified), to sink his ball and get the cue across the table and into position to finish off his last colour and 8 ball? Now - some people (Sean included), argue this should be ruled a glitch and handled in the same manner. Sorry - but that's laughable. I know what a glitch is, and that certainly wasn't a glitch. An entire room freezing while a player is midshot - I've never seen that in all of my interleague days! Perhaps Matt's rail-runner "stuck" along rail as it got near top? (This gets nullified after reviewing tape - he clearly had enough power and the ball stops dead due to the room freezing. How do I know this? Well if you watch the tape, the rail-runner ball AND the cue ball FREEZE at the EXACT SAME TIME!) The only "glitch" I see is the ball in hand - but why the hell should Roger even be shooting, we all know the only reason Matt's ball doesn't sink is because the room froze? lol My Opinion? Throw the rule book out on this one - it's time to improvise admins! When there is a rule made something to the tune of "in the event an entire room freezes for every person there..."then we can say "refer to rules, please." This isn't the case - so it's time to make the best decision possible. Rerack, please. But why? Well, clearly Cuekeepers (Matt specifically) held the advantage before yahoo got all whacked out and threw a curve-ball. And now, Roger is holding the advantage but only because yahoo gave it to him. If Roger takes the ball here, undeservedly, it signifies everything that's wrong w/ interleagues and further proves this game has become about much more than just having fun. But if he taps back he loses. We all know the result of all of this - I just feel with a rerack in this case, Roger doesn't have to be put in the position where his morals are tested, and both players get a clean slate to try to EARN a victory for their team - not be screwed out of one (or - on the flip side - handed one) by an outside influence. God knows what would've happened if a rerack would have occurred - perhaps Matt would have lost and Cuekeepers argued that Roger should've tapped back in the first place - OR - If Matt had won, Poolfiction has a strong case that if Roger had just been allowed to play the game out as it was, he would've won. At least with a rerack both players would've been given a fresh start, and in time, cooler heads would prevail and they would come to understand that both players were given an equal chance in the end.
I do want to touch on one last thing that really bugged me, and maybe that's due to the fact I play in a league as active as TPL. Cubby talked below about how this World Series posed a perfect contrast between two leagues where one was very active, and the other was dead or dying. He's right - Cuekeepers was on the cusp of being deleted but has since been saved and Poolfiction is a very active league hosting an average of 20 tourneys a day (give or take a few). Now don't get me wrong, I love Poolfiction and have a great respect for them as a league - I even had a brief tenure with them way back in Season 4. However, I was disgusted to see people on Poolfiction 'representing their league' with the minimum of 5 tournament games played that week - Not to mention myself going into their lobby 30 minutes before match time and seeing players there scrambling to get their games in. Seriously? That's just not right for a league as active as they are. Complain about being busy and having "other things to do" all you want - if you can't get more than 5 tournament games in a week in a league THAT active then why the hell do you deserve to REPRESENT that league. ESPECIALLY when I see some of these players on YIM, daily!!! I just searched the daily results for the Poolfiction league, and typed 3 names of people who participated in multiple World Series matches into the Daily Results link. In the last week since the final match on Monday the 16th, these 3 players have played 3 games COMBINED in the league. Andy and Cubby are also NOT names I searched, since both claim to be retiring. This makes me ask myself, WHAT IS the main purpose of interleagues? Is it not to have the "real members" for each league playing against "real members" of other leagues in friendly competition on a weekly basis? Somewhere along the road, we've lost our way. In the finals, I saw Cuekeepers players with more tourney games in that week than Poolfiction players! Considering how active Cuekeeper's was, that's so WRONG! At the same time though, it's not necessarily the player's fault because the rules are slack enough to allow them to get away with it. We need to find our way back on to the right path and the first step in doing that is by making eligibility guidelines stricter. Perhaps something like minimum 100-200 games total in league, 25 all-purpose games with a minimum of 10 tourney games per week. That's not difficult people - if you can't handle that - maybe you should step back and ask yourself if you really deserve to be representing a league you're barely a part of.
Anyways, thanks for hanging in with me if you've made it to this point in the post. I don't necessarily think you guys will agree w/ all of this - but you can't argue that some of the points I made were VERY valid. Hopefully over the next little while I'll post a few more of my suggestions for the future of MLP and you guys can comment on them - I can handle a little criticism :) 'Til Next Time!
