22 Jan 2014, 9:17 am
The article posted by geojanes was very interesting, thanks for that. A well-written article, succinct and well-put.
Tom, you claim that all three of us "avoided stabs that would have guaranteed sure fire winning". I'm not sure that's true at all. I made my move when I stabbed you in 03 I believe, after that, my forces were pretty well wrapped up with finishing you off, which took me several game years. Where, exactly, could I have made a stab?
I stabbed you because I weighed my options and decided we were looking at a pretty likely early stalemate if we kept our western triple up. Maybe I was wrong about that, I guess we'll never know because I decided otherwise. I made a move that I thought would improve my position and bring me closer to winning. And it did! No, I didn't achieve a solo in this game. But my stab did get me closer. Sure, at the end of the game, I could have stabbed Italy. Turkey and I could have squeezed him. But it was quite unclear how that would turn out, I could maybe have gotten a solo, or Turkey could have gotten a solo. In every game, there are a few times that you have to decide between Now or Later. In 1903, I clearly decided on Later. When this game ended, I looked at the board and decided Now. Does that make me a wuss, because I didn't want to risk going for it, possibly soloing but possibly allowing Turkey to solo, for example? Maybe you think so, but I really don't. Does anyone who agrees to end a game in a draw qualify as a wuss? There are a few RG games that recently ended in DIAS..are those players all playing the game the wrong way because they agreed to end in a draw, instead of going for a solo at all costs?
Of course we all begin the game trying to win, but the overwhelming majority of the time it becomes apparent at some point in the game that it just isn't going to happen. So you try and secure the best result for yourself. That's what I did, and it appears to me that's what both Sendric and Darren did as well. I just really don't see where you're coming from on this one, or how this game's end result is really all that different from most other games of Dip.
You seem to think that the three of us got together in 1902 and said, ok, lets end this game in a three-way draw between us? That is so far from the truth. Look at the maps again…in 1902, I was still part of the EFG we began the game with! In the fall and winter of 1902, I was beginning to get discouraged with my progress in the Med and thought I needed to shake things up, or risk a really boring, early end to the game. I had not yet decided I was going to stab..I stabbed in spring 03 and I remember going back and forth in my own head almost right up to the deadline. You can choose not to believe me, but it is true.
You said you aren't going to write an EOG or respond to any of ours. That's fine, but you probably at least read our EOG's, right? We each explained in pretty good detail our thought processes and strategy throughout the game, nobody said that we agreed to a draw ever since 1902, or even close to that, because we didn't.
Really, is it more likely that the three of us conspired in our EOG statements to cover up this big secret you choose to believe in, or that you are just bitter about the way this game ended, and being a real poor sport?