"Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:frec92$537$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> David Kane wrote:
>>
>> "David Damerell" <damerell@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>> news:K6v*LCL9r@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> Quoting David Kane <davidekane@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>:
>>>> "David Damerell" <damerell@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>>>> Who's tossing this coin and communicating the decision to all the
players
>>>>> in considerably less than a minute, none of whom will blab or
decline to
>>>>> participate in the fiddle?
>>>> I think it would be in principle no more difficult for a soccer team
to
>>>> pull
>>>> this off without suspicion than it would be for chess players.
>>>
>>> Obviously it is just as easy for 22 players (plus the actual
coinflippers)
>>> some of whom are of limited intelligence to keep a secret as it is for
>>> two.
>>
>> You simply haven't considered the difficulties in implementing the
>> cheating scheme that Mr. Richerby proposes in chess.
>>
>> Imagine that I have an agreement with Mr. Richerby (both of us
>> being dishonorable people) so that whenever we reach a
>> drawn position, we agree to flip a coin and the loser throws
>> the game.
>>
>> We reach such a position, implement our plan, and I lose the toss.
>> Both of us are near the top of the tournament, so it is going to cost
>> me prize money today when I lose on purpose. Sure, he will gain
>> a lot more than I lose, but that does me no good today.
>
> Have you considered the remote possibility that the two players will
split the
> prize money right down the middle?
>
I have. Yes. There are far better ways to cheat than the idiotic
one suggested by Mr. Richerby, I don't deny. For example,
instead of tossing a coin in a drawn position, they could just
have a prearranged agreement to lose in alternate games.
As to your suggestion, an agreement to split the total prize might
not make sense, because one of of us was more likely to win
money in the first place, or the monetary value of the win is not
known exactly since it will depend on how we do in other games.
In any case, if you are talking about multiple parties collaborating
to manipulate results and increase their prizes, that is a strategy
that would be effective *today*, with the existing scoriing. Is there
evidence of this being a widespread practice? Not as far as I know.
I will grant that if we held a double round robin tournament with
anti-draw
scoring, alternating losses would be fairly easy to implement, since
the benefit would be near term and faking a loss from the starting
position is easier than faking one from a drawn position. But the
tournament organizers can easily avoid that. Note that this cheating
method would be effective in many soccer leagues, but I've never heard
of it being implemented there, either.
> --
> Kenneth Sloan KennethRSloan@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213
> University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473
> Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://KennethRSloan.com/
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