Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Tables]

This came up in the postgame of a PBF game on BGG, about ties. I won't quote everything that was said there but feel free to look.

In short: Americans seem to hate ties in games and sports, when the majority of other people seem okay with them, if a winner is not necessary (e.g. in a knockout contest). Why is this? What makes the idea of two people/teams being declared equal in a contest so unthinkable?

[Archetype]

Maybe this belongs in the RSP sub forum, but possibly because of the Capitalist government? With it, you always feel like you have to be on top and the 'winner'? That would be my guess. I don't mind ties, but I'd usually prefer for there to be a winner.

[yudantaiteki]

I see one American who doesn't like draws in that thread.

[Tables]

I see one American who doesn't like draws in that thread.

Yes, one, but the point is, it's the same throughout a lot of sports. American Football, Baseball, Basketball all have rules to break ties in just about any level of play, and these are traditionally American sports. Look elsewhere, and tiebreaking is restricted to where it's needed.

[eHalcyon]

It is very rare, improbable even, that multiple competitors would be perfectly and evenly matched.  A desire to declare an actual winner thus makes sense, because one of two players or teams is, in all likelihood, the better player/team.  Of course, luck and various other factors have it that the better competitor could still lose.

Or maybe draws just aren't exciting?  Or, in the minds of some people, drawing is hardly better than losing?

[yudantaiteki]

I think that an overtime period to determine a winner is much more exciting than a tie.  But then again, I'm just an American.  We don't like ties.

[liopoil]

rivalries. people get really into it, trash talking the other team and stuff. If it were a tie, that would be really anti-climatic.

[jonts26]

rivalries. people get really into it, trash talking the other team and stuff. If it were a tie, that would be really anti-climatic.

rivalries exist outside of america.

[mail-mi]

rivalries. people get really into it, trash talking the other team and stuff. If it were a tie, that would be really anti-climatic.

rivalries exist outside of america.

WHAT? No....

[Twistedarcher]

This has come up with a lot of my friends, mainly about sports.

The two reasons my friends don't like following soccer (other than the ridiculous "but nothing happens!" argument, is that there are ties, and there aren't playoffs.

I think it has to do with the fact that you can't "play for a draw", and use negative tactics to ensure a better chance at a result. I see the side of this argument, but I think that playing for a draw should be valid, as well.

I like that soccer doesn't have playoffs, as well. I see no reason why one small subset of the season should matter more than all the other parts of the season. Every game matters without a playoff system! Instead of 4 exciting games/series, you have an entire season, where each and every game could be the decisive result for a championship. Much more excitement!

[sudgy]

rivalries. people get really into it, trash talking the other team and stuff. If it were a tie, that would be really anti-climatic.

I think this might be it, I remember hearing that baseball didn't have extra innings originally but then one time there was a game that was very hyped, and it ended in a draw.  The people watching decided they wouldn't leave until one of them won.

[ashersky]

Is this the shared victories thread?

[Synthesizer]

Americans don't know what sports rivalry is. You have to have seen a line of mounted riot police charge straight at you to really appreciate sports rivalry. (to this day, I do not know how I managed to jump a fence that high as an evasive maneuver, while peeing myself) (and I wasn't even "in" the riot - I was just not paying attention and wandered straight into it...)

Actually, I really do think Americans have it right, by the way. You really should be able to attend any sports match without fear of getting your skull cracked.

[Awaclus]

Not an American, but I hate ties, too. The goal of the game is to win it, and if there's a tie, no player/no team wins. And that sucks for both players/teams, while winning and losing sucks only for the losing player/team. Of course, if ties are very uncommon in a game (such as Innovation), then it's cool if a tie happens just because it's so uncommon, but generally, I find it easier to say "gg" when at least one player or team has actually won the game.

It's like winning the boss fight in an RPG, but then accidentally breaking the magical item the boss was carrying. You didn't die, so you didn't quite lose the game, but you still failed at achieving your goal. And the GM who just let this happen is totally a scumbag.

[DG]

I don't see why it sucks for both teams to tie. It can be great for both teams to tie. You're assuming the answer to the question.

[Davio]

I can really only talk about football/soccer here.

In a regular season (team plays every other team twice so 34 matches in total in our top tier), wins are awarded 3 points and ties are awarded 1 points. The problem with this is of course that teams start to becoming afraid of losing after the score has been tied for a while. The 2 point difference hardly seems enough to make teams try for the win very badly even though the amount they can gain is twice as much as what they can lose. I guess human psychology just works this way.

But we can't really compare football to American sports, because American sports tend to have lots of "goals" and therefore a tie is less likely to happen. Basketball games are won with more than 100 points sometimes. There is also a cultural difference. In Europe, we don't mind that sports aren't that overly exciting to watch (although we do try), like Snooker, where enjoyment comes from appreciation of the great skill that players show, not just the amount of balls they sink into the holes.

So you could say that in Europe we see a tie as an equal appreciation of both players'/teams' skill. American culture to me seems more competitive, not only in sports, but in other aspects. I keep referring to the American Dream meaning you can claw your way to the top if you really want to and also that you "should" want to (otherwise you're a bad citizen). We're not that infatuated with success in the Netherlands I think, but globalization and Americanisation means we're swaying that way nonetheless.

If we actually want to do something about ties in football, there are no real good ways to deal with it. A regular game lasts 90 minutes. In knockout systems, two halfs of 15 minutes are added with a penalty shootout as a last resort. Neither is very appealing. Adding that much extra time just makes the players more tired and the game while tense less skilled in the end. And the penalty shootout is pretty much a lottery. I don't think there really is a way that is clearly better.

In the old days, when a game was tied in a knockout system, they would just replay the entire game in a play-off or, even worse, decide it on a coin toss. That just isn't realistic nowadays and because of commercial interests there can't be an uncertain number of games anymore.

[Awaclus]

I don't see why it sucks for both teams to tie. It can be great for both teams to tie. You're assuming the answer to the question.

Only if their goal isn't winning. A game of Dominion can be great for you when you gain all the Curses if your goal wasn't winning the game, but gaining the most Curses instead.

[Watno]

The two reasons my friends don't like following soccer (other than the ridiculous "but nothing happens!" argument, [...]

I think it has to do with the fact that you can't "play for a draw", and use negative tactics to ensure a better chance at a result. I see the side of this argument, but I think that playing for a draw should be valid, as well.

I fail to see how that's ridiculous. it's true.

[Davio]

The two reasons my friends don't like following soccer (other than the ridiculous "but nothing happens!" argument, [...]

I think it has to do with the fact that you can't "play for a draw", and use negative tactics to ensure a better chance at a result. I see the side of this argument, but I think that playing for a draw should be valid, as well.

I fail to see how that's ridiculous. it's true.

It's true, but that doesn't make it less interesting in my view. It's like a chess match sometimes where there is a lot of build-up and a couple of game-changing moves. I play football on a recreational basis myself (part of the second team of the local club, we play a competition of 22 matches and a cup system) which also effects the way I look at it.

I know how hard it can be to even get the ball to stay on your foot so when Xavi, Iniesta or Messi get a hard pass and immediately control the ball, I can see a lot of beauty in that. Goals aren't the only things that excite me in a match. I play in a position behind the strikers myself, so when I see someone give a brilliant through pass to put the striker one on one with the goalkeeper I applaud that more than the striker actually making the goal.

When we watch football matches on tv we get a nice overview of where the available free players are, but down on the pitch it's really hard to keep a cool head and see a way out of threatening situations. You really should watch Messi and Xavi when they don't have the ball, they're always looking around seeing where their team mates and opponents are and they're always moving, trying to keep at least 1 meter between them and the defenders. This makes them really hard to defend.

I guess what it comes down to is that you can appreciate other parts of a game when you're really into it and if you don't know a game that well you just focus on "goals". When I watch baseball, all I care about is homeruns, not all of the statistics that are available.

[Synthesizer]

I went to a Phillies game. A friend of a friend, upon hearing I was from Europe, asked if I liked soccer. I responded, "I'm from Europe, duh." He said, "I can't bear watching that, watching a whole game hoping to see only a few worthwile moments."

"Yet here we are, at a baseball game."


I can totally appreciate the fact that some sports are an acquired taste. Supposedly, when you really know all that's going on (rather than a general understanding of the rules), baseball can be incredibly tense to watch. So I have been told. I found the actual Phillies game in question incredibly boring. The other tens of thousands of spectators disagreed. Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun that night.

I can actually "get" that if soccer is not part of your sports culture, it will be difficult to appreciate.

-----------------

Ties make soccer more interesting. For large disparity between teams, a tie will be experienced as a sort-of-win for the lower ranked team, and as a loss for the higher ranked team. In soccer, large disparities are very common, even within leagues. There is a >10-times difference in budget between teams in the highest Dutch soccer league, last year it ranged between 62 and 5 million Euros. A similar difference can be found in European matches, where top teams have budgets up to about half a billion; in some extreme cases more than the entire budget of the richest Dutch team is spent on individual players.... Playing for a draw is pretty much often the only chance for success.

[Jack Rudd]

One notable sport, in the context of draws and ties, is Test/First-Class cricket, where not only do draws and ties exist, but those are the names of two different outcomes.

(Explanation: a "tie" in cricket is where both teams finish on exactly the same total score with no batting left to come. A "draw" is where the match reaches the end of the allotted time without any result's having been reached.)

[Watno]

Soccer is part of my sport culture sadly


@Davio: I don't watch Chess games either, and watching Messi or Xavi run away from their opponents sounds even more boring than the rest of a football match.

I do see that playing football is probably interesting, but I think that's an entirely different thing.

[soulnet]

Soccer is part of my sport culture sadly

If it were, you would call it football.

[Watno]

I do in the next paragraph, but since I'm German, I usually call it "Fußball".

Also I just realized I missed agreat oppurtunizty to talk about sport "culture"

[Kuildeous]

I'm an American that prefers not to have a shared victory. That doesn't mean I won't achieve it. I just aspire to be the sole winner first and foremost.

Just look at Cosmic Encounter as an example of how you can have shared victories. It's quite possible in a 6-player game to have five players share a victory. I find that boring and really unfair to the poor sixth person (what? Unfairness in Cosmic Encounter?). Having two winners is more suspenseful, and sometimes the only way to get your victory is to invite another player along to help you plow past the majority that is blocking you.

In Dominion, I'll do hope for a sole victory, but I'm okay with a shared victory, as long as not all the players tie. If we all tie, then I feel like there needs to be a tiebreaker game, even though there's not much difference between two winners and four winners. I suppose I believe that there should be a loser, and if I can't achieve my goal of being sole winner then at least let me not be the loser.

But in the end, I just really enjoy playing (or watching) the game. I won't think any less of someone for losing, and I don't think I'm superior because I won a game. I may mock the co-winners for sharing their victory, but that's just sour grapes. I get that treatment right back.

I find futbol to be more exciting than American football just because the latter is a lot of starting and stopping while futbol keeps the action going, even if there is nothing going on. It's kind of like basketball but with significantly fewer goals scored. But I still find it boring as hell to watch. And don't even get me started on baseball.