National's Coin Manipulation Issue
- Thread starter jax54
- Start date
ShuckleLVX
Active Member
TGW was never meant to be 'random'. You make a conscious decision as to your choice in RPS, as opposed to having no control of a die roll or flip. That's my understanding as to why you were never allowed to randomly select an RPS card.
NoPoke
Active Member
Deny what? I know players think they can manipulate the coin flip. I'm not denying that they think they can.
If you believe something strongly enough then often you are very selective about the data you use. Selecting anything even annecdotes that supports your beliefs whilst ignoring evidence against.
Belief is not proof.
correlation is not causation.
In a room with 1000 players you are going to get some extreeme outcomes. Not getting them would be the unusual case. Combine a faulty belief with an extreme outcome and you get threads just like this one.
----
However that was not the object of my last post. What I wanted to show was that my belief and selection of a die over a coin is in every way comparable to the attempt to learn to flip. I believe that if I need heads I should roll a die and if I need tails I should flip a coin. So I'm guilty and should be DQed?
Before you answer don't forget that my belief can be wrong. In just the same way that a belief that my lucky socks make any kind of difference.
Any plastic P!P coin that has not been tampered with is legal for use. To produce an acceptable outcome I have to meet the restrictions on height and rotations as laid down by P!P. The same applies to dice that meet P!Ps standards.
To request a change to decrease cheating seems perfectly sensible. But before making the change why not also ask "What Cheating"?
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billbilski
New Member
Logic is refreshing. Yelling heads and trying to flip heads are equally desperate as well as fruitless, as neither will work for me. The amount of time needed to even consider acquiring a skill at flipping within the rules would be unreasonable at best....Of course an old secret Uri Geller text might just give me the edge....
Ohh man, how to do this without getting banned....
Jax32498742364, you should stop talking, lest you hurt yourself even more. I don't know you, or your family, but this whole thread came off as sour grapes. You and your son are clearly upset that he was eliminated. Get over it, it's pokemon cards. We do this for fun, and not to trash other people's accomplishments.
I know Dan a little bit, before nationals had never met Dave, or his father. Dave played one of my good friends in T4, Grafton R. Dave hit his flips game 1 to seal it, he MISSED his flips game 2 to lose G2, and then G3 was close, but wasn't decided by flips.
They took his coin because it was pointed out to be before 1995 or some year. That's what I was told when speaking to a TPCi official who will remain nameless. There was never a question about the coin being altered, or his integrity being in question. He was given a new coin to use, then he missed a few flips in a row, before hitting the flip he needed to WIN the tournament.
To the kid who got 2nd, I know your grapes are sour, and you will likely use this as an excuse that you got 'cheated' out of winning nats. Say whatever you need to say to make yourself feel better. You just weren't as lucky as you needed to be, or as Dave was that day. Getting 2nd is a great accomplishment, don't ruin it by being petty that you didn't win.
My opinion? People get into habits. I have a metagross coin that I use every tournament, in play testing, whenever I even THINK about flipping a coin. Is it because I know how to flip it? Maybe. I like to think I can get a few more heads than tails with it, but if I were to sit down and flip 1000 coins, I'm sure it'd be about even.
Sometimes it's more about habit and rituals than actually being lucky. It's the same reason athletes wear the same shoes/socks/etc. (when you go beyond sponsers obv)
This thread is so petty. There are so many people on this site these days, that are just ready to burn people at the stake for things that haven't even been proven. So many of you are just on a witch hunt that you all need to just log off the internet for a few hours.
OldSchool pokegym ftw (wizpog etc)
---------- Post added 07/19/2011 at 05:21 PM ----------
Good luck, I had three people ask me to roll a die at nationals. not gonna happen
Jax32498742364, you should stop talking, lest you hurt yourself even more. I don't know you, or your family, but this whole thread came off as sour grapes. You and your son are clearly upset that he was eliminated. Get over it, it's pokemon cards. We do this for fun, and not to trash other people's accomplishments.
I know Dan a little bit, before nationals had never met Dave, or his father. Dave played one of my good friends in T4, Grafton R. Dave hit his flips game 1 to seal it, he MISSED his flips game 2 to lose G2, and then G3 was close, but wasn't decided by flips.
They took his coin because it was pointed out to be before 1995 or some year. That's what I was told when speaking to a TPCi official who will remain nameless. There was never a question about the coin being altered, or his integrity being in question. He was given a new coin to use, then he missed a few flips in a row, before hitting the flip he needed to WIN the tournament.
To the kid who got 2nd, I know your grapes are sour, and you will likely use this as an excuse that you got 'cheated' out of winning nats. Say whatever you need to say to make yourself feel better. You just weren't as lucky as you needed to be, or as Dave was that day. Getting 2nd is a great accomplishment, don't ruin it by being petty that you didn't win.
My opinion? People get into habits. I have a metagross coin that I use every tournament, in play testing, whenever I even THINK about flipping a coin. Is it because I know how to flip it? Maybe. I like to think I can get a few more heads than tails with it, but if I were to sit down and flip 1000 coins, I'm sure it'd be about even.
Sometimes it's more about habit and rituals than actually being lucky. It's the same reason athletes wear the same shoes/socks/etc. (when you go beyond sponsers obv)
This thread is so petty. There are so many people on this site these days, that are just ready to burn people at the stake for things that haven't even been proven. So many of you are just on a witch hunt that you all need to just log off the internet for a few hours.
OldSchool pokegym ftw (wizpog etc)
---------- Post added 07/19/2011 at 05:21 PM ----------
Good luck, I had three people ask me to roll a die at nationals. not gonna happen
Jellyberry
New Member
The real point is that we do not and will probably never know if Dan, or whatever his name was, cheated or not. I feel that this is almost a direct insult to American pokemon judges, since they are the people responsible for making sure the rules are not broken, and i therefore highly doubt that any cheating took place.
I know Dan and his whole family. Have judged many of their games with never a problem. None of them would ever cheat.
DarthPika
New Member
This is as dumb as when people where complaining about people being good at RPS because it made wager less luck based. Like it or not, flipping a coin is a skill. Correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC in japan, they don't consider coin flips to be random. It's considered a skill, ust like any other element of the game. If you can flip a coin, and learn how to flip more heads than tails, good for you. Anyone who complains is only sour because they can't do the same thing.
Box of Fail
New Member
The difference is that coin flips are supposed to be random.
RPS is NOT, and was never intended to be random.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/science/rock-paper-scissors.html?ref=science
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TeamRocket4Life
Member
I can help with some example photos:
http://imgur.com/a/83IUD
(pre R/S on top. R/S-on on bottom)
(APPLIES TO USA COINS ONLY)
Pre Ruby/Sapphire
Pre R/S coins were made by Wizards of the Coast.
These were originally smooth plastic on both sides (Chansey, Vileplume, Starmie were some that I remember). Some Neo sets had metal Lugia coins, and somewhere in there was a metal Pikachu coin (Legendary Collection?). All but the Lugia metal coins say "Wizards" or Wizards of the Coast on the back.
Ruby/Sapphire and on
All R/S-on THEME DECK coins (from Nintendo) have been very similar: Plastic with 1 side black and the other side colored with a pokemon/symbol on it. The designs are etched out in grooves, and the sides are not 100% smooth like the old WotC plastic coins. Most backs are the same (Poke Ball with "Pokemon" script on bottom), if not all (i dont have many of the most recent ones). There was at least one metal POP coin made, as I have one in my photo.
If this summary is inaccurate, please let me know.
DarthPika
New Member
I never said RPS was random... I know very well it's a skill.
Also, who ever said that coin flips are supposed to be random? It is culturally ingrained in you that it's supposed to be random. Other cultures do not see it that way. If you believe that it's random, then why even argue about this? If it's truly random, then you can not possibly manipulate the outcome. Yes, you can practice flipping a coin, which will improve your odds, however, you'll still hit plenty of tails along the way. I spent a bit of time prat icing flipping a coin before regs (was using steelix - 4 moomoo milk, 4 life herb). Ask any one of my opponents, and they'll tell you that while I did hit a lot of heads, I also hit a lot of tails. I think practicing helped me tilt the out come slightly so I got a few more heads than tails, but in the long run it really isn't something to make a fuss over. If it bothers you that much, practice flipping a coin your self.
NoPoke
Active Member
I do believe that the "bad flip" is a real issue that does need attention. I also believe that as an issue it can only be addressed once removed from accusations of cheating manipulation prior-practice etc. The discussion gets too heated and sidetracked unless that separation is made.
I believe that you are correct that it is harder to produce a marginal dice roll.
---------- Post added 07/20/2011 at 09:08 AM ----------
Your statement is incorrect in multiple ways which I suspect you realise. Multiple ways that are actually relevant to the misunderstanding of random.
A coin flip that produces 60% heads and 40% tails is still random. It is still random even if in the hands of a different flipper the outcome is 50% heads and 50% tails. The allegation in this thread is that it is both possible to control a flip to modify the distribution and that when that occurs it is against the penalty guidelines, SotG etc etc. I maintain that there is at least one faulty premise in that allegation.
RPS is intended to be random. In much the same way as computer algorithms to produce random numbers are intended to be random. People are poor at producing random numbers and the computer opponent in RPS can exploit this. But it takes a lot of data before the computer starts to uncover our biases in RPS. If the computer were to play RPS against tcg players whenever a flip was required it would do little better than chance because it will not get sufficient data against any individual opponent to uncover patterns. So it will have to rely upon its database of naive behaviours. In other words its "knowledge" of peoples faulty beliefs to predict how we will play. If you want to beat a computer RPS then first and most important don't play it for a lot of games and second let go of your faulty beliefs.
In eight games against that AI veteran I just went 3-2-3 on W-D-L . I tried to out think my opponent and thus leave myself as open as possible to the computer spotting my internal biasses and faulty beliefs. Eight games of RPS obviously wasn't enough in this single trial. I am convinced that I have those biases and that the computer will eventually take a commanding lead. It is not conclusive but i was not at all surprised that the computer didn't beat me in eight games. For now my belief that RPS is a reasonable randomiser if used in pokemon tcg would hold.
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How did you do that?
Either way, going back to coin flips; there is no 'prediction' in coin flips in the same way that there is in RPS. It's not like you choose heads and flip it and it comes up tails, and your opponent yells 'I KNEW IT! I KNEW THAT FLIP PREDICTION TRAINING WOULD BE WORTH IT!"
NoPoke
Active Member
How did you do that?
do what
Either way, going back to coin flips; there is no 'prediction' in coin flips in the same way that there is in RPS. It's not like you choose heads and flip it and it comes up tails, and your opponent yells 'I KNEW IT! I KNEW THAT FLIP PREDICTION TRAINING WOULD BE WORTH IT!"
There is prediction in coin flips. The process of flipping a coin is governed by deterministic physical laws. If you know the starting conditions sufficiently accurately then with a few restrictions upon how the coin lands you can predict outcomes with certainty. If this were not the case then the coin flip machine that Diaconis et al developed would not work. I expect that too much faith in determinism is at the heart of why some believe that they can learn to flip heads.
But you are right that the prediction is not the same. In the case of the coin, physics does allow for prediction. In the case of RPS you are using the past to uncover hidden bias. The former is a deterministic process of prediction and the latter a stochastic one.
It is in the Pokemon Tournament Rules on page 17. It does not say that you cannot use pre R/S coins but that it needs to be approved by both players.
meganium45
Active Member
I simply can not agree with Squirtle's point more.
I have a son who was eliminated by David R. in the top 32.
The term he used is that David was "hot". Making all the right plays, getting the cards when needed, and just in the "zone" that players get into when they are on a roll.
We have talked about the coin thing. David did not flip all heads against him. He was using the Chansey coin.
We can go back and forth until we are blue in the face.
Don't forget - there is a kid involved who is a National Champion. Let him enjoy the title.
Sure, some things have been said have opened this door, but let it close.
If I though my son was "cheated" I may be thinking differently. I don't.
My son just has a way of losing to the National Champ. Richards this year, Diaz last year, Curran, Kevin W, man, the boy has been a good little stepping stone. I am probably missing one or two.
Losing is never easy. Winning sometimes is tough too.
Vince
I have a son who was eliminated by David R. in the top 32.
The term he used is that David was "hot". Making all the right plays, getting the cards when needed, and just in the "zone" that players get into when they are on a roll.
We have talked about the coin thing. David did not flip all heads against him. He was using the Chansey coin.
We can go back and forth until we are blue in the face.
Don't forget - there is a kid involved who is a National Champion. Let him enjoy the title.
Sure, some things have been said have opened this door, but let it close.
If I though my son was "cheated" I may be thinking differently. I don't.
My son just has a way of losing to the National Champ. Richards this year, Diaz last year, Curran, Kevin W, man, the boy has been a good little stepping stone. I am probably missing one or two.
Losing is never easy. Winning sometimes is tough too.
Vince
TeamRocket4Life
Member
Yeah, it doesn't prohibit them outright.
"17.5.1. Coins
Any coin released with any Pokémon TCG product from EX Ruby & Sapphire on
should be considered fair and impartial.
Any other coin (such as local currency) brought by a player to be used as a
randomizer must be approved by both players. Players should consider whether or
not the coin in question is light enough to not damage or mark cards it lands on and
whether or not heads or tails can be determine at a glance."