The one I can remember is a great tennis-player: Leyton Hewitt playing against a Swede, he was down and picked it up. Come On he roared for every ball he won, then the Swede served and made 2 misses and here stands Hewitt with fist up in the air and screams: Come on! On a frigging serving double fault? What a creep and I enjoyed every game he lost after that! Unsportman ship galore with this prickly fellow.
Sportsmanship
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hobbsyoyo
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I have heard that when a sumo match begins it is a legal move to step aside as your opponent charges so that they run out of the ring and lose. It's also considered a huge prick move and hugely frowned upon to the point where I think they will unofficially sanction you.
BvBPL
Pour Decision Maker
So in war gaming, there are a lot of different ways individual units and the like that have special rules. For the most part, players are good with the basic rules and know the rules of their own units pretty well. Generally speaking, the rules of one’s opponents minis aren’t hidden; theoretically, a player should know what an opponent’s units do. However, few people have the encyclopedic knowledge of what ever unit in a game does, let alone how the special rules for one unit affects the special rules for another unit.
Because the games basically presume prefect knowledge of the other party’s units, good players will explain to their opponents how their armies work when asked. This obviously doesn’t extend to the tactical strategies the player intends to use, but a player should be willing and able to explain how an army works to another player before the game starts. This prevents bad feelings when a player charges, say, some skirmishers which trigger footmen to respond because of the footmen’s special rules. The willingness to provide this sort of information is particularly critical when one’s army is built around the special rules of one’s units.
Because the games basically presume prefect knowledge of the other party’s units, good players will explain to their opponents how their armies work when asked. This obviously doesn’t extend to the tactical strategies the player intends to use, but a player should be willing and able to explain how an army works to another player before the game starts. This prevents bad feelings when a player charges, say, some skirmishers which trigger footmen to respond because of the footmen’s special rules. The willingness to provide this sort of information is particularly critical when one’s army is built around the special rules of one’s units.
I remember one risk game where my brother was playing with his wive and they had a standoff between north and south america. His wife had the numeric advantage in armies on the border and was getting ready to attack. My brother fell into a smarmy "you wouldn't attack your sweetie" monologue for about 5 minutes convincing his wife to attack out into Africa. On the next turn he cashed a set, placed them all on the boarder and declared "defend yourself (the b word)" the board went flying. We still laugh about that one at family dinners. While all of us are quite competitive, we don't take it personally, but do get a lot of enjoyment out of it.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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This is a personal pet peeve of mine in online games. There is always a player or two who will be significantly slower to play turns than everyone else. What I particularly dislike is when the same person complains about how late it's gotten and quit early. It's not trivial to "solve" this with a turn timer either, as not everyone is comfortable with those.
Still, a timer is the most sure way to limit gameplay time.
Fair enough. I imagine people could have just rushed through the moves in moments if it was a known outcome, but really it's not like the situation in game was in dispute anyway.
Rather than being ganged up on (at least in the context of gameplay, I'm used to this), what bothered me in this case was that I was overtly being held to a higher standard than they were holding themselves, and they didn't seem to recognize this or care. If they wanted to stop playing, fine. If they wanted to continue, also fine. They felt I was being unreasonable in saying the game wasn't over, but given how the game progressed from there that obviously wasn't true. It was like they wanted to make sure I lost but resented having to finish the game...sorry but if THAT's the goal one must earn it
.Aside from the time that dbag speared me from the side with his helmet in high school football that was the worst sportsmanship I'd been around. If I wasn't hurt pretty bad by that spear, I'd have likely facemask whipped that guy down and beat on his face until I got pulled off and ejected. Helmet spearing in that context is not accidental and can seriously injure both the person doing it and the person targeted. It actually hurt to breath a bit for a few days after that one, all from a random cheapshot helmet spear from the blind side away from a play.
All my worst sportsmanship stories are from way more than ten years ago...I consider this a blessing.
I can't imagine this actually works with any consistency, it's interesting that it's frowned upon. If both sides respect it as a threat you'd lean in as much as you can control and not more, and if they shift weight away from you they'd be at a disadvantage.
Another favorite of mine wrt bad sportsmanship:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
Guy was already at a disadvantage and owned the attackers so hard they turned it into a farce. Though the implications are kind of bad.
civvver
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It's not unsportsmanlike but it is douchy that he cared enough about winning a board game with literally no stakes except bragging rights I guess that he would prolong the game without a real shot of winning. At the same time maybe play something shorter if you're short on time.
I play texas hold em with the guys in my neighborhood and thankfully we all keep it pretty friendly. We play tournament style and when you get down to the final two it can take a loooong time to finish cus half the hands people toss before the flop. Usually we pay out 123 like 70%,20%,10%, but more than once the final two have agreed ok next hand wins but change the split to 50/40 (the 10 already went to 3rd). Other times if the stacks are close they'll just split it 50/50. We're not talking about tons of money here, maybe a hundred bucks. Anyway it's just kind of courteous- we can get a second game going if it's early with everyone or if it's late people often want to go to bed.
I think you should always play to win but don't care so much about winning that you act like a jerk. If that makes sense. Like don't gloat, don't use cheap moves etc.
I play texas hold em with the guys in my neighborhood and thankfully we all keep it pretty friendly. We play tournament style and when you get down to the final two it can take a loooong time to finish cus half the hands people toss before the flop. Usually we pay out 123 like 70%,20%,10%, but more than once the final two have agreed ok next hand wins but change the split to 50/40 (the 10 already went to 3rd). Other times if the stacks are close they'll just split it 50/50. We're not talking about tons of money here, maybe a hundred bucks. Anyway it's just kind of courteous- we can get a second game going if it's early with everyone or if it's late people often want to go to bed.
I think you should always play to win but don't care so much about winning that you act like a jerk. If that makes sense. Like don't gloat, don't use cheap moves etc.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
That's fair, but what we do in situations like these.. when a game goes on much longer than initially expected.. at some point we take a break and discuss how to alter the game so that it finishes earlier. So i.e. "Ok 20 more minutes and the winner is the person with the most points" or 15 rounds, or we lower the points needed to win, or whatever everyone decides is fair.
It should be clear when a game is just running too long and everyone should already be well aware of when people have to go home. So that should always be an option
IMO it can be a jerk move to just announce "next move is my last turn!". It should be decided well ahead of that point what the new end point of the game will be instead of just having people stand up and walk away abruptly, it puts everyone on the same page again and ensures that the game is over when you need it to be over.
I guess it's situational. I've seen guys that have incredibly bad luck at the beginning of a game and have 0 chance of winning playing it out just to not ruin the fun for others. But if others are intentionally dragging the game out, I wouldn't hold it against the first guy if he just said, a few more turns and I'm out of here. And as mentioned, it depends on the group and previous experiences.
But it's always good to set expectations if they aren't already known.
But it's always good to set expectations if they aren't already known.
hobbsyoyo
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That's actually what happened. Within the last 15 minutes we all assessed the situation to the point where actually showed cards and laid out what was going to go down. It was already clear either me or another guy were going to win, really it was a race between the two of us to end it. Several people had to leave sooner than later and we set a deadline wherein we would leave no matter what though we all hoped the game would actually end by then as seemed likely.
The guy who built the roads just prolonged it for no real reason other than his own ego. When half the table left, he still ended up losing in a few turns and the relative rankings never changed. But as I've already conceded, he was well within his rights to play that move. I can't stress enough that no one was angry over the situation it was just a sad move he played and interesting to talk about.
Holy cow what a train wreck of a military exercise. I get why they would reset the war game after the whomping red team laid on them but the restrictions they placed on the red team kind of invalidated the whole expensive exercise.
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sophie
Break My Heart
As I recall, Van Riper's conduct was itself suspect though, something about his motorcycle messengers needing to move at the speed of light to be able to transmit information as quickly as they were. Something like that.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
The way this is worded vs the way the OP was worded, I am now totally on your side and screw this guy!
hobbsyoyo
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It was weird. Everyone seemed down to let it wrap up. He even showed his own hand himself but got a really lucky roll on his next turn. Not everyone agreed to walk out, just half. But even those that would stay if the game continued we're down with it ending and showed cards. We were all kind of joking around about the situation and *bam* now we're stuck around for a few more rounds that change nothing but delay the inevitable.
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
EDIT: Just read the OP and the first page, so it turns out I'm repeating what's already been said...
But yes, not really good sportsmanship.
We were playing a randomised board, and I'd got boxed in quite early (I had 2 or 3 villages, and the roads to join them) due to some bad luck, some admittedly poor moves on my part, and the 10 year-old's dogged pursuit (in every game!) of the Longest-Road VP. I could not expand further because all the nodes adjacent to my holdings had been blocked, and I therefore could not win from the position I was in.
Yes, OK, I could have continued to occasionally harvest a limited selection of resources — from the 2 or 3 hexes I had access to! — but since those resources couldn't help me, there was no further real contribution I could make to the game, other than acting as either a vassal or a hindrance to one or more of the other players, i.e. either speeding one player's victory at the expense of the other two (not fair), or delaying victory for all of them (not fun).
My view was, therefore, was that there was no point in my continuing to participate, so I resigned — despite my wife calling me a bad sport for doing so. But see above: I would rather argue that conceding defeat as soon as it becomes inevitable, is good sportsmanship...
If this was the case, then Bob's (not his real name?) last move changed nothing, except the margin that he was behind by. So no-one needs to feel bent out of shape about it, because the game was over anyway.
But yes, not really good sportsmanship.
I agree. It might have been even better, if all the (losing) players who wanted to end the game, had unambiguously declared hobbs the winner instead of playing that last round.
Exactly this happened to me last year, while playing Catan with my wife and two sons (aged 8 and 10 at the time).
We were playing a randomised board, and I'd got boxed in quite early (I had 2 or 3 villages, and the roads to join them) due to some bad luck, some admittedly poor moves on my part, and the 10 year-old's dogged pursuit (in every game!) of the Longest-Road VP. I could not expand further because all the nodes adjacent to my holdings had been blocked, and I therefore could not win from the position I was in.
Yes, OK, I could have continued to occasionally harvest a limited selection of resources — from the 2 or 3 hexes I had access to! — but since those resources couldn't help me, there was no further real contribution I could make to the game, other than acting as either a vassal or a hindrance to one or more of the other players, i.e. either speeding one player's victory at the expense of the other two (not fair), or delaying victory for all of them (not fun).
My view was, therefore, was that there was no point in my continuing to participate, so I resigned — despite my wife calling me a bad sport for doing so. But see above: I would rather argue that conceding defeat as soon as it becomes inevitable, is good sportsmanship...
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