Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

fergus, i sent you an email a while ago saying that i didn't jot down the
payment details before you removed them from the site.  did you get my
email?

Michael Howe has quit the tournament. The most straightforward way of
proceeding would be to declare him the loser in all his remaining games
without anyone actually playing any of them. It seems that this option may
give an unfair advantage to anyone who hasn't played him yet, though,
since he has won only one game, this would materially affect the score of
only one player.

A second option would be to not count any of his games toward scoring.
This would put everyone on a level playing field against each other. It
would also set a precedent of doing the same for anyone else who quits. It
may seem innocuous right now, given that doing it right now would make a
material difference for only one player, but if someone else quit after
playing more games, it might not seem like such a fair thing to do.

I think that some of the unfairness in the first option may be mitigated
by the following consideration. It gives people who haven't yet played
against Michael Howe the option of playing the game they were scheduled to
play with him against someone else who has already won the game in this
tournament. Although someone who has beaten him at a game will have to
play and win one more game to score just as well as someone who hasn't
played against him, someone who has beaten him has better odds of being
the better player for the particular game he has beaten him at.

Whichever option we go with, there is also the possibility of reassigning
some games before we continue. This may be desirable for those who were
assigned to play Michael Howe for one of their top choices. If you
haven't played Michael Howe yet, and you're interested in a reassignment
of your remaining games, please contact me with the change you would like
made.

The third paragraph in my last comment describes an application of the
provision I included in the first paragraph under 'Pairings', which
reads 'If any two players both win the same game against other opponents,
and they have not played each other yet, they may choose to play that game
together instead of what they were previously scheduled to play.'

Since I have decided to go with the first option, anyone who has not yet
played against Michael Howe is considered to have won his game against him
without playing it.

I have just finished assigning all the games for the second round of the
tournament. Because some people are playing only three games this round,
not everyone is moving first exactly twice and second exactly twice. Here
is how I determined who would go first in each game. First, I arranged it
so that whoever had won fewer games would go first. I then applied the
following rule: No one could move first in more than two games, and no one
could move second in more than two games. This involved switching the order
of some opponents in a way that worked out consistently for everyone. As
much as possible, any discrepencies will be made up in the last round, so
that each player moves first and second in an equal number of games.

I got preferences for Kamikaze Mortal Shogi graphics from one player for
each scheduled game. My opponent shared my own preferences, but for the
other three games, only one player apiece gave preferences. So those are
the ones I went with.

All games but Maxima are being played with presets that enforce the rules.
It is fitting that Antoine is playing the only game of Takeover Chess in
this round, since he wrote the code for enforcing the rules of this game.
If there are any bugs in the Takeover Chess preset, it will normally be
his responsibility to fix them, not mine. But it would be best to contact
both of us about any bugs in that preset, since a given bug might be in
Game Courier's code instead of in Antoine's.