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BGO vs. BGO OLM Update - Tiebreakers

Posted By: Jason Lee
Date: Tuesday, 18 February 2014, at 10:05 p.m.

In Response To: BGO vs. BGO OLM Update - Tiebreakers (ah_clem)

A bigger problem is where the vote is split amongst several plays, a couple of which involve a similar idea.

This DOES happen, and is an actual problem.

The main reason I'm not going to offer an actual solution to this is because I can't. See Arrow's Impossibility Theorem. (Wikipedia says this is from social choice theory, but to me, it's a mathematical theorem.) Arrow's Theorem essentially says that NO voting system can produce a result that meets a few basic fairness criteria when there are 3 or more candidates (as is often the case in backgammon). For example, you want a system that meets the criteria of Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives. To illustrate, you're out for lunch, and following exchange occurs:

Waiter: "Would you like coffee or tea?"
You: "Coffee."
Waiter: "Oh, I just remembered, we also have lemonade."
You: "That changes everything! I'll have the tea."

A voting system should not allow this to happen... you'd like to think.

Alright, mumbo jumbo aside... yeah, what you describe is a problem, but it happens so rarely that I'd rather not try to deal with it. If it comes up, we file it under "shit happens."

JLee

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