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Host Deb's Bizarre Decision at TT Playoff
Posted By: Zouky
Date: Saturday, 27 March 2010, at 7:19 p.m.
The End Of Tandem For The Jokers
(This letter was send to the Jokers team)
By now you no doubt know that we are out of Tandem, and we will never be returning so long as this tournament is hosts by Deb or Q-Series.
Zouky has also dropped out of ZCS yesterday and neither he nor I will be returning to any of Deb's tournaments.
Here are the issues that have led to our permanent boycott of Deb's tournaments.
Lee scheduled his matches with EU_IT_Labe (aka Absinthium, aka Salvatore) responsibly and reasonably. First Sal cancelled on Lee because his girlfriend's father had a heart attack. Actually it was a more minor ischemic attack, but still certainly a valid reason to postpone playing.
Then Sal was scheduled to play on Monday, but never showed up. The next day we finally heard from him that his Internet provider was "upgrading the lines" and would need three days. He said, "This complicates things, now i can only play from my office, working days from 9 to 17.30 CET. If for you it's impossible playin' at those times, please let me know as soon as possible because I need to put a sub. "
We asked Deb for a clarification of the rules at this point and she said the rules were very clear that no subs were allowed once a player had played a match in that particular elimination rounds...i.e. he or she who starts an elimination round must finish it.
Lee quickly wrote to him and and suggested they either play at 6:15pm GMT (outside of Sal's normal work hours) or try to get an extension until Friday when they could play. Lee told Sal that he would come home at lunch between 1-2 pm to check his email as we were just 36 hours away from the deadline for the round. Lee was very responsible and courteous at all stages and did in fact return home to check his email at lunch at great inconvenience to himself.
Salvatore, however, though he did receive Lee's email, chose to ignore it and chose not to respond to him, but instead to negotiate a deal with Deb for how the teams would proceed. As a result of their private discussions, which the Jokers were completely excluded from, Deb and Salvatore emerged with some remarkable decisions that skewed things most definitely in the Leprotti team's favor. Her decision also required her to overturn clear rules as you will see, though we don't dispute that Deb has empowered herself through the rules to be able to reverse any rule at any time.
First, it was decided that the match must be played by Friday. Curiously, everybody (including Deb and Sal) knew that Lee and Sal could play each other on Friday but Deb decided to go further.
Deb ordered that both teams must announce a floater. Deb said that since one team must float, it was only fair that both teams must.
Here is where Deb first went off the rails. There was no need to for Leprotti to float. The result of "ordering" Leprotti to float was that it was enabling Sal to upgrade to Daniele (danrot), by all accounts a better player as verified by GNU analysis of both players. The difference between these players is not insignificant. At this point Sal had said nothing about being unable or unwilling to play, but rather had offered times on Friday that worked with Lee and would complete the match by the date that Deb had deemed necessary.
Why did Deb decide to "order" that Leprotti float? She has never answered that, and her arbitrary over-riding of the standard rules which said that Sal must complete the bracket with Lee should never have been ignored. it was made clear to Deb and Sal that this "forced float" was an advantage to Leprottie.
The second half of Deb's decision was even more bizarre and difficult to justify. She ruled that Lee too must be floated for (rather than completing the bracket as required by the rules). This was deemed to be "only fair" by Deb since Leprotti was forced to float (an untrue assertion by her as Leprotti DID NOT HAVE TO FLOAT but rather CHOSE TO GAIN A TACTICAL ADVANTAGE with the host's blessing and sanction).
In reality, Deb's bizarre decisions, arrived at after she met with Sal (who ignored Lee's communications while negotiating this with Deb) served to do two things.
First, Leprotti was not disadvantaged by floating, nor was there a need for them to float. Deb arbitrarily overturned existing rules to ALLOW the Italian team to to upgrade in this final winner-take-all shootout match. There was no need for her to do this, and she was made aware that she was giving Leprotti an advantage, but she remained her usual stubborn self.
Second, Deb's next bizarre ruling disadvantaged The Jokers by forcing us to remove Lee. Lee had done everything right and nothing wrong, had made many scheduling attempts including the two he arrived for in the last few days only to find that Sal had not come. So why was Lee removed? Deb's claim that her ruling was "only fair" is ludicrous as discussed above. The truth is that Lee got screwed, and Salvatore was more than happy to go along with this little plan rather than stand up and do the right thing.
At this point, the host of Tandem has turned her own tournament into a farce.
Now we get to the last sordid part of the story. As the captain of the Jokers, it is my responsibility to look out for the interests of my team. This ruling was unfair and I stood up for the team.
It was considered rude, however, when I pointed out to Sal that he should play this match rather than replacing himself with a player who is better than him. He denied it, but it's a clear statistical fact that Daniele is a significantly better player. I sit out the eliminations (as does Zouky) because we freely admit that we have players better than us whom we prefer to play, and we do this according to the rules. I had also said that it was rude and dismissive of Sal not to contract Lee when he was negotiating with Deb.
Apparently it was rude to call him rude. Sal also ignored Zouky's emails and mine, but apparently that was okay with Deb, who also never answered any of Zouky's requests for explanations and justifications.
Salvatore started making a lot of noise about how I had insulted him (the emails are all available to the public at the Tandem email page and I encourage anyone to read all of them). He also became very rude, saying he thought I was a better human being than this, and calling me paranoid for pointing out that he was replacing himself with a better player. It wasn't paranoid. It was a fact, and a fact that it was my responsibility to point out to protect my team's interests. I did not do so insultingly or rudely. Just directly. And yeah, I am not surprised that Sal and Deb didn't want to hear what I had to say.
Anyway, Deb's claims that she only resorted to this after my emails on Thursday are nonsense and don't fit the timeline. if I have to, I have all of her communications and will disprove her scandalous charges that I am responsible for the insanity that she foisted upon the Jokers in allowing Danrot to play, and in forcing Lee not to play.
Deb fantasized that she could make me the bad guy and have Zouk see things her way. She kept asking him to read my terrible terrible emails to Salvatore. Of course, Zouky had already read everything, and she doesn't seem to understand that we both think what she has done was terribly unfair to the Jokers, but we also know that is nothing new for her, from banning Jeff and Cal (whom she still claims is Hank), to opening this term by telling us that if Lee were to miss one scheduled match, he would be banned from the tournament.
So enjoy when Deb writes that I was to blame for this, and claims that she only took this action after my emails to Sal, which were reasonable, defended the interests of our team, and were not rude at all when compared to the emails we have received from Deb and Salvatore. Funny that.
The bottom line is that Deb's actions were unprecedented and unnecessary, and only served to advance one teams's interests and to hurt the Jokers' interests unfairly. She wants to blame me, but it is only because she refuses to accept that she has once again screwed this team, a team that she hates due to her pathological hatred of Hank Youngerman, someone who has never even played for the Jokers and someone whom I have great respect for as a player.
I also encourage all of you to give Deb a piece of your mind as well if you are so moved, and I will be speaking to the Italian manager next week about these events (she is blind copied on this email).
Jokers, I just want to say thank you to all of you. It has been an honor and a privilege playing with each and every one of you, and if there is ever a team event apart from Deb's tournaments, we will be doing our best to keep this group together.
Thank you to all,
Thomas and Zouky
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