Armchair General's Revue January 4, 1999

January 99 Armchair General's Revue

Welcome to the New Year everyone! Another BIG, busy year has gone by, bringing us closer to the new millenium. I don't want to be long winded, since we already have some lengthy posts below from the various IAAPA Ministers about their works, and the various events in progress.

There a just a few items of note:
1. Presidential Election in January, throw your hats in the ring, I am running again.
2. 3rd Annual Convention and Tourney ( No Registration Fee ) in Fredericksburg VA, Friday May 28 - Monday May 31, 1999. Held at the WyteStone Suites (77.40/night).
3. Auto-Rankings Project hit a few snags in testing, should be completed very soon. Keep your eyes on the rankings page to see the ongoing development. In order that the programming could be done accurately, we had to assign values to each game in relation to ranks and to the ratings points. A detailed explanation will be forthcoming once we work it all out and get our system correct.
4. We're looking for programmers for the web-site committee. If you have any skills in programming or web-site design/maintenance contact us!
5. Hasbro CDRom game still has some bugs regarding illegal moves being allowed. We cannot sanction play using that format until the logging and ability to continue a game at a later date are added features. There has been no way to verify games, nor continue if games crash, or they become timeconsuming.
6. Local Chapters are starting up. Gather the players in your area, and begin meeting weekly or however often you can. If you get 3 IAAPA members in your local chapter, we will sanction logged face-to-face games and tourneys. Look for further information ahead.

Well, on to the presentations of your Ministers.

From the Minister of Internet

Firstly, prior to my regular article I would like to take this opportunity to welcome aboard our newest addition to the IAAPA administration, topdog@stic.net, who is our new Minister of Recruiting. His presence will provide some relief to long-time government worker, gijim211@aol.com, who has been handling both IAAPA Stats and Recruiting until now.

In addition, we never formally welcomed on several new members of Association administration, so rather than compound that error, I will attempt to make amends at the start of this New Year. Firstly, many of you know that a new position was created, the Minister of Logs, and has been filled by cwmcbride@worldnet.att.net. He has done a great job of tackling the task of managing our logs, and developing strategies for ensuring the logs contain only useful information and are easier to access. We are still in the process of implementing those strategies, but soon they will be an incredible resource for all. Secondly, polaris@physics.utexas.edu has stepped into our Minister of Assembly position, and held several successful seminars/town hall meetings in our old Warzone before we had to switch to our new website. We have a new chat room now, sans dice server, but filled with lively discussion. He will be putting out a schedule of seminars for 1999 - sign up, and hone up on your Axis and Allies skills (or sign up and do what you always wanted to do and show up the teacher!).

January Java Journal

(News from the IAAPA WebSite Team)

Most of you have I am sure come to know us over the last several months but I wanted to use this opportunity to remind you of our little team and what we do.

Michael Craggs - Webmaster, Editor, General Suggestions/Comments, Content Control Person

Halldor Gudmundsson - Database Administrator, Chief Programmer

Manuel Kanahuati - Dice Server Administrator, BBS Administrator, Warzone Administrator

So what have we been doing?

Well, our biggest task has been the automation of the new rankings system developed by your IAAPA administration. We are hoping that it will be implemented by the first of the new year (1999). You will be able to track each of your games through the Association and its effect on your record. If you feel anything is incorrect, report it promptly to gijim211@aol.com, our Minister of Stats. If you have questions about the new rankings system itself, direct them to our President, ToddVomit@aol.com. We have also implemented a 'Top 30' list of the 30 members with the highest ratings in the Association.

Manuel has been slowly working on adding enhancements and improvements to the dice server. There is now a space for battle round in addition to game turn. This way each roll is clearly specified, for example:

Theatre of combat, Nation attacking, Game Turn, Battle Round Karelia, Germany, Turn 2, Round 1

If you ever need to check on a roll, we keep all rolls made on the website for 1 week before deleting them to save space. Just use the online Validator and it will show you the log of all rolls for that game in the last week.

Also, the IAAPA BBSs are now up and running and quite popular. Whatever your favourite topic (be it strategy, local chapters, associations suggestions...) there is a BBS/Message Board for you to post your idea or vent your frustration. So make use of this wonderful resource!

We are in the process of doing a redesign of the site to make it easier to access the more popular sections of the site (like the IAAPA Dice Server, IAAPA WarZone, etc.). This should happen in the first month of 1999.

Throughout the New Year, there will be enhancements to the member access to the database, including personal dossier's, personal challenge quotes, and much much more. As always, if you ever have any suggestions to improve the website, or want to help in any way, let me know and we will do our best to accomodate you.

IAAPA Internet Team

From our Minister of Assembly polaris@

Dear Fellow IAAPA Members,

Happy New Year and welcome to 1999. We've had a few problems these last couple of months, but that should be mostly behind us now. Unfortunately with the web-site problems and all, we have lost contact with each other. Starting on 6 Jan, 1999 [the first Weds of the New Year], I am going to reinstitute our IAAPA Seminars. I highly recommend these series of talks for those of you who are novices, or those who would like to hear an alternate point of view on your favorite gambit.

I strongly encourage IAAPA officers to act as guest speakers for the topic of their choice. If you don't see a topic that appeals to you, write to me [polaris@physics.utexas.edu] with a suggestion. If I think it will appeal to the membership as a whole [it probably will], then I will schedule you in. For the moment, we are restricted to straight Java Chat, but with any luck [Manuel, Micwil?], we will be improving and expanding our chat room options.

I am also instituting a weekly "Town Meeting" every Thursday at 8pm Eastern Standard Time. There will be no set agenda but I will be online (for 1-2 hours), if you want to pop in and chat about your latest brainstorm. Everyone is invited [the more the better]. With all of that, I give you the tentative seminar schedule for Jan/Feb 1999:

Preliminary Seminar Schedule

06 Jan 1999, 8pm EST

Bids that Work, Bids that don't, and *why*

Come find out what bids are effective, and what bids are not. We will talk about the mythical "perfect" bid, the infamous 'Nightmare Bid', and suggested bid value ranges. I will explain why IMHO you are making a serious mistake if you bid more than 20IPCs and less than 15. We will also discuss various bidding strategies and how to get the most for your bid.

13 Jan 1999, 8pm EST

Novice Mistakes, How to see them, avoid them, exploit them.

Come find out what the most common mistakes are in A+A for all countries. Find out how to recognize a mistake before you make one, how to recognize a mistake an opponent has made, and how to exploit them. Find out also what makes these mistakes, "mistakes". This is more than the obvious leaving a lone bomber alone in bmbr range...this is recognizing the "he built a ftr on CCCP1" or "He only purchased 4inf on Germany 1" and how to take advantage. [Officer input is *strongly* encouraged.]

20 Jan 1999, 8pm EST

Purchasing and Dead Zone Management: Playing for the Long Haul

Find out what you should be purchasing and why for a wide variety of counties and situations. Find out how to recognize enemy KILL ZONES, and (just as importantly) how to set up your own. Find out how [officer input is *strongly encouraged here], to _recognize_ a potential KILL ZONE, 1-2 turns before it materializes and how you should react with movements and purchasing.

27 Jan 1999, 8pm EST

Allied Approaches: What Works

Find out basic allied approaches and why they usually work. Also find out how to counter axis bids, and what (with varying bids) what the optimal Allied approach is. We will also discuss the merits of varying and/or non-standard approaches [such as KJF]. We will also common but less than optimal allied approaches, and why they are less than optimal.

3 Fed 1999, 8pm EST

Axis Approaches: How to Succeed where Hitler Failed

Find out how to get the most out of Germany and Japan and how to take advantage of various bids. Find out how to take advantage of a less than optimum allied strategy. Find out how to counter the Red Army push if you are Germany, and how to take over Africa in 3 turns (if Germany). Find out as well the best approach for killing Russia (esp if Japan). We will also discuss various tactical issues such as: "Do you really need to kill that fleet in the Haw SZ?" Find out why the answer is YES! We will also discuss less than optimum axis approaches and why they lead to an early demise if the allied player is playing optimally.

10 Feb, 1999

Advanced Tactics: How Wars CAN be Won by Retreats

Find out more about the fine art of "strafing". "Strafing" is an attack that is designed to kill enemy pieces without taking territory. Crazy? Yeah, sometimes it's crazy like a fox... Find out when to strafe and why, and when to take with pickets and why, and when to take in force and why. This seminar depends strongly on understanding "Kill Zone" management so those attending should be familiar with the topics discussed in "Purchasing and Dead Zone Management". Officer input would be greatly appreciated. We will also discuss the "fighting retreat" and when it *is* a good thing to sacrifice a bmbr for a tran or even an arm!

17 Feb 1999, 8pm EST

Technology: When to do Research and when to Fight

Find out when you should invest in technology, and how to put that technology to the greatest use. Also find out when you should NEVER invest in technology, and when tech is going to be your only real hope of victory. Also find out what to do if your opponent gets a real juicy bit of tech [like Industrial Tech, or God forbid HEAVY BOMBERS!]. Find out why many experienced players don't bother even when (perhaps) they should.

24 Feb 1999, 8pm EST

End Game: Berlin has Fallen....What NOW?!

Find out why Japan can not win the game solo 9 games out of 10 and why. Find out when to recognize when she CAN perform a miracle [very rare], and when it's basically over. Find out what Japan (or Germany) needs to do when all looks lost. Sometimes allied players get careless in such situations. Learn how to look for them and exploit them. For the allies: Learn how to refocus from Germany to Japan in the least amount of time [faster than you might think].

I will put out a March/April Schedule in the Next Revue. Also be aware that these seminars are subject to change. I will attempt to notify you if a last minute change occures.

Sincerely,

Ian A. Chapman aka Polaris
Minister of the Assembly

And now some Tourney Updates from HighCmmdr

Greetings,

A lot has happened in the last few months with our new web site going up, coming down and then going back up again. In our government communications we have set a goal to have our club back on track and working properly so that our members can enjoy their gaming experience. As the Minister of Tournaments my tenure has been a short six months so far but I have set some personal goals with the Tournament department and would like to update and inform our membership of what I have planned for 1999. First though I'd like to to review all our association's tournaments in detail so everyone participating will be informed as to where we are in each tournament.

PAST TOURNAMENTS:

1995 Spring Classic-EnemyThine
1995 Fall Classic-JimB614
1996 Spring Classic-Rewstr (Needs to be corrected on website)

These three tournaments were added since we did some research and found info on who won these tournaments. Currently I have NO pairings information on these but am doing research to see what info I can find. If any association members participated or have any information on these tournaments please fwd that info to me for inclusion in our database. We added these winners to acknowledge their accomplishments.

1996 Fall Classic (32 players): Winner: mheinz@

1997 Master's/Invitational (16 top players): EnemyThine

1997 Spring Classic (32 players): zwoof@

These three tournaments are complete and the entire tournament can be reviewed on our website.

CURRENT TOURNAMENTS:

1997 Summer Open (64 players): We are down to the finals which are being paired right now (assigning GM etc). The finals round will see:

Rewstr vs RBurt94553

Best of luck to both warriors.

1997 Fall Open (64 players):

We are in the semi-finals (round 5) and have the following players competing:

EnemyThine vs mheinz@
NobleKnt vs mat27@

This round should end by February.

1998 Master's/Invitational (16 top players):

With a smaller tournament pool we find this tournament in it's championship round with the following players battling it out for best of club honors:

EnemyThine vs edavid@

In addition the association had a GM contest with 8 GM's chosen by the players out of 16 entries. After each round half of the GM's would advance based on player scores in several areas to include accuracy, timeliness, formatting, etc. In the above game we have a GM champion to crown as well.

1998 Master's GM Champion: AxisSpclst

AxisSpclst beat out several other excellent GM's for the honor of GMing the championship round of this tournament. Congratulations AxisSpclst for excellence in gaming. Any one who has him as a GM knows how lucky they are.

1998 Spring Open (219 players):

This tournament is nearing the end of the 3rd round with 64 players competing. This tournament has been our biggest and best so far with almost all our top ranked players participating. The tournament pool was so large that at first we had to give many BYE's but now we have full brackets. The tournament was divided into four (4) divisions for ease in managing but we will be announcing Division Champions for the semi's when we reach that point so stay tuned.

This tournament has seen some interesting results and upsets so far. Some players to watch for include:

direland@ who knocked off the South Division's #1 seed.
bstotts@ who knocked off the same divisions #2 seed.
EnemyThine who is the North Division #1 seed and doesn't know how to lose a tournament game very well, maybe someone can show him how ;) (only #1 seed remaining in tournament).
BiLLIde01 who knocked off the East Division #1 seed (and maybe my next opponent should I ever get past kesteren@, I'm sure he's forgotten about our last game by now. I mean it was so long ago right Bill? Right..Ok.. ::sigh:: :)
Yuugal who knocked off the West Division #1 seed.

What else will we see? Stay tuned...

1998 Summer Open (59 players): With the Spring Open still in full swing we did not have enough entries to fill a 64 player bracket so had to give some BYE's in the first round. The first round has been completed and I should have the pairings for round 2 out within a week. This tournament is also behind schedule but not forgotten.

1998 Fall Classic (? players): I'm a bit tardy getting this tournament started but we have all our entrants and are making the pairings now. Website problems along with delays in informing our membership of this tournament required us to extend the entry deadline. Add to that the manual pairings/seedings and a delay was inevitable but I hope to have the inaugural pairings out within a couple of weeks.

WEBSITE:

This should be the heart of our association. As such I have just sent in a complete update to our Minister of the Internet to bring all our association's tournaments up to date on the web page. The website should be updated soon so keep checking back. I will be working closely with him to see to it that we have regular updates so our association members can see how their tournament is progressing. We will start with bi-weekly updates moving to weekly updates so that you can see who is advancing and who isn't as the tournament moves along.

Of course if I don't know who is advancing then it can't be updated so be sure to send me an email on your game as soon as a winner is decided.

Many players have notified me that their tournament game is not in our association database. This should only be a problem with ongoing tournaments and I am working to rectify this problem now. It requires that I go into the database and list each game along with its players' GM's and numbers manually for each tournament. This will take some time but I hope to have it done by Mid-February. (Delay is in that I want to have our newer tournaments already entered then I will work on our ongoing tournaments). In the meantime save your game finish notice if the database won't accept it or contact GIJim211 for manual entry.

As always if you notice an error or discrepancy in a tournament game listed on the website please contact me and I'll have it corrected.

TOURNAMENT RESPONSIBILITIES

A disturbing trend I've been noticing is that when a player is knocked out of a tournament that player all of a sudden becomes 'unavailable' to finish their GM duty assignment for said tournament. This presents a hardship on another player who may have just GMed for the last round and now I must call on them to GM yet another round.

This may not be avoidable due to who advances and who doesn't but when possible I'm trying to have player's GM every OTHER round. For player's who suddenly can't GM the rest of your assigned game I will disqualify you from entering your next tournament. Our association's GMing duties are formatted so we can play by email and we need everyone to do what they need to do in order for our system to work.

For those who prefer playing live or GMless then in the next couple of months I will be tracking who plays by what method and trying to assign GM's based on who uses them. This is to be fair with the workload to all involved. To those of you who have stepped in when asked to finish GMing a game I say thank you.

ADJUDICATION:

For those who are unaware our Chancellor of Adjudication is BrassTacs. BrassTacs has just drafted an explanation of what adjudication is and how it is handled. This info is being added to our website for your perusal. If your not done with a tournament game and the round is being called for adjudication please go to this page and review what adjudication requires and then comply with those requirements. If you have any questions concerning adjudication please contact BrassTacs (or m@micwil.com if its not on the website).

As a reminder adjudication is not a determiner of who wins the game but rather an effort to select a player to advance in the tournament. While we would like to wait until all games are finished before moving on to the next round this is not pratical and as such we must adjudicate. To date in the last 18 months out of many games we have had only 2 games adjudicated differently then the outcomes and 1 draw so many thanks to our adjudication panelists for their hard work. (You all know who you are).

FUTURE PLANS:

We will of course be having our standard tournaments but I'm planning on adding some new ones or at least adding a twist to what we have going so far. As most of you know we have a Master's (Invitational) tournament each year involving the associations's top rated 16 players. Well I plan on having some specialty tournaments to go along with this one. Depending on interest we may see the following:

"Open Officer's" tournament: available to Officer's not involved in the Master's.
"Non Commisioned Officers" tournament: Open to CPL's through MSGT's
"Private's Pandamoneum" tournament: Open to ROOKIES and PVT's

Of course these names aren't written in stone. This will parallel in a way how the US Chess Federation conducts their tournaments. They have 'classes' based on ratings. Depending on how our ratings/rankings are determined I will tailor these tournaments in a similiar format.

What this means is unlike an Open tournament (especially for a PVT) you won't find yourself facing the likes of EnemyThine or having Krazyhouse go krazy on you. DiceDlr can keep his dice and Tomfool won't be makin a fool of you. michael and david will remain heros and not nightmares and when you hear a rooster's call it won't chill your blood like facing the Rewstr would.

Even if I have only 2 entries in a category I may still have this specialty tournament. We need to experiment and see what works and what doesn't. I'm still working on possible rewards for winning an enlisted specialty tournament etc.

A goal for these type of tournaments is to help our 'journyman' and 'beginner' players to be able to participate in a tournament longer and thereby increase interest in our association and in Axis & Allies gaming in general.

Much thanks to AARommel, Kayveydog, SoTragic and topdog@ for contributing their ideas for this type of tournament. If anyone has any comments or suggestions please send them to me. This type of tournament usually starts in April around the time of the Spring Open but I may move it up a month or two depending on interest. If your interested in a speciality tournament please email me and let me know which one you would be in. This is not an entry call but rather an interest call. I want to know what our membership thinks about this.

TIMELINESS:

Finally I will say that I will be calling each tournament round in a more timely manner. Up till now I've been looking at the results and waiting till about 2/3rds of the games have been reported but I've noticed that many players/GM's etc are forgetting to send me a game finish notice of some kind. This misleads me to believe that many games have yet to be finished and I don't want to flood our adjudication team with too much work.

What this means is that I will be making and adhering to deadlines more strictly from here on out so please play your tournament games in as timely of a manner as possible and if GMing a tournament game please do so promptly.

Greg, you and your panel get ready for some increased duty :)

CLOSING:

As our President sends out monthly revue's I'll have tournament updates included for you.

I chose to help this association because I really love the game of Axis and Allies. While I underestimated the amount of my personal time that it would consume I wouldn't change my decision. Much thanks to the members of the association government for stepping in and doing all the work they do. Also thank you to all our players for participating and stepping in when needed and making this association the best it can be.

If I've forgotten anything or have made any errors please advise.

Let's enjoy the new year and have fun with Axis & Allies, the best damn game around!

Sincerely,

Your Tournament team:

HighCmmdr BrassTacs

Minister of Tournaments Chancellor of Adjudication

Adjudication Process for IAAPA sanctioned tournaments:

Here is what to do if your tournament game needs adjudication.

A call for adjudication will be sent for your round of the tournament by the Minister of Tournaments with a deadline. By this deadline you should finish one round with the end of the US turn and before the start of the Russian turn. From the end of the US turn you will send in your arguement for advancement and McD map file or world update for adjudication as follows:

If with a GM:

Players - send your arguement for why your side should win the game to your GM. Also send your McD map (if McD map is not available to you, then send in a typed update of the `entire board`) to your GM. If you`ve played beyond the last US turn, please correct your board to match the last US turn. If your GM fails to respond in the time alotted the Chancellor of Adjudication will send a note to the GM and both players that nothing has been received for your game. This is your opportunity to let the Chancellor of Adjudication know that you did send the info to your GM so that you are still eligible for advancement. Please reply with-in 48 hours(ASAP). A server losing mail is taken into consideration.

GM - After you have gathered both arguements and both maps (ensure they are correct), send both arguements and 1 correct map to BrassTacs@aol.com. When the time limit expires GM`s are to send whatever they have. If you have received nothing from either player let me know that as well. If you want to continue GMing and playing in tournament games please be on time.

If GMless or Live: Players - send in your arguements and map or typed update to BrassTacs @aol.com.If one of you have a McD map, please send that as that is the prefered tool for adjudicating games (send in map separately and mail both BrassTacs and your opponent would be the best way. Remember to send your arguement only to me so as to keep your game strategy intent from your opponent.) If maps do not match both players will be asked to send in the game log for the last 2 turns of each country. This must be done with-in 48 hours.

Rulings: If both maps are different and only 1 player replies with-in the time alotted, then he advances. If both maps are different and neither player replies with-in the time alotted, then neither player advances. *There are exceptions* If 1 player fails to send in their info with-in the time alotted the other player automatically advances. If both players fail to send in their info with-in the time alotted then neither player will advance. If 1 player is found to have sent false game information in for adjudication they will be ejected from the tournament with goverment discipline according to the IAAPA code of conduct. Other player advances by forfeit.

Judges: All judges will be of exceptional A&A knowledge and high ranking. Each game will be adjudicated by 3 judges assigned by the Chancellor of Adjudication. Judges will NOT know who's game they are adjudicating. Note:The Chancellor of Adjudication does not adjudicate games. No judge will adjudicate a game where there is the even the slightest conflict of interest (even though they won`t know anyway). Any conflicts of interest with the Chancellor of Adjudication will be given to a judge (picked by the Minister of Tournaments) to pick the 3 judge panel. Judges are permitted to talk amongst themselves about the game. There are no draws, 3 to 0 and 2 to 1 decisions will advance. Judges will have 48 hours to make a decision. All decisions of advancement made by the judges are FINAL. The names and the ranks of the judges will not be revealed. Only the Chancellor of Adjudications, The Minister of Tournaments, and the Adjudication Judges know who the judges are. No one else in the government or membership is permitted to have this information.

Notes: The adjudication ruling does NOT count as a win/loss nor does it gain/lose rating points. This is only a ruling of who the judges think are in the best position to win due to the time limitations of tournaments.The game continues to be played out as normal for club credits(win/loss & rating). For fast and effecient adjudications arguements from each player along with a McD map is preffered!

For any questions you may have send to BrassTacs@aol.com.

aka PaleRider Chancellor of Adjudication

>From the Law Office... Greetings Fellow Warriors,

All has been relatively quiet over the holidays in the Law Office. We are almost back up to speed with the website now. In the Rules Section I had noticed some incorrect and some old references, but these should now be updated and correct.

Of note, I'll now be handling the forfeiture requests, a duty formerly assigned to the Vice-president. I will also be handling any Minister of Conduct issues that you may have as Mcwil has his hands full with the website.

There will be no By the Numbers this issue, as I forgot to tell Mitch the deadline. :( Hopefully we'll see him back in February.

We are still reviewing the rules options published with the CD-ROM. Last issue I asked all who had a comment or opinion you lose your right to bitch. :)

There are no Handbook Updates. John

Click here to return to the Revues page.