Retirement during ITST matches - your thoughts....

[Baghdad Baghdatis]

Good evening all,

As much as I love playing the SIM game, I still like dropping into the draws for Mens Singles (MS) & Women's Singles (WS) from time to time to see who is hot and who is not

However one thing that strikes me is the increasing number of retirements during ITST matches as I am sure the vast majority of other members with a pair of eyes can also see.

Let me start by saying that I have retired from 2 ITST matches in my whole playing career to date - 2 vs EPOX. I am as guilty as any other however I will never retire from a match again unless an earthquake hits my house or someit! For me therefore , "I think retirement from a match is NOT justifiable in any circumstances as it signals bad sportsmanship"...

...I know at the time when I did it I was being a bad sport, I threw my toys out of my pram, didn't even realize I had it in me to do that to be honest. The crazy things is that I enjoy playing topspin period, although whilst certain styles or tactics are not as pleasing on the eye for many different members & for many different reasons my opinion is that members should play out the match and declare a completed match.

Some newbies who come to ITST or even members who never visit the forums may not know any better, but regular forum members and top flight players should absolutely know better.

As an output to this poll, if the overall consensus is that retirement is deemed "justifiable" then no further action should be taken, although I would still like you to continually challenge yourself to strive for better.

However, I personally think members who repeatedly retire from matches should be penalized going forward if the poll deems it NOT justifiable to retire. Perhaps a system of docking points for a retirement could be in place (e.g. 250 points per retirement) or if less than 250 points then any points earned could be wiped out to nil (I am just thinking out loud here)...

...I am sure that members could get round this by just walking away from the controller and incurring a 6-0 loss but so be it, at least from face value members looking on can see a complete score in the draws. Maybe its not something one can enforce

If not then come on all, lets get our acts together and start being mature about this and at least giving your opponent the opportunity of hearing "game, set and match player 1"

And you never know, you may just break back, so give it a go...

Baghdad

P.s. EDIT - please can retirement due to poor connection / lag be left out of this thread for now

[picachu211]

I never retire, even if I am losing. It's really just courtesy.

[coke4]

I think i have only retired once. It was the old sim setup and I was playing a guy who was playing cheesy and had 89 79 69 while i had realistic setups, i could barely win a point and it was so boring, so i decided 'What is the Point'? and quit, and if in that situation again i would do the exact same thing.
I play this game for fun, so why waste my time in a boring match against an opponent who just wants to win?

[Mack2300]

Its probably very telling if you look at the draws from past tournaments and see what players people are retiring against the most. It seems to be the same few names that pop up time and time again. In that case I would think it is not the people who are retiring that have the problem but the person that they are retiring against.

I've retired from matches quite a few times, including a final last month that was all even at 3-3 first set. Like Coke said, I didn't feel like I was having fun in this particular match and it was chore to play so I just quit. I don't think there is anything wrong in retiring in a case like that.

[emate007]

This has been discussed in the past, and I fully support retiring with no penalty. Perhaps if somebody is retiring more than half the time something could be done, but more likely than not the person in question would stop playing ITST altogether if they don't want to finish ANY match.

As you said Baghdad, if such a no-retirement rule were instated, all it would accomplish is an AFK (AFC I guess) match, where one person is playing against nobody... Not cool for anybody involved, and a bit insulting to the winning player. Better just to end it right away and not waste anybody's time.

[jayl0ve]

I don't think there should be any kind of penalty (I mean...you're already penalized. You lose the match!), but it's not something that should be condoned or accepted either....it's really quite sad to quit at a video game because you are losing, I mean think about it, at that point you're not really any different from the kid who tips over the Monopoly board so nobody can play.

To answer the question, I don't think retiring is ever justified and quite frankly it makes you look like a bitch, but there shouldn't be any 'penalty' or anything (if that's even in question, which I don't know) Eventually word-of-mouth marks these people as quitters and nobody worth a damn takes them seriously anyways

[Moralspain]

I don't think there should be any kind of penalty (I mean...you're already penalized. You lose the match!), but it's not something that should be condoned or accepted either....it's really quite sad to quit at a video game because you are losing, I mean think about it, at that point you're not really any different from the kid who tips over the Monopoly board so nobody can play.

To answer the question, I don't think retiring is ever justified and quite frankly it makes you look like a bitch, but there shouldn't be any 'penalty' or anything (if that's even in question, which I don't know) Eventually word-of-mouth marks these people as quitters and nobody worth a damn takes them seriously anyways

amen

[Vieira151]

I only ever quit when me and my opponent are having connection troubles, or if im not enjoying the match and there is a sudden disconnection(once the guy was 5-4 up and i was about to serve for it and we got disconnected ). I never enjoy retiring.

Also the same goes for walkovers. I never want to recieve a walkover and i would never want to give a walkover without some valid reason

[coke4]

I don't think there should be any kind of penalty (I mean...you're already penalized. You lose the match!), but it's not something that should be condoned or accepted either....it's really quite sad to quit at a video game because you are losing, I mean think about it, at that point you're not really any different from the kid who tips over the Monopoly board so nobody can play.

To answer the question, I don't think retiring is ever justified and quite frankly it makes you look like a bitch, but there shouldn't be any 'penalty' or anything (if that's even in question, which I don't know) Eventually word-of-mouth marks these people as quitters and nobody worth a damn takes them seriously anyways

I think it is sadder to play a video game when you are having no fun than to quit it, as what is the point of playing a game if its not fun?

I think if the opponent is playing chessy, and you are not enjoying the match, it is ok to quit. If your opponent is playing cheesy then they are playing to win no matter what, so you retiring gives them the win so they dont care as they have won and you have just spared yourself half an hour or possibly more of boredom.

[GOA MASTER MDMA]

everyone can quit the match(btw i never had quit )
i think there is no need for punishing by retireing a match.
its enough that you earn no points in the tournament when you quit the match .

my personell opinion is that it is also wrong to give no tournament points by retireing !!
maybe itst change this in future-

[Baghdad Baghdatis]

Interesting, quite a wide range of opinions to be fair.

Just picking up on a few points...

I guess everyone has the right to do what they want. However, I am of a changed opinion that says if there are repeat offenders that are notorious for annoying styles of play then do not enter the match knowing this.

If fun is what you want then do no enter the match and expect the player to suddenly play what you believe is fun whenever they have never displayed that before.

99% of the time players quit because they are losing (e.g. 6-1, 4-0 etc) and therefore should continue to play. I think what a few of you are forgetting is that you are thinking about yourself and what is fun for you. An opponent who gets retired on regularly and probably gets quite a lot of poor choice words in PM's afterwards probably isn't having much fun at times, although winning probably makes up for it.

I bet that if a player was having a horrible match and then broke the opponent to take 1 say 5-3 lead you would NEVER see that player retiring - yes they may still really not enjoying the tennis but knowing that they can withstand the awkward style to take the win and move onto the next round.

Let me make it clear however that I hate ugly styles as much as the next and wish that everyone could play fun and SIM like topspin. However realistically I have learnt that not everyone believes in this and quite rightly have their own perception of fun and video gaming as folk have pointed out in the past - for me therefore it is a grinding my teeth exercise but I will show my opponent the respect he deserves as a fellow member.

My suggestion (e.g. deduct points) was just a random thought I said by "just thinking out loud here" - I hadn't even convinced myself it was a good idea. On to the next me thinks

Goa, by the way, if a player retires from a match during ANY stage then the retiring player gets the points up to that stage. ONLY "Walkovers" does the absent opponent not receive any points. Thats how I understood it anyway. So where is the punishment?

Anyway, a poll and a forum is there to get all thoughts, and mine is only 1 thought....

[jayl0ve]

I don't think there should be any kind of penalty (I mean...you're already penalized. You lose the match!), but it's not something that should be condoned or accepted either....it's really quite sad to quit at a video game because you are losing, I mean think about it, at that point you're not really any different from the kid who tips over the Monopoly board so nobody can play.

To answer the question, I don't think retiring is ever justified and quite frankly it makes you look like a bitch, but there shouldn't be any 'penalty' or anything (if that's even in question, which I don't know) Eventually word-of-mouth marks these people as quitters and nobody worth a damn takes them seriously anyways

I think it is sadder to play a video game when you are having no fun than to quit it, as what is the point of playing a game if its not fun?

I think if the opponent is playing chessy, and you are not enjoying the match, it is ok to quit. If your opponent is playing cheesy then they are playing to win no matter what, so you retiring gives them the win so they dont care as they have won and you have just spared yourself half an hour or possibly more of boredom.

I understand if somebody is flat-out abusing an actual glitch (like the inside the baseline returning) but unless your opponent's just cheating somehow, you need to suck it up and at least finish the match IMO. ESPECIALLY if it's an 'official', ranked match (in ITST). Losing is not supposed to be fun, it's part of competing. I doubt you quit matches where you're winning comfortably and hitting amazing shots left and right because it's so 'BORING' that you're winning so easily. Gimee a break, it has nothing to do with being 'bored' or 'not having fun'. I've quit plenty of matches I know the feeling, it's not out of boredom, it's out of total rage and disgust with yourself.

BTW I'm not tryin to bash you or argue with your or anything, I mean you have your opinion I have mine, and they're way different obviously, but at the same time there's no anger here so I just want to make that clear

[Baghdad Baghdatis]

I don't think there should be any kind of penalty (I mean...you're already penalized. You lose the match!), but it's not something that should be condoned or accepted either....it's really quite sad to quit at a video game because you are losing, I mean think about it, at that point you're not really any different from the kid who tips over the Monopoly board so nobody can play.

To answer the question, I don't think retiring is ever justified and quite frankly it makes you look like a bitch, but there shouldn't be any 'penalty' or anything (if that's even in question, which I don't know) Eventually word-of-mouth marks these people as quitters and nobody worth a damn takes them seriously anyways

I think it is sadder to play a video game when you are having no fun than to quit it, as what is the point of playing a game if its not fun?

I think if the opponent is playing chessy, and you are not enjoying the match, it is ok to quit. If your opponent is playing cheesy then they are playing to win no matter what, so you retiring gives them the win so they dont care as they have won and you have just spared yourself half an hour or possibly more of boredom.

I understand if somebody is flat-out abusing an actual glitch (like the inside the baseline returning) but unless your opponent's just cheating somehow, you need to suck it up and at least finish the match IMO. ESPECIALLY if it's an 'official', ranked match (in ITST). Losing is not supposed to be fun, it's part of competing. I doubt you quit matches where you're winning comfortably and hitting amazing shots left and right because it's so 'BORING' that you're winning so easily. Gimee a break, it has nothing to do with being 'bored' or 'not having fun'. I've quit plenty of matches I know the feeling, it's not out of boredom, it's out of total rage and disgust with yourself.

Exactly, and I have learnt that the hard way myself and knowing the real reasons that i did it after having time to reflect - also then learning how to combat it in the future. My option, as I will display in my ITST match later today vs EPOX FR is to play through the whole match even if I am losing and down and out.

However if there are two tournaments on at the same time and I see an opponent in there that I do not like playing I will enter the other tournament - that I feel is my only valid reason for not playing someone and is not hurting anyone. I am just being honest here...

[GOA MASTER MDMA]

Goa, by the way, if a player retires from a match during ANY stage then the retiring player gets the points up to that stage. ONLY "Walkovers" does the absent opponent not receive any points. Thats how I understood it anyway. So where is the punishment?

i thought when you retire you got no tournament points !
but its possible that i´m wrong here .

i think at all we need no punishment for a player who retired the match.

[Moralspain]

Goa, by the way, if a player retires from a match during ANY stage then the retiring player gets the points up to that stage. ONLY "Walkovers" does the absent opponent not receive any points. Thats how I understood it anyway. So where is the punishment?

i thought when you retire you got no tournament points !
but its possible that i´m wrong here .

Baghdad is right about the points stuff