[Garyon]

Originally Posted by Nephi

More important than number of messages is join date, imho. Have a look at that before shouting "cheat" ! One may not be very talkative or, like myself, find all the info he needs by only reading, and still be entitled to vote , I believe !

Anyway, good luck to all competitors, and may the best design win

I don't think anyone is yelling "CHEAT" ... but despite the dates or even the posts, it is highly unusual for a single design to get a HUGE block of votes at once. It definitely an occurance that could lead to some questions.

That being said, I can also think of a couple of very legitimate reasons why someone might pick up votes in this way. the two that stand out most are simply time zones ... and friends. As I mentioned in a post before ... I won't fault a person's friends for being loyal.

Although I think we would be remiss if we didn't point out a 3rd option ... Perhaps the design in question is light years above the rest and gains such wide appeal that one cannot help but vote for it.

EDIT: For the record ... While I don't believe that any "cheating" is taking place... but there is definitely something different about the manner in which voting is occurring.

[Garyon]

Originally Posted by ckoi7arnak

hop hop hop ...
Sorry but just an answer about those whose talking about some possible cheating...
I'm not a cheater and I don't pay anybody to vote for me
That's just a french poker community that help one of them. Some guys are registered since a long time on CT the others not (it's true) but they're all poker players since a long time. And they like chips like everybody there.
But like I said, I don't pay anybody and they voted normally for the chips they like. (yes it could be strange that's mine. Perhaps because I have some of their family members - that's what we call French-Connection ?? )
They voted for this contest only because one of them is in.

But to be fair-play you can remove any votes that not fit the rules like wrote by DiceCaller for the PI contest or if that disturbs whoever.
I don't want to disturb anybody.

Regards,
Joel.

You posted while I was posting, so my previous post does not take your response into consideration. But to be honest this is something along the lines of what I suspected.

You should absolutely keep your votes and thank your friends ...

You DO have a good design and as Nephi and Tim point, out just because some people don't "talk" much doesn't make their voices any less important.


Good Luck !!!

[djexacto]

It was a tough call, but I eneded up voting for feen666's design. I like the nice clean look of the graphics, the colors, and the diamond theme carried over to the background and edges.

[JHickle]

Originally Posted by Nephi

More important than number of messages is join date, imho. Have a look at that before shouting "cheat" ! One may not be very talkative or, like myself, find all the info he needs by only reading, and still be entitled to vote , I believe !

Anyway, good luck to all competitors, and may the best design win

I did not yell "Cheat" and am not yet calling anyone a cheater. I just find it very odd that a design that should have a limited fan base (IMO) due to the specific theme is winning by a landslide based on votes from members who are not typically "active" on this board. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with the design, it is very well done, but just not my style

19 votes from members with 152 total post
of which
11 votes (60%) from members with 0 posts
4 votes (20%) from members with 5 or less posts
4 votes (20%) from members joining CT in May08.

[pokerplayingpisces]

Congratulations to everyone on their designs! This is going to be a real hard decision.

[Turner Profit]

Originally Posted by Garyon

You posted while I was posting, so my previous post does not take your response into consideration. But to be honest this is something along the lines of what I suspected.

You should absolutely keep your votes and thank your friends ...

You DO have a good design and as Nephi and Tim point, out just because some people don't "talk" much doesn't make their voices any less important.


Good Luck !!!

I concur. I was quick to respond in light of the other contest. While I was skeptical, I did find it hard to believe that Ckoi's integrity was questionable (and I apologize sincerely for any part I may have played in this). I believed then and still believe that Ckoi is a stand-up guy (and a fantastic designer). So I wish him and the rest of the designers continued luck. So lets bring this back to what it's all about. Great designs and great chip deals!
peace.

[specksynder]

For those who didn't follow the design process, I wanted to point out that my design are "panoramic" images stretched across the two sides of the chip. The great photos that Martin took show both sides of the chips, and the image below shows how each pair fits together. Obviously, each side should be able to stand alone, but here you go!

[handsomepants1]

Originally Posted by specksynder

For those who didn't follow the design process, I wanted to point out that my design are "panoramic" images stretched across the two sides of the chip. The great photos that Martin took show both sides of the chips, and the image below shows how each pair fits together. Obviously, each side should be able to stand alone, but here you go!

Thanks for clarifying that, Spec. While I knew that already (and, frankly, think it's a really cool idea), I'm sure that many others out there did no know how they all "fit" together. Nice job!

[CousinReno]

This is going to be my first post on chiptalk because I do not want to be the cause of any kind of injustice to cKoi7arnak.

I fell in the category that someone stated earlier in this thread: I am not a "talky" member of CT, but I have been around for a while, a year to be precise.
I have already voted for another sunfly contest:
http://www.chiptalk.net/forum/sun-fl...3-03-08-a.html
(I voted for Specksynder at the time although I had 0 post)
I also exchanged PMs with SuckoutKing.

Being french like cKoi has nothing to do with my actual vote, I just think is design is great (especially due to its pastel colors).

Indeed, as pointed out before, it seems that some members of our french poker forum registered recently on CT in order to vote for cKoi design. Whether or not their vote was objective is not the question: I think those votes should be removed so the competition remains fair (and we would therefore see who made the best design).

That being said, and to make the most of my first post , I'd like to congratulate all the designers for their great job!

Good luck everyone!

[bascombe]

Hello everyone,

Since I seem to account for two thirds of the chiptalk posts among Ckoi7arnak's supporters in this competition, I'd like to put in a word on the situation which is developing.

Ckoi7arnak is a fairly recent but very active member at clubpoker.net and one of our best designers. He has been very unselfish in helping our members design chips and inlays without ever charging for his services, and is therefore quite popular among the French chip geeks. He opened a thread to ask us for comments and advice on the design for this competition, not to help him with the poll. We all got very enthusiastic and tried to give him our best advice so he could fine-tune his project.

The inevitable consequence of that is that his set has a strong support among French chiptalkers who almost all happen to be "CPists" as well. This of course creates a bias but shouldn't be assimilated to plain cheating. On the one hand there is definitely a sense of community which might blur our judgement (but then this can probably be said about any other designer with an established reputation on this board). On the other hand since some of us gave advice and thus influenced the final result - even for a little bit - it is only natural that the set should please us more. Finally, and this aspect shouldn't be underestimated, there is undoubtedly a European touch to the approach, both in theme and design, which we simply might find more appealing.

Some of the other designs are very slick and professional looking, are indeed very finely executed (I think in particular of Garcyon's) but have a generic approach which I personally find boring. I like Ckoi7arnak's because it has a soul, and I also like Specksynder's for the same reason. In the same vein I don't like Ckoi7arnak's design for the PalmImport competition, because it's too generic. Also, I think he tried his best to take advantage of the bigger design by using very fine textures and lettering, even though the textured chips haven't fully rendered that.

To come back the French connection issue, I think it would be fair to cut the votes cast by new members who just registered on Chiptalk to vote for this competition (and some of our members certainly did that). I admit we got a bit carried-over in the thread on his project, and we should have had more discipline. I just wanted to make it clear that the support for Ckoi7arnak was spontaneous, albeit clumsy, and based on a real interest in chips (clubpoker.net has 20,000 registered users and a call for votes would have resulted in something much more dramatic on this poll). So I hope he doesn't get the ban for wrong reasons.

To end on a lighter note, it is no little irony that Ckoi7arnak's pseudo is short for "C'est quoi cette arnaque ?" which more or less means "There is something fishy in this".