In gaming a 'Clown Fiesta' describes a situation where an alternating series of opportunities to either close a game out for a win or make significant gains occur but neither side manages to do so due inexplicable levels of incompetance.
An example in the
game of professional
soccer would be something like a goal keeper falling over his own
feet and fumbling the ball during a goal
kick allowing it to roll neatly to the
feet of an opposition striker who must surely
now score but who somehow manages to kick the ball into his own face rather than the goal.
These events should not be happening, these are extremely skilled and experienced players and these are huge errors at a level of play where even minor errors would be extremely painful and potentially
game losing.
During a clown fiesta it is no longer possible to have any faith in predicting outcome, the
game state becomes meaningless as the players involved can no longer be trusted to be able to captialise on their advantages.