Right now I'm trying to turn the opening sequences in post 33 into my bible a little bit and really get to understand why they are so good.
Also, working through the two that you mentioned.

I think getting 50 games under my belt first will help. =)

Screenshot from the Tournaments tab under the "Winners" section of the TripleChain site.

See schedule for the 2017 majors. The 19 game format seems to be working fine, and the level of interest is strong (over 20 players for each major).

I just pushed the Masters up to March so that the majors are spread out a bit more over the year.

Same post as on the TC site

If anyone (or more than one!!!) of you would like to have a 50 Game H2H match between now and the new year, just let me know here or on TC chat. I can ask Zac to set one up.

I know most people like to go last in tourneys, but I actually like going first. So, if I do go first I wont get more than 10 games ahead of whoever I am playing (might stop me from rushing my games..lol). thx folks...

Have some stuff to work on and 50 games would be good as the tourney action is pretty slow over the holidays ...

Sick beats. Lost to Arjun 5-4 in the latest random. In the 9th game round 2 TC errors so i somehow lost a 2 in round 2. Tried to play it like the 2 was there still and woulda just edged Arjun for the win.

Also, if be interested in some longer series or a mini free for all as an end of the year type thing but can't commit til thursday at the earliest. I will also resume creating the Crabshoots again at that point for anyone interested

That sucks waffles. Have had the missing number thing happen to me before, but the TC site counted it as if it was there. Not in your case.

A Holiday mini FFA would be fun...

That sucks, can we ask Zac to put you in the final?

I'm up for a FFA as well. Even the 50 game one as a FFA or anything really.

I think I may have been glitched in the DC today. Either that or my brain completely switched off for a second.

No worries. Just a letdown at the time. Games actually glitches a lot less for me since the last time zac mention an update so kudos if you still come in here.

For a free for all, id be good with 25-50 games over a 2 week/month period. If zac could just open it up for 3 days like usual and whoever can join that would be good. What scoring categories did we wanna do? Total wins, avg score, HU, lenC? I should have time to set up a sheet this weekend i once we decide.

I find the following common opening (4/2/2 advanced, paired middle) to present some really tough decision making, and I really like to avoid tough decisions....lol

The one below is especially tough because of the 654 in rack 5. Normally the 6 goes centre, the 5 goes south and the tough call is with the 4.

The 4 is either going low left in the top zone or low right in the top zone, and once you decide there is no turning back.

Does/would anyone here consider putting the 4 centre, 6 top left in the east, and the 5 south just as a way to buy time and delay the decision on whether the two key north and west squares are being held for the 4s or the 5s?


Thoughts...

I think that theres at least 3 spots id rather put that 6 tbh. I know youre trying to increase the mobility of the 5s while keeping the 6s alive but in doing so youre hurting yourself if both 4s and 5s would get there (more likely)

Sorry waffles. The question isn't about keeping the 6s alive. The conflict is between the 5s and 4s, as they are both wanting the same squares in the west and north. See how Derwi commited those two squares to the 5s right away, and I committed them to the 4s. The 6s are unimpacted. We both 5 zone our 6s, regardless of playing our 5s and 4s differently.

The question is whether putting a 4 in the middle in rack 6 (instead of the 6 in the middle) can give a person more info/time before making the commitment on 4s/5s that each of Derwi and I were forced to make in rack 6.

Sorry if I didn't explain it well. The game turns on where you place the 4 in rack 6. But it may not have to if you don't place the 6 in the centre and use the centre for the 4.... or al least that is what I am pondering.

I'd play it they way you did, Arctic. Racks 6-8 had four 5s and only one 4. Unlucky but I'd guess it's the better play. This is taking into consideration that you got more 4s than 5s early on. Seems like the EV of the 4 chain is higher than the 5 chain.

I will say that I lose a fair share of games making this play though. Not sure how many I win by making them. It might not be correct.

Thx Aicirt. I am not so much worried about whether Derwi's play was better than mine or vice versa but whether putting the 4 in middle in rack 6 could be a better move than either Derwi or I made with our 4.

NOTE: As for the different approaches, I just think Derwi's was more aggressive (higher risk/reward) and mine was more passive/conservative. I think Derwi's play is great for a DC .

I worded my post poorly but yes i think you can make a case for not putting the 6 in the middle. But i think putting the 6 in the top box is suboptimal from a winEV standpoint because it limits the options vs placing it elsewhere. Although i end up with multiplier issues more than most people given that spot.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet that seems very noteworthy to me is that the 4s can also be snaked via the bottom left, making 4s the most flexible chain in the entire setup. You can snake them with 3 4s through the top left or 4 4s through the bottom left while you need 5 6s and 4 5s to snake them in the only realistically possible way.

I'm not even sure that mine is the more aggressive approach. Your approach commits you into 4s over 5s, making your only way to victory getting exactly 3 4s and less than 4 5s. My approach doesn't commit me to any chain, I can still snake any combination of 2 of them, I have only committed to needing 4 4s instead of 3 for snaking them. If I have a shortage of 6s I can go bottom left, if I have a shortage of 5s I can still go top left.

I also don't really like the suggestion of going 4 in the center. I see the benefit of keeping your options open as much as possible but it'd leave us in a spot where we have a lot of catchup to do to get even on the 6 chain in comparison to the 6 in the middle approach.

Unfortunately I don't know which approach is best but I like mine the most. Yours hard commits to 4s over 5s while 4 in the middle/6 to the east leaves the 6s in an awkward spot.

Also note that the problem you presented is actually rack 5, not rack 6

Thx Derwi. All Good points. And yes, of course it was rack 5. Sorry.

I get what you are saying about the flexibility of the 4s, and it is of course an easy call to start the long route with fours on a 445XX board, for example. I guess I just found this rack in particular a tough call with 654XX. It seemed to make the whole decision harder as the balance of relative chain value was pretty much the same as the rack before, and I needed to decide if I wanted to be looking for 3 fours and 3 fives, all while not knowing how the 6s will develop.. Or whether I should go for the 2 fours and sacrifice the 5th zone for 5s.


I have always found this board tricky. I usually end up with 4 zones of everything, while other people get 5, 5 and 3 zones


On the bolded part, I don't think the "exactly" three fours is correct. More than three 4s is fine as long as there are less than four 5s. I don't fall behind with additional 4s; I fall behind when it hits four 5s.

Thx

Hi Waffles....looks like you have been underwhelmed with replies...lol

Maybe, due to the seemingly low interest, a 20 to 25 game vanilla FFA between Christmas and new year might attract the most people. I wonder if we go 50 games if some people wont sign-up, or worse yet, sign-up and not complete their games.

If you think this is Ok I can email Zac and ask him to set one up for a 3 day registration. You could still do all the metrics too if you wanted.

Thoughts?

11th out of 27 in yesterday's DC. I was the only person to not snake 6s. I was really hoping for no 6s in rack 8.

Let's do this FFA.

I don't understand why you would restrict your options. Just play 4 to centre, 5 south, 6 east.

I requested a 25 game holiday FFA in chatroll and also emailed Zac. Hopefully we can get it set up. If waffles wants to do the 4 metrics then we can just let people know on Chatroll to refer to 2+2 for updates and or final results. If not, it should still be fine.

Keep in mind the TC site will show "most wins" as the Champion, so if there is going to be some other combined measure for the champ then whoever is keeping the stats or proposing that needs to let people know on chatroll how the winner is determined for this FFA.

Just would not want to see a situation where dogfloss (for example) had the most wins, but doesn't show up on the tournament summary sheet as the "winner" because some other criteria was in place for winning the she was not aware of because she is not on 2+2.

Let's hope we get 10+ people.

Care to expand? Are you talking about round 7?

4 to centre blocks the 5 chain, and has my 6 chain not in 4 zones.

I thought Paul was referring to my question in post 5709/5711...

no hes talking about rack 5 still. if you put the 4 in the center, you 5 south and 6 right (top left) you need 2 6s to not lose anything on 6s while still keeping the 4 and 5 options open. this was my first thought as well.

and i dont remember how we scored the official winner last time for the FFAs. it was prolly something like averaging finishing position of the 4 categories but i dont remember. if we want to do the average thats easy, or if you wanna keep it simpler and just do wins as the overall champion, i'm going to keep the stats anyway for anyone interested

The TC site calculated the winner for the last 10 game mini FFA as the most wins, and the tiebreaker was total score (and the tiebreaker was needed).

Waffles, if you are going to keep the stats and it is more fun with four metrics, then once the game is up and posted for registration, you can use chatroll to let people know how the winner is going to be determined, and where people can go to see the updated and final stats. If nothing gets posted prior to the games starting we'll just go with the site default for determining the champ (wins).

Your call, I guess..

Lol was talking about Sub's Round 5.

You actually only need one 6 (93.5%) as your second 6 will normally not be connected anyway. Plus it's a very small loss. Contrast that to blocking 5s, which can be a huge loss much more than 6.5% of the time, or potentially not snaking 4s, again a bigger loss, much more often.

Arjun and I had a similar decision (with 5s and 6s swapped), and both played the 4 to centre.