So this is my first time ever playing this. I hope y'all can take that into account when considering to invite be back lol.

What are some of the simple things I can do to iterate on how I played this?

Can also answer questions. I couldn't clue 'round' or something like it early because there was a mix of matches between the teams, and 'round table' makes a ton of sense. Im sure this is a situation yall have dealt with a lot, but i havent read thru every game.

Thoughts? help me help you!

Also thank you filthy, i saw your cheerleading but wasnt sure it was appropriate to make remarks outside the game as the spymaster

Here's the board, fwiw:


Moon
Pupil
Loch ness
Bed
Bomb
Pie
Sink
Olympus
Circle
Well
Glove
Jam
Drop
Net
Film
Ground
Wind
Ice cream
Slug
Dog
Germany
Theater
Orange
Ball
Table

moon and circle are both round also

I think you just go round - 6 on turn 2 as we'll always guess ball before table, so we won't hit assassin that turn

bed and sink can then be clued turn 3 along with us making up rest on our list

also, you are always invited to play

looking at that board to start, I see 3 groupings of words:

loch ness & olympus
moon/pupil/bomb/pie/circle
bed & sink

usually you want to try to win in 3 turns as red, so having 3 groups is good

the issue is that you have 2 neutral words (orange/ball) that will be guessed for round before some of the 5 actual red round words, so that means that you'll need to clue round early, likely on turn 1...I don't mind neutral words being blockers bc they don't hurt us, but I do look to clue early when I have those blockers so they can be guessed and removed, or so I have time to clue off of them; having 2 means you gotta clue round turn 1 if you are going to go that path, otherwise it'll be closed to you because we'll always go ball and orange ahead of some of the other words

for example, turn one you go round - 5 and we likely have a list like:

circle
ball
moon
orange
pie
pupil
bomb
table


we get circle and then stopped on neutral ball

moon is ours but orange is not, so you can clue mythical - unlimited for loch ness/olympus and then we make up the list and get moon and stopped on orange

but since you did unlimited not 2, we hit orange, which unblocked the last blocker

you then do clue for bed+sink - unlimited (tempurpedic? pillowtop? mattress?) and we get bed/sink then go down the list with pie/pupil/bomb

that's a really hard board because i don't think you can clue round. round table is a famous thing from king arthur. i'd be guessing table way before pupil, and maybe before bomb and pie

maybe pick some other word that means round, but can't be a clue for "round table".. maybe oval? but i don't really like that either lol

i think this board is too hard to get in 3. i'd probably go for 4 and just hope that blue misses

That’s why capitalization should matter and you should use it as spymaster when it applies

Round = guess table
round = don’t guess it (except just from some tables are round, not from King Arthur)

Roundtable discussions are also a thing. I would've had a hard time not putting table on my list there.

Keep playing, TBob - you're a welcome addition!

tbob def a great addition!

It’s def on the list, just lower than round things like pie and circle and pupil etc.

But if team puts it higher then just have to do 0 clue on turn 2, which makes it a 4 turn game but what are ya gonna do

Wow, nich thank you so much for that explanation. I completely had my thought on round wrong, thinking I should avoid false guesses.

Real quick, are you saying that if table is next on the list you might do round - 0 (so, round again)? or whatever your next clue is supposed to be, you put xyz - 0 to take them off table?

if table as assassin is next on list, then yeah you should do a 0 clue to get us off table

clue us off anything that is bad at that point, so if we still have orange on the list also then if you can clue us off of orange and table then even better; but make sure it's clear that table is bad so we don't guess it


in general you want to avoid your team putting the assassin and the other team's words on their list if possible, but i'm not worried about them putting neutrals on the list, as long as it's not the last turn


in this case they'll put table on the list, but it will be below ball/orange so isn't a huge danger at first...the hope is they put it under all of the actual ones so you don't need to clue 0 to get them off table


there is some meta as well; like I use capitalization purposefully so my team generally would think I would capitalize Round for the Round Table and that I didn't capitalize it means table is much less likely to be ours...if any of the words on my list could use the capitalized version of the clue then I'll do it, otherwise I won't capitalize

So after an initial turn of round - n, If they guess less than n and the remaining list has table at the top, i can clue excel - 0 to get them off table and trigger them to finish with the list next turn? Something like that?

anytime you want you can clue 0 to clue people off of any words that match your clue


so yeah, if you think your team is going to guess the assassin, then you can use 0 to clue them off...it won't trigger them to finish the list tho, but going unlimited the next time after the 0 clue will have them finish the list as that's what unlimited means (other than sometimes in end game)


sometimes you even clue 0 first, if you have a big clue with some blockers


like say your 8 words as blue are: eagle, fish, snail, octopus, lion, tiger, wasp, monkey but the assassin is hawk and no other animal words are on the list

you'd use first turn to do 0 clue on hawk and second turn you clue animals - 8 to win

Nich v filthy

Ambulance
Antarctica
Chest
Crash
Czech
Degree
Draft
Engine
Fighter
Fish
Jack
Kangaroo
Lead
Mouth
Mug
Organ
Pan
Plot
Point
Pole
Scuba diver
Star
Strike
Tick
Tube

if this is even i'm red

it's odd, so it's filthy

Clancy - 3

Jack and Plot

Maybe Draft?

Ambulance
Antarctica
Chest
Crash
Czech
Degree
Draft
Engine
Fighter
Fish
Jack
Kangaroo
Lead
Mouth
Mug
Organ
Pan
Plot
Point
Pole
Scuba diver
Star
Strike
Tick
Tube


Jack & Plot yes. I think I'd put Strike third, given what his books are about.

Other potential words:

Fighter
Draft
Star (as in the communist star)
Czech - a communist country
Scuba diver (Hunt for Red October? It's weak)

Jack
Plot

Yeah, Strike makes sense. I guess maybe filthy could be gone with something like Kerouac of he just wanted Jack and two writing words.

Jack
Plot

After thinking further, I'm 50/50 on strike & fighter. AFAIC, go ahead and bold whichever you're more comfortable with

Strike
Fighter

Draft
Star
Czech
Scuba diver