I remember placing the 2 last and being upset.

Gabe

Can I ask you a question about your post 5159. The bottom zone has me troubled. I play the Dynasty most of the time, and am just starting to get more comfortable with advanced. With respect to the Dynasty, I have been left and right on the bottom with the 1 and really find that the left is the natural spot for me. Here is my reasoning.

Let's say that 5s are your inner major chain in a Dynasty optimal. Lots of time when you play the Dynasty you get extra 5s early and need to place them where they wont get orphaned. Because only one 5 per rack can go in the middle, this seems to happen often. So, if you want to keep correct 1 placement options open, you can only handle one extra 5 in racks 1-4, and that 5 would go in the bottom middle of the right zone.

I really want to keep my 1 to the left on the bottom zone because it allows me not only an extra spot to connect a 5 to the chain, but it is also the first connection you will make with 5s. (assuming starting in the southeast is the best way to approach things as if you run dry on 5s and rich on 4s, the NW is available to snake your 4s.

I know the reasoning you have above for keeping the 1 to the right, but isn't it pretty rare that the spot where you want the third 1 to go (upper left of bottom zone) will even be open? That spot has lots of competition (6s,4s even 2s) and is one that you really try to keep open as late as you can.

Anyway, I just find myself needing a spot to keep a 5 connected (bottom right) and needing the upper left spot for other things more often than not, and playing the 1 to the left seems more beneficial.

Thoughts?

Note: I know a 1 should clearly be in bottom right in the advanced with a normal alignment because the two primary chains run NW to SE.

I agree. Moreover, if you're placing three 1s in the left zone, you can't then also place three 1s in the bottom zone the way he described.

I also think he is wrong about the right zone for similar reasons. The right zone upper square is perfect for connecting spare 4s, and you need it almost every game. The 1 benefits he described don't occur that often. In particular, you get full Dynasty strategy over half the time, and when that happens you chain 5s to bottom and right zones first.

timed going on if anyone wants to jump in

A few questions about tournament stats:

- If I add a tournament rating, should it count all tournaments (other than goose eggs), or be restricted to "big" tournaments (however we choose to define that).

- How finely would you like to see the data broken down? Do you want to know how many times you've finished in the top 4 of a crabshoot? Win % in all 16 person tournaments? Winning % vs certain players? There are a million ways we could slice this, but I don't want to go too crazy. Or maybe I do. Let me know what you think.

- Does anyone care about goose egg rating?

- What else do you guys want to see? I can't promise that I'll get to all of it, but I'm willing to take a crack at the most popular requests.

I'd like to see all tournaments, not just the "big" ones as that would give a better rating IMO. Would it be possible to do tournament ratings similar to daily ratings in that you do better or worse than expected against your opponent? Also, I like the idea of where someone ended up in a tourney since I've done a lot of second best lately.

I think goose egg ratings would be good since it's a totally different approach to the game.

The more stats, the better. Goose ratings would definitely be cool as well

I'd like to see tourney ratings as well. A couple of thoughts.

1. It might be good to initially exclude goose tournament games (reverse scoring) to just see how the rating system for reg tournaments work out. Once the kinks get worked out then Zac could then apply a rating system to goose tourney games.

I like the goose games but find there are only about 5 or 6 strategic things you can do in the game, and everyone seems to be pretty much equal at doing these. Just my opinion but I am not sure how informative the ratings will be.

2. For the reg tourneys, I guess one question would be whether all tourneys should count or just designated ones. If the formulas are based on the strength of the person you beat, then I can see lots more H2H or 4 person tourneys. These could pop up in the day and could fill quickly. Basically it would be like timed only more flexible. That would be good and scoring for all tourneys played factoring into your rating would work. Also, the number of tournaments would go up considerably.

Arjun13 and I could play 30 tourney games a day, if he could put up with my plodding pace of play....lol

But, if Zac can create a formula for tourneys that rewards wins and strength of your opponent, can you still factor in extra value for winning larger tournaments. I have no idea this would work on a programming level but winning a 16 person 9 game tourney is of greater value than winning a 8 person crabshoot. Of course if there is no extra bonus for winning the tourney, then there is no problem.

For example, I don't know if the DCs have some sort of rating bonus for winning, or is it strictly based on your play relative to the field?

Just me but I think a tourney rating is all we need (unless you have time for the other stats like H2H, etc).

If winning a tourney is not part of the formula, and the formula is just based on strength of opponent, then all tourneys should count. See my other post about how having all tourneys counting and just basing rating on strength of opponent might increase play on the site.

If you are going to give a winning bonus as well as a strength of opponent factor, wont that be really hard to program, and wont it also result in some double counting and over inflation of ratings?

Also Zac, how would tourney ratings work? Would they rate on opponent versus opponent on a game by game basis, or a match by match basis? There are pros and cons to both ways, but game by game would probably be a more valid and reliable metric. Unless you have a way to factor in the closeness of a match that does not look at game to game play within the tourney.

PS. I am glad you know how to do all this programming.

I think the most valuable stat is an overall rating. Other stuff, like H2H, could be fun but not so important. Average score could be fun though.

I think with tournament rating, the most important thing is to rate by match win, not game. So for this, we need to come up with a good way (probably binomial) to weight for different match lengths and tournament sizes.

I had a very unique spot in rack 8 of this game.
Never seen that before. The 2, 3 and first 6 are obvious, but how to play the 4 and last 6?
The curious fact is that both plays lead to the same score going into rack 9.

(7*4*25) + (6*6*9) = (7*4*16) + (6*6*16)

Knotwork at his DC rating protection scam again..... Below is his DC from yesterday. He should have a red rating pretty soon at this rate...lol

Not sure why this bugs me but I am guessing it is because every other player has integrity and just takes their DC rating drops on bad days.

Since cheating at the DC is supereasy, I think this lolobvious angleshoot doesn't even deserve attention.

I read that in the past there were dual account issues or friends telling friends, but in the 3 months I have been playing I have not noticed any suspicious DC wins?

Are you saying it is easy to cheat in the DC (which is correct), or that it is easy to cheat undetected? The latter would be the only concern.

Having said that, there are a couple of very weak players that only occasionally play the DC, and always play back to back. Other than a T2 score two days ago by one of them, I have never seen anything threatening arise from their play.

Gabe, I know my point on Knotwork is minor, but let me say that the sportsmanship on this site is awesome. They way the top players (including you) converse with, share strategy with, and welcome newer players is great. The way the top players support improvement of new players is also great.

I think that Zac, the "reds" and the top blues set a tone for how the game should be played, and that includes having the class to finish your DC games. Guess that was my point.

I sent knotwork an email, hopefully that's enough.

As for ratings, I was thinking of using the same algorithm that I do for timed and DC. It's similar to ELO, so beating someone with a high rating gains more points, while losing to someone with a lower rating drops more points.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glicko_rating_system (plus an uncertainty penalty for people who haven't played many games or haven't played lately)

Would it be possible to have a 'last 100 days' table for the DC, or something similar? I think it would be a) interesting and b) might give everyone something to chase even if your section of the all time standings are a bit moribund for whatever reason.

timed running if anyones interested in joining

I think this is a very good direction to explore. I might break it down further into monthly stats, but 100 days would also work.

Timed: Any tips for getting better at timed? Feeling that the people I am playing are playing their normal tourney type games but I am just making tons of errors like blocking chains, not noticing incomplete chains, really bad 1, and 2 placement, and not setting up rack 8 well for rack 9 possibilities. Feel like I am playing like an 1150 DC rated player. I would like to say it is just errors but it is both errors and poor decisions, ones I would not normally make if I didn't feel pressured to rush.

I am ok playing the Dynasty but finding the need to play advanced more and more due to the numbers, but am getting lost in the advanced at times. I think I am forcing a dynasty at times where it isn't going to play well post flop, just to avoid getting lost in a broken advanced opening. I guess I just need to practice advanced over and over until I don't have to stop and think as much. Kind of answered my own question I guess....lol

I play all games slow to begin with, so that probably doesn't help. I bet I spend 10 minutes on the DC, and 5 or 6 mins on a tourney game and for most of you that is probably lol to you young folks...

lolTH10

He was bragging about his winning streak in 9-ers and after that I beat him 3 times in a row in big randoms

Time to cast the anti jinx

I remember you helped me set up a spreadsheet to calculate this for my college apartment ping pong games

Considering 2016 is just around the corner, perhaps the same idea could be accomplished with a 2016 DC wins list. That would address kokiri's point about having something for everyone to chase.

Also, there are lots of interesting rankings/ratings on other pages but the main page (lower left) always shows just the DC wins. Can you rotate in other tables?

For example, could that lower left area be reset at midnight and show DC all-time wins on one day, DC 2016 wins on the next day, DC rating on the next day, Tourney rating (to come) on the next day, Timed rating on the next day, etc.

Or. maybe there is a better frequency than daily for time of display for any ranking/rating.

I know these tables are available on other pages, but timed (for example) has had a fair amount of activity lately, so seeing the timed rankings cycle through on the main page now and then might be cool.

http://triplechain.net/tournaments/3159

My semifinal in this goose series was a solid lol. I was down 5-1 with 1 draw, and 1 game where I forgot to goose, so would certainly lose the tiebreak. Then I won a couple, and subArctic forgot to goose, and managed to score barely more than my blip, so I was alive coming into the final game, where somehow I managed to create a chain across 2 squares, and thus lost.

Seriously though, the f do I have to do to win?