September 2021 DC Highlights

	DC Points
dogfloss	325
Bandwagon	249
SmalltownBoy	219
SubArcticK	217
Hg80	195
anton-09	185
NP	180
wafflesobv	177
velourfog	167
arjun13	163

	DC Wins
dogfloss	8
Bandwagon	4
SmalltownBoy	4
SubArcticK	4
anton-09	3
NP	3
wafflesobv	3
arjun13	3
Hg80	2
velourfog	2
shamsnemesis	2

Monthly Race

• dogfloss dominated the September DC race, winning for the first time since July 2020. Her eight DC wins (a personal best, tied for fourth-most all-time) and 17 top-five scores led the table by a wide margin, and her 325 points were the 13th-most in DC history.
  
• Bandwagon and SmalltownBoy finished second and third, respectively. Bandwagon tied for the most top-10 scores in September (21) and was second to dogfloss in top-five scores, with 14. It was also his third straight month in the top three. SmalltownBoy posted his first top-three finish ever, chalking up four wins and 12 top-five scores.
  
• SubArcticK and Hg80 rounded out the top five. SubArc's 25th consecutive top-10 finish was driven by four wins and 21 top-10 scores (tied with Bandwagon for the most), while Hg80 benefited from two wins and five second-place scores.
  
• Among the rest of the top 10 (who were separated by just 22 points), NP's seventh-place finish was his first appearance in the top 10 since June 2019, while arjun13 tied with Dynasty for 10th place, but had the tiebreaker advantage (3 wins vs. 1 for Dynasty) to hang on and extend his record consecutive top-10 streak to 36 months. Dynasty, Kokirixx, and Popcorn were just outside the top 10.

Milestones

• On September 4, dogfloss won her 300th game, the third player to reach this milestone.
• dogfloss also moved past Derwi into second place on the all-time DC points list.
• wafflesobv passed Alex in DC wins during the month, moving into the top 10 in all-time wins.
• Popcorn surpassed the 15,000 mark in DC points, the 12th player to reach that level.
• Cherrycin played her 1,500th DC in September, the 29th player to do so.

Stat of the Month

• 15: The number of players who played every DC in September. That's the most since March.

2021 Yearly Race

	Yearly Race
arjun13	167
SubArcticK	138
Dynasty	99
Bandwagon	76
velourfog	73
wafflesobv	64
dogfloss	52
anton-09	45
Derwi	40
Nimbusfan	31

	DC Wins
arjun13	36
SubArcticK	33
wafflesobv	32
Bandwagon	31
dogfloss	29
velourfog	27
anton-09	27
Dynasty	26
Derwi	26
Nimbusfan	23

	DC Points
arjun13	2398
SubArcticK	2091
Dynasty	1921
Bandwagon	1825
dogfloss	1783
velourfog	1777
wafflesobv	1738
anton-09	1644
Nimbusfan	1517
nails	1375

2021 TC DC Stats

TC DC Hall of Fame

October 2021 DC Highlights

	DC Points
arjun13	254
nails	239
SubArcticK	214
Bandwagon	213
Nimbusfan	212
wafflesobv	193
Popcorn	178
SmalltownBoy	169
velourfog	166
Dos	157

	DC Wins
arjun13	4
nails	4
Nimbusfan	4
wafflesobv	4
dogfloss	3
Guessinator	3
Hg80	3
7 players	2

Monthly Race

• arjun13 won the October DC race, his fifth monthly win so far in 2021. arjun posted the most top-10 scores (19), the most top-five scores (13), and tied for the most wins (4) during the month. It was arjun's 23rd monthly DC victory, tying him with Paul101 for the most all-time. He also extended his record streak of consecutive top-10 finishes to 37 months.
  
• nails took second place, posting his best finish since winning the December 2020 DC. nails tied arjun and two others for the most wins, and eight of his 16 top-10 scores were in the top 2.
  
• SubArcticK, Bandwagon, and Nimbusfan rounded out the top five, with the three separated by just two points. SubArcticK was second only to arjun in top-10 scores, with 18; Bandwagon was third with 17 top-10 scores; and Nimbus had just 13 top-10 scores but tied for the most wins.
  
• Among the rest of the top 10, wafflesobv's sixth-place finish was his ninth monthly top-10 finish in the last 10 months, while Dos made his first-ever appearance in the top 10 thanks to a seventh-place score on the last day of the month. dogfloss, Kampi77, and Donk4 were just outside the top 10.

Milestones

• SubArcticK passed Derwi to move into fourth place on the all-time yearly race points list.
• Bandwagon surpassed 10,000 DC points in October, the 19th player to reach that milestone.
• anton-09 became the third player to play his 4,000th DC, joining Dynasty and velourfog.
• Kokirixx passed Derwi to take over fifth place in DCs played.
• wafflesobv passed Donk4 to take over 10th place on the DCs played list.

Stat of the Month

• 10: Popcorn finished in every place in the top 10 at least once in September, the sixth time that's happened in 2021 and the first since wafflesobv and dogfloss both did it in June.

2021 Yearly Race

	Yearly Race
arjun13	192
SubArcticK	153
Dynasty	99
Bandwagon	88
velourfog	75
wafflesobv	72
dogfloss	52
anton-09	45
Nimbusfan	41
Derwi	40

	DC Wins
arjun13	40
wafflesobv	36
SubArcticK	35
Bandwagon	33
dogfloss	32
anton-09	29
velourfog	28
Dynasty	27
Nimbusfan	27
Derwi	26

	DC Points
arjun13	2652
SubArcticK	2305
Dynasty	2046
Bandwagon	2038
velourfog	1943
dogfloss	1938
wafflesobv	1931
anton-09	1786
Nimbusfan	1729
nails	1614

2021 TC DC Stats

TC DC Hall of Fame

November 2021 DC Highlights

	DC Points
arjun13	297
SubArcticK	246
Hg80	223
Dynasty	219
consul	200
SmalltownBoy	199
Bandwagon	179
wafflesobv	172
dogfloss	167
nails	155

	DC Wins
arjun13	6
Dynasty	5
SmalltownBoy	4
SubArcticK	3
Hg80	3
Bandwagon	3
velourfog	3
lilrascal	3
13 players	2

Monthly Race

• arjun13 has been dominating the DC all year, and that did not change in November -- arjun won his second consecutive monthly DC and sixth to date in 2021. arjun delivered the most wins (6), the most top-10 scores (20), and the most top-five scores (15) during the month. This monthly DC win was arjun's 24th overall, which is now the most all-time (surpassing Paul101's 23 monthly wins), and he extended his record streak of consecutive top-10 finishes to 38 months.
  
• SubArcticK finished in second place in November, his third consecutive month in the top five. SubArc was second in top-10 scores (18) and top-five scores (12), and he has now finished in the top 10 in 27 consecutive months, third-most all-time.
  
• Hg80, Dynasty, and consul rounded out the top five. Hg80's fourth-place score on the last day of the month propelled him into third place; Dynasty was second in wins (5) for the month; and consul had his best month since a fifth-place finish in July.
  
• Among the rest of the top 10, Bandwagon (sixth) and wafflesobv (seventh) both posted their sixth consecutive monthly top-10 finish, while nails (10th) had 17 top-10 scores, tied for third-most during the month, but only six of them were in the top five. Nimbusfan, velourfog, and Donk4 were just outside the top 10.

Milestones

• arjun13 passed Paul101 on two all-time lists, moving into second place in yearly race points and eighth place in total DC points.
• On November 19, anton-09 won his 300th DC, the fourth player to reach that milestone.
• On November 26, arjun won his 250th DC, the seventh player to do so.
• On November 21, nails won his 150th DC, joining 17 other players who had already reached that level.
• dogfloss became the fourth player to surpass 4,000 DCs played, along with Dynasty, velourfog, and anton-09.

Stat of the Month

• 7: In the November 2 DC, 11 players tied for the win -- the seventh DC this year with more than 10 players in a first-place tie. The most in any previous year was three.

2021 Yearly Race

	Yearly Race
arjun13	217
SubArcticK	171
Dynasty	111
Bandwagon	94
wafflesobv	76
velourfog	75
dogfloss	54
anton-09	45
Nimbusfan	41
SmalltownBoy	41

	DC Wins
arjun13	46
wafflesobv	38
SubArcticK	38
Bandwagon	36
dogfloss	34
Dynasty	32
anton-09	31
velourfog	31
Nimbusfan	29
Derwi	26
nails	26

	DC Points
arjun13	2949
SubArcticK	2551
Dynasty	2265
Bandwagon	2217
dogfloss	2105
wafflesobv	2103
velourfog	2089
anton-09	1926
Nimbusfan	1876
nails	1769

2021 TC DC Stats

TC DC Hall of Fame

Surprised with 2nd. Felt much worse. The month seemed like a reflection of the whole year

1. careless play (my bad)
2. playing ones horribly (my bad)
3. being on the wrong side of 2s in rack 9 (run bad)

I'd like to make one top 10 some time.

Obviously would have to get extraordinarily lucky to do so given the super-geniuses who play the game.

Donk being self deprecating Donk. Lol

You be plenty smart. Think of all the games a bunch of us triplechainers have played on POG. All triplechainers are smart.

I think what happens for most of us goes like this.

1 discover TC
2. Get curious and hooked
3 want to get half decent
4 decide that the game is worth x percent of your time and energy to get better
5 settle in to just playing and picking up new moves when they smack you in the face. Lol

Am guessing for most of us the difference in ratings or DC win percentage or whatever is down to number 4. How much energy was expended when the game was new to you.

I have talked to several Tc players over the years a couple have said the same thing. Pretty much that they knew they could pick up 10 more wins a year or 20+ rating points but that the initial learning interest wasn’t there any more and it just was not important to spend the time on. Quite content with just playing.

I think that is why we don’t see the regs move around much relative to each other. Not because any are smarter than each other but that we all spent a different amount of time and/or energy trying to understand the game and get better and we are now just playing off what we learned then.




That said, TH10 might be a genius. It sure seemed like it when I started. Lol. Paul also very good and liked to analyze the game. Stuff probably came quicker to players like those two but you can tell from posts back in the day that the wheels were always turning in trying to find an edge or optimize a tough situation.


Anyway, just some thoughts. It is easy to get motivated by the game at first. Pretty hard to get remotivated. Maybe especially because it is a high variance game and there is no real assurance that skills gained will get rewarded in a measurable way in the short term

Edit. Oh yeah. There is procrastination too. Every time I get 6544x in rack I say. Damn. I promised myself I would get a better opening than the crappy one I use now. Oh well. Maybe tomorrow I will give it some thought. Never happens. Lol.

Happy New Year, Triplechainers!

I haven't had time to do the December and full-year DC write-up yet (will get it done in the next couple days), but here's the link to the 2022 DC stats sheet:

2022 TC DC Stats

December 2021 DC Highlights

	DC Points
arjun13	330
velourfog	217
SmalltownBoy	204
SubArcticK	197
Hg80	170
Dynasty	168
Bandwagon	164
Guessinator	158
anton-09	144
Donk4	139

	DC Wins
arjun13	7
anton-09	4
SmalltownBoy	4
Bandwagon	4
Guessinator	4
Donk4	3
Cherrycin	3
8 players	2

Monthly Race

• arjun13 continued to own the DC race in December, securing his third consecutive monthly win (and seventh in 2021) en route to the second-best calendar-year performance in DC history (see the yearly race summary below for more details). arjun topped the table with seven wins, and 18 of his 20 top-10 scores were in the top five. It was arjun's 25th monthly win and 39th consecutive top-10 finish, both of which are all-time DC records.
  
• velourfog and SmalltownBoy came in second and third place, respectively, in December. v-fog tied arjun for the most top-10 scores with 20, while StB's fifth consecutive month in the top 10 was paced by four wins and four second-place scores among his 15 top-10 finishes.
  
• SubArcticK and Hg80 rounded out the top five. SubArc's win on December 30 vaulted him into fourth, and his 18 top-10 scores (which included at least one score in every top-10 place) were the third-most for the month. Hg80 posted 16 top-10 scores and held off a late charge from Dynasty and Bandwagon to finish fifth.
  
• Among the rest of the top 10, Bandwagon (seventh) finished in the top 10 for the seventh straight month, while Guessinator (eighth) and Donk4 (10th) finished in the top 10 for the first time in a year. Dos, mrgibson (welcome back!), and quaspl were just outside the top 10.

Milestones

• arjun13 passed Paul101 on the all-time wins lists, moving into sixth place.
• Bandwagon scored a hat trick, winning three consecutive DCs from December 15-17. It was the third hat trick in 2021 and the first since Nimbusfan's hat-trick-plus-one in late May and early June.
• A missed milestone from November -- Nimbusfan won his 50th DC on November 17, the 35th player to do so.

Stat of the Month

• 26.7: We averaged 26.7 players per DC in December, the most since a 27.6 average in April 2017.

2021 Yearly Race

arjun13 easily won his third consecutive yearly race and fourth in the last five years. The most dominant yearly performance in DC history was Paul101 in 2013, but arjun's performance in 2021 was a close second. Here's a comparison between the two (the numbers in parentheses are all-time rankings):

	Paul101 in 2013	arjun13 in 2021
Yearly Points	262 (1st)	242 (2nd)
Monthly Wins	7 (T-1st)	7 (T-1st)
DC Wins	56 (1st)	53 (2nd)
Total DC Points	3,452 (1st)	3,274 (2nd)
Best Monthly Score	411 in March (1st)	389 in Feb (2nd)

Other highlights from the 2021 yearly DC race:

• SubArcticK finished in second place for the second straight year, winning two monthly races and finishing second and third three times each. His 183 yearly points were ninth-most in DC history.
• Dynasty, Bandwagon, and velourfog rounded out the top five. Dynasty scored two monthly wins, Bandwagon posted six top-five monthly finishes, and velourfog finished second three times and third once.
• Among the rest of the top 10, SmalltownBoy's seventh-place finish was notable given he didn't start playing DCs until April. Nonetheless, StB finished 12th in DC points and tied for 10th in DC wins for the year.

	Yearly Race
arjun13	242
SubArcticK	183
Dynasty	119
Bandwagon	100
velourfog	93
wafflesobv	76
SmalltownBoy	56
dogfloss	54
Hg80	50
anton-09	47

	DC Wins
arjun13	53
SubArcticK	40
Bandwagon	40
wafflesobv	38
dogfloss	35
anton-09	35
Dynasty	34
velourfog	33
Nimbusfan	31
Derwi	28
SmalltownBoy	28

	DC Points
arjun13	3279
SubArcticK	2748
Dynasty	2433
Bandwagon	2381
velourfog	2306
dogfloss	2202
wafflesobv	2182
anton-09	2070
Nimbusfan	1970
Hg80	1901

2021 TC DC Stats

TC DC Hall of Fame

My fav song of all time
It is about time I came out

lol Gabe. I was tempted to post that Gaby had a good year (with a wink). Really, I was...

Anyway, a while back a player PMd me about this new guy to town.....SmallTownBoy.

My reply...

As time went on, based on level of play, it seemed it could only be you or maybe lenc.... but, lenc opened more like Paul/Alex/Arjun/me than SmallTownBoy. So, it leaned to you. But, tbh. I only looked at some of your early games and there was maybe some rust or goofing around and I did not think it was you right away.

But after time, I think the biggest giveaway might have been that STB had no interest in anything but a DC every day and also had a top tier win rate. How many past players do we have who can keep a win rate at 10% plus over 250 plus games??

Am guessing you wanted to dip you feet back in the waters but not mess with your 200wins/2000 games?

AK

PS. I had a crap year and am going to try and concentrate and get back into 2018 form.... that is my goal anyway. If I can't stay focused/interested then off to some other game I guess. Then, I might reappear in a couple of years as SmallerTownBoy...lol

I knew smalltownboy was an old player but didn't know if he was gabe, th10, paul, alex or what.

Scandal! Cover-up!



Good to have the guy who started this thread almost 11 years ago back in the game. It's always more fun when the field of players is deeper.

I think I have jinxed myself coming out

Just overtook you for last .

Hi folks. Happy New Year.

In an effort to get some discussions going on particular spots or plays or tactics, etc, I am going to try and post what I found to be tricky spot in a recent game. What I will do is post a screenshot and the next rack, and people can chime in on what they would do in the same situation. In a few days I will post what I did.

Maybe we all learn a little and the bonus for me is I get free feedback lol.

I will find out soon enough if this interests enough people to keep doing it. I will try to do one every week if there is interest, and if not I'll stop. Also, it would be great if anyone posted a tough spot for discussion.

2022-1 AK - Rack 7 decision..

What is your play N/E/S/W and Centre?

At first glance I thought "this is easy" and did what I would have done had I been playing this rack.

5 - south top right
5 - east bottom left
4 - center bottom right
3 - north top left
2 - west bottom left

But now I'm looking at something else that I think is easily better.

I think the 4 is always going center bottom right.

I'm putting the 5s in south top left and east bottom right and the 2 north top left and then chucking the 3 east top right.

This leaves more spots open for 1s while also leaving room to snake 6s or 5s depending on what comes in rack 8.

Tbh this is what I would do and I wouldn't even give it a 2nd thought.

yeah looking at it again i think the first way is better

2 top left
3 right top
5 left right
5 bottom right
4 center right

I think if you connect the 2s there will be very simple racks putting you in a quite awkward position (like a 1 and a 2).

If you connect the 2, you lose if you get 1 and 2 in rack 8 AND 1 and 2 in rack 9.

If you don't connect the 2, you lose if you get 0 2s. (16%)

I don't know what the exact percentage is for the first scenario but it has to be less that 16%. I connect the 2 and pray.

16% to get 0 2s, 32% to get 1 and 52% to get more. It's not only 1-2 combinations you need to worry about. Just a couple of 2s is enough

I snap do what Gabe said but I suck.

I would go with what donk said, but gabe's insight may change my play in the future. I mainly look at the immediate later on, but the future early on. I need to rethink all of this.

Maybe Donk play is better because you still can handle 2*2 in rack 8