ONE MOAR

I AM HERE TO GLOAT AGAIN

I am the only player in the universe that beat TH10 five times in a row in 9-ers, I bet.

An interesting and common spot in a dynasty.



Came across this while reviewing a tourney game between two top-5 players. The only numbers of interest are the 6 and 2nd 4.

Player 1 played 6 south zone, upper left and the 4 to the west zone top right.

Player 2 played 6 west zone, bottom right and the 4 to north zone, bottom left

I would have placed the 6 in the south zone, upper left and the 4 in west zone, bottom right.

Any clear correct play here??

Well, you want to be able to snake two chains as often as possible, which means sixes and fours not fives and anything.

How about, though:
4 left NE
4 top SW
6 middle SW

That risks being one 4 behind the other strategies if no 4 rolls off in round 8, but will win if 4,5,6 turns up (you can snake 4, 6, and 4-chain 5s).

For a tourny game this is what id go with. Your losing out if a 4 and a 5 come but any other combo of 4s 5s and 6s youre getting the max from those chains.

It could be that one player has the higher score-EV, but the other player wins heads up a majority of the time. So "correct play" could be subjective.

You make a bad assumption here. Imo the best play is to play 4s to north and west zones, and 6 to centre.

My first priority is to play the 4 to the west zone, to minimise blocking the chains. My second priority is to make sure as many dice as possible are connected. With these two criteria in place, my play falls out naturally.

We're clearly better than Player 1's play, as we are disconnected from a 4 instead of a 6.

Imo Player 2's play is significantly worse than either my play or Player 1's. Mine and Player 1's plays doesn't always lose the game when we fail to connect (40%), but Player 2's is catastrophic when it goes wrong (33%). Also score EV, blah blah blah, no-one except me cares.

Edit: Didn't see kokiri's post. I like his play. Which is also my play.

Saying that though, against a player whose game I know well, such as TH10, if I think the game played out in a really standard way, I might make Player 2's play purely as it loses less often.

Paul --

I'm player 2.

40% no 4 -- I win, as I have an extra 4 connected, and can still 4 zone the 5s, just like you can
33% 4 and 5 -- you win
27% 4 but no 5 -- we tie

So my play beats yours heads up. Am I missing anything?

Edit: Just saw your last post -- yeah, that is what I was thinking...

Thx for all the comments guys. Kokiri, you summed up what is wrong with my route. My either/or but not both approach with 4s/6s is not great.

Unrelated, but I like this convention for specifying plays. It's succinct and it seems like the right order where you specify a die, a zone and then a square within a zone.

I was thinking about how awkward it is to denote plays, and seeing as I am going to be posting more of these " tough spots" from time to time, how do you folks like the following.

The one part that is good is that the positions are easy to visualize. As in 5 is always the center of a zone, 7 is always the bottom left of a zone, etc


So, in the example above, it would be noted as:

4 to W3
4 to N7
6 to C7

Thoughts???

It keeps the same order that Alex noted. die, zone, position in zone.

That's more succinct, but I prefer "4 to left NE" to "4 to W3" because "NE" is more intuitive than "3". Like a new player could figure out what "4 to left NE" means, but not so much "4 to W3".

FWIW I think that my default was the same as your play before you posted this :P

True

I play that game differently to you both: http://triplechain.net/reconstruct?chain_id=6539717

In that scenario, against you, after Round 7 I'm a slight favourite I think, with about 3% more wins (though the maths is fairly complicated, so I could have made a mistake). Had you made Kokiri's play, however, we'd be in a dead heat.

But then, you weren't playing me

I kept trying to discard 3s in yesterday's challenge and luckboxed my way into snaking them. I'm pretty sure I was drawing dead in rack 9 anyway.

LOL TH10

My needling is getting to him

Always wanted to play this opening in a tourney. Got a chance in Kraken 18, game 8.

Can't decide whether to call it the "FU rack 5," or "the Paul"

BTW, got zero 2s in racks 5 to 8.

Your move, TH10

Nice, Alex! Did you have 4 manipulations left or did I interpret that picture incorrectly?

Yep, had all those left. Easy game.

Prettay sick score.

Still I think the advanced topscore is easier to beat than the normal score.

Pretty cool Alex. And on a busted advanced that you turned into a basic charmer (sans the 3rd chain). Nice old school salute.