Hi Zac

A couple of thoughts. All based on how quick/easy a fix it might be. Most are not worth the effort if they are complicated or time consuming.

1. In the Help pull-down menu it would be great to have a tab with "Hall of Fame Stats," linking to the Google Sheets that Nails did and maintains.

2. Might even be good to have "Current Year DC Race" stats. Another thing that nails has been doing.

3. The practice mode area won't allow you to pull a number off the board. The little box to the left of the board was used for that, but it does not work anymore.

4. On the display with lifetime "Challenge Wins" how hard would it be to have that board change each day? Just the same way one might rotate an ad each day. If possible, a cycle where the Challenge Wins ran for 24 hours, then the display changed to Daily Challenge Rating for 24 hours, and then to Tourney Rating for 24 hours, and then back to Challenge wins. Or something like that.


There are some other suggestions but they can wait until you do a total remake of the site.

5. Resetting timed ratings. Might get some interest back if we started from scratch, or might not. I do know that some current players have ratings that are way too low relative to the inactive players above them.

6. Perhaps having a small country flag beside each player's handle. That always looks neat
on sites. I know we have USA. UK, Canada, German, etc players.. Might look neat.

7. I can work with you on a better plan for trophy display on a new site. Right now we don't have that big of a player base to worry about crowding, and all of us know that all the details on tourney wins are in the "Tournaments" tab, so the system works for now. But, if you rebuild we can do this better.

Thx Zac..

Hey Zac. Thanks as always for keeping the game up and running efficiently (and Sub and nails for creating the tournaments and daily statistics to keep things interesting). Hope all is going well for you and your family!

All good ideas Sub just a couple thoughts:

Not sure the ratings need to be reset as much as they should change to match the other rating systems (DC and Tourny). My sense if they were reset they would almost cease to exist since Timed only runs for an hour a couple times per week max (as far as I know). They just look low because the way the system works requires a lot of volume to create movement and thats just not there anymore.

Bigger jumps are possible with fewer players if there are bigger rating differences but arjun is the highest ranked player who still plays and hes relatively low compared to TH10. If i remember correctly it's currently coded as an ELO rating so adjusting the K-factor to make it more sensitive might also be an option.

Also, I think there should still be some kind of lifetime DC stats on the main page (the same size or reduced) but i definitely wouldn't be opposed to a cycle either. It would be a great idea to replace the advanced area with some kind of shorter term tourny stats since that's the other most active part of the site. I'm not sure the best way to do it though.

Last, since I'm here and a lot of us are likely more or less stuck at home, do y'all wanna try and set up some timed games once or twice per week? If anyone is interested in playing tomorrow I'm free in the earlier half of the day just drop a message maybe an hour in advance so I/others might see it.

Hey Zac, I started playing in 2011 and I still play to this day. I have so many memories from this game, thank you so much for still running it.
I wish the game got bigger cause it's super smart design and there was a discord server where we could discuss the games and organize timed games, this would really make me come back and play more often but I don't think there are that many active players sadly.
Anyway thank you again!

These were easy. Done.

Slowly getting my development environment back to a place where I can do a little more significant work..

Radisto! Great to see that you're still around. You're one of the TC legends. :-)

I probably need to get back to this, but probably won't be very good for a while.

I think I deserve some idiot prize for yesterday’s DC. There were 12 fives, and the best I could do was get my fives in three zones.!!!

But, the prize should not be for that. It should be for playing the charmer wrong in racks 5-7 when I actually knew exactly how it needed to be played.

The game ended up like this... and a 5 in rack 9 gives me the win over Bandwagon, but I didn't deserve it because I could have got the win anyway if I did what I was supposed to.





Putting the 4 in the spot I did in in the center in rack 5 was bad. I know it is rare to get two racks with no fives in racks 5-7, and then get two racks with 55XXX and 55XXX, but it is possible (and did happen), which is exactly why you need to put one 5 in the NE center and one in the SW center (in the setup I had) so that you can use the SE corner to connect up.

The circled spots are for the fives and the x's are where non-fives go (if you are fully committing to a rack 9 option, which I was at the time with an extra zone to handle a rack 9 one). Funny thing is that I weighed this and for some reason really thought that keeping the NW center spot free for an extra 6 was more likely to impact the outcome than getting two racks with no fives, and then a 55XXX and 55XXX rack (or 5XXXX and 555XX).







Of course I am totally ignoring two important facts. (1) I probably win games all the time with incorrect moves that I am not good enough to know are incorrect and (2) this is just a game, after all

In 2020 charmer openings are pretty rare. But still, am wondering if anyone has given this situation much/any thought???

Really interesting review of yesterdays rather unusual DC Sub.

I think I probably did make a misplay but perhaps for a different reason than what you suggested.



I used the SW corner on rack 5 following that strategy you outlined above but decided against and also bailed out on finishing the 3 chain during rack 6.

My logic was that I needed two 6's to achieve a 4 zone chain and also needed 2 3's two achieve 5 zones, with the 6's being slightly more valuable (480 vs 450).

The added benefit of not trying to zone all the 3's meant I could place a single 5 in racks 7 and 8 without committing to a 5 in the final rack 5. It also happened to work for 55xxx and 55xxx.

I didn't do the math on it (I rarely do in even slightly complex situations) but this was what I was thinking during the game.

Yeah, I edited my notes after reviewing your game again Bandwagon.. On second look I thought that a possible use of 3 zoning 4s in your SE corner of the center overrode any reasoning on where the 5s should go, so it was not a misplay at all.

Interesting move with the 3 too. Cleared space for the 6s (mostly) but gave space for the 5s as well....

I think I like what you did with the rack 6 three better than my play, regardless of the 5 situation...

I thought it was unlikely that zoning 4s in the SE corner was ever going to be a scoring chain (unless there were no 5's in rack 7/8) and was mainly trying not to block any 1's and 2's placement.

Having zoned the 1's less optimally than you I didn't really want to commit to playing a 5 in the center on rack 9 so that was another factor on my decision.

I think overall I got very lucky with how that DC ran out but I'd be interested to know what had higher EV considering only us three ended up with the 3s in our center, with most others placing 5s.

Either way it's one closer to finally getting myself on the challenge wins scoreboard!

As an edit, is there a record for most games drawn in a row? In the previous FFA, Arjun and I managed to draw 4 in a row, which is something I've never seen before.

Yeah.. I was saying to nails it would be great if we could get some more screenshots and conversations in the thread on "tough spots," where people find themselves in kind of a coin-flip situation in a game and then post just to see what other players would do in the same situation.

This happened more in the past and it was pretty interesting.

Bandwagon, there was a game of yours a while back where you made a neat move and I wanted to ask you about it. If I can find it again, can I post it?

April 2020 DC Highlights

	DC Points
arjun13	250
Derwi	231
wafflesobv	226
Bandwagon	224
SubArcticK	211
nails	194
Dynasty	186
dogfloss	175
Hg80	167
anton-09	166

	DC Wins
arjun13	5
Bandwagon	5
wafflesobv	5
Derwi	4
SubArcticK	4
nails	3
Priptonite	3
Kampi77	3
8 players	2

Monthly Race

-- April featured one of the closest DC races in the last six months. arjun13, SubArcticK, Bandwagon, and wafflesobv all took turns leading the pack through the first half of the month. arjun pulled away in the second half, though, posting 7 of his 13 top-5 finishes in the last two weeks. It was arjun's 15th monthly DC win, the third-most all time, and his 19th consecutive month in the top 10, also the third-most all time (tied with Paul101).

-- Derwi rallied late in the month to finish second, posting 6 top-10 finishes in the last 7 days, including a win on April 30 to leap from fifth to second.

-- wafflesobv and Bandwagon tied with arjun for the most wins during the month, but waffles edged out Bandwagon for third place by 2 points. SubArc rounded out the top 5.

-- Among the rest of the top 10, nails came in sixth place, his first top-10 finish in a year; dogfloss led the table with 21 top-10 scores during the month, but only two of those were in the top 3; and Hg80's sixth-place score on April 30 helped him move past anton-09 by a single point to nab ninth place for the month. consul and iluvbanana were just outside the top 10.

Milestones

-- anton-09 got his 250th DC win on April 21. He is fifth on the all-time wins list.

-- wafflesobv posted the DC's 23rd hat trick (three consecutive DC wins) on April 4-6, almost one year to the day after he last did it (April 12-14, 2019).

-- Bandwagon played his 1,000th DC in April, becoming the 33rd player to do so.

Stat of the Month

30: the number of players who had at least one top-10 score in April. This was the highest number of players to do so since January 2019.


Year-to-Date DC Stats

	Yearly Race
arjun13	75
Dynasty	55
SubArcticK	49
Derwi	47
velourfog	35
dogfloss	26
Bandwagon	22
Hg80	21
anton-09	19
wafflesobv	15

	DC Wins
arjun13	19
Dynasty	14
dogfloss	13
Bandwagon	13
Derwi	12
velourfog	11
SubArcticK	11
anton-09	11
Kokirixx	9
Hg80	8
wafflesobv	8

	DC Points
arjun13	991
Dynasty	852
SubArcticK	840
Derwi	836
dogfloss	743
velourfog	717
Hg80	714
Bandwagon	709
anton-09	701
wafflesobv	586

2020 TC DC Stats

TC DC Hall of Fame

A stats update...

I'm in the process of redoing and/or updating the DC stats for 2014-2017, using the big DC data file Zac sent me a while ago.

For 2015 and 2017, I'm just making a few tweaks so the format is consistent with all the rest. But I'm also rechecking the data for entry errors, since it's relatively easy to do (found a few minor ones through the first half of 2015).

2014 and 2016 were done by others in a different style, so I'm re-entering the stats for those years to bring the format in line with the other years. So far, I've completed all of 2014, and there were some significant data entry errors in the original that, once corrected, had an impact on DC points and the yearly race.

Once I've got all of these years completed, I'll update the Hall of Fame stats, and that should pretty much do it for past years' stats.

Links to DC data for all years, plus the Hall of Fame, are in the "Details and Links" tab in the current year's stats sheet. I have and will be adding this tab to all of the past years as well.

Zac also added a link to the current sheet and the Hall of Fame sheet under the Help tab on the TC site. Thanks, Zac!

I had a rough april...

Yup. I'm marooned.

I have lost wins with lots of my own mistakes/misclicks, but I think I lost one to banana's misclick yesterday

In Banana's setup the 4s and 5s are in competition, as they both need the same squares to 5 zone, so something has to give right off the bat.

This is where things sat for banana after placing the 6 in rack 5. The next question is where does the 5 go. It seems pretty clear to me that the play is spot A and not spot B.





Things to consider in favour of the 5 going in spot A.

- 5s are more valuable than 4s
- prior to rack five there are four 5s and two 4s in play
- there is no 4 in rack five, but there is a 5
- 5s are already a zone ahead of 4s
- the orphaned 5 gets connected
-putting the 5 in spot B basically terminates the 5 chain.
-placing the 5 in spot B potentially restricts the 6s ability to five zone, as now two center spots are required for the 6s and if the 5 goes in spot A that problem is gone.

I thought playing the 5 in spot B might be to keep the upper NW diagonal available for 2s, but that stays available anyway.

So, things in favour of the 5 going in spot B.

-I can't think of any..

Am I missing something important, or is a misclick the only way to explain the 5 going to spot B? I don't think banana posts here so will probably never know, but my guess is misclick. Just cant see that play occurring on purpose.

below is the final board. One more 5 came and the 4s filled..

Seems likely to have been a misclick. When I've got an orphan like that 5, I try to connect it the first chance I get, assuming I don't need to play something else in that area (which he clearly didn't, since he put a 5 there anyway).

I suppose it's possible he was trying to keep his options open, but with 5s being more valuable than 4s, it doesn't seem sensible to make it harder to snake 5s just to keep open the possibility for 4s to snake.

I need to fall into more of these DC-winning strategies...

It is that time!! Registration is now open for 3 days for the World Cup of Triplechain, the 2nd major of 2020. A baby blue trophy is up for grabs!!

Okay I'll play this one but I can't get addicted again.

That was always my problem with TC. I couldn't just play 1.

We'll all chip in for counselling if you get addicted...

I think that’s been all of us. Found this game on here not long ago thought I’d play just a few games...now it’s been almost 7 years haha

Unless I post a win tomorrow it looks like I'm going to set that record instead. Always someone stealing the top spot!

My assumption was wrong fwiw, the record is 2nd place.

Oh, I was looking at points instead of place. Couldn't find anyone who scored over 200 without a win.

Not saying anything about today (May 31), obv, but It was a strange month and you got some awful bad beats. Lots of your 2nds looked like 95%+ for a win.

I had some 2nds I thought were almost locks for wins, and they got sniped. But I had some wins that did not seem to have potential for more than 3rd or 4th imo..and was pretty surprised they held up.......so no complaints whatsoever. But, you got hosed. U played really well and variance was very unkind to you...

But, as I said, it was a weird month, There were two days where a rack 9 222XX filled people with three open twos and bumped the would-be leaders down. There was a game in which two people paired 2 of the 3 twos in racks 1-4 (and not a 2 came for the rest of the game), and that knocked a win off several people.

And there were at least 3 or 4 wins on non-typical openings. Nothing shady going on but just openings one would not expect to see, or factor in if thinking what it would take to overtake top spot. And, I think there might even have been a misclick win.

Tis a crazy game, this Triplechain..

May 2020 DC Highlights

	DC Points
SubArcticK	304
wafflesobv	255
arjun13	248
Bandwagon	236
dogfloss	221
iluvbanana	197
Hg80	193
anton-09	182
Kokirixx	178
Mercer	156

	DC Wins
SubArcticK	5
wafflesobv	5
arjun13	4
dogfloss	4
Hg80	4
Mercer	4
Derwi	3
iluvbanana	3
Popcorn	3
anton-09	3
Dynasty	3
Kokirixx	3

Monthly Race

-- The DC race was a three-horse race for most of May, until SubArcticK pulled away toward the end. SubArc had 10 top-10 finishes in the last 12 days of the month, including 3 wins, to seal the deal. It was SubArc’s 9th monthly DC win and 9th consecutive month in the top 10. His winning score of 304 was the 5th time he has scored at least 300 points in a month.

-- wafflesobv, who tied with SubArc for the most DC wins in May, held off arjun13 for second place, as well as a late charge from Bandwagon and dogfloss, who rounded out the top 5.

-- Among the rest of the top 10, iluvbanana and Kokirixx posted their first top-10 finishes of the year, while Mercer (who began playing DCs in 2010) finished in the top 10 for the first time ever. nails, Derwi, and Dynasty were narrowly outside the top 10.

Milestones

-- anton-09 passed velourfog to take over fourth place on the all-time DC points list. anton-09 also became the third person to play his 3,500th DC in May, following Dynasty and velourfog.

-- Cherrycin played her 1,000th DC in May, the 34th player to reach that milestone.

Stat of the Month

236: the new record for monthly DC points without a DC win, set by Bandwagon in May. Bandwagon had 7 2nds and 5 3rds, but was unable to get the elusive win. The previous record was 223, set by Dynasty in October 2011, when he had 16 top-6 scores but no wins -- an ironic outcome for the all-time wins leader.


Year-to-Date DC Stats

	Yearly Race
arjun13	90
SubArcticK	74
Dynasty	55
Derwi	47
dogfloss	36
velourfog	35
Bandwagon	34
wafflesobv	33
Hg80	27
anton-09	23

	DC Wins
arjun13	23
Dynasty	17
dogfloss	17
SubArcticK	16
Derwi	15
anton-09	14
Bandwagon	13
wafflesobv	13
Kokirixx	12
Hg80	12

	DC Points
arjun13	1239
SubArcticK	1144
Dynasty	996
Derwi	987
dogfloss	964
Bandwagon	945
Hg80	907
anton-09	883
wafflesobv	841
velourfog	795

2020 TC DC Stats

TC DC Hall of Fame