Another thing that I think might have gone by a bit underrated is that you really want that back tile in the right zone to be a 3. And well, you have a 3 in this rack to put there. You might not get a 3 in the next rack. Then you're either burning bonus or needing a rack 9 tile to pick that spot up.

Putting a 2 in the top zone, you may not need a 2 in the last rack to still win.

This was my Jan 2 DC. I ended up going 2 north, as seen below.



Things against going 2 west

In going 2 west I had about a 33% chance to get a 1 and 2 in rack 8, and about 80% (rough guess) to get a 1 or 2 in rack 9. So in my head I had it at 25% + to get screwed with 2 west.. (Note, as arjun pointed out, the problem was a 1 and 2 in both racks 8 and 9. I had incorrectly projected that a 1 or a 2 in rack 9 would be a problem). So, I think a more accurate number was 11%. ( .33 x .33), not approx 25%.

Things against going 2 east

I would have a 16% chance of getting no twos in the remaining two racks. That was the only major downfall I could see

So, I saw the edge in favour of putting the 2 north. But, I did so with a wrong assessment of the rack 9 problem which led me to a wrong percentage.

Anyway, after seeing the mixed feedback I am not sure what the correct answer is. I tend to think I went wrong here as Donk. Derwi, lilrascal and arjun liked 2 west, and Aicirt (mrgibson) liked 2 north, and I think gabe liked my path first, but then thought maybe 2 west was better.


it was neat seeing people’s takes on this one.

By this do you mean the 16% against (for no 2s in racks 8 and 9) is too high, and there are other ways to get helpful combos that reduce it to some extent?

I would be awful at trying to put a value on this (combined with the other scenarios).

Very important, i agree. Lots of games are lost by an orphaned chain number after rack 9. But again, I would be lost trying to weigh the cost of this, other than knowing I have only a 60% chance of getting a 3 in rack 8, and if I did not and had to put a 456 in there, I would have only a 60% chance of connecting in rack 9, and then only if there was no other competition for that zone (it does not look like there is though). I think this is a big thing though that might get overlooked too often.. EDIT.. well maybe I can figure it out roughly... 40% of no 3 in rack 8, 40% chance of non connecting with whatever had to go in there (456) in rack 9 = 16% with all kinds of other factors that could move this number..

So, maybe Gabe started a trend.

The first DC Ceasefire played was not his/her first rodeo.. Am guessing it might be Paul101, lenc, Alex or even the infamous Th10...

Guess we will have to stay tuned.

Not TH10 or Paul imo

confirmed

Haven't won a DC since
My win% dropped below 10%
I suck

January 2022 DC Highlights

	DC Points
Dynasty	196
arjun13	189
anton-09	173
Bandwagon	167
nails	164
SmalltownBoy	163
Nimbusfan	158
Derwi	151
mrgibson	150
Popcorn	147

	DC Wins
anton-09	4
Derwi	4
Dynasty	3
Bandwagon	3
Nimbusfan	3
mrgibson	2
Dos	2
NP	2
Meg.	2
consul	2
Ceasefire	2

Monthly Race

• In one of the closest monthly races in more than two years, Dynasty won the January DC race thanks to his win on the final day of the month, which catapulted him from fourth to first. Dynasty's score of 196 was the fourth-lowest winning total in DC history and only the fifth below 200; the last under-200 winning score was Alex's 198 in December 2014. Although Dynasty had only 13 top-10 scores during the month, 10 of them were in the top 5, including three wins and three second-place finishes. It was Dynasty's 22nd monthly DC win, which is third-most all-time.
  
• arjun13 finished in second place in January, breaking a three-month DC winning streak. arjun tied with wafflesobv for the most top-10 scores (17), which included 11 top-five finishes and at least one score in every top-10 place. arjun extended his record streak of top-10 finishes to 40 consecutive months.
  
• The next four positions -- anton-09 in third, Bandwagon in fourth, nails in fifth, and SmalltownBoy in sixth -- were separated by just 10 points. anton tied with Derwi for the most wins (4), Bandwagon's second-place finish on the last day of the month bounced him from eighth to fourth, nails led the table with 4 second-place scores, and SmalltownBoy had five fourth-place finishes among his 15 top-10 scores.
  
• Among the rest of the top 10, mrgibson (ninth) made his first appearance in the top 10 since October 2016, while Popcorn's sixth-place finish on January 31st moved her into a tie with wafflesobv for 10th place, but she won the tiebreaker (wins) 1-0 to capture the last spot in the top 10. wafflesobv (obv), Dos, and SubArcticK were just outside the top 10. For SubArc, the 13th-place finish ended a 28-month streak in the top 10.

Milestones

• On January 11, Bandwagon won his 150th DC, becoming the 19th player to reach this milestone.
• On January 3, wafflesobv became the 10th player to play his 3,000th DC.
• On January 16, Donk4 became the 11th player to play his 3,000th DC.
• On January 21, NP celebrated his 2,000th DC with a win. He was the 23rd player to achieve this milestone.
• nails surpassed 10,000 DC points in January, the 20th player to do so.

Stats of the Month

• 28.6: The average number of players per DC in January, the most since 29.1 in March 2017.
• 49: The gap in points between first and 10th place in the January DC race, the lowest margin since October 2019, when it was also 49 points.

2022 Yearly Race

	Yearly Race
Dynasty	25
arjun13	18
anton-09	15
Bandwagon	12
nails	10
SmalltownBoy	8
Nimbusfan	6
Derwi	4
mrgibson	2
Popcorn	1

	DC Wins
anton-09	4
Derwi	4
Dynasty	3
Bandwagon	3
Nimbusfan	3
mrgibson	2
Dos	2
NP	2
Meg.	2
consul	2
Ceasefire	2

	DC Points
Dynasty	196
arjun13	189
anton-09	173
Bandwagon	167
nails	164
SmalltownBoy	163
Nimbusfan	158
Derwi	151
mrgibson	150
Popcorn	147

2022 TC DC Stats

TC DC Hall of Fame

How were the top 4 in the 1st Feb DC (arjun13, SubArcticK, Bandwagon, SmalltownBoy) thinking about their round 3 decision?

Welcome to POG, Ceasefire. You are obviously a returning TC veteran with 100% DC games and no other games. What is you other nick?

In yesterday's DC I made the round 2 decision to not play Dynasty strategy and I think my round 3 play is basically forced.

Hello Ceasefire

Welcome!!

I looked at your game. At first I was thinking the same thing as Gabe. Round 1 keeps options open and it is round 2 that actually forces the choice. But when I saw how you played it I think you are asking why not play the two 4s in round 3 and go for a 4/2/2 advanced.

I guess that was a possibility but at least 2 things against that imo. That 4/2/2 board puts the 5s in an awful position, and with an opening with a low number of 2s (which this was), it plays as poorly for round 5-8 2s as the Dynasty does. I'd like your move better with three twos in play by then.

The one thing I like about how you played it is that you connect your 4s. That could have been very important and it may have worked out well in the end for that reason alone. We are in a worse spot on 4s than you, and games are lost by one disconnected number in a chain.. I guess another plus for your play is that you can play a 5 or a 6 in the middle in rack 4. You are not dependent on a 6 to make or break you. But, no 5 o 6 in rack four and that is an ugly board..

Anyway, ..... instinctively I do the same thing again, but it is tempting to drive the 4s in there knowing you are connected and others are not.

btw I disagree with the placement of the left zone 6 in your round 3 play. I think it must be left-bottom, not left-top. Imagine rack 4 forcing you to put a 1 or 5 in the left zone. It will want to swap with that 6.

Other than that, going for 4s is certainly a viable play. The problem is that you really need a 6 in rack 4 or you have suboptimal setup. Going for advanced setup, I can complete a playable setup with 4 or 5 (Preferably 5, the advanced setup that isn't 4-4-0, but 4-3-1 kind of sucks. I'd take any 4-2-2 setup over it).

Pretty much agree with both Sub and Gabe, on round 3 going for advanced reduces the potential for a messy rack 5-8 if rack 4 doesn't come out great (although I do like getting myself into some horrendous situations) and just seems like the much more solid play.

First 4 racks are where I suck. You think I would spend some time thinking about it and get better, but no I just like to keep doing the same stupid plays over and over!

I don't know your play in the opening 4 racks, but I do feel strongly that if one was able to quantify rating points won/lost or something like that, that the first 4 racks would be much more important than racks 5-8.

Let's say you took the highest rated player and then the player rated 15th, and you had a 80 point rating difference that was pretty constant. If there was a way to analyze it it would not surprise me at all that points gained would be something like +55-60 in racks 1-4 and +20-25 in racks 4-8.

I know some might argue that rack 5-8 decisions are more important/critical, but often rack 5 plays itself (but not always). Also, in rack 8 most of the decisions are forced by then. So, really it comes down to decisions in racks 6 and 7. In the opening, however, racks 1,2 and 3 are very fluid and played significantly differently by lots of players. And, even rack 4 is often not forced.

I guess one way to confirm this thought is if we had a team event with 1st matched with 16th, 2nd matched with 15th, etc... And, each team had to decide which player was going to play racks 1-4 and which was going to play 5-8 in each game. If the higher ranked player was captain, I am pretty sure he/she would suggest they go first, and have the lower ranked player bring the game home. That, rather than have the top player take the lower ranked player's opening home. Once you got to 6/11, 7/10, 8/9 matchings it probably would not matter.

It would be interesting to know what people thought on that..???

Yeah I too feel like more difference is made in the first racks than in 5-8.
Sometimes around rack 4-6 I already know I have dug myself a hole somehow in that opening, where some of you have at least some win equity for a longer time and don't fall in the same holes again and again.

You are playing TC as well? What is your nick?

Racks 1-4 are obviously critical.
If you choose some advanced strategy (4-2-2) and you get 3 of your major chain, you know you are ahead of the field, while if there come 4-5 of that number, you will be behind the field.
Your choices for the two inner chains in the Dynasty strategy can be critical if they come 3-4 or 4-5 in the racks 5-8. Only if you picked correctly, will you be able to beat the field.
There are plenty more of such scenarios. You can have a very good setup, but if the racks 5-8 aren't compatible with your early game guesses, you don't stand a chance.

DC yesterday didn't have any 5s! 1 in 5000 shot of that. Pretty sick.

And yeah I agree I think racks 1-4 is primarily where the best players separate themselves from the pack.

1 in 3657. So once / 10 years.

I'm Nimbusfan. Yeah I probably was overestimating the long-term flexibility of the top players. Maybe you all are just better in executing more strategies more correctly. (Like not putting a 1 or 3 in a stupid place early on).

February 2022 DC Highlights

	DC Points
dogfloss	215
Guessinator	200
SmalltownBoy	184
wafflesobv	181
SubArcticK	179
arjun13	165
shamsnemesis	142
NP	135
nails	134
velourfog	133

	DC Wins
dogfloss	5
Guessinator	4
wafflesobv	4
arjun13	4
SubArcticK	3
SmalltownBoy	3
consul	3
6 players	2

Monthly Race

• dogfloss won the February DC race, her first monthly win since September. dogfloss took a commanding lead after winning three consecutive DCs from February 11-13 and never looked back. (It was her first-ever hat trick despite being third on the all-time wins list.) dogfloss led the table in wins (5) and was second in top-10 scores (16) for the month. Nonetheless, her score of 215 was the 10th-lowest winning total in DC history, and she had to hold off a couple of challengers late in the month. It was dogfloss' 10th monthly DC win, tied with Gaby for fifth-most all-time.
  
• Guessinator finished in second place, returning to the top 3 for the first time since February 2019. Guessinator got all four of his wins in an eight-day span between February 8 and 15, but it was a second-place score on the last day of the month that allowed him to capture second place. Guessinator had just 11 top-10 scores, but 10 of them were in the top 3.
  
• SmalltownBoy, wafflesobv, and SubArcticK rounded out the top five, separated by just five points. Both StB and waffles had 15 top-10 scores, balanced across the spectrum, while SubArc led the field with 17 top-10 scores that included seven (!) eighth-place finishes.
  
• Among the rest of the top 10, shamsnemesis (seventh place) finished in the top 10 for the first time in three years, NP used a second-place score on the last day of the month to move from 16th place to eighth, and nails finished ninth despite only 10 top-10 scores during the month. anton-09 and Kampi77, who were in the top 10 as of February 27, finished 11th and 12th, while Bandwagon finished 13th, ending an eight-month streak in the top 10.

Milestones

• On February 12, Meg. became the 15th player to play in 2,500 DCs (and won!).
• On February 19, Kampi77 played in his 1,500th DC, the 30th player to do so.
• Cherrycin surpassed 5,000 DC points in February. She became the 32nd player to reach this milestone.
• Semi-controversial milestone: The TC site says consul has 199 wins. However, I have him with 201, because of two DCs in 2020 when he was not credited with a win he should have gotten. So, based on my stats, consul hit 200 wins on February 22, becoming the 13th player to hit that milestone.

Palindromic Stat of the Month

• 11: In the 22/02/2022 DC, we had 11 winners. It was the most winners of a single DC since 02/11/2021.

2022 Yearly Race

	Yearly Race
arjun13	26
Dynasty	25
dogfloss	25
SmalltownBoy	23
Guessinator	18
anton-09	15
Bandwagon	12
wafflesobv	12
nails	12
SubArcticK	10

	DC Wins
dogfloss	6
arjun13	5
consul	5
anton-09	5
Guessinator	5
Derwi	4
wafflesobv	4
SubArcticK	4
Bandwagon	4
Nimbusfan	4
mrgibson	4
SmalltownBoy	4

	DC Points
arjun13	354
SmalltownBoy	347
wafflesobv	328
dogfloss	317
SubArcticK	309
anton-09	304
nails	298
Bandwagon	289
Dynasty	287
Guessinator	276

2022 TC DC Stats

TC DC Hall of Fame

Lets play some timed, because it is fun.

This weekend, Saturday at 22:00 CET

I will send a PM to TH10 and Paul as well

Is that 16:00 server time? Could work for me, at least for a bit.

I suck at timezones.

10h 32min from now.

Well, I tried

****, sorry I couldn't make it work today. But I'm usually up for timed whenever.