Hmm, not quite the 'You're a genius, that's a brilliant idea' reception I expected.
Sometimes 5/2 is much better than 4/3. Sometimes it is much worse. Sometimes it's about the same, and makes for a very interesting game with competing strategies. Sure, on boards where one person opens Mint/Fool's Gold and the other can't, it's probably not worth playing, but you're missing out on some interesting games by skipping the different opens.
If the 5/2 is really that much better than the 4/3, I don't think first-turn advantage is going to increase its power that much more in most cases. I would imagine P2's winrate should be pretty close to P1's given the favorable split.
Keep in mind that we're not default 'skipping the different opens' - if Player 2 gets 5/2, he keeps it.
Earlier this month, there was a feature request for the Dominion Salvager extension to automatically have players play dead turns until they have identical hands (if all players are mutually agreed, of course). You can see the suggestion here. What follows is a lengthy (and sometimes heated) discussion about the merits of forcing identical starting hands. If you wish, you can jump to Donald X's response here.
Opinions are varied, but I think it's safe to say that the opening split is not the be all end all. There is some luck there, but there is luck all throughout the game. Having a better split at the start does not tilt the odds that much, and note that 5/2 is not always favourable anyway.
Ah, okay, excellent, thanks for the link. I haven't read the non-Vaccarino posts yet, but I will. No, obviously there is luck throughout the game, but it can be particularly disspiriting when someone opens Mountebank or Witch on a no-trash board. It's a particularly visible element of chance (and fwiw, I agree with jaybeez that 2nd reshuffle luck may be a bigger factor but obviously that can't be controlled in any way). Having matching hands as a default is terrible and I agree with Mr. Vaccarino that people who play that way are monsters. Okay, that's a bit harsh, but by no means would I want to have matching hands as a default.
I think that averaged over all boards, if P1 is equal to or higher in skill than P2, P2's winrate would actually be higher with a 4/3 split than with a 5/2 if P1 has 5/2, and vice versa.
I do think that 5/2 is a bit (but not a lot) better on average, but I expect this difference to be quite small and as P2 worth giving up on in exchange for the large increase in variance, which clearly benefits him and him alone.
So, OP, I think what you're doing has the opposite effect of what you intend.
Entirely possible that I don't have enough experience with all sets and am making a conclusion based on too many games where I've not played all sets (I estimate I've played 500 All Sets games out of the 2300 or so Dominion games I've played). Alchemy-heavy boards become more difficult with most 5/2 splits, e.g. It's just the kind of thing I wish we had 10,000 game results on.
Also now I'm not sure I follow your point, and am not sure you followed mine. Just to clarify, if Player 1 gets a 5 2 split and Player 2 does not, we skip the first 4 turns and reshuffle. Player 1 still gets to go first. I guess you're saying that given one player has 5 2, the other player has a better winrate with 4 3 than with a 5 2 also - I could see being true, but don't see how it necessarily negates my idea.
