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Messages - timchen

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1176
No, I guess we have a misunderstanding here. Bridge can be scored board by board, and so can any game you mentioned, I suppose.

For a single board, I believe Bridge is already the one which involves the least luck factor. Even so, (in duplicate situations) you cannot win every time. There are always decisions which are right for one distribution and wrong for the other. Still, it can only be more luck-dependent in games without dummies. This is simply the reason why I am saying that you cannot beat anyone with reasonable skill to the game 98/100. Now if you talk about a series of boards to form a match, I guess I could probably beat you in a 8-board session 100/100 of the time, given what I can read from your posts here.

Frankly speaking, after reading the rules for all the games you mentioned, I don't see how they are significantly different from one another. And bridge is just the even more scientific, complicated version of all of them. The only reason you would say that you can beat someone who is reasonable at bridge that much in a trick-taking game, I imagine, can only either be that you are only scratching the surface of the trick-taking games (i.e., thinking the average level of play too incompetent), or that you are trying to offend me.

Or maybe just some naive way of comparing the complexity: how much time do you think you need to get to the level you are at for those trick-taking games, when there is a teacher who knows all the techniques and will teach you everything he knows? For the game of bridge, I think it takes at least a year for an average guy to reach my level, if he spends, say, ten hours per week on the game.

1177
Yes you are right, I actually have zero experience playing Spades. Is there an official rule? As what I found from wikipedia, it looks pretty similar to some card games we played casually, without dummy or partnerships. In that game described in wikipedia, you can beat me probably 9 out of first 10 I believe, but after that it should be pretty even. 98 out of 100? I don't think so. It is not even due to my skills; in bridge I don't think a world champion can beat you 98 out of 100 times say, on 100 boards in a MP pairs game. (Well, assume that you have reasonable trick taking and bidding skills, to the point that makes you claim you can beat me 98/100.)

How do you set the trumps with a single round bid? Anyway, what I am interested in is the chance of bidding a slam (12 tricks) and have reasonable chance(~50%) to make it. In bridge this happens every 10-15 boards. How is that number in your experience of Spades, maybe putting every player at your caliber? I don't think it can be as high as 1/25. The game is just not as precise without dummy. It is certainly true that you can easily do better than purely guessing, but I think if you compare it to bridge, the difference is enormous. There is no certain hold off, throw in, planned squeezes, or even finesses for example.

1178
I have to second guided here, that bridge is a lot more complicated than any other trick taking games I can think of.

The reason? With the rule of dummy it makes huge difference. Without a dummy, lots of times you can do nothing but guess.
There are skills there too, but being overly scientific really does not yield much.

For example, how often can one side get to 12 tricks or more, without dummy? I would say less than 1/50.
Play with dummy, in my experience it is between 1/10 and 1/15, probably closer to 1/10. The difference is that after seeing both hands
it is much easier to develop tricks (or getting the tricks you should be getting.)

Starting from this, since one side can get a lot more tricks, it is possible for the bidding to be more scientific as well. And then the scoring system follows (with some twist) to reward the accurate bidding and good play.

Now, there is also a good reason why it is hard to convince people. The problem is, you cannot really appreciate the game unless you know how to play it. Knowing the rules are just not good enough. In fact, after you know how to play it it then becomes boring to play with people who only knows about the rules, as they cannot really make any intelligent decisions at the table. Indeed, for 4 novices, playing bridge would feel almost the same as playing spades.

1179
I want to make a thousand comments here, but I'll limit it to three.
Quote from: DG
Allowing players to ask the meaning of any bid prevents the most cryptic bidding system from beating the most effective bidding system.
How is being cryptic not part of being effective? Game theory, man, game theory.
Second, I don't understand how any of these rules are actually enforceable.
Thridly and finally, I'm now much, much happier I don't play bridge.

It's funny to see this turning into a bridge discussion. :P
Let me say something for bridge, as a player playing it for more than ten years.

Firstly, I don't think DG's statement is true. Note that under the constraint of open information, there can still be cryptic bidding systems. I once played a system which opens a major with only 3+ cards. It is cryptic in the sense that you can hold a variety of holdings with that same bid and make it harder for your opponents to judge the situation and intervene. It is generally the case that your own constructive bidding becomes less effective, but sometimes you can adjust the information flow so that you become precise in later rounds, where it is a lot harder for opponents to do competitive bidding. Of course, all of these adjustments to the bidding system has to be determined before game and written on the system card.

If we think about the possibility of not having to explain their own bid, it becomes a whole different game. It is still fair in the sense that both sides can do the same thing, the problem is that the bidding becomes less interesting. I would imagine that one could invent some sinister convention to lure opponents into traps, (such as, agreement A becomes B after a single use) but in the end, people would probably just give up on guessing what the other side means and focus on their own. There are thus less information exchanging, and more guesswork involved.

These rules are enforceable, through the use of a convention card. Basically every pair has to fill in a summary of their bidding system, and show it to their opponents. The opponents do not have to look through it; they can ask about bids on the table. The explanation, however, has to match what is written. For the psych bids, you cannot do it regularly to the extent that your partner is expecting it. If some opponents are in doubt that you have private agreement, they can notify the director, and he will usually take notice of it. If the same situation happens again before long, he will assume that your partner can "expect" the psych, which makes it a private agreement, and do suitable adjustments (and warning!).

Oh and a correction to a statement above: with screens in use (which cut the table in half, so that you can only see one of your opponents), it is possible and happens quite regularly that you have to explain your own bid to the opponent sit on your side. In that situation, it is important to tell him what the bid is supposed to mean, instead of what is in your hand.

Bridge is a very interesting game. The learning curve is a bit steep comparing to other table games I think; but once you understand the game, you will start to appreciate the right mix of luck and technique in the game.

1180
I think this idea is not going to help.

Unlike bridge, where comparing results with identical boards and position can be meaningful, in Dominion it is pretty much meaningless.
To be precise, the biggest difference is that the randomness in bridge only occurs before the cards are dealt. One therefore, can respond
to the different hand/distribution in the following bid and play, and strive for a good score.

In Dominion, however, whenever you shuffle you have the randomness. One cannot foresee how the randomness can affect various strategies
and do things about it. Having the same result when playing identically does not mean much here, as mainly we will be comparing between
different play, where the rank of each play is not helped by keeping this shuffle the same.

1181
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Pearl Diver
« on: July 08, 2011, 01:50:45 pm »
The one thing I know and am sure about it is that this has nothing to do with quantum mechanics.

1182
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Which order to play?
« on: July 04, 2011, 12:55:35 am »
It seems I was thinking about the problem on the wrong track. Indeed the most important aspect of the strategy is to use HP to pull up apothecaries (scrying pools as well) so it goes last. Somehow I was trying to think about the opposite.

1183
Dominion General Discussion / Which order to play?
« on: July 03, 2011, 10:50:44 pm »
I encountered this situation today and I found it's nontrivial to me:

suppose you have apothecary, scrying pool, hunting party and coppersmith in play and you opt for a copper strategy. (There are +buy, +2 actions and light trashing available.) What would be the correct order to play the scrying pool, the apothecary, and the hunting party, if you have them all in hand? Suppose your deck contains coppers, potion, some VPs and some other actions.

1184
Game Reports / Re: Ambassador/Ambassador vs. Ambassador/Silver
« on: June 24, 2011, 12:42:36 pm »
I always think ambassador+silver is quite a bit better than double ambassador.

The reason is that you will get the second ambassador in turn 3 or 4. And the double ambassadoring opponent is going to get a Silver during the same time. The question then boils down to, is it better to get that $5 powerful card one shuffle earlier, or to trim the deck (with around 1/3 probability that it is just a fail)?

With powerful cards such as Lab, I would say the two options are equally good, given that you don't draw two ambassadors together. Minus that, Silver becomes the better choice I think.

One other thing worth considering is that at 8-9 cards, it is very likely to draw double terminal actions again and again. That would be again against double ambassador opening.


1185
Dominion Isotropic / Re: Decline of civility on isotropic?
« on: June 24, 2011, 12:27:45 pm »
It's interesting to see people have so many different opinions on this issue, even among the most experienced players!

I am most inclined to what guided said. I always put "hf+gl" and "gg" at the start and the end of any game, sometimes even after noticing that my opponent has already left.

I think manners are important. Typing a few letters before  and after the game will not cost anything, and shows both respect and good will. On the other hand, a wordless game feels worse when you are hit by the bad luck.

1186
The problem is to count how many ways there are without more than 1 treasure map in a hand. When t<=n/5, you choose t "bins" out from the n/5 bins to put in the treasure map, and for each bin there are 5 ways to put it. This gives 5^t C(n/5,t). Divide this with the total number of ways to arrange the draw, which is C(n,t), you get the answer.

1187
Sorry, but I lol'ed when I saw you said that the math is pretty advanced. :p No offense intended, but I think stuff like Truerank is quite a bit more advanced than that.

1188
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Best/Worst Openings discussion
« on: June 13, 2011, 11:36:06 am »
Caravan/ambassador:
Caravan is a strong card. It is pretty much a lab when you cannot draw your entire deck. I am only appreciating how strong it is not until rather recently. It works well with ambassador too.

Monument/Chapel:
I actually have thought of this one. It is actually not that hard: in the first few times when you draw chapel with silver, the correct thing to do is to trash everything else. It therefore does not make any difference (unless there is some savvy $2 cards to buy) if you replace the silver by the monument. On the other hand, in a chapel-province game, the few extra VP tokens can make a huge difference.

On the technical side, I have some trouble understanding what the ratings mean and how they are calculated. For one thing, if I open the same thing with say, LV 5 with my opponent, but I am at LV 40 and he is LV 0, now we become LV 45 and LV 5, which persumably would have a different win rate I think. (Or does the win rate depend only on the difference of the level of the players? If so it seems a rather strong assumption for the levels to follow a normal distribution.) Even for asymmetric openings, it seems very impossible for every kind of player match up to shift for the same amount for the different openings. It would be easier for me to understand if there is just an explanation of how it is calculated.

1189
I think one key point which have not yet been mentioned in making decisions in these scenarios is to watch out what your opponent is doing, and how is his/her draw. Watching the opponent is important, as you can from there decide whether you can afford to accept the unwanted draw as a slight delay of your original plan or that you must do something else.

I am usually more inclined to stick to my own plan, but one single early gold is actually not so bad. I will definitely start underbuying at the second $6 draw though. If what you can buy in the 3 in 5-3 split in the second shuffle is just a silver, the 6-2 split is actually not so bad since you can always either underbuy or get a gold.


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