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[ackack]

This game left me a bit puzzled. I think a large part of what's going on here is that Tournament/Chapel is a big first player advantage in a mirror match - that first Province buy shows up in hand quite often, blocks me from getting the Province I'm otherwise guaranteed on my turn, and then from there the match is all over. I didn't recognize that angle at the time, and now I'm curious about how to adjust the buys. Should the second Tournament purchase be a Silver instead? (The third Tournament purchase is unquestionably bad and probably should have been Remodel instead.)

[tko]

I agree there's a first turn player advantage in the mirror match on this board - the game was virtually lost on Turn 10.  While you cited an issue was that prior 3rd Tournament purchase, I doubt you would you have Remodeled Gold->Province and maybe Remodeled Tournament->Gold, but I don't think Remodel would have saved you.

Tournament is one of those cards where fortune can swing the game.  For example, in this game, I buy Turn 4 Gold, Turn 5 Tournament, Turn 6 Gold, Turn 7 Hunting Party, Turn 8 1st Province by me (and opponent gets 1st Province), Turn 9 2nd Province... but my 2 Provinces to my opponent's 1 Province doesn't get me into a Tournament/Province match, and I get utterly destroyed.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110705-112913-9eaec8f1.html

[ShuffleNCut]

Tournament is one of those cards where fortune can swing the game.  For example, in this game, I buy Turn 4 Gold, Turn 5 Tournament, Turn 6 Gold, Turn 7 Hunting Party, Turn 8 1st Province by me (and opponent gets 1st Province), Turn 9 2nd Province... but my 2 Provinces to my opponent's 1 Province doesn't get me into a Tournament/Province match, and I get utterly destroyed.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110705-112913-9eaec8f1.html

Some cards are more heavily luck driven than others.  Tournament and black market are the ones that stand far and above the rest of the crowd.  They are the only effects in the game that translate random chance into an unmatchabe advantage.  Not that pirate ship won't barge past your coppers and hit every silver or gold you buy in a game some times but you can simply buy your own pirate ships and fight back.  If tournament gives your opponent followers then you can never, no matter how hard you try, buy followers yourself.

The trick to 'reducing' the variance is to figure out what strategy gives you the highest chance of activating tourn/prov yourself rather than just buying it because it's a market.

On this board I think I buy a single silver, gold, tournament, and steward, then every turn that's not buy province afterwards is buy hunting party.  If I have a spare four I'll pick up another tournament however I don't really feel the need to pair up on any given treasure.  One of each treasure and steward is good enough for a province.  Hunting party will take care of that for you.  The less individual card names you have the better hunting parties are.

HP's are just ridic at both getting prov money and putting 'one of' cards together in a hand.

[ShuffleNCut]

This game left me a bit puzzled. I think a large part of what's going on here is that Tournament/Chapel is a big first player advantage in a mirror match - that first Province buy shows up in hand quite often, blocks me from getting the Province I'm otherwise guaranteed on my turn, and then from there the match is all over. I didn't recognize that angle at the time, and now I'm curious about how to adjust the buys. Should the second Tournament purchase be a Silver instead? (The third Tournament purchase is unquestionably bad and probably should have been Remodel instead.)

In this game, especially second, I kind of like opening chapel/remake and ignoring tournaments until I can remake silver into them after I have a province in deck already (or earlier in some cases as the math permits).  I ran a few tests on Iso and they seem to have similar goldfish for buying a prov however you don't have the tournaments in your deck at the time.  You can convert the spare market(s) to gold and trash your tournaments for markets in the mid/late game when they're a liability.

[tlloyd]

Some cards are more heavily luck driven than others.  Tournament and black market are the ones that stand far and above the rest of the crowd.  They are the only effects in the game that translate random chance into an unmatchabe advantage.

Also, if early on your Swindler gets swindled away, or your Sea Hag gets discarded by your opponent's Sea Hag, you're pretty much done.

[Reyk]

Should the second Tournament purchase be a Silver instead?

Yes, I think so. You would have bought the gold much faster than I guess. Plus you couldn't trash copper two turns in a row because of this. This one copper never left your deck until the very end.

   — ackack's turn 4 —
...
   (ackack draws: a Chapel and 4 Coppers.)

   — ackack's turn 5 —
   ackack plays a Chapel.
   ... trashing 3 Coppers.

   — ackack's turn 6 —
...
   ... trashing 2 Estates.
   ackack plays a Copper.

[ackack]

Yes, I think so. You would have bought the gold much faster than I guess. Plus you couldn't trash copper two turns in a row because of this. This one copper never left your deck until the very end.

I think trashing the last Copper is not that important, and in fact I wondered if one of my errors was in not leaving a second one in to make possible a Gold buy instead of the Market. Note that my opponent finishes the game with 2 Coppers, and depending on whether he pulled Chapel or Tournament with that Market the second one might well have been essential for buying the decisive first Province.

[Zaphod]

In support of a second Tournament, I offer this from a game I played yesterday...

   Zaphod plays a Tournament.
   ... getting +1 action.
   ... Zaphod reveals a Province.
   ... Zaphod discards a Province and gains a Followers on the deck.
   ... drawing 1 card and getting +$1.
   Zaphod plays a Throne Room.
   ... and plays a Laboratory.
   ... ... drawing 2 cards and getting +1 action.
   ... and plays the Laboratory again.
   ... ... (Zaphod reshuffles.)
   ... ... drawing 2 cards and getting +1 action.
   Zaphod plays a Tournament.
   ... getting +1 action.
   ... Zaphod reveals a Province.
   ... Zaphod discards a Province and gains a Trusty Steed on the deck.
   ... drawing 1 card and getting +$1.

I only had one Province, but the Chapel had thinned my hand to the point where I was able to discard it for a Prize, draw it again, and discard it for a second Prize.  I couldn't have done it if I didn't have two Tournaments at the time.

The key to winning with Tournament is to get Provinces ASAP, and then get lucky enough to draw them with Tournaments.  Early Provinces are more important than early Tournaments, because a Province in your hand can stop your opponent's Tournament dead in its tracks.  That said, Chapel improves your odds of drawing Tournament with Province, so it's probably a bit more important to load up on Tournaments in this scenario.

[WanderingWinder]

The key to winning with Tournament is to get Provinces ASAP, and then get lucky enough to draw them with Tournaments. 

I actually have to disagree. There are some boards where this is true, but I think the biggest cases this is true is where there are no other curse-givers and there's a quick followers. Even then it's not always so fatal. So this (^) is right in, off the top of my head, maybe 60% of the boards only?