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Qualdrion

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Level?
« on: January 17, 2013, 05:46:20 am »
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So I have played some isotropic and just started to wonder how good  at the game a certain level player is, etc. It seems like the best players are slightly above level 50 or so, but how good is other levels like 20, 30, 40, etc. compared to the best?
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Davio

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Re: Level?
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2013, 05:56:08 am »
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Maybe it's best to compare with yourself.

I was at 42 at the time and I felt like matches with other 40's I could win ~50% of the time against them.
Against lvl 30-ish players I think it was more like 65-35.
Against lvl 50+ it was more like 35-65 in their favor.

So there definitely is a difference.
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ipofanes

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Re: Level?
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2013, 07:08:34 am »
+1


I was at 42 at the time and I felt like matches with other 40's I could win ~50% of the time against them.
Against lvl 30-ish players I think it was more like 65-35.
Against lvl 50+ it was more like 35-65 in their favor.


I had the impression that this is what constitutes the rating? At least for Elo ratings there are estimates that a difference of 200 pts constitutes a 75 per cent probability for the better player to win. It is a bit harder here as level is expected rating minus two times the standard error, but with comparable standard errors there should be a more or less official number for that.
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Davio

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Re: Level?
« Reply #3 on: January 17, 2013, 07:12:35 am »
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I was at 42 at the time and I felt like matches with other 40's I could win ~50% of the time against them.
Against lvl 30-ish players I think it was more like 65-35.
Against lvl 50+ it was more like 35-65 in their favor.


I had the impression that this is what constitutes the rating? At least for Elo ratings there are estimates that a difference of 200 pts constitutes a 75 per cent probability for the better player to win. It is a bit harder here as level is expected rating minus two times the standard error, but with comparable standard errors there should be a more or less official number for that.
Well, yeah, I'm just saying the rating is pretty ok in this sense.
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Re: Level?
« Reply #4 on: January 18, 2013, 02:22:03 pm »
+3

I have 2 accounts on iso, one with a few thousand games, one with a few hundred (I was curious to see what would happen if I made a new account  where I didnt play 1/3 of my games against my wife)

I after a couple months I ended up literally tied with myself on the leader board.

Despite being in the top 10 at one point I am a level 40 player. I don't have the patience or discipline to win at the rate required of a level 50.

Here is how I'd rank players:

Level 0: Who knows, maybe a noob, maybe a new account.
Level 10: Usually pretty bad or new to the game/playing online. Even people who don't play very regularly will get to 20.  Usually doesn't know all the cards or the combos. Will frequently ignore powerful card/combos and make rookie mistakes like buying lots of terminal actions.
Level 20: Knows all the cards, has a good concept of common combos. Can read a board and identify most strategies. Regularly makes mistakes in missing an important card, or will "try out" things that sound like they might work but are not very good in practice.
Level 30: Experienced ISO players, knows every card, good at picking out the likely "best" strategy and sticking to it. Not as good at adapting, or making strategic decisions based on the current point score/deck situation. Will sometimes miss great combinations like double tactitian or hamlet/watchtower.
Level 40: very experienced players, good at advanced tactics, making strategic decisions on when to shuffle, when to buy penultimate province, does card counting of both his and his opponents decks to aid in making best decisions based on probability. Most common mistakes here are Fancy play syndrome, where they avoid simple strategies like double Jack or IGG-rush in favor of something more elegant.
Level 50: At this level you often have chessmasters playing dice.   You'll see players playing coppers one at a time to hide their hands. In game reports you'll occasionally see "mistakes" but rarely were those choices not intentional. Just choices made that didn't work out because of luck/bad shuffles.
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Qualdrion

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Re: Level?
« Reply #5 on: January 18, 2013, 02:27:22 pm »
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After playing a few weeks now and then (more in the recent week or so) I have advanced to level 29, so it would seem that I'm already getting decently good which is cool to know ^^
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Drab Emordnilap

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Re: Level?
« Reply #6 on: January 18, 2013, 02:28:48 pm »
+4

Level 30: Experienced ISO players, knows every card, good at picking out the likely "best" strategy and sticking to it. Not as good at adapting, or making strategic decisions based on the current point score/deck situation. Will sometimes miss great combinations like double tactitian or hamlet/watchtower.

I am offended that you would imply I would miss Hamlet/Watchtower.  >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(

EDIT:  >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(

EDIT EDIT:  ;)
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shark_bait

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Re: Level?
« Reply #7 on: January 18, 2013, 02:32:03 pm »
+2

I after a couple months I ended up literally tied with myself on the leader board.

I've got a nice screenshot of both of my accounts right next to each other on the leaderboard  :)

Level 50: At this level you often have chessmasters playing dice.   You'll see players playing coppers one at a time to hide their hands. In game reports you'll occasionally see "mistakes" but rarely were those choices not intentional. Just choices made that didn't work out because of luck/bad shuffles.

I've never encountered that.  Maybe in the DSC Tourney finals I could see this happening, but in general I find top players value speed over hiding coppers.
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: Level?
« Reply #8 on: January 18, 2013, 02:44:20 pm »
+8

People always seem to mention card counting and keeping track of decks as an important skill that separates 40+ from others, but that hasn't been my experience at all. I sometimes can't remember to count things as simple as Duchies on a Duke board. On alt-VP boards with no point counter I am basically in the dark as to what the score is. It's pretty rare if I can remember what cards are left in my deck for tactical decisions, and it's a miracle if I can do it for my opponent (unless the decks are really small). Although I've lost games because of bad deck tracking, overall it's a pretty marginal skill and bad memory won't prevent you from reaching the top of the leaderboard.

People generally overestimate the ability of the top players, the skill gap between thirties and forties isn't very big, and the difference only comes out over the course of a lot of games. All players, at all levels, make mistakes almost every single game. And they are mostly the same kinds of mistakes too.
 
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D Bo

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Re: Level?
« Reply #9 on: January 18, 2013, 02:51:54 pm »
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People always seem to mention card counting and keeping track of decks as an important skill that separates 40+ from others, but that hasn't been my experience at all. I sometimes can't remember to count things as simple as Duchies on a Duke board. On alt-VP boards with no point counter I am basically in the dark as to what the score is. It's pretty rare if I can remember what cards are left in my deck for tactical decisions, and it's a miracle if I can do it for my opponent (unless the decks are really small). Although I've lost games because of bad deck tracking, overall it's a pretty marginal skill and bad memory won't prevent you from reaching the top of the leaderboard.

People generally overestimate the ability of the top players, the skill gap between thirties and forties isn't very big, and the difference only comes out over the course of a lot of games. All players, at all levels, make mistakes almost every single game. And they are mostly the same kinds of mistakes too.

And on the other side, I'm quite good at card counting and keeping track of my and my opponent's deck, and yet I haven't reached level 30.
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Re: Level?
« Reply #10 on: January 18, 2013, 03:06:08 pm »
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I after a couple months I ended up literally tied with myself on the leader board.

I've got a nice screenshot of both of my accounts right next to each other on the leaderboard  :)

Level 50: At this level you often have chessmasters playing dice.   You'll see players playing coppers one at a time to hide their hands. In game reports you'll occasionally see "mistakes" but rarely were those choices not intentional. Just choices made that didn't work out because of luck/bad shuffles.

I've never encountered that.  Maybe in the DSC Tourney finals I could see this happening, but in general I find top players value speed over hiding coppers.

I've only seen single playing coppers in the first turn in non identical hands decks. And I was making lots of generalizations.  Like MicQ said, everybody makes the same mistakes, all the time. Trying to play fancy and get those beautiful "best case scenario" draws.

The only high level player I've ever played that turned normal randomly matched games into a chess match was gerinimoo (sp?).  He used to take 2-3 minutes at the start of every game, and a long time between every play of every turn to analyze EVERYTHING.  It got too annoying and I stopped playing against him when random matched us up.
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Davio

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Re: Level?
« Reply #11 on: January 18, 2013, 03:11:35 pm »
+2

Well, Geronimoo takes that long because he simulates every match before he plays them. :)
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Level?
« Reply #12 on: January 18, 2013, 03:17:23 pm »
+4

People always seem to mention card counting and keeping track of decks as an important skill that separates 40+ from others, but that hasn't been my experience at all. I sometimes can't remember to count things as simple as Duchies on a Duke board. On alt-VP boards with no point counter I am basically in the dark as to what the score is. It's pretty rare if I can remember what cards are left in my deck for tactical decisions, and it's a miracle if I can do it for my opponent (unless the decks are really small). Although I've lost games because of bad deck tracking, overall it's a pretty marginal skill and bad memory won't prevent you from reaching the top of the leaderboard.

People generally overestimate the ability of the top players, the skill gap between thirties and forties isn't very big, and the difference only comes out over the course of a lot of games. All players, at all levels, make mistakes almost every single game. And they are mostly the same kinds of mistakes too.

+1.

Really the main difference between higher level players and lower players is that higher level players lose less often. This sounds like a tautology, but really that's all there is to it. Everyone makes mistakes, and the same kind of mistakes. Higher level players just tend to make less mistakes. There isn't a fixed progression of things you need to get better at to reach different levels. It's just about making less mistakes.

I do think that subtle mistakes like not wishing for the right card on a Wishing Well get dwelt on a little too much. It is so rare that this actually makes the difference. More often the mistake is related to strategy or purchase order or adapting to your draws. It's stuff like adding the attack card too late, or getting/not getting a second trasher, or buying too many/few villages, or not thinking about how a "bad" card like Talisman could have been useful.
« Last Edit: January 18, 2013, 03:20:42 pm by HiveMindEmulator »
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dondon151

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Re: Level?
« Reply #13 on: January 18, 2013, 03:21:37 pm »
+2

The only high level player I've ever played that turned normal randomly matched games into a chess match was gerinimoo (sp?).  He used to take 2-3 minutes at the start of every game, and a long time between every play of every turn to analyze EVERYTHING.  It got too annoying and I stopped playing against him when random matched us up.

I think most high leveled players take their time? I would like to take at least 1-2 prior to turn 1 and sometimes would take a minute between or during turns to deliberate on decisions, but most of the time I get the vibe that my opponent is annoyed by this and rush myself along.
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DG

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Re: Level?
« Reply #14 on: January 18, 2013, 06:43:38 pm »
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I think top players do take their time over their opening purchases, certainly in tournament play. There's nothing worse than losing a game because you couldn't be bothered to think through or were too lazy to check out at all ten cards.
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blackb

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Re: Level?
« Reply #15 on: January 18, 2013, 07:13:49 pm »
+1

I think when someone has a high level u can assume him to be an accordingly good player.

But players at a lower level can be better then their level indicates. It just needs some weeks not to play on iso and u loose levels. Even though you don't forget strategies and play as good as before. Imo you get too much of a penalty for not playing enough.
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serakfalcon

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Re: Level?
« Reply #16 on: January 20, 2013, 11:14:06 am »
+1

Making sure to play with players ranked near you certainly seems to make a difference too. I jumped 10+ levels once I started playing +/- 10 only, instead of accepting whichever game came up.
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Stealth Tomato

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Re: Level?
« Reply #17 on: January 21, 2013, 09:53:05 pm »
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I think top players do take their time over their opening purchases, certainly in tournament play. There's nothing worse than losing a game because you couldn't be bothered to think through or were too lazy to check out at all ten cards.

We (if I may put myself in the category) certainly don't take more time than players 10 levels below us. The difference between a 30 and a 40 doesn't typically appear on turns 1 and 2. It appears on turn 4 or 6 or 7 or 13 or 15. There's much more nuance to 40 vs. 30 than to 30 vs. 20 or 20 vs. 10.
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Forge!!!

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Re: Level?
« Reply #18 on: January 27, 2013, 12:40:49 am »
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A game where WW (potentially?) plays his coppers one at a time to hide how many he has:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20130119-142322-b8b9c39b.html

(maybe? I have no idea)
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Lekkit

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Re: Level?
« Reply #19 on: January 27, 2013, 01:18:26 pm »
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I would guess it's actually Stef who does this to not give away a 5/2 opening, WW just follows suit. I do this too sometime, but it generally only works on boards with 2's that you'd rather get over 3's or 4's. Which on the top of my head is Chapel and Fool's Gold.
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Re: Level?
« Reply #20 on: January 27, 2013, 03:08:44 pm »
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While it's technically always advantageous to not play treasures that don't help you get something, I almost never do it if it means having to play them individually. Actually, all the times I can think of that I haven't played all my treasures are either for some play reason (mandarin, farmland, etc.), because there are specialty treasures (I won't play all my fool's golds and coppers if I don't need to; similarly for something like royal seal), or because of accidentally hitting a treasure, which is what it probably was here, though I don't remember this.

jhkokst

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Re: Level?
« Reply #21 on: February 16, 2013, 05:31:50 pm »
+2

I'm a mid level 30 and I think something I have become hyper aware of in my last 1000 games or so is how luck actually factors into this game.  This is not something I really thought much about about when I was learning the cards, learning strategies, and just generally how to play.

Lose a grandmarket race in a mirror match.  Open witch/chapel only to have them collide on turn 5 and miss the reshuffle.  Have someone's sabateur successfully hit all of your copies of an essential engine component (villages) yet leave all the terminals (smithies) in your deck.  Random stuff like that that makes you shout at your screen and contemplate quitting dominion.

Granted, coming back from a dose of bad luck is very satisfying.

The other day on goko i played some dude Rockman - who was quite a jerk to be honest.  I was clearly losing the grandmarket rush, so I decided to just go for early provinces and hope to get a province lead.  I was up 3/1 when his engine stalled and he got into a shouting match at me calling me "lucky".  I ended up with 4 and a duchy.  When his engine finally popped, he decided to end the match with a loss and bought out the final two provinces - saying that I won by luck.  The irony is that had he bought a province and 2 duchies, my next hand was only green and he could have won the following turn...  Yet I won by luck, and I never heard the end of it.  Perhaps it's true.  Perhaps I won by luck because my opponent thought I was lucky and gave up the game with a rookie mistake. 

Rockman may actually be a decent player.  But in my opinion, he does not understand how luck can actually impact a game of dominion and therefore that indicates to me that his perceived skill is greater than what it actually is.

Im losing track of what I'm trying to say here.  But I think an understanding of how luck plays a role in the game is something that develops with experience and time.  Its very easy to call someone else lucky when you are losing (ala what Rockman did to me).  But had he had a better understanding of what Dominion luck really is, i think he may have made better decisions and kept his calm - and earned a win despite my "luck". 

I definitely think that this is something that sets apart higher and lower ranked players.  And perhaps understanding luck (which is nothing more than occurrence of low probability events) and how to capitalize on it (good) or successfully recover from it (bad) is a part of the greater definition of skill.




« Last Edit: February 16, 2013, 05:34:10 pm by jhkokst »
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Davio

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Re: Level?
« Reply #22 on: February 17, 2013, 09:02:04 am »
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I find that it's harder to combat bad luck against lower level players, since more often than not they don't pay as much attention to pile levels and other such details. So you can sometimes sneak one past them.

Against higher level players, there's more a feeling that you're always just one buy or gain short to end it in a win, but this isn't a coincidence.
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blueblimp

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Re: Level?
« Reply #23 on: February 17, 2013, 01:06:10 pm »
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I find that it's harder to combat bad luck against lower level players, since more often than not they don't pay as much attention to pile levels and other such details. So you can sometimes sneak one past them.
Yeah, I'm surprised when sometimes players play well enough in the early game and midgame to gain an advantage, then throw the game away in endgame. Also weird is when a player ends a close game with a loss when the point counter is on.
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Davio

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Re: Level?
« Reply #24 on: February 17, 2013, 01:14:40 pm »
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Obviously I meant easier, but you got the point. :)

Sometimes they can get too focused on engine building and green too late as well.
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