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Author Topic: Do you have non-competitive friends?  (Read 12630 times)

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theory

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Re: Do you have non-competitive friends?
« Reply #25 on: June 22, 2011, 12:41:02 pm »
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The same could be said of dominion.  You're not going to handicap yourself when you're playing against theory for your always-valuable ratings points, you're going to do it when you're playing around the kitchen table for something to do on an evening, against people who otherwise refuse to play versus you. 
I had an interesting conversation about this this morning.  No one had any problems with Tournament during playtesting; it's only when you start playing for rating points that you start raging at serendipitous Tournament activations.  Tournament is really one of the most fun cards to be released in a long time; it's just unfortunate that it was the first such card to be released under the unrelentingly critical eye of the Isotropic ladder climbers.
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Raine

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Re: Do you have non-competitive friends?
« Reply #26 on: June 22, 2011, 01:48:25 pm »
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I think that is part of the problem with the rankings ladder.  people want it as a status symbol rather than use it as a tool to try to play games against similarly ranked players, which should equal more fun.
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Eagle

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Re: Do you have non-competitive friends?
« Reply #27 on: June 22, 2011, 02:06:15 pm »
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Once you get 'good enough' at golf you're playing at 0 handicap against people with 0 handicap, and don't have to worry about losing to it.  Most tournaments played with handicaps are for fun or charity anyway.

The same could be said of dominion.  You're not going to handicap yourself when you're playing against theory for your always-valuable ratings points, you're going to do it when you're playing around the kitchen table for something to do on an evening, against people who otherwise refuse to play versus you. 

Actually, maybe I can use this as a way to get people to play dominion with me again.

Like I said, I get it if you're playing with friends, or "around your kitchen table"..  It just kills me when my buddy tells me he lost a golf game to someone by 2 because he had to give him 7 strokes.   As far as I'm concerned you won by 5, and you should be the one getting whatever prize you're grumbling about not getting.
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msuroo

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Re: Do you have non-competitive friends?
« Reply #28 on: June 22, 2011, 02:58:08 pm »
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As far as I'm concerned you won by 5, and you should be the one getting whatever prize you're grumbling about not getting.

But then his buddy never would never play him with anything on the line.  I play a lot of golf with my brother-in-law, and he is a lot better than me.  Having 20 bucks on the game makes it a lot more exciting for both of us - every 3 foot putt actually has some pressure on it.  If he didn't give me strokes though, I would never play him for money.
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Eagle

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Re: Do you have non-competitive friends?
« Reply #29 on: June 22, 2011, 03:17:21 pm »
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As far as I'm concerned you won by 5, and you should be the one getting whatever prize you're grumbling about not getting.

But then his buddy never would never play him with anything on the line.  I play a lot of golf with my brother-in-law, and he is a lot better than me.  Having 20 bucks on the game makes it a lot more exciting for both of us - every 3 foot putt actually has some pressure on it.  If he didn't give me strokes though, I would never play him for money.

And if I was a far better golfer than someone, I'd never agree to play them for money if I was giving up my advantage I'd worked hard for for years to get better.  That's why I don't play the game.

If people want to play that way, that's great.  I just don't.
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guided

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Re: Do you have non-competitive friends?
« Reply #30 on: June 22, 2011, 04:14:07 pm »
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I'm an isotropic ladder climber who hates high variance, and I still love Tournament ;D
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Kuildeous

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Re: Do you have non-competitive friends?
« Reply #31 on: June 23, 2011, 10:11:54 am »
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Like I said, I get it if you're playing with friends, or "around your kitchen table"..  It just kills me when my buddy tells me he lost a golf game to someone by 2 because he had to give him 7 strokes.   As far as I'm concerned you won by 5, and you should be the one getting whatever prize you're grumbling about not getting.

I suppose the wager is not so much whether Player A can beat Player B but whether Player A can beat Player B by at least x number of points.

I don't do sports betting, but the terminology I hear involves point spreads.

Like I said, I would hate to win because my opponent gimped himself on purpose, but I'm also not one of the casual, noncompetitive players we're talking about. If they don't take offense at the gimping, then awesome-sauce.
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Superdad

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Re: Do you have non-competitive friends?
« Reply #32 on: June 23, 2011, 04:17:51 pm »
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Whenever I play with my wife, I play with a 6 copper 4 estate deck and don't tell her. This works as long as you don't draw a 4-estate hand on turn 1 or 2 (which luckily hasn't happened yet). She doesnt' really notice that I start either 2/4 or 3/3, maybe one day she will.

I actually find that to be quite fun, because it forces you do odd things. I'm sure you wouldn't be surprised to know just how rough a handicap it is to have a 6/4 starting deck.


The other option I like to do is just go slighly higher terminal-heavy so that I collide more. She doesn't really notice, but the games are a lot closer. Also, if Chapel is out, I don't buy it. I bought it once just to show her how good it is, and absolutely crushed her. She said she doesn't like throwing her cards in the trash (pretty funny). She'll only get trashers like remodel (trash for benefit).

I also play with my 5-year old, who LOVES witch. We put witch in every game he plays, and I make sure I never buy one. It is actually extremely hard to win (even against my 5-year old!!) when he's the only one witching. So the other option is to just identify the best strategy, then choose something else. I.e. always take a whacky deck.

I did a Kingscourt/Pawn deck the other day. I thought it would be whacky, and it ended up just being really f'king solid. I was totally surprised how strong it was. You tend to learn new things by taking the road-less-traveled now and then.
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Kuildeous

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Re: Do you have non-competitive friends?
« Reply #33 on: June 23, 2011, 04:25:45 pm »
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Whenever I play with my wife, I play with a 6 copper 4 estate deck and don't tell her. This works as long as you don't draw a 4-estate hand on turn 1 or 2 (which luckily hasn't happened yet). She doesnt' really notice that I start either 2/4 or 3/3, maybe one day she will.

If you ever do draw 5/1, you could just toss your bad hand. In some instances, we draw 5/2 and buy only the 5. Granted, if something costs 2, there has be a pretty compelling reason to not buy it (such as Envoy/Pearl Diver). Just take your four estates, pile them into a neat stack, place them in your discard, and say, "Well, at least I was able to buy the Laboratory."
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Superdad

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Re: Do you have non-competitive friends?
« Reply #34 on: June 23, 2011, 05:31:45 pm »
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Good idea! I generally do this with my 4/2 hands even. I just toss the 2 and don't show her.

Similarly, my 3/3 starts, I usually just buy double silver and say I don't like the 4's on the table - not showing her my whole hand.

She's actually in the habit of playing both two starting turns almost simultaneously (since there's really not much interaction anyways). Against some people, I'll buy based on their buy, but against my wife, we generally just play our first 2 turns simultaneously.
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Kuildeous

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Re: Do you have non-competitive friends?
« Reply #35 on: June 24, 2011, 09:55:51 am »
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She's actually in the habit of playing both two starting turns almost simultaneously (since there's really not much interaction anyways). Against some people, I'll buy based on their buy, but against my wife, we generally just play our first 2 turns simultaneously.

We generally play both hands at once, as well. We do go around the table, which actually helps offset some of the first-player bias, since whoever goes last gets to see everyone's first two cards before making his decision.

So, it's common to draw our first hand, pick our two cards, and shuffle everything together for Turn 3. This was made very interesting when someone accidentally gave us decks of 5 Coppers and 3 Estates. We didn't even check the second half of the deck for Turn 2. It wasn't until Turn 4 when we realized that the card count was off. Now, I always give my second half a cursory glance (I've seen a misdeal before where someone received 4 Estates; I'm not going to let myself get caught with that!).
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