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[TrojH]

Code: [Select]

Haven, Warehouse, Horse Traders, Pirate Ship, Talisman, Baker, Bazaar, Counterfeit, Stables, Adventurer
http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20140308/log.5303f235e4b059e8062549c4.1394320358607.txt

I've heard it a thousand times. "Don't open Baker." "That's not a good way to start." "Sure you want Bakers eventually. But not right away. Open something else."

I foolishly took that lesson to heart in this 3-player game. I figured I needed to whittle down my deck early, not only because trashing junk is good in general, but I didn't want to leave easy targets for my opponents' Pirate Ships. So I opened Counterfeit/Warehouse; thereafter, I focused on tossing Coppers and buying Bakers (and later, Bazaars).

One of my opponents did go for Pirate Ships. The other? He opened Baker/Warehouse, and plowed into the Bakers. I was playing catchup with him after that.

The end result? I split the Bakers 5-5 with him, and I got more Bazaars than he did... but he won easily. Those early Coin tokens, combined with the cash he did NOT trash, made the difference.

Okay folks, help me here. What's the tipoff here that opening Baker is the right move?

Edit: sorry, forgot to include the log.

[silverspawn]

I've heard it a thousand times. "Don't open Baker." "That's not a good way to start." "Sure you want Bakers eventually. But not right away. Open something else."

I've never heard that. baker is a solid opening. it's just a little underpowered for a $5 card considering how much it really does, similiar to market. Often times there are better things you could do.

I can tell you why you lost: the third player bought pirate ships, so your counterfeit became bad. Usually counterfeit would be a way better opening than baker. And if it were a 2-player game, it would be the right thing to open with no matter what.

3-Player games are... meh. I have no strategic answer for pirate ships in 3-player games. All I can say is that pirate ship is a very bad card here, there is lots of virtual coin. but it does affect the other players in a weird way, if you came first and you opened counterfeit, you did the right thing which turns out bad, just because someone else went for a bad card

[Mic Qsenoch]

It is really hard to evaluate your buy decisions in this game because the most important piece of information isn't shown in the log (how many coin tokens you and your opponent have). But I will say that I find your turns 9, 11, and 12 pretty questionable. You are spending masses of coin tokens (6,6,4) to get action cards that almost surely won't have time to return your investment in this game. I think you would haven been much better off saving the tokens.

I'd also point out that this game doesn't really show that the Baker opening was better, your opponent has first player advantage and he only beats you by 12 points, just a 1 Province swing.

[LastFootnote]

Non-terminal $5 cards are generally worse openings than terminal $5 cards, is I think what people mean when they say "Don't open Baker". In this case there were no terminal $5 cards to be had, so baker is probably a fine opening. I would have gone Counterfeit myself, like you did. But like Silverspawn says, once your opponents are trashing your Coppers for you, Baker becomes way better than Counterfeit and probably the premier opener on this board.

I would be tempted to open double-Pirate Ship, just to see how that worked out. Add a Counterfeit if nobody else is trashing my Coppers, then buy Bazaars as much as possible.

[Teproc]

I wasn't aware of a "don't open Baker" policy, but I would have gone Counterfeit as well... however I never play 3-p (not online at least) so Pirate Ship is rarely a card on my radar, it's possible Baker was a better opening there (certainly stronger than Bazar imo).

[Robz888]

There's no way that opening Counterfeit is wrong here.