I've started playing treasure awkward style lately to reduce the advantage there. It makes a small difference. And playing IRL makes me miss the luxury of keeping things secret.
i noticed you doing that in our games yesterday and am curious as to what small difference you think it makes. it actually made me step up and pay more attention to your totals and the state of your deck.
An example is: did they take that $5 because they only had $5, or because they prefer it over gold? That can be a big hint to your opponent's intended strategy.
Maybe this is just a function of me not playing enough games anymore, but how many games actually come down to that piece of information being relevant? You have to have:
1) A $5 being relevant, but not necessarily SO relevant that people care to always take it over gold
2) A viable counter to your opponent choosing to make that play
3) The ability to actually implement that counter without losing the game (compared to say, situations where it's turn 3 and your opponent drew 6/3 for 2nd shuffle, while you drew 4/4)
4) The ability to implement that counter without your opponent knowing that you're attempting to make that counter and negating that counter by implementing a different strategy altogether.
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I'm just really struggling to see the value. Again, maybe a function of me withdrawing from high-level play, but it seems like 99/100 times that the situation comes up (and this situation being a corner case to begin with...), you aren't going to care whether your opponent wants a card "badly" or not...he's still got it.
After all of the bruhaha about the point counter extension, i decided to play a set of games without it last night. Other than feeling extremely nervous that i'd lost count and was about to end the game to my detriment every game (one time, actually doing the thing i truly hate - not ending the game on piles when i could have because i wasn't entirely sure that I was ahead), I didn't perform any differently. My distaste for the nervous play stopped me from playing a long set - only did 4-5 games.