It may be one thing to play for stats, but there is a fine line between that and playing to the strengths and weaknesses of the field.

I was thinking of this current thread..

http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/3086/Non-Ranked_Public_Games

..which brings another thought to mind.  Wouldn't it be interesting if games or tournament games could be played blind? I.e, blind in the sense that players wouldn't know who they were playing? 

I'm with Thingol here. The stats largely take care of themselves if you just win. Trying to control who wins when you've lost is nitpicky stats-wise. If you're below equilibrium ratings-wise due to some recent loss against a lower rated player, you just have to win games to accelerate back up. It is the ability to produce wins at a high rate that leads to high scores.

Regarding the main thread - I try to play the best move. It's easy to think that high rated players have superpowers and you must deal with them first. But anyone can win. If you target someone and there is no strategic edge to that, you weaken yourself. Weakening yourself is bad strategy and leads to losing. I prefer not losing. 

I like Yertle's main strategy, but I also like being ahead. Once you realize that being ahead doesn't translate to victory, you come up with good ways to use your lead.

M57 wrote:

..which brings another thought to mind.  Wouldn't it be interesting if games or tournament games could be played blind? I.e, blind in the sense that players wouldn't know who they were playing? 

http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/2222/Enforceable_Treaties_and_Blinding

Not sure why I couldn't bring myself to make separate threads on that one. Very different ideas.

Hugh wrote:

I'm with Thingol here. The stats largely take care of themselves if you just win. Trying to control who wins when you've lost is nitpicky stats-wise. If you're below equilibrium ratings-wise due to some recent loss against a lower rated player, you just have to win games to accelerate back up. It is the ability to produce wins at a high rate that leads to high scores.

Regarding the main thread - I try to play the best move. It's easy to think that high rated players have superpowers and you must deal with them first. But anyone can win. If you target someone and there is no strategic edge to that, you weaken yourself. Weakening yourself is bad strategy and leads to losing. I prefer not losing. 

I like Yertle's main strategy, but I also like being ahead. Once you realize that being ahead doesn't translate to victory, you come up with good ways to use your lead.

Good advice. This whole thread started because it´s kinda disheartening to win 3-4 in a row and have 1 game set you back the same amount as you gained.  It's been happening a little too much for comfort lately. 

Thingol wrote:

I've recently played several games where it's clear that several players are going out of there way to attack me and I think this playing for stat's sake lends itself to playing AGAINST a player instead of playing TO WIN. 

Are you sure that's the reason? I can think of several others.  I know I only hit you because your dice against me are the surest route to victory.  ;)

The lovely thing about the rating and ranking on this site is there is no reward for 2nd place. Given this, everybody should play for the win. And so it should be!

Now when you have the chance to eliminate someone and you can choose between a lower ranked and a higher ranked person, mathematically it shouldn't matter. It's like said before a matter of risk vs reward. 

Personally I often choose to eliminate the lower ranked players or players I do not know yet. Not because of rating considerations, but because of the inpredictability of lower ranked players. I like to think everybody plays rational and tries to make the best decision based on the given situation, without taking previous games or even previous turns of the same game into consideration. I make decisions based on this assumption and it's frustrating when people turn out to make decision based on emotions or payback from previous games which causes the both of us to lose.

But to be honest I can remember once, I've decided to knock someone out just because of ranking issues. It was when I got deep in a game with someone who had a <200 rating. At this point I calculated a loss would have cost me over 400 points -- a risk I was not willing to take at that point.

P.S. I think I would like to play in games where the names of opponents are blank. It was a lot easier in my early days when people didn't recognize my name :-)

Luieuil wrote:

The lovely thing about the rating and ranking on this site is there is no reward for 2nd place. Given this, everybody should play for the win. And so it should be!

"Place" is not the issue. There can be a substantial "reward" for losing to the correct player.

A player with a 1800 Global Rating loses 40 points if the game is won by a player with a GR of 900.  On the other hand, he will lose only 15 points if he loses the same game to a player with a GR of 2400.

Luieuil wrote:

But to be honest I can remember once, I've decided to knock someone out just because of ranking issues. It was when I got deep in a game with someone who had a <200 rating. At this point I calculated a loss would have cost me over 400 points -- a risk I was not willing to take at that point.

You can only lose a max of 100 points per game.

I play to win first, but, if I were in a position that requires making a choice, and that this was the final factor in my consideration, I would chose to go after the lower ranked person over the higher ranked person, simply due to the mathematics of the ranking system and to reduce potential point losses.  I don't fear a 1v1 situation vs anyone, so, leaving a weak ranked opponent thinking that they might be easier to beat 1v1 does not even register as a great benefit to me vs the potential of losing to them simply because I weakened myself tearing into the superior player of the two.  Most the time though, no such choice exists as so many other factors come into play before leaving that as the deciding factor.

berickf wrote:

I play to win first, but, if I were in a position that requires making a choice, and that this was the final factor in my consideration, I would chose to go after the lower ranked person over the higher ranked person, simply due to the mathematics of the ranking system and to reduce potential point losses.  I don't fear a 1v1 situation vs anyone, so, leaving a weak ranked opponent thinking that they might be easier to beat 1v1 does not even register as a great benefit to me vs the potential of losing to them simply because I weakened myself tearing into the superior player of the two.  Most the time though, no such choice exists as so many other factors come into play before leaving that as the deciding factor.

Agree; it's rare ..but it does occur.

Yertle wrote:

Luieuil wrote:

But to be honest I can remember once, I've decided to knock someone out just because of ranking issues. It was when I got deep in a game with someone who had a <200 rating. At this point I calculated a loss would have cost me over 400 points -- a risk I was not willing to take at that point.

You can only lose a max of 100 points per game.

Ok, well that's a good rule. I didn't know about it. That maximum loss should be reached if you lose a game where the winner has 1/5 of your own rating. Seems fair to me. A rating <20 should theoretically make everybody lose his entire rating if the maximum loss wouldn't be cut to a maximum.

M57 wrote:

berickf wrote:

I play to win first, but, if I were in a position that requires making a choice, and that this was the final factor in my consideration, I would chose to go after the lower ranked person over the higher ranked person, simply due to the mathematics of the ranking system and to reduce potential point losses.  I don't fear a 1v1 situation vs anyone, so, leaving a weak ranked opponent thinking that they might be easier to beat 1v1 does not even register as a great benefit to me vs the potential of losing to them simply because I weakened myself tearing into the superior player of the two.  Most the time though, no such choice exists as so many other factors come into play before leaving that as the deciding factor.

Agree; it's rare ..but it does occur.

In almost any 4-player game with all info on the board you can choose who to kill if:

1: you're the game leader, AND

2: you can leave the other two player roughly equal sized.

That's why it's so damn important to be the game leader when the game reaches to 4 people.

Mad Bomber wrote: My thoughts are that cp points balance this out......


Please report to passage one for fullfullment


I recently got zero points from eliminating someone......why is there a limit on loss but not gain......?

Hold it. What? You got zero for the gain in a two player? Meaning you risked like 50+ for the loss? Ouch. 

Personally I ignore the end of game point loss/gain aspect.
If you are considering who you would rather lose to, then you have just turned an extremely important psychological corner: You are no longer playing purely to win.
The moment you do that you are as good as out of the game.

I make all decisions based on maximizing my chances of winning the game.
If I make my decisions correctly and I am playing enough games my stats will naturally trend upward.
If I am making poor decisions or become less active my stats will trend downwards.

No further consideration to rankings should be given strategically as they have NO strategic relevance to any given game, present or future, except that the higher your ranking the greater the threat other players will perceive you to be regardless of your board position. 

People find fun in different ways.  I personally find fun in trying to improve my stats.

On most boards I don't think about this.  But recently in http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/There+Can+Be+Only+One I ran into the situation where I was clearly going to lose.  Do I try to drag out my loss, and possibly keep the person who beat me from winning the second duel, or do I throw the game quickly?  My opponent had the highest rating of the 3 others, and I was guaranteed to lose, so I chose to lose quickly.

So there is a situation in which I chose how to play based on global rankings.  And a case where having a higher ranking caused me to be nice to a player.