Thanks Pedro.

Czuch Chuckers: HEAR HEAR. I believe I complained about this very early on and was ignored. I think it detracts markedly from the game. of course I now try to do it as well, just to keep up.

Simple solution would be to eliminate players who don't make a move (as in the first move of the game).

grenv: Actually there is a very simple solution. Dark Ponds

BIG BAD WOLF: Yes, it's an improvement for sure.

BIG BAD WOLF: There are a few things we agree apon :)~

Czuch Chuckers: The pond 575 you just posted. I thought it was quite a good move and surprised how we all changed places right at the end. The leader was thrown in the pond by her bid.
I am here to play and have fun. But to have people talk among themselves on how to move will not be fun anymore. If that happens I will not be playing ponds anymore. These are games and should be fun.
I am just happy to be able to win one now and then. I don't always bid all in my last bet. Someone could just bet lower than me. It is my last turn. I will fall in anyway. I'm so sorry to feel there was cheating done. I have no idea what to look for. I think whatever anyone bets. It should not be questioned..In this case Pedro said it was not cheating. Another it is very hard to prove. I know one game Tony mentioned something about Pedro and I had the same bid. This was high in the numbers at that time. It made me feel like he thought that we were cheating. Maybe he didn't mean it that way at all. But thats how I felt. I have never cheated or never will. Games to me are fun and should be a happy place to come here and play. Seems sometimes people forget that.

Pbarb2: I wasnt complaining of cheating.... it is just a flaw in the game that sometimes we are unable to play a turn and it is possible to take advantage of that, and that is not really in the spirit of the intention of this game. For example, if we were to all play a live game in the same room, nobody would ever miss a turn and it would not ever be part of the game at all.... just one of the flaws of playing online.

I wouldnt get too upset about people talking about these games either.... some people just have very competitive natures, and for us it IS fun to have this type of banter, as long as it doesnt go so far as to ruin it for others :)

i dont thinki autobidded in that pond czuch so mayeb there was a bug, i may have forgot to play but im pretty sure i didnt-seems strange also that about 6 others did it in the same pond

furbster: I'm pretty sure Pedro would not have made that bid had he not seen that you were not online in time to make a play....

The problem with so many people using autobid in that pond was, I think, because I made the time limit 18 hours... so anyone who only comes online once a day at the same time would not be able to keep up with that pond. Maybe some didnt notice the time limit when they signed on?

possibly as i have been rather busy these last few days. I never really notice the time of the pond limits when i sign up for them

My last bet in that pond was a simple one-more-than-the-second bet. I didn't even checked whether furbster had logged in during the last 18 hours or not. dmk is a different story though. That was actually a great risk from me because I placed that bid 7 hours before the deadline.

Pedro Martínez: Oh yeah....it wasnt Furbster anyway. Duh! LOL

Czuch Chuckers: I'm sorry I wasn't meaning you in anything. I just happened to click on your nic when I wrote that..Again sorry. I was just remarking over all in what I had read.
BARB

Pbarb2: My comment on you and Pedro making the same bid was definitely not a 'cheating' barb!! I was just totally amazed at two guys getting the same high (and effective) bid. threw me right off course.
Re players taking advantage of guys who haven't made a move; do we have to have data re the time we last visited the site? What good does that do anyone?SKYking, for example, does not have it on his profile. Fencer????

tonyh: If you don't see it on his profile, he's got you on his enemies list.

Pedro Martínez: Aha!!! So if I don't want you guys to see when I have NOT made a move, all I have to do is make you all enemies?!

tonyh: But we could still see this info on the Enemies page anyway...:)

tonyh: or simple logoff and view that information as a guest.

tonyh: Thanks Tony..I thought thats what you meant..But with all this cheating talk I didn't know. LOL I still say great minds think alike..except this one is getting to old for it anymore.

i tied for 1st with 2 others in a rain pond the other day and it still dont show me as winning a rain pond as of yet. How long does it take to show the victory?

... Would Arctic Warrior bet 1 here?????

The other bid made sense just in case, and I wouldn't mind if he'd bet something vaguely sensible.

Seems like I was ganged up on a little.

http://brainking.com/en/Pond?bms=22&g=545

i do this often i liek to change up the bids so that it keeps the leader on his toes and he cant get a BRAINLESS win! if there over 500 points and the bonus can make a difference i will sometimes bet 1 or even all my points. heres an example.
1. Vikings 513 (-512=1+500= 501)
2. Pedro 511 (-2=509)
3. Nothingness 500

Now vikings thinks he can just bet 512 and win for free, but not if i bet 1 and pedro bets 2. this makes the #1 over analyze this situation and could change his bets in future ponds. So Pedro is rewarded for watching my tendencies. i only do this every so many ponds, as to not be too predictable.

Nothingness: I wouldn't mind if he bid 300 or something, but 1 makes no sense at all. Why should you reward other players for watching your tendencies? Ridiculous.

hmm well thats what you do in any game, finding weakness in an opponent is what ALL sports atheltes do! its a common practice. batters watch pitchers tendencies, to see if he is tipping pithces, in Soceer if a goalie tends to go to the right you can use that knowledge to your advantage in a shootout. In boxing you look at tendencies to find WEAKNESS in your opponent. "If you dont learn from your mistakes your doomed to repeat them." Most ponds are over when it gets down to 5 people left. now with this strategy there almost NEVER over even with 3 poeple left. unless the points are separated by a big gap.

grenv:


Why should you reward other players for watching your tendencies? Ridiculous.

Are you serious? I believe that's what this game's about.

Nothingness, I don't think it is looked at as a tie of 2 people. I think it is looked at as though no one won, since both fell in the pond.
Unless I'm misunderstanding.

It's stupid to me. I mean if Arctic Warrior would have just bid what he had (500), he would be end up in 2nd place instead of 3rd place. There is absolutly nothing good that will help him by just bidding 1.

And since I haven't even won a pond yet, I could very easilly have misunderstood.. LOL

no he would still get 3rd b/c other could still be more than 500. it comes down to an educated GUESS!

grenv: The game is flawed. One solution is to stop playing it. If you're going to continue to play it, you'll just have to deal with the unfairness of the game and the sometime idiotic or arbitrary play of your opponents. Complaining about it or pointing fingers about collusion doesn't solve much and gets everyone defensive and mad.

Fencer said he liked the team idea. If he gets it going, perhaps it will play in a way that won't have these other problems. As for me, I won't play the original version any more. Nor am I going to play the dark version. I'll hold out for the team version and will give it a try if I'm not forced to join fellowships.

You guys are missing the point. Of course if you watch other peoples play you can gain some advantage. My question is why would you help certain people (those that play often) over others deliberately by making a bid GUARANTEED to lose.

In this case a higher bid would have lifted him to second place. It's possible he could even have won if I screwed up my bid, why bid 1 and guarantee falling in the pond? I don't get it.

Nothingness: But in this case he would have ended up in 2nd, not 3rd. Again, no point in bidding 1.

Walter Montego: Every game is "flawed" in some way. You cannot find a perfect one. Btw, I don't think there is a significant flaw. Every aspect can be considered as a part of the strategy.

but most time he would've finished 3rd its called playing the odds. aka gambling! Grenv could've played a different bet as well to assure himself of the win but he was out thought! and that is why he lost. would've could've should've are no excuses. Was "1" an illogical bid? absolutely! but not Stupid!

Maybe Artic thought he didn´t have any chance so he decided bet anything. He didn´t think i could do an "illogical" bid. If i´d have bet 501 instead of 383 then i´d have done the second place. This was my strategy.

grenv: You have finished almost 100 ponds. Is this the first time you noticed that the last person bet 1, or generally less than the maximum? I saw it so many times before...these guys just see there's no way to win the ponds and try to make the game more interesting or for whatever other reason they just bet low, having, from their point of view, no chance to move on to th enext round. I have done it myself several times. Check this:

http://brainking.com/cz/Pond?bms=10&g=602

I could secure myself a third position but I tried to win the pond by bidding lower than what Rose had left, hoping that Rose would go even lower.

Nothingness: What bid could have Grenv had made to assure himself a win? There was nothing when the other 2 players bid below what should have been the "min" bid amount for the players.

Nothingness: How could I have guaranteed a win???? If I bid less then I risk Matarilevich bidding more than me and getting the bonus.

Pedro: I agree that Mata's bid was correct, risking 2nd place to possibly win is fine. I had to GUESS, since he could just as easily bid high thinking I'd go lower to protect the play he made etc etc.

The only thing I'm questioning is bidding 1. Bidding 300, or 350, or 400 etc is fine, but 1 makes no sense.

Nothingness: If I were in grenv's position, I would have also bet what he bet (888 I think...?)

Again this comes down to guess,Grenv couldve bet 503 to assure himself of the win(in that situation only). which is what i wouldve bet (Unless i noticed very poor competition). I wouldve gone for 2nd and bet just over what 3rd had. That is a no brainer. BUT again this is all "IF" i think that a person will bet illogically. If i had followed arctics tendencies i might have picked up on it. He was doomed for 3rd but b/c Matar.. made the actual illogical bet with 383 this caused grenv to take the loss. this strategy actually paid off even though grenv played "book" he still lost. Im actually still trying to figure out the 383 bid. that makes less sense to me than the 1 bid. What if arctic had bet everything.

Nothingness: 1) The Matarilevich's bet was very logical.

2) I assure you that if grenv bet 503, he would finish 2nd in an overwhelming majority of cases cases (in the same situation). This was just a bad luck.

The 383 bid was logical because Mat. was going to either 1st or 3rd place. I can see him taking a chance. 383 was logical because you could guess that grenv would bet the 888.

But Arctic's bet of 1 does no good for him. There is almost no way that a bet of 1 will help him at all. I might be able to understand a lower bet of 100, or 200, or 300 or something - but 1 does nothing except make sure he ends up in 3rd place. Pointless and i think a stupid bid.

890-887+500=503;
887-504=383

This game isnt all about whats logical. I agree with nothingness, it is a long term strategy to make some illogical moves sometimes. Like in poker, you sometimes have to lose on purpose to make peopol wonder if you are playing logical or not and then you can get them later when they think you are bluffing again. One of these times a leader will begin to wonder if both people will go low and undercut him... he ma y then go low to counter this possiblity, and then both players bid "logical" and he is screwed. It makes the end game more fun for anyone not in the lead, if the leader thinks someone "might" act ilogically.

Czuch Chuckers: Poker is one game with many hands. The winner is the player with the most money at the end. Each move within a pond may be analogous to a hand in poker.

What game would you deliberately lose in order to achieve victory in another game? That is silly in my book.

there is one reason why a player would bet 1 when he would be in the last place ...

he is convinced he has lost anyway ... he bets 1 ... he does this in all his pond games .. he thereby shows a tendecy .. which the regular players might pick up ... and at some time when he thinks he changes his bet to 12 instead of 1 .. and might win the pond from the 3rd position which he would have fallen in otherwise

(i do this a lot while playing squash ... i hit a ball almost exactly the same for quite some time ... and then when i really need the point .. i suddenly switch tactics .. it will often give me more than 1 point as my opponent is a bit confused from that point and might be thinking too much .... i am not playing squash on a very high level though ;))

grenv: Like HRQLS said.... it is not stupid, as you contend, to sometimes lose on purpose to help you win more later.

In my poker example, I may stay in a hand with a low pair of 9s, knowing it is not the best hand, but the winner will see that I played with only 9s and might see a tendancy for me to play low hands. Now when I have a pair of aces, and my opponent has a pair of queens or kings, I might get him to play thinking that he may have me beat because I am known to play with a low hand sometimes.

Part of ponds games has evolved on this site to be about reading tendancies from opponents whom you play against regularly etc. Each game here is not an individual game unto itself. What I do in this game will have a bearing on how others may play in another game against me.

You may play the logical way everytime. This is a tendancy people know about you, and wil dictate how someone will play in an end game against you. If you were playing poker, you would be called a "rock". Rocks only play solid hands all the time. That is a good stategy to not ever lose too much money, but when people know you only play good hands they will fold everytime you play and your strategy will rarely win you very much money either. (like you said, in poker, its not about how many hands you win, rather how much money you win) You can win 10 of 11 hands for a net profit of 10$ each hand, and I can win the 11th hand for a net profit of 500$ because when I stayed in so did everyone else because they thought I will play with a poor hand, and when you played everyone folded, so you won very little money.

Its obviously not quite the same for ponds, but the idea is stil there. We play against the same people over and over, and learn tendancies that help us determine how to play. Sopme of us think it is a good long term strategy to play "inconsitant with logic" sometimes, to have a better chance in a tough situation later on.

Czuch Chuckers: "Each game here is not an individual game unto itself."

I disagree with this statement, which your entire argument hinges on.

The squash argument is the same. A point is not an end to itself.

Here is my analogy: Would you lose a game of chess deliberately in order to confuse your opponent in the next game? I think not.

grenv: I think it is a good arguement.... something that is evolving every day here. I predicted an evolution in this game on this site, especially in opening bids. It is different than a live game face to face with everyone.
I dont play chess, but I think if it wre a match game with 10 games or so, I might be willing to play a few moves "poorly" on purpose to maybe mislead my opponent into making a stupid move later thinking I will not catch on.

It also depends on if you are playing for wins or for BKR, because thare are different strategies for both. (unless you can win alot and then the BKR will take care of itself) Playing like a rock on your end game will not always give you the best possible position in the end, but it will gaurantee that you do no worse then the position yopu start in. Also if you are playing for wins only, then each game may simply be a game unto itself, but if you are playing for BKR, then it is more like a poker game and you have to look at your results over the long term instead of from game to game. Is two 2nd place games better than a 3rd and a 1st????? Dont get me wrong... if I am in first place with 5 to go, I hope everyone plays like you and others, to just hope not to get worse than you are already are, and I will win more than lose, but if you were to mix it up some, I wouldnt know what to do, and you might make a big comeback and go from 3rd to 1st instead of staying safely ion 3rd.

Anywho, plent of ramblings for now

Czuch Chuckers: Once again, a match of 10 games is not analogous, unless we are to play a match of 10 ponds.

I tend not to ramble, hence my short posts