Maxxina: I'd say 11 is 100% safe.

They all logged in in the last three days, so maybe they will change their bids...

Hehe, what do you mean? There are five autobids of 8 points. Should we bid 9, is it safe? :-)

Sure. :-)

My table is deleted. :-) I can't manage tables for all ponds (not even for the ponds, in which I'm participating), so I'm managing none. Why should I do Fencer's business? :-P

Yep.

Stevie: He is bidding 671, but he can actually bid only 500 points.

This is correct, but I bet there will be at least one player with a bid higher than 500 points.

I'm quite sure this is his last round, because it makes sense again to go for the bonus.

Stevie: I'd say, first are all given points substracted from the pool, i.e. he has 0 points remaining, and *then* he get the bonus of 500.

Yep. :-)

:-)

I'd like to be banned too. Would you please ban me for one week?

PS: Many thanks in advance. (I won't be able to thank after the ban, will I?)

Neverthless I very appreciate EIHNs suicide (if I'm not wrong) by bidding the same ammount as Alesh. I'd say it helps a lot and is not affecting the game. Many thanks, EIHN! :-)

Sure it makes sence. I mean Angelmouse with 6 points bidding is not so bad, because there are still enough [beeep] who mess up the game with his/hers suicides, but Alesh is deadly.

Maybe even better would be to remove all pawn automatically from the ponds they eventually participate. But in the First pond they are really extremly boring.

IMHO there is no cheating in this game, as long as nobody can see the real bids of the other players befor he/she bids. If somebody wants to use some computer programms, spreadsheeds, external advisers, Nostradamus' Prophecy or whatever, he/she should feel free to do it. Personally I can't imagine that it really guarantee a win. -- In the runs on the server where I played it initially, we didn't forbid even agreements between players - they didn't work anyway. :-)

Chuck: If I'm not wrong, "your word" wasn't "ignorant", it was rather "idiot". :-)

I'm affraid Ed has already left. He has solved the game, he knows that he's able to win every pond, why should he waste the time by playing it? ;-)

I'm very surprised too, how low the most starting bids in several games are...

Mely: Not bad.. :-)

According the types of people and strong offtopic: I like "There are 10 types of people: those who understand binary and those who don't." :-)

Don't forget to bid for the second round. :-)

Ugh, better not... :-)

Oh, indeed, with an unlimited number of runners... :-)

What? A 21 day game?! :-o Have fun...

Oh, the sleeping beauty Alesh is already a pawn. I suppose, he won't wake up even after he'll fall into the water. :-)

Hm, the best tactics for the first run is obviously to bet constantly 5 points. There seem to be every turn some runners who are bored and bet suicidaly less than would be save. :-)

Very funny. And what does it mean? What is the difference between Code1 and Code3? :-o

It seems to be a good compromise, but I'm affraid there would be a problem. (I mean not for me and surely not for the majority of us, sitting in front of a computer 16+ hours a day :-))

Let's say, the deadline for a move is every 24 hours, at 1 pm. A player gives his bid shortly after the previous move, at 2 pm (23 hours before deadline), in the hope that he has 47 hours time for the next move and can leave for a trip or whatever (They say, there is a life outside... :-o). Unfortunatelly all bids will be given in the next 2 hours, the actual move will be done at 4 pm (21 hours before the original deadline) and the next deadline would be at 4 pm next day, 21 hours before our player originally thought...

(Aaaaarrrgghh, I hope you can understand my Pidgin English and what I mean... :-))

Czuch Chuckers: Oh, sorry for misunderstanding the "starting pool", in this case I agree with you again. (I'd say more than 30 runners is rather a pain, but 200+ is sooo perverted that it's fun again :-))
Shorter time for a move -- in hours or minutes -- would certainly guarantee quick games and I'd probably participate, but I think on an e-mail game site (as BK is) is 1 day ok.

Czuch Chuckers: I agree with you of course that it makes no sense to bid more than, let say, 510 in order to get the bonus of 500. But as you can see, there are people willing to bid much more. Well, if they want, it's probably fun. After every runner recognize that the difference between the bonus and his/her bid is much higher than the average bid, it will probably change. (In our run rather after Alesh will wake up/falls into the pond. :-)) I'm quite sure there will be the same (or similar) problem with any bonus. But maybe I'm wrong.

The smaller starting pool would speed the game? I don't know why, I think it's technically not possible (IMHO the lenght of the game is limited by the number of runners, not by the given starting points), but obviously some (you say "most") people seem to think so. Strange...

The game is boring rather because we started with 250 runners... (Is it really boring? Not really, it's a very very long run for sure, but I'm not bored. Are you?)

Czuch Chuckers: Why do you think the game will be more interesting after the bonus change? In which way? I'm affraid I didn't get the point...

And many (probably thousands) German players...

Hmmm, I'd say it would be the best argument for the possibility to resign. Nobody is forced to bet 1 point if there are players with 0 point reserve. :-)

Will it works if the order of the players is not the same as after the previous moves too? Or when some player changes his/her nick? I copied the first move in this way, from the second move I do it manually because I think it's less work and/or the result is better. Maybe I'm wrong, I'm not so good in computer matters...

Well, I have to enter the moves manually, but it's done in a few minutes.

Yep. But I'm afraid it will be quite large after several moves. It's simply exported from Excel with lot of unnecessary formating tags. I don't want to edit the table manually every two days. :-)

I don't think too that we would be able to organize that. Either Fencer remove her or we (i.e. we, who read this board) know for sure that OldDear is betting 10 points. Actually I thought about it and I don't think that it will affect the game dramatically. Alesh is affecting it much more (sure, he can change his bid).

Oh, the table is nothing special, it only lists all moves, ranks and difference in the rank to the previous move - from all players. Indeed, it is quite big (and large too)...

rod03801: No, all the players with * in the table ain't certainly automatical moves from the last round, but probably all the moves in italics in this table. E.g. Alesh with his 1149 points. It makes any hunts for the reward senseless... ;-)

Btw there are more people who bid automatically for several rounds. ;-)

Do you really think, that everyone from about 180 people would bid 11 points even if we all would say we do? :-) I'm quite sure, there were some reward hunters with 12-20 points, some reward hunters with much more, and several people with an automatical bid from the last round (maybe with less points than 10). We shoudn't obviously care -- or take it as a 10 point hurdle/feature. :-)

Thanks, I understood the meaning as "sh*t" (oh my God, please don't ban me for bad language! ;-)) or something like that. -- I'm not really sure whether an "automatic player" will affect the game so much, I'd say the most of us will for several future moves still bid less than 10 - and probably in the round, in which OldDear will fall into the pond, there will be even more 10s :-), bud I'd prefer to have such corpses removed immediately.

Fencer: Although I don't understand the word "crock", I think I completely agree with Stevie. There should be really a way to remove her (OldDear/Mauve) from the game without affecting the other moves. :-/

A "smaller pond that supports weekends, holidays, and vacation" will certainly take only few days. I'd suggest to run it with only two or three people and I'm quite sure it won't be boring.

Do you think you won't be bored in the future games? Oh, sure, you can bet only 1 point again... ;-)

Maybe a way to allow someone to "quit" the game, without having to commit suicide, could be implimented, Fencer? -- A very good idea!

I like to run with someone who is bored and bets 1 point in the middle of the game. :-)

Yep, there is a little bug somewhere, Fencer knows is already. The errorneous automatic move is in the case of TaureanTracker and CaoZ, too.
All moves in a table