I did click on the link and all it gave me was the list. I was diligently watching for the game to start. I am on the site everyday...maybe it is just a bug...oh well...:)

I too missed out as well, believing that it was going to show up as one of my games. :( I guess next time we'll know..

LOL, I didn't even notice the red numbers. Guess I was lucky.

Yes, lower the points that everyone starts with. Why not just 1,000 and not even have a bonus for the person that picks the highest? Or 20,000 : 500 as 1,000 : 40. Make the bonus for high pick 47!
That should speed the game up without changing the play too much. Right now I'm trying to imagine different scenarios towards the end of the game. Especially as people start getting getting under 500 points. If it's 700 to 330 to 141 to 50 to 33 to 10, how do you think the game will go? The person with 700 can just bet 331 on the next round guaranteeing 500 points for a net gain of 169. Everyone else will have less points, plus one of them will be in the pond. The person that had 700, now has 869 and can follow the same strategy as picking one point more than the second place player and the game will end eventually with him being the winner. Everyone playing will know this is going to happen and won't feel like going through the motions. Big flaw if it goes down like that.
I hope at the end of the game the players with the lead are close to each other. The problem with the bonus points won't really be apparent until everyone but one player is under the bonus amount. So, perhaps in a later version of the game, the bonus amount could be varied during the game to reflect the mathematics of the game itself or just eliminated.
What will make it interesting is if three or more people are just over the bonus amount and try to psyche out what the other close players might be planning on betting. They could all bet a small amount, in which case some other player might get the bonus and join them among the leaders, or one or more of them might bet lots while one bets small to save his points.

Yes, this game is tougher than it looks and the rules have a lot to do with which strategy to try depending on the score and who're your opponents.

If this game becomes one that us members (Paying or not) can create, I propose making it possible for the game creator to be able to set the parameters for starting points and bonuses(if any), along with the usual things like days per move and minimum and maximum players.

I presume Cassius got the 500 for betting highest of 4000?
Can the person who gets the 500 have their bet shown in red or something so its obvious at a glance who got it ?

Yes.

Now the fun starts.

First round was some-what simple since I knew others were unsure about the rules.

Second round was easy since I only had to bid 1 to make it by.

Now the third round is going to be interesting. Still way too many players to bid too high, but can't bid too low either.....

obviously a lot of people do not read this board, judging by the variety of bets.

Nor the rules either :)

8976 is the minimum bet to guarantee not to fall into the pond this round!

I would not be surprised to find that many people have not found this board yet.

some people that have read this board had strange bets

I am not sure why my post apologizing to anyone offended by my comments yesterday was edited to read *************** by the moderator? I am sorry if anyone took offense to my comments about anyone who would bid 1 in the first round of this game. It was not politically correct of me, and my choice of the word "ignorant" could be taken offensivly by some. I meant no harm to anyone. I am truely interested in discussing the strategies of this game, as I am new to playing it, as are many others here.

I still dont understand why anyone would bid 1 on the first round. But the question becomes what is a safe first round bid? I dont see that there is one, really. I mean, If you know nobody will pick one, because its sure defeat (unless it is in a game of rookies like this one was) Now, if you know nobody will take a 1, then a pick of 2 becomes the 'dead mans" bet. Why would you now choose 2? Well.... you can see where this leads..... nobody wants 2 either, so 3 becomes the next dead mans guess. Where does it end? 5? 10? 50? 100?

anywho, I just want to discuss the ins and outs of this game, as the dinamics are fascinating to me.

Not that it is a big deal, but the game still shows 6 players in the 1st position, when only 2 players are in 1st. (and others are messed up a little like this throughout the order.) :-)

I feel I need to say this, because I have been made out to be the fool ** *** ********.

1st, I was asked to edit out the words Ignorant and Idiot and stupid from the posts where I said something like "anyone who would pick 1 in the first round is ignorant of the rules", for example. I apologized for this, and went about editing those posts where those words were used. what you werent told is that I apologized for these comments and I did edit those words as requested., Even though I did edit the posts myself, I was still put on hide, so my edits could not be seen by anyone here. Then before my posts were unhidden, they were all edited (not by me) to read *********** like that. Now nobody knows what I actually said, or what I edited on my own, not to mention this was also done to my apology. Anyway, I just want everyone to know what really happened here. I am again, sorry if hurt anyones feelings. I only want to discuss this game and its strategy. will not be the one to bring this up again, and I hope no one else does either :)

good eye BBW

BBW: Yes, this bug has been brought to my attention by Pedro Martinez several hours ago :-) It's already fixed and the next round should be correct.

Do you really not know how to learn a lesson?
Remove anything you have said that knocks this board moderator. Or you get a second strike

I don't feel that Czuch Chuckers said abything abusing... Since when it is forbidden to tell own opinion?
I know, thit doesn't bellow to the topic of this board, but I couldn't stay without reaction... it's just my opinion, nothing against anyone here...

Come on man this has nothing to do with The POND. You also said it would be the last of it. Take it to private please.

no chances. hidden again

Steve is the moderator on this board. He chose to not extend a 20 minute time limit to edit posts before pentalties being enforced. That is his choice. He also apparently choice to remove all the posts relating to it, and that is his choice.

Please, let it ALL drop and just chalk it up to "don't do that again"

*edited to remove any mention of who this is related to*

i was one of those people who made a bet then looked at what people had done on the round before , thats why i brought it up on here a few days ago so other people wouldnt make the same mistake that i made ;)

Fencer...

If by chance everyone in the game happens to make a "move" before the time limit expires, will the next round be automatically started right then, or does it always wait until the end of the two days?

hmmmm it says there is a new post here, well i cant see it, must have fallen in the pond LOL

MM - somebody hidden must've posted here

nooooooooooooo Pedro, its fallen in the pond ROFL (its Christmas you know, time of make believe)

It will be visible after 17:00 gmt. Look up at board description

Now you can edit your move before the round is finished. Some more statistics will follow soon.

I noticed the new additions a mo ago :oD

ah stats!!! like the average bet in previous rounds ? the max bet and the min bet ? and the max and min bet averaged over all rounds ? ;)

Yes, something like that.

nice!!! ... and graphs ??? thats what made me become a rook ... ;)

*snap* i cant put another message when i edit my bet :)

Hum... this game is tricky. Last round I thought I made a pretty low bet (11) since I knew others were "betting" on the fact that some that bet "1" in round 2 would forget to get and fall into the pond.

But now...... Are there STILL going to be people who bet in the single digits, or will some bets start to go higher......

There will be some, but will you be one of them ... need guts for that (said the chicken to the egg :)

Been thinking about the end scenario posted earlier where the leading person has say 510 points left and everyone else is under 500, then they can bid 500 points, win the bonus and go nowhere ... hereare 3 options which solve this dilemma:

- the bonus is 500 points or 25% of the person with the most points left at the beginning or the round, whichever is the less amount; or

- the bonus is dicontinued when when all players have less than 1000 points left; or

- no player may win the bonus 2 times in a row. If this would be the case then the bonus is not awarded.

Here is a 4th option:

- game finished and the leading person declared a winner

I don't agree with the 4th option... The rest of the players would all have the same rating then which probably wouldn't be fair...

What happend to the graphs?
Is that to come in v # 2?

I like the rules how they are - I mean part of the game is to try to get yourself into a position where you can take advantage of the 500 point bonus.

What graphs?

Like I tried to say earlier....

I dont think this first game is anything like a typical game will play out. One thing that makes this game different is that not everybody makes a move on every turn. So now, people are making plays based on factors like people forgeting to make a move, where in a 'normal' game that strategy would not work.


I look forward to playing this game with fewer people, who all know the rules etc...

It should be different than this one now :)

Fencer.
If everyone makes a "move" before the two day limit, will the next round be started, or does it always wait for the end of the two days?

Since you can now change your move, up until the deadline, it shouldn't automatically advance even if everyone has bid (IMO).

We could play 'run around'. Everyone change their bid 5 seconds before the deadline!

I think that game is called ebay

Yea, I thought of that too.... also, with this big group, it is very unlikely to happen anyway, I was just curious because in "normal" games it works differently than this game.

Czuch Chuckers: It always waits.

I guess I was wondering more for future games, hoping that we could play "fast" games, mabe with a small group of people currently online, where we could play many moves, or even a complete game, all in one evening.

Something like that would be possible if the next round would start immedietly when all bids are entered, like a regular game.

Maybe that would work in the future?