Vikings: they baby is doing better now i hope ? how is the mother doing ?

congrats again! ;)

so .... to start something ... everyone should bet 100 as opening bet in the next couple of ponds :)

come on ... you will just lose about 50 points .. which isnt that much compared to the end rounds .. and you might get the bonus if noone goes along ...

lets all bet 100!!! ;)

jryden: uhm .. i posted some answers from an experienced me but that should have been some answers from an unexperienced me :)

have fun!!!! :)

jryden: some answers from an experienced me :)


1) between 50 and 70 should be fine
2) it has something to do with the sum of the bkrs of the players who have fallen in before you and the sum of bkr of the players who are still there when you fall in the pond
3) a pawn cant make a new bet .. so when someone becomes a pawn during a pond .. he will repeat his last bet until he is out of points or until he falls into the pond

have fun! :)

Andre Faria: ah! nice! glad that isnt possible ... because as soon as that would happen then the 2nd in line to fall in would bet 0 as well .. after a week the bottom 3 would do it .. until after about 5 centuries everyone except the winner would bet 0 ;)

Andre Faria: why would betting 0 make you less bkr points ? does the amount of remaining points (when you are already swimming) make a difference ?

grenv: the rain ponds as they are right now never run out of points .. the players slowly raise their bets ... using only a small part of their total

when the total number to start with is lower .. then people might start to bet lower to start with .. i am not sure if it makes a difference .. but it might

also with a lower starting total the bonus might make a difference (now it doesnt as noone ever runs out of points in the end) ... when people would start running out of points .. except the ones who would have gotten the bonus .. then the game might change a but

but i am not sure on that one either .. maybe the algorithm by which players bet wont change at all ... so it might make no difference at all :)

grenv: or lower the total amount of points to Y where y = x * n

where n = the number of players and
x = (20000 - 'the sum of remaining points') / n

of course it would be best when x would be the average over all finished rain ponds

Nothingness: *nod* you wrote it would be too much trouble doing all it and you could only play 1 or 2 ponds that way ... it wouldnt be worth it :)

i only back a few rounds in the pond i am placing my bet in and see if i can make some predictions (and sometimes i remember to watch for a pawn or if the lowest one has very little points left :))

i wish i would win my first pond .... :( .... :)

grenv: i forgot to add .. i dont play chess .. i know too little of it to make any master plans ... so i wont be losing a game and hope to win another one because of that .. i will just try to stay in the game as long as possible ;)

now lets change this to froglet .. when i would be losing a game in froglet .. and know i cant win it anymore ... and i have another game with the same opponent .. i might capture all the blues ones at once .. and hope he will think i will always go for the highest frogs and base his strategy on that

i know i do something like that in froglet ... i dont look at other games my opponent plays .. but i try to find out if he is an offensive or defensive player .. and base my moves on that .. i try to build a position which i hope he will grab .. but which will leave me with an advantage after some more moves .. this can be done even better in anti froglet as most players feel themselves more forced in that game

so if i would be sure i would lose a game .. i might try to make the best of it .. and give myself a slightly higher chance in another game .. i have nothing to lose .. but might have something to gain (although the chance might be very little .. its still there :))

grenv: when you play ponds to win instead of for the bkr ... then you wouldnt care much about being 3rd in this game and bet 1 .... this might help you to actually win a pond in the future ... suppose you get in the 3rd place 10 times ... the first 9 times you bet 1 ... and you make sure everyone knows (as they now do because its discussed here ;)) .. then the 10th time you bet 20 and will probably be in 2nd place .. or maybe even get the bonus and have a net game of 480 points .. which might even win you the total pond

in this example betting 1 is a winning strategy ... when you look at the bigger picture of more than 1 pond .. of course this will give him 9 times a 3rd place and only 1 first place ... while betting a high amount .. he might have had 3 second places and 7 times a 3rd place .. i would chose the single first place over the 3 second places .. although the latter might be better for my bkr

betting 1 is ones own choice ... as long as he doesnt inform anyone else ... its just a different strategy than the strategy which most top players use right now ...
it might change the strategy of some top players .. which i would like ..

but then again ... its us discussing why someone else made a certain move .. we can never be sure why he did it .. as he never told us .. and this is a mental game for a big part ;)

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 ;))

i guess the problem is ponds are multiplayer games ....

maybe the user agreement could be slightly changed to exclude multi player games from this part ? just because the user agreement was before there were any multiplayer games

(of course the case of multiple nicks would still illegal in here)

Andre Faria: ah thanks .... i also sent a message to pauloaguia as i saw he was online and he said the same ..

i am in the dark here ... they might be doing some dirty moves .. or it might have some other reason how microbic knew what was going to happen ... i would hope either ferjo or microbic would read this board and tell their side .. but i am not even sure if they write/read english well :)

Walter Montego: nice idea!!!! i like team plays :)

when you cant fight against something .. force it happen and join it ;)

Walter Montego: ouch! was almost finished typing and now i lost it :( anyway what i typed was :

there is a difference as scooter posted a message he would bet 0, ferjo didnt

in scooters pond (lets call it that way) it was up to the other players to decide wether they believed him or not .. wether they would take the chance or not

its just like when a player uses autobid for a round ... its up to the other players to decide if he will use it again or not .. it might be a preparation for a holiday (as i have done in the past) or just to fool everyone .. or because he really doesnt have time and so he will use it again

its just like someone getting the bonus 2 rounds in a row ... the other players might decide they wont go for the bonus as it makes no sense if this player will grab the bonus anyway .. then in the 3rd round he can get the bonus with a relatively low bet .. and maybe have a net gain over the last 3 rounds ?

in scooters pond he didnt tell anyone if he would really bet 0 (neither to bry nor pedro i assume) .. as it was a 'weird' bet as discussed below most chose not to take the chance

ferjo though seems to have told microbepine exactly that he will bet 0 .. (maybe due to some personal circumstances which were discussed in portugese ? maybe on a portugese board or fellowship ?) .. and thereby boosting microbepines ratings

scooter didnt aim for anyones ratings to be boosted .. in case he did .. then either bry or pedro would have known for sure he would bet 0 (which again i assume they didnt know)

so there are some differences in the 2 cases

Pedro Martínez: hmm .. this can be seen as a goal to boost ratings indeed ...

i dont see anything in the rules which calls a joined effort cheating

i agree it ruins some part of the game ... it isnt against the rules .. (i think)

Vikings: with you 4 it wouldnt happen .. because you all use about the same strategies ...

with other people with other strategies in your ponds it might be wise to reconsider that strategy and convert to the other side (dark eh! ;)) once in a while

Vikings: i did it a couple of times ... and succeeded once i think, not won the game, but last one more round

not to win the game of course .. but to finish in a later round

the person in the last place can either bid all his points ... but if he assumes everyone else will bid higher .. then why would he bid all his points .. he will fall in anyway ...
if he assumes someone wont bid higher than all his points .. then it might matter ... so he could bid all his points and stay in 1 round longer ... or he could try to figure out who will bid lower than his points .. and why .. and try to bid 1 point higher than that amount .. leaving him with more than 0 points in the next round .. and maybe last 1 more round

i usually do this when i am in the last place and the person just above me has only a few points more .. or when i am in second to last place and the person above me has only a few more points

it all depends on the relative differences

so even in the end rounds it might be logical to bid less than the total amount of the last player when you want to take a chance to end one or two rounds higher

sorry i didnt read the rest first .. great example .. nice play :)

how will the possibility for conspiracies ever be eliminated in multi player games ?

i dont think its possible to eliminate it when you have more than 2 players. its part of the fun in the board game 'risk'

the question is what to do when a conspiracy is there

i wonder in the card game 'klaverjassen' (i think the english name is 'spades' ???) .. would it be easy to form a party against one other player ? ... you depend a lot on your 'partner' in that game ... of course your partner could play in favor of the other party, and then arrange something with them to let him win on another game .. or something like that .. how is this handled in real life tournaments ?

(hmm i think the same can be applied to the card game 'bridge')

Nothingness: the idea of limiting the bets to a certain area around the average bet sounds nice ..... but i dont like it for one reason ... when i go on a holiday i like to place a bet to what i expect the bets to be when i return from my trip .. i did this for a bit more than 1 week in february and didnt drop in any pond (got the bonus in a few of them of course, so i didnt even drop back a lot in points) .. when you have stay within a certain limit .. you cant stay in a pond while you are away for some time (planned ahead)

i like it better when the top players only get points .. like in the F1 (or the eurovision song contest, but then without the voting system ;))

MASTERMIND: those are 2 differing issues ... people look at other peoples games when they try to find a system in their moves .. probably to find a weakness when playing against them, or to learn from them when they think those players are good players

people dont like cloak mode because they are a bit paranoid and want to know what other people are doing .. they want to see if they arent being watched themselves, etc. ... and some people dont like cloak mode because they cant see if their opponents are online playing games at that moment or doing something else (like reading boards, managing their fellowships, etc.) so they know if they have to stay around a bit longer in case their opponent makes a move in their games

Walter Montego: *nod* :) .. its worth a try in another pond ;)

Universal Eyes: it seems you got us all confused .. please enlighten us simple human beings ;)

Universal Eyes: if i read it correctly you say that the cloak function can give your other players bets instantly ?

Walter Montego: i like the psychological aspect of this .. it adds some more to the game ...

it was just a test ot guts i guess .. but as you said by betting 1 scooter could have gained nothing from it .. that was just to confuse the game (and thereby ruining it a bit for some other players) ... i would have loved the move a LOT if he would have bet 10 (and bry 12, and pedro 20) ... that would be a great psychological game (although he would have lost that way as well ... it would love the way it was played :))

grenv: i like options :)

finished a game with only 2 players left .. ah well .. it only takes 1 more round

it would be the same as to count all steps in a backgammon game and finish it when both players cant capture each other and 1 player cant win even not when he would throw double six all the time and the other player only 1+2 .. sometimes its fun to play the game to the end .. just because of having a real result .. at least thats my feeling :)

Thad & grenv: you are both right when you compare the ponds to other games ... but people who are playing ponds are used to be able to wait double the amount of the time

i often move within a few hours after in a pond .. and dont play pond with a time of 1 day per round ... so this leaves me with at least 2 days plus some extra time depending on how fast i moved .... that way i can almost always cover the weekend days

i most often play from work or sometimes a short period in the afternoon from home during working days

i know that when i make a move in a break at work .. i will have the time to move again the next day in the same break ... even when i would play ponds with 1 day per round

i cant always be online at the same minute during my break ... sometimes it starts 10 minutes later due to some important projects ... so when i would move at the first minute in my break at one day .. then i might not be able to be online the first minute in that same break the next day ... which could me to drop in the pond if i was the last person to make the move in the previous day

as said the problem is with people being used to double the amount of time they have on ponds and the ponds ignoring weekend days

if the fast ponds would come online i wouldnt be able to play 2 or 3 day ponds anymore ... this would limit my ponds to 4 days or more per round instead of the 2 days per round or more which i now pick ... which gives the problem that when there is a slow mover in the fast 4 day pond .. it might take twice as long to complete as if i would have picked a regular 2 day pond

i like walter montego's idea of the player to agree at the start of the next round .. but you can always have a player who will hold up everything ... which is his right according to the time limits ... most ponds would be finished faster though

ClayNashvilleTn: fill in some numbers and watch the results ;)

(it should be '42' :))

ClayNashvilleTn: whats wrong with it ?

Fencer: ok thanks :)

Fencer: ah! ok so its calculated only when you fall in the pond (or when you win it) .. not every round

thanks :)

are ponds calculated into the win/loss ratio in the statistics as well ?

is the pond bkr also calculated into the average bkr ?

Fencer: for example in a game with 16 players ...

i am ok in the first round : 1 win of me against the one who fell in using both our bkrs to calculate our new bkr once the pond is finished

i fell in the second round : 1 loss against all who remains in ? does that mean it counts as 1 game lost to someone who would have the same bkr as the average bkr of everyone still int ? or does it mean 14 losses to each remaining player indivually ?

Fencer: *phew*

cant you make a list with people who played ponds but never won ??? ... hmm .. on the other hand .. maybe that would be a list you dont want to be on ;)

ARGH! another list on which i am not .... *cry* :)

i dont like autobid either .. i would like people who dont make their bid to fall in the pond at once

but as there are no weekends and vacation days in ponds, and they can take a long time to finish .. something have to be done for that

i used autobid and didnt fall into the ponds ... i first used it while i was still there for several days .. so people would get used to it and wonder if i was really away .. and then i was on vacation so i had to use it .. i used a higher bet (1 week thinking ahead) and somehow survived

thats what the autobid is meant for and some solution should exist for people on vacation or even weekends .. but the way it is right now it can cause a delay and ruin some rounds in the game

i know ... what i meant is that a pond showed me that he wasnt online for quite some time .. i wonder what happened to him

(i was on vacation but survived my 5 ponds ... only to fall into 1 with my the next move i made after i was back ;))

does anyone know what happened to kevin ? i noticed his vacations are all used up, and he dropped out of a pond he was in due to auto bid

Walter Montego: options are always great for me ;)

BIG BAD WOLF: i also like the idea of ponds going into the next round as soon as every player has submitted their move.

its just like with all other games on here. if you only come online once a day on a fixed time like in bbws example .. then you will not have any games running with 1 day per move .. so you shouldnt have any ponds running with 1 day per move either

only join ponds with 2 or more days per move and you will be fine.

who is the thought to be better with his money .. the one buying a lot of lottery tickets with which he might become a millionaire (sp?) or the one who buys what he needs and nothing more, saves the rest and can retire when he is 40 making a nice trip around the world for 3 years (my dream! ;))

we could have some kind of doubling cube in pond games! ;)

ah! because they are a pawn! .. i thought it was just because they hadnt changed their bid the last turn .. but that also accounts for several players i know who have been online in the mean time (or at least i expect) ... who can now have their bet made automagically .. but the next round they might change it when everyone thinks they wont and thereby make a lot of people drop in ;)

wow! how many % of ponds you entered did you both win ?

EdTrice: please dont leave .. dont make them 'proof' they are right .. even if there arent .. play in the ponds .. proof yourself .. for one thing i will never work with any schemes .. and i know there are others who wont ..

EdTrice: please .. release my curiousity sir .. what distribution do you assume ? my maths is ok .. my psychology is pretty bad ;)

*nod*

Luke Skywalker: what edtrice says isnt a stratey which will let you win above average ... but

quote : the fullproof strategy as a function of the number of pond players per round that guarantees a win, provided nobody else has derived the same winning strategy?