New Round

Chris Lemler | August 11, 2010
I want to wish everyone the best of luck in this round

Scott Hardie | August 11, 2010
Me too! There are a few changes to the numbers that should make a large difference:

- Each player is now in their own tier, with unique multipliers. I don't really call them tiers any more, but you get the idea.

- The betting limit for all goos is 100. This number is increased by 5 for each current goo that you have already guessed (right, wrong, or pending). If a new goo is published and you have guessed the other 6 already, then your betting limit is 130.

- The top player in the game has no reward multiplier (1x the bet if right), but each player below that has an additional 0.05x reward.

- The bottom player in the game has no risk multiplier (1x the bet if wrong), but each player above that has an additional 0.05x risk.

- Bets on other players are now always worth 1 point, with no multipliers.

I look forward to seeing different strategies develop this time.

Steve Dunn | August 11, 2010
I can see this math getting pretty hard core. Not sure I can keep up...

Steve West | August 12, 2010
Hey, anyone else here fail calculus the first time you took it? I'm in trouble, too mathwise.

Amy Austin | August 12, 2010
The first time?? You mean you actually went back for it?

(Does dropping out of Survey my freshman year count? And I never looked back.)

Steve West | August 12, 2010
It was a graduation requirement for my major. Yeah, D the first time during one drunken summer course but I scraped up a B the second time through. And yes, yours counts if you get this math pick-up line, "I wish I was your derivative, then I would be tangent to your curves."

Scott Hardie | August 12, 2010
I didn't intend for the math to be that complicated, but if it gets more people just playing along with the goos and not focusing too much on the competition, then I guess it's not such a bad thing. :-) The system seems especially weird at the beginning when everyone is in single digits. What does 1.05 points back on my bet of 1 point really matter? But when scores are in the triple digits and higher, that difference will come into play. I may experiment with ways of phrasing the math differently or more helpfully.

Steve West | August 12, 2010
Actually, I get the gist of it and have a vague strategy but it's clear that solving the goos is primarily an advantage, i.e. no 'sandbagging' required.

Amy Austin | August 12, 2010
Lol... I could conceivably fall for that one... but the trend seems to have always been that I am the more mathematically advanced of those I gravitate to dating -- might be a refreshing change. ;-)

Steve Dunn | August 12, 2010
I became a lawyer in large part because no math was required after high school. This is not an exaggeration.

Nice job coming up with a vague strategy, Steve. I'm hoping to have a vague strategy by mid-round and then hone it to perfection by the time it's too late to deploy successfully.

I like how the 5% bumps up or down balance between guessing early goos and dropping in tiers. No idea how it will actually play out in practice, though. The main thing about the tier system is how much strategy depends on the (often unpredictable) behavior of others.

Missing goos intentionally might not often be worth it (though I can still see certain applications) but I can still see value in "sandbagging" by slow playing.

But I could be wrong. I'm still curious what the strategy would have been if we'd played another round under the LAST system. I don't expect to wrap my head around this one until early October. Just remember everyone - it's Ryan and Chris we need to be worried about!

Lori Lancaster | August 12, 2010
[hidden by request]

Steve Dunn | August 12, 2010
I think Scott has decided he's going to try to drum up more players at some future date, so in the meantime he doesn't give a damn how intimidating the game is.

Scott Hardie | August 12, 2010
Steve pretty much has it. The game will be simplified next year. At the moment, I'm not worried about it.

To clear something up: Because the bet multipliers are decimals, your actual scores in the database are too. For instance, the current top score in the database is 22.25. I was displaying these numbers on the page by rounding to the nearest whole number, but this was causing confusion: One player had 8.6 points, but the page was displaying that value as 9, and bets of 9 were invalid. I have altered the page to round down whenever displaying your score.

Matthew Preston | August 12, 2010
A quick question regarding the rule of: "Additionally, after you have seen each goo, you can bet on which other players will solve it and will not solve it, with a bonus of 1 point if you're correct and a penalty of 1 point if you're incorrect."

Are points awarded/lost for predicting if someone doesn't activate a goo, ie: place a bet? For example, I'm technically listed as a player in the game, but I haven't played in a long time. Are other players getting points by betting on me not solving it?

Scott Hardie | August 12, 2010
A point is awarded if you bet that someone will not solve a goo and they don't even activate it. However, the form only lets you bet on active players, which it considers anyone who has interacted with that section of the site in the last month.

Scott Hardie | August 28, 2010
To clarify: Interaction means submitting a form, not just looking at a page.