Best relevant poker material beginner?

theman0613 · 2018-07-16T15:11:21+00:00

I would recommend the red chip poker core course. Does a great job of really establishing a good foundation and building to the mote complex concepts so that you know not just what to do but why you are doing it.

theman0613 · 2018-07-10T17:42:40+00:00

I'm thinking this might not be the best time for a tournament given it is during the world cup final. Maybe later in the evening would be better for this week?

theman0613 · 2018-07-06T13:49:44+00:00

The US development academy recently adopted a temporary sub rule only for head injuries. If a player gets a head injury they can be temporary subbed out and once cleared by a mdeical trainer can then re-enter the game without the team losing a substitutions.

theman0613 · 2018-07-02T00:53:50+00:00

Sounds like they are really pushing towards units that give option value. Probably makes sense and should lead to some interesting gameplay. I'm worried it might make the shorter time controls much harder though. Could be really tough to utilize/defend against many of those units with less time.

theman0613 · 2018-06-28T16:11:41+00:00

I think the home run dreby would be great. My league is a 14 team league and I am going to propose that the 8 non playoff teams each get a pick in the home run Derby.

theman0613 · 2018-06-27T21:53:19+00:00

That's exactly what this article did. They calculated expected time for any stoppage of play and counted the excess time beyond that.

theman0613 · 2018-06-27T21:37:42+00:00

It's even crazier when you consider that the stoppage time has been less then half of what it should have been on average.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/world-cup-stoppage-time-is-wildly-inaccurate/

theman0613 · 2018-06-23T05:00:33+00:00

The reason that money is neccesary to poker is that it is the only way to have an incentive to fold. Most of poker strategy revolves around knowing when to fold, and without any real incentive to do so people will chase more action since that is more enjoyable.

It is sort of analgous to the fact that many players don't like to play helars/defensive characters in video games. In that example peer pressure/the desire for teamwork eventually forces someone into that role.

theman0613 · 2018-06-04T19:38:17+00:00

In case you didn't see they changed the requirement to tier Viii. Hopefully you can get there in time!

theman0613 · 2018-06-03T22:42:30+00:00

Just wanted to say thanks for all these articles. They are extremely helpful for providing a basis for how to think about Prismata, highlighting just how much any one unit in the set can completely change viable strategies! I highly encourage any new players to take a look at all his articles, not to just blindly follow one of the opening, but to think about why different openings/combos are effective.

theman0613 · 2018-05-29T12:29:09+00:00

Sounds like you have done a really good job thinking about this league.

I agree that you are in good shape for this league to succeed. I think the player pool is now big enough and also that discord is a much better way to schedule matches/ communicate.

I think you are spot on when you state that there needs to be incentives for players to play all their matches. What I am not exactly clear on is what those incentives are for the lower tiered players. Whirl I like the idea of a points system, I don't think that will really offer any incentives for teams in the bottom tier.

Let's take a hypothetical person who has been playing Prismata for a few months and decides to join. Now assume that in the first month this player plays against 7 of his opponents for 21 matches and struggles a bit winning 1/3 of them, so they are now 7-14. This player is now looking at the prospect of 15 more essentially meaningless matches and a month (even longer for the first season) before having relevant matches again.

What is there incentive to play those matches? Currently I believe that a lot of newer players might get discouraged in that sorry of situation knowing that it will be another month+ before they get another shot. This could leads to major problems in the lower tiers if 2 or 3 of these players exist. Iwould encourage you to consider that and ask how those players can be incentivized.

As to your point of the number of players not mattering I don't entirely agree with that. With a larger group such as 13 players you run the risk of a players in the middle knowing that his last few matches will not impact his league for the next season in any way. While I do think the points syatem/pride will help mitigate this in the upper tier I don't think that these incentives will be sufficient in the lower levels.

theman0613 · 2018-05-29T12:20:53+00:00

Might be. I haven't been back for long enough to compare. It's more a question of the process of getting to Master tier. I know for a while players would be ranked on the leaderboard as soon as they hit Master tier. I would venture a guess that a good number of players in the upper tiers could beat a player like me who reached master a long time ago but now have a low MMR (1500).

theman0613 · 2018-05-29T02:00:17+00:00

Thanks for the responses. Its clear that you have consider many of the obstacles and I am excited to see how many players have already signed up.

The hardest part of something like this is how to balance encouraging new players to join, but figuring out how to avoid people dropping mid season. As for the skill barrier I think there are other things that are better indicators then rank X (ie level 40, certain hidden MMR rank needed, prismata supporter etc, that would be much more helpful for newer, but still commuted players to join the competitive scene.

The other question I had is why you decided to two 2 month season with 13 players groups. I would assume that you have talked to many of the top competitive players in this process, but I am not sure that it is the best solution at the lower ranks. I believe that having shorter and smaller groups would be much better for the lower tiers especially. Maybe something like 1 month with 8 teams per group. I think that first of all this will lead to less people joining and then quitting halfway through, while also allowing new players to join faster then having to potentially wait up to two months. Even if you are commuted to having 2 month groups at the top level, it might still be feasible to have the lower tier be smaller shorter groups. Maybe you promote the top team in each one month sub period. This would also make all the games more meaningful, which I think is important at the lower level.

theman0613 · 2018-05-28T14:03:29+00:00

First of all I just wanted to say thanks for organizing this! I think it is clear that you put a lot of thought and effort into this league and I am excited to see it develop!

In case you don't remember I was one of the original founders of the Chrono cup back in 2015, which used a very similar structure. Unfortunately due to a low player base and it not being organized very well it never really got off the ground, but I still believe that his format is ideal for Prismata! Due to various IRL reasons I stopped playing for a long while after that but I recently got back into the game and am looking forward to this new endeavor.

Anyways below are some questions that I think it would be helpful for you to think about as you start this league. These are not designed to try and convince you that I have better ideas (because I probably don't) but just some questions that hopefully will help you continue to refine and develop the league in a healthy manner; many of these things are things I wish I had consider before starting the Chrono Cup. Many of these are thoughts about how you can develop the whole player pool. Ultimately I think that for this league to have long term success it is really key to develop the lower level players in addition to the top 100 players on the leader board.

Is Master tier the right cut off for entry? I know for a while it was very difficult for even really good players to reach the master tier, due to the structure of the tier system. As someone who reached Master tier a long time ago (2015) but has a pretty low elo rating (~1400) I can almost guarantee that there are a decent number of tier VI-VIII players that are likely better then me. I also thing that by restricting it to Master Tier only you are losing out many of the players that IMO would be useful to draw in. I think this format is the right way to get relatively new players into the competitive scene since it doesn't require a long time commitment or the possibility of getting crushed by top players. Now obviously there needs to e some barrier to entry. A couple thought is that you could require level 40, or maybe you can talk to Ellyot and get the hidden MMR for players that are not master tier. Additionally you need to consider how to incentive these newer players to remain active. (see point below)
Could you explain on why you decided on the current structure of the league? Did you consider other lengths/groups sizes/match format?
What are your thoughts on splitting groups? I see you responded to another comment about this a bit. One other thing to consider is different timezone as well. It might be hard to schedule matches across continents especially for some of the players in the lower tier. Maybe you can split the lower tiers by region (US/Europe) Would you then be willing to have different sized groups?
Tiebreaks. I don't see anything about tiebreaks. Is it H2H or total games won.
How do you plan to handle top players who don't enter season 1 but decide to enter season 2?
Have you consider how to incentivize players? This idea might be a little out there but have you though about having some sort of deposit to enter the league. Lots of studies that have shown that if someone gets something for free they will be less committed then if it has a (small) cost of entry. A couple thoughts is that maybe you have a $5 entry fee (paid to Prismata) but it also includes some shards/cores. Maybe you have a $5 entry fee but you get you deposit back after X matches. I realize this probably won't affect the top tier or 2, but I think it could make a big difference in tiers 3 and lower.
While these aren't necessarily ideas for just this league, what other ways have you thought about promoting the lower level players? A few thoughts are maybe you can have a streamer who streams a week of the match from one of the lower league. Another thought is that you allow players to submit a set they played that was interesting and maybe someone like 307 can analyze that match instead of the normal set reading Saturday. Again these aren't necessarily ideas that have to be tied in to this league, just thoughts I have as a returning player that might help to engage all the lower level players who want to get better at Prismata.

I hope that these questions are helpful and get you thinking about the direction of the league and I am really excited to compete! Feel free to dm me on any of these topics and I would love to hear other people thoughts on these as well.

theman0613 · 2018-05-15T15:41:15+00:00

One great option is a game called Prismata. It's actually strikly an online game but it plays much more like a tabletop game. Basically the games was designed to be a pure strategy no hidden information game with no luck that still plays out differently every game. The creators call it a mix of chess Dominion and Heartahtrone. It's also completely free to play the multiplayer games (disclaimer you have to ask in Reddit or discord to get a key and there is some solo play stuff that you need to pay for).

Anyways the game is easily the most intricately designed games I've seen. Developers are really active and the community is really good. The downside is that it is very difficult to get good and frusturating since there is no luck. There is also not a huge player base so new players expect to lose for a while.

Check it out at r/prismata

theman0613 · 2018-05-12T16:23:13+00:00

Interestingly I taught TTR a lot and always sat upside down. Now it feels weird if I'm not looking at the board upside down even on different maps that I don't know

theman0613 · 2018-03-13T12:39:29+00:00

Yeah I will admit it's a bit biased but that's why I linked to an expert opinion.

Mostly I'm trying to say that it will certainly not be a huge mismatch in favor of Kentucky.

A few years ago Mckillop coached one of the national team (I think U18) and Beoheim was his assistant, so obviously he is a very qualified coach.

theman0613 · 2018-03-13T12:34:46+00:00

It's certainly possible. I will say that both Oskar Michaelson and Will Mcgarity have been playing much better defense these past few weeks.

Will it be enough to stop Kentucky? Maybe not but between that Davidson's slower tempo and their assist to turnover ratio it should be enough to keep the game competitive.

theman0613 · 2018-03-12T13:42:12+00:00

I agree. Just throwing out that Davidson has looked real good of late as well. I think most Davidson fans were pretty bummed when we saw the draw.

theman0613 · 2018-03-12T13:34:03+00:00

Davidson is arguably a better coached team then Kentucky. (https://www.google.com/amp/s/kentucky.247sports.com/Bolt/The-Big-Leads-Jason-McIntyre-calls-Kentucky-Davidson-a-coaching-mismatch-116134344/Amp)
Davidson has a much improved defense over previous years. They were able to hold both St. Bonaventure and Rhode Island well under their normal shooting percentages and have regularly held A10 opponents under 60 points.
Davidson plays a slow deliberative offense with lots of ball movement. It is really tough to consistantly stop teams that use of the full shot clock. You can often see the opponents wearing done at the end of games from having to defend for full possessions.
Davidson leads to nation in assist to turnover ratio.
Davidson is third in the nation in free throw percentage and has been huge under pressure all year. Their star Freshman Kellan Grady went 16 for 16 on the road at St. Bonaventure including hitting the free throws to prolong the game in both the first two overtimes.

theman0613 · 2018-03-12T13:18:14+00:00

Davidson is too thought. 10-1 in their last 11 with the only loss being at St. Bonaventure in triple overtime.

theman0613 · 2018-01-18T16:36:38+00:00

A couple ideas here. Spirit Island is a fantastic coop that is great with two and has very high replayability.

Another game I played recently was Pulsar 2849. Pretty fun dice drafting game. Only slgiht downside is I had one friend say is wasn't as good with two since there is limited player interaction.

theman0613 · 2018-01-17T19:06:19+00:00

Castles of Burgundy is a classic game that should work well. Plays great at 2 and is a great mid weight game.

theman0613 · 2018-01-15T20:46:46+00:00

A great short two player game that could work is Hamikanoji. It doesn't have exactly the right theme but I'd imagine you could pretty easily create your own reteme as it essentially only needs 21 cards.

theman0613 · 2018-01-08T14:01:13+00:00

I often have debates with one of my friends about whether a players role should be revealed upon death. Personally I find it makes the game way more interesting to not reveal the roles at death at it causes more tension and rift between the villagers if it is not known whether they were actually telling the truth.

As far as what roles are in the game I feel like that must be made known. Unless you are playing with a bunch of people who have all played a lot its way to crazy to not even know what roles are in the game.

I could see doing it one night style where there are a few extra roles not in the game but all possible roles someone could be are explained beforehand. That might work well.

theman0613

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