[UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

.. · 2014-12-26 20:10:00

Wow, the turnout was less than for the test tournament. That makes me think that maybe the date and time slot didn't suit a lot people. Afterall, there are currently 99 (edit: opps, I mean 64) accounts with positive profit; I would have figured that many of those people would think they'd be in the running.

A lot of people were going nearly all-in a lot of the time against me; there was no need to further encourage it! Uh, I called too many of those and didn't end up in the top 10.

Edit: is that $3.83 the total tribute, or just the extra 5 coins?

Last edited by .. (2014-12-27 05:52:57)

AnoHito · 2014-12-26 20:10:15

jere wrote:

Thanks! Uh. I left a few slow tables because they weren't going anywhere. The key to winning this was convincing LOTS of people to all-in against their better judgement. And since it's time limited, there is a lot of pressure to all-in.

That's what I was doing too, but I really messed up by sitting out the first hour. By the time I started playing again, there were too many players who were willing to rest on their laurels and not take any big risks. I kept trying to get people to go all in, but jere was the only player who obliged me, and I pretty much broke even against him.

Pox · 2014-12-26 20:13:20

jere wrote:

Thanks! Uh. I left a few slow tables because they weren't going anywhere. The key to winning this was convincing LOTS of people to all-in against their better judgement. And since it's time limited, there is a lot of pressure to all-in.
In fact, I feel victim to this on my first game in the tournament and I was sure I was doomed at that point...

Heheh, I did something rather similar early on and was left with a negative balance. I went a little crazy on the next table (the old "get back in it now or just go to sleep" strat) and came back immediately, but I think I played too conservatively throughout the rest of the tournament.

.. · 2014-12-26 20:13:51

Huh, how do you know you were playing against him? Noone was even saying anything in the chat room.

Asminthe · 2014-12-26 20:15:17

I'm glad to see that, in this particular case, one of the better players came in first.

Generally speaking, given a large enough player pool, this tournament format will more frequently be won by bad play getting lucky than by good play, on account of the fact that the most common form of bad play in gambling games is to decrease one's average results in exchange for increased variance and this format allows unlimited rebuys with no guarantee that anyone ever has to face a decent player. No particular bad player will win a tournament very often, but collectively they will win most of them if there are enough people playing.

With so few players I'm also concerned about another problem. I'd be very interested in knowing how many unique opponents each person faced.

AnoHito · 2014-12-26 20:15:42

.. wrote:

Huh, how do you know you were playing against him? Noone was even saying anything in the chat room.

I watched the tournament standings change at the end of my matches.

Last edited by AnoHito (2014-12-26 20:16:16)

jasonrohrer · 2014-12-26 20:22:15

Okay, prizes have been paid.

Asminthe · 2014-12-26 20:28:01

Thank you.

.. · 2014-12-26 20:32:37

Generally speaking, given a large enough player pool, this tournament format will more frequently be won by bad play getting lucky than by good play,

Yes, it would be nice if wins against good players could count for more somehow. But total profit is very simple to understand, while most other measures won't be. Or alternatively, a way to increase the mixing of players which match up. More unique opponents per player means less variance in the average strength of your opponents, making profits more comparable.

On that topic, I think that the extra tribute does almost nothing to prevent collusion, because it's easy to synchronise starting a game in two clients to within a few seconds and you would need hundreds of active players to make it unlikely. One possible solution to both that and the mixing problem is random delays on joining a game. That emulates a larger number of active players, and you can adjust the delay to the effective amount you want. But if there are only 20 players it would still have to be fairly long to have an effect. E.g. if average game length is 10 minutes and there are 10 games, that's 1 game/minute and delays should be at least ~30-60 seconds. I'm hoping that there are better solutions.

Last edited by .. (2014-12-26 20:38:27)

zed · 2014-12-26 20:38:56

Thanks for the Christmas bonus, Mr. Rohrer sir!

jere · 2014-12-26 20:40:42

Thanks, Jason. Very generous considering the outcome. Bummer that it didn't attract more people. Maybe people stayed away from this because the game is technically still in a private alpha/beta? I remember reading that the TCD contest paid for itself, but I wonder if that had to do with significant coverage from gaming websites. And then I wonder if a gambling game paying out REAL MONEY is really going to be news? Maybe a future tournament with physical prizes (themed appropriately) might help.

On that topic, I think that the extra tribute does almost nothing to prevent collusion, because it's easy to synchronise starting a game in two clients to within a few seconds and you would need hundreds of active players to avoid that. One possible solution to both that and the mixing problem is random delays on joining a game.

Well, the current solution is pretty clever. It just shows the stakes even if no one is there. So if you try to join, you might start waiting OR you might join a rando. With the small number of players, it's definitely easier.

[edit]: One data point: I actually got a friend to join in the tournament and we were on Raid Call while playing. We never encountered each other though (confirmed by the data below). During the time I was waiting several minutes for a game, we could have shifted a lot of money if we had wanted, but in many other cases we would have been matched with others.

Last edited by jere (2014-12-26 20:51:51)

jasonrohrer · 2014-12-26 20:42:44

Updated my tribute report above to explain it.

Asminthe, the database has answers to these questions.

The winner played 13 games spread pretty evenly over 10 other players:

+------------+---------------------+
| game_count | opponent_name       |
+------------+---------------------+
|          1 | string corn         |
|          1 | weapon nymph        |
|          2 | forethought tobacco |
|          1 | custom tribute      |
|          1 | heaven product      |
|          2 | incident clemency   |
|          1 | equity tendency     |
|          2 | hammer horsehair    |
|          1 | cleanness necessity |
|          1 | devotion conquest   |
+------------+---------------------+

Second place played 6 games spread just as evenly:

+------------+----------------------+
| game_count | opponent_name        |
+------------+----------------------+
|          1 | forethought tobacco  |
|          1 | candidate expression |
|          2 | heaven product       |
|          1 | incident clemency    |
|          1 | equity tendency      |
+------------+----------------------+

mzo · 2014-12-26 20:49:35

I definitely got burned a bit by the format and timing of the tournament. I was only able to play the second hour and the limitations of that definitely showed. I started out fairly strong and got to around 5th place quickly, but a single bad all-in knocked me way down and gave me little I could do to make up for it. I ended up down at 17th place and could have done much better but my opponent purposely stalled every move up to the bell. I got him with an all-in at 12:01ish but that did no good.

Part of the problem with the time limit only and no matchmaking of any kind means unless the turnout is high, I can be stuck with the stalling or bad player. If I leave and try to find a new opponent, unless I wait a little bit I'll probably just get stuck with the same guy.

I agree that the people who were doing well in hour 1 have no real reason to give others much of a chance in hour 2. Had I simply done the same thing and played conservatively I could have maintained being in the top 10 and not given anyone else a chance to move up. I played probably around 20 rounds but only 4 unique opponents. I noticed the top players played more. Assuming that means they either table hopped more to hold onto winnings or they drained their opponents down in coins.

I don't think i'd play in this format again as is.

I recorded all my matches as individual animated gifs if anyone is interested.

Asminthe · 2014-12-26 20:51:03

Wow, that's better distribution than I expected with the pool so small.

Edit: Oh, I bet that problem gets solved each time someone leaves or delays more than a small time before joining the waitlist again. As long as the person they played against hops right back in, it should end up shuffling everyone if the server always matches whomever has been waiting the longest with an opponent first. I should have realized that.

Last edited by Asminthe (2014-12-26 20:54:47)

jasonrohrer · 2014-12-26 21:25:28

Yeah, I thought about the random delay method of preventing people from joining with an accomplice, but with a small player pool like this, it won't help that much (neither does the added table tribute, but the added tribute at least acts like a kind of "tournament fee").

I've also thought about running longer "weekly bonuses" for performance at some stake level. For example, say that this week, total stats for $5 games are tracked, and the top player gets a cash bonus at the end of the week.

The problem with this is that collusion is even easier over the longer timeframe. During a quiet time that week (like, 3am), make a second account and lose all your money to yourself.

I could only count money won against unique opponents.... but this would be weird because there'd be no indication of this in the client (by the way, the opponent you're playing against right now doesn't count because you already played them). And really, it's not like I want to discourage replaying the same person, assuming that you're not colluding.

The only way it could work is if the table tribute was so high as to make the cost of collusion not worth it relative to the prize.

Like, in order to win unfairly, you'd have to collude with yourself X times, at a cost of Y each time, and the prize you would win would be < X*Y.

But, for this to work, you'd have to ensure that the person could only win by playing at least X times, which means it would have to be a bankroll goal and not a time limit.

For example first person to $25 profit wins. Stakes are $1.00. Prize is $25. If the table tribute is 25 cents per player, then you'd have to win 50 non-cheating games to win, while a colluder playing 50 games would lose $25 in the process (50 cents lost per game), making their $25 prize a wash.

If the tribute was 49 cents per player, you'd have to win 1250 games to win, meaning the prize could be as high as $1225 without a colluder, who is losing 98 cents per game, being motivated to collude.

It's also interesting that there could be multiple high prizes, and since the colluder could win only one per account, the same math still applies. So, there could be ten $1225 prizes, and colluder couldn't afford to win any of them through collusion alone.

But... with table tributes that high, and progress so slow, who would play? Sadly, there's a tradeoff here that, as the prize grows, so does the necessary table tribute. Even for the $25 prize, it's "worth it" for a player who wins every game along the way all-in, but 25 cents is a tough pill to swallow to maybe win 75 cents (especially since the opponent can leave partway through and give you much less).

So, the other idea is lots of small prizes that still work with this math, but small prizes would reduce the necessary anti-collusion table tribute to a reasonable level. If per player tribute is 5 cents, then you'd have to win at least 28 games, meaning a colluduer would lose $2.80 in the process of working up to $25 profit, so the max prize would be $2.80. Again, not so enticing, eh? Work yourself hard, and build up $25 profit this week, and you'll get a $2.80 bonus!

I'm feeling a bit fried on this problem. I hope someone else has some insight here.

AnoHito · 2014-12-26 21:37:28

Collusion in this case is an unsolvable problem. It hasn't even been solved in situations like professional poker games, so I wouldn't expect to be able to solve it in an environment like this. For the entire first hour of the tournament that I was ahead, I kept thinking to myself how easy it would have been to win this tournament if I had just one other person working with me. I could have gotten ahead in few enough games that it would not even have looked that suspicious. I think the only thing you could do would be to adapt a more traditional tournament structure with brackets, but in my experience with fighting games, doing this kind of thing online is pretty hit and miss. A lot of times, less that half the people who sign up will even show up to play. You could have a tournament entry fee to help prevent that (and also seed the pot), but then you would get many fewer players. Personally, I would have been happy to pay a $10 fee to participate in a Cordial Minuet tournament worth $200, but I can't speak for everyone.

jasonrohrer · 2014-12-26 21:40:55

In general, the problem with this format is that it doesn't really work like a tournament with a fixed entry fee.

Here, at certain points, players are motivated to stop playing. Either they have no chance, so they don't want to waste any more money (each attempt is like a new entry fee, instead of one fee sunk up front). The people who are ahead are likewise motivated to wait it out.

And, on top of that, there's very little money for a prize pool, because as the top and bottom segments of the player base stop playing, the number of games played, and thus the tribute, dwindles.

If we had instead run a real tournament today on a separate server, maybe we would have still had 20 players... if they had payed $5 each, we would have had $100 for prizes. And then the structure could have been different... stakes could rise over time, with all players playing until they are out of "tournament money." And there'd be no motivation to stop playing to save money, because the tournament money would be separate. Collusion would be the equivalent of a rebuy.... maybe just allow rebuys for everyone to eliminate collusion as an advantage (though large bankrolls would still give lasting power).

AnoHito · 2014-12-26 21:43:23

Hmm... I think you might be onto something.

PersonGuy · 2014-12-26 21:56:05

.. wrote:

Wow, the turnout was less than for the test tournament. That makes me think that maybe the date and time slot didn't suit a lot people.

It was definitely bad timing for me.

Asminthe · 2014-12-26 21:59:07

One thing that some poker sites do that is kind of similar to your weekly bonus idea is something called a rake race, where players are given cash based on their position in some rake leaderboards. Like "More total rake was collected from tables you were at than any other single player's tables this month, here's $x." That kind of thing. Of course, it's more of a reward for playing a lot than a reward for playing well, and the people who win the most are frequently break-even or slightly losing players who play very many tables simultaneously all month and make all their money on those rake race rewards.

For a skill contest, I'd much rather either stick to regular cash games or have something akin to a poker heads-up tournament than what we had today, where the format discouraged good cash game play in favor of hoping variance was on your side for a couple hours and put you in a situation where you never had any chance to influence your actual competition's results. I'm not fond of tournaments where a) The worse you are at the game the more you influence the final rankings and b) The people who end up in the top few spots never have to (and in fact probably don't) compete with each other at all outside of a kind of lame, indirect "who can find and beat up on weaker players faster" contest.

Obviously entering the event was a +EV move, since the tribute was, at worst, only slightly more expensive than the cash games one would be playing otherwise and there was like $520 of dead money up for grabs on top, so I'm definitely not complaining about this particular tournament from a value perspective.

jasonrohrer · 2014-12-26 22:32:44

Well, would a non-time-limited lasting tournament be better? With rising required stakes and players being ranked in the end by the time of their last game (with the last player standing winning first place).

Then, there'd be no way for the most skilled players to avoid each other. They'd have to face each other in the end.

Still, this would keep a robust, free-for-all structure.

Of course, it would have to happen on a separate server.

Also, to be clear, I'm willing to implement a special tournament mode into the existing client and server, but not until I verify that tournaments are going to be a viable and vibrant part of this game's culture.

The embedded tournament was one test that still happened on the same client and server. I can't figure out how to implement another tournament structure (like entry fee) and embed it in the existing client and main server.

Essentially, it requires a separate balance for each player (tournament money), but the existing client is all about displaying one balance.

I suppose a "server picker" interface in the client would make it easier.... still, it's still kind of messy for people to have multiple accounts (one on main server, one on tournament server). That's the plan for now, for initial tournament proof-of-concept, but it will certainly confuse people.

mzo · 2014-12-27 08:53:31

Would be kind of interesting to do a profit race. First players to make X profit wins. Once a player reaches the goal they are out of the running. This would give incentive to stick it out until its over or you make goal. Just a random thought.

Pox · 2014-12-27 11:46:48

I like the idea of a fixed buy-in with increasing ante and no re-buy: as far as I know that works well for online poker and I see no reason why it would be different here.

jasonrohrer · 2014-12-27 19:07:03

With the profit race, if we're playing with our main-server bankrolls, wouldn't the players who don't have a chance still drop out quickly? No sense in throwing good money after bad, if I'm down to -$2 and the goal is +$5. If I can use my bankroll for other stuff post-tournament, better stop now.

computermouth · 2014-12-27 22:11:10

Might as well throw in here, I'm extremely interested in tournament style play. Super bummed I missed it.

CORDIAL MINUET ENSEMBLE

#26 2014-12-26 20:10:00

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#27 2014-12-26 20:10:15

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#28 2014-12-26 20:13:20

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#29 2014-12-26 20:13:51

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#30 2014-12-26 20:15:17

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#31 2014-12-26 20:15:42

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#32 2014-12-26 20:22:15

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#33 2014-12-26 20:28:01

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#34 2014-12-26 20:32:37

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#35 2014-12-26 20:38:56

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#36 2014-12-26 20:40:42

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#37 2014-12-26 20:42:44

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#38 2014-12-26 20:49:35

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#39 2014-12-26 20:51:03

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#40 2014-12-26 21:25:28

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#41 2014-12-26 21:37:28

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#42 2014-12-26 21:40:55

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#43 2014-12-26 21:43:23

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#44 2014-12-26 21:56:05

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#45 2014-12-26 21:59:07

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#46 2014-12-26 22:32:44

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#47 2014-12-27 08:53:31

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#48 2014-12-27 11:46:48

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#49 2014-12-27 19:07:03

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

#50 2014-12-27 22:11:10

Re: [UPDATED] Boxing Day TOURNAMENT

Board footer