How to Fix Cordial Minuet

AnoHito · 2015-01-05 18:51:22

Look, I know this has been debated a lot already, but the longer I play Cordial Minuet, the more convinced I am that this is an issue that needs to be fixed. I am referring of course, to the fact that high level matches in Cordial Minuet tend to go nowhere. This is especially a problem given that the longer you play Cordial Minuet, the more skilled you tend to become, and skilled players are likely going to be the main player base you will have to rely on to keep Cordial Minuet lively and active.

Let's face it, we all have played matches where we ended up quiting because the other player's style was frustratingly conservative. And really, why wouldn't you play conservatively? Cordial Minuet heavily favors conservative play. It is in fact, often effectively to just slow play someone until they start getting overconfident and betting too much, and then take them to the cleaners. In fact, I think virtually every successful player is currently using this tactic in one form or another. The cost of folding is so low, you can easily afford to fold for long enough to tell if a player is exploitable. And if not, it's easier to just move on and find a new opponent that is than to play someone you know will likely never give you an opportunity for serious profit. This ultimately makes the game frustrating and boring to play a lot of the time, and I think is a major contributor to the difficulty Cordial Minuet has had in building a player base. New players tend to figure out quickly how dangerous not playing conservatively can be, and they become frustrated with a game that punishes them for betting.

I think that this is the biggest obstacle to success that Cordial Minuet currently has, and it's something that needs to be addressed. I believe the best way to do this, is to decrease the chip count in a game of Cordial Minuet from 100 chips, to 10 chips. I know the idea of lowering the chip count has been dismissed in the past, but I'm bringing to the front again because my experience playing Cordial Minuet has convinced me that it is the only way to make the game work. The thing is, folding has to hurt, but right now it really just doesn't. I know there is the argument that this problem can be solved by just raising the stakes, but in practice how often have players actually been willing to raise the stakes so far? Well, other than Judge Doorman (and look at what happened to him). People are reluctant to raise the stakes because it exposes them to too much risk. Who here wants to risk their entire bankroll on one game of Cordial Minuet? And yet, in order the make folding cost even $0.10, you have to increase the stakes to $10.00. No one, (again, excepting Judge Doorman) is currently playing at these stakes. And even if you did, and you could reliably find other players who also did, it wouldn't matter. What do you care about $0.10 when you could win up to $10.00? What do you care about $1.00 when you could win $100.00? No matter how high the stakes are that you are playing for, 1/100 of that is never going to seem like a lot. The risk of getting drawn into a game where you could lose 100 times your ante is always going to seem much greater than just folding.

But then, why does a system with a lot of chips work so well in poker? Well, as I discussed earlier, poker is a game of uncertainty. Any time someone raises, especially before the flop, you know it's a shot in the dark. And since the odds any given player will know they have the best possible hand at any given time are so low, it encourages people to bet liberally to take advantage of the uncertainty of other players. You always know that it's improbable any given player has the best possible hand, so you almost always feel like you have room to pressure them. And they know that it's improbable you actually have the best possible hand so it's much more likely they will try and push back. Cordial Minuet is almost the opposite of this. The longer a match of Cordial Minuet goes on, the more each player knows about their chances of winning. This combined with the low cost of folding means that calling a raise is almost never actually worth it. Raising early in the game is too risky (bluffing in the first round is practically the most exploitable thing you can do), and raising at the end of the game will most likely result in the other player folding (unless you completely misread the strength of their position, which doesn't happen very much in games with experienced players). It is possible to set a player up for a loss by convincing them they have the edge in a close game when they actually don't, but that is just about the only way a significant amount of money will change hands between good players, and it doesn't happen nearly often enough.

With a 10 chip game, things would be completely different. All of a sudden, folding isn't nearly as attractive of an option. If you fold just 10 times, you have lost the match, and even getting a few chips behind puts you at a disadvantage. So you are under a lot of pressure to call. Smart players will still know when folding is their best option, but they will have to play games when the relative strength of their position is uncertain much more often. It also really helps to put emphasis on the picking game, because all of a sudden biding your time and fishing for a good number is not an option. If you only raise when you get a good number the other person can just fold anyway. But then again, why raise only when you have a good number when raising puts the other player under so much pressure? All of a sudden it seems like bluffing in the first round sometimes might not be such a bad idea. Of course, it's very likely 10 chip games will be short, usually ending after a few rounds when a player either loses an all in or becomes short stacked to the point that they want to reset the stakes. But I think this is actually a good thing because it encourages players to intermingle more. Often times it takes so long to find another player you end up wanting to keep playing them for a long time. But doing this also means that if a third player signs on, they will probably never see another player because the other people playing will just play the one game and quit when they are done. But if matches were faster, the third player would likely have to wait less than five minutes before seeing one of the other players open up a new match in order to keep playing.

The big problem with having shorter matches though, is that it does in many ways make the game more shallow. One of the best aspects of Cordial Minuet is that it let's you carefully build up the expectations of your opponent, only to betray them at just the right moment for a devastating reversal of fortune. You would to a certain extent lose that in a 10 chip game, and much more emphasis would be put on just picking the right columns. For that matter, I am not at all certain 10 chips is ideal. Maybe something like 20 chips would provide a better balance between making folding unattractive and allowing for careful methodological play. But the thing that is clear to me, is that 100 chip games don't work, and they are keeping Cordial Minuet from reaching it's potential.

So I propose the following. Allow players to set the chip count on their own games. Then we can all work together and figure out what chip count makes Cordial Minuet the most fun to play. And maybe there is no one answer. Maybe a 10 chip game is the most fun for some people, while a 20 chip game is more fun for others. Maybe most people will keep on playing 100 chip games after all. Fighting games let you change round limits and health levels, and doing so has many of the same consequences as changing the chip count in Cordial Minuet. While most people who play fighting games do prefer 3 round matches, many players enjoy having other options. And giving them those options doesn't really cost anything, so why not do it?

Last edited by AnoHito (2015-01-05 18:55:52)

QuazAndWally · 2015-01-05 19:18:10

In my opinion I like the 100 chip count, it allows more depth in the way you use the chips to gauge and manipulate your opponent. If you only had 10 then you wouldn't have as much rope to play. Games would be so short that you wouldn't be able to feel out the other player's play style, and much worse, you wouldn't be able to throw curve balls at them to throw them off. I have definitely played against some very conservative players, but when I do, I get my kicks by forcing them to raise the stakes or fold almost consistently. This also gives me a lot of information on their first pick. If I always raise on the first round, and they always fold except this one time, then I know one of their inked rows must have a relatively high number. I wouldn't be pleased with any changes that reduced that level of play.

AnoHito · 2015-01-05 19:23:50

Right, well, 100 chip count games do have their good points. Although I have to warn you that bluffing in the first round will typically have devastating consequences if the other player knows what they are doing (which I do ). But this is why I say, let people pick their own chip count and let the market decide. Really the worst thing that can happen is we will learn more about what does or doesn't make Cordial Minuet work.

Last edited by AnoHito (2015-01-05 19:24:41)

jere · 2015-01-05 20:45:05

AnoHito (I'll stop call you that ), you're saying a lot of true things definitely. Conservative play is favored. Correct play usually involves a lot of folding. Bluffing on the first round is indeed easily exploitable .... as you can see on the leaderboards.

I certainly don't like the idea of super short games, but you might be right that everyone is happy if it's a configurable option.

The big question is: will new players really understand the significance of the chip count? Do they currently understand the implications of the chip count? I'm not even sure I do. If the UI gets chip counts added to it (next to stakes presumably), I bet that's going to be at least a little confusing. And it also goes back to your claim that new players are actually leaving because of the chip count issue? I'm skeptical on that one. Regardless, that's an empirical claim that Jason could investigate (i.e. are droves of players withdrawing their moneys?).

[Off topic but something that is bugging me a lot. A game is what occurs before one player leaves. A round is what culminates in a fold or final scores. A ______ consists of one bet and up to one column pick. What word should I be using because round is confusing me.]

QuazAndWally · 2015-01-05 21:10:26

turn?

jere · 2015-01-05 21:17:23

Yea that makes sense. I feel kind of dumb now.

cullman · 2015-01-05 22:26:49

Just to put Judge Poorman's few cents in on this....

I agree with the problem, I am rapidly losing interest in playing cause everyone who is a good player seems to fold every hand unless they have a 32+ on the first tile. So I have literally sat there for 30 minutes playing and winning 8 chips or something. Personally, I don't like the idea of reducing the chip count, I like 100 chips. What I was going to propose independently of this post was to make it so that along with setting the game amount, you could set the blind. For me, I would love to play a $50-$100 game where both players need to ante either 5 or 10 chips to see the card. That would definitely speed up the game, and make it less of a grind. I think a lot of time, I do a pretty good job of jamming the other player on the first turn, but it only pays one chip. The other alternative would be to emulate the sit and go type poker tournaments where the blind/ante goes up over time, however, I think the conservative players would just quit out once the ante got too high.

Last edited by cullman (2015-01-05 22:27:25)

computermouth · 2015-01-05 23:37:54

I've also, at one time or another, had the same concerns about the game. I employ conservative tactics, occasionally get bored of it, start betting more liberally, am met with conservative tactics, and typically eventually come out regretting it.

Reducing chip count would get us there (but I think would reduce some of the 'finesse' of betting), raising blinds I think would just push conservative players to get-in/get-out. Antes though. I like the idea of antes. Per-board antes. I think a 5 chip ante would be the perfect sweetspot. It's not a lot, but definitely enough to still make most players rethink that turn1 fold.

Last edited by computermouth (2015-01-06 00:23:16)

cullman · 2015-01-05 23:43:17

I am +1 for a 5 chip ante. I think that would definitely make the game a lot less of a grind.

zed · 2015-01-06 02:29:53

+z for experimenting with higher antes.

mzo · 2015-01-06 02:46:18

Its unfortunate that this is a difficult game to play with physical components and face to face as that would allow us all to experiment a lot more. Poker has gone through generations of iteration, forking and variant popularity fluctuation to get where it is now and that's difficult to do in a situation where that kind of experimentation can often require heavy UI changes. I do like the idea along those lines of Jason trying a fork that allows chip count setting and seeing what we learn from that.

AnoHito · 2015-01-06 04:10:07

I am completely okay with having configurable antes too. There are some reasons why I think changing the chip count vs changing the ante is a more elegant solution. Like for example, with a configurable chip count you never end up in a situation where you still have chips but not enough to actually play a round. But in the end allowing the ante to be changed still solves the problem just as well, and if it's what people prefer, who am I to argue? However I do think it's important the ante be a configurable option because I think we need to learn more about how different antes change the dynamics of the game before settling on an ideal amount. And maybe if different ante amounts do bring out different aspects of the game and favor different styles of playing, the diversity that having a configurable ante adds will be too good to give up.

jasonrohrer · 2015-01-06 06:06:03

So... this is a very deep subject that in many ways cuts to the heart of these kinds of games.

There was some discussion earlier about deep stacks allowing for more skilled play. Then there's also the issue of stack granularity.

The depth of a stack is the difference between what you're forced to bet on a round vs. what you could possibly bet during the perfect storm. Like, how much can you really "say" with your bet? If all-in is 100x what you're forced to bet, then knowing when to do that is a more refined skill than if all-in is only 2x what you're forced to bet (where your betting language only has two words in it that aren't that differentiated... ugg and ugggg). It also affects how long you can wait for that perfect storm.

The granularity also affects how refined your skill can be---the situation where betting 99x is better than 98x. But I don't think granularity is as big of a factor in potential skill.

Reducing the coin count (down to 10, for example), reduces both granularity and stack depth.

Keeping coin count the same while raising the ante (up to 5 forced coins per round, for example) preserves granularity while reducing effective stack depth. An ante of 5 would mean a stack depth of 20x instead of 100x.

I'm not sure preserving granularity is worth the extra confusion. If the stack should be more shallow, it might as well be less granular too. If your ante is 5, would raising up to 6 be sensible? Not really. And then you'd have situations where someone has 4 chips left and the game must end without a full transfer.

I picked the number 100 simply because it matches the maximum buy-in for Holdem (generally 100 big blinds).

I decided to make everything about the game, from stakes to bets, as ridiculously flexible as possible. Thus, you can make a 1.00 game. You can also make a 1.01 game. And the idea was that if people wanted higher antes per round, they would simply set them through the betting mechanism after the first turn.

You know, bet at least 5 coins every time and force your opponent to do the same.

The problem is that you get to see your first number before betting, so forcing an ante is impossible.

I did consider a first betting round BEFORE turn 1. You see the board and have to propose/match an ante with your opponent (where folding is still allowed at that point, at the loss of one chip, or whatever you anted so far).

This would allow a kind of pre-round negotiation.

I could imagine this part of the game degenerating into a kind of tit-for-tat, though, which isn't very interesting. You know, lull your opponent into a constant 5-coin ante, and then surprise them by unilaterally pushing it up to 100 one round and forcing them to fold their 5-coins. Well, actually, it's the person who wants a higher ante that is more exploitable here (the person who wants a lower ante always could bet 1 and see what their opponent bet first).

Anyway, I chose not to do this, because it felt kinda like betting blind. Or maybe very expert players betting based on characteristics of the board layout itself which may actually, in rare situations, give one player a tactical avenue that the other player doesn't have. Or one player just bullying the other into leaving (when the victim is never going to match a huge bet blind).

I agree, in general, that because of the core skill involved in picking columns (as opposed to the random number generator at the heart of poker), the same stack sizes don't necessarily make sense here.

When you get a bad number turn 1, it's because you played poorly, so there should probably be more at stake.

I've been getting this feedback forever, since I first showed the game to anyone. Asminthe talked me out of it with their poker knowledge though.

I do worry that if we pushed down to, say, 20 coins, that players would respond to the added risk and reduced skill depth by reducing their buy-ins. Maybe go from $1.00 games to 20-cent games so that the amount risked per round is the same as before.

The tribute also becomes much more touchy.

And if deep stacks are so great, why not go even deeper? Why not 1000 coins with a 1-coin ante?

Part of it was to keep the dollar fractions to 4 decimal places. That's not really a gameplay reason, but a human reason.

But anyway, my job as a designer is to figure this out. I don't want to throw it at players as yet another option for them to pick every game.

AnoHito · 2015-01-06 08:27:39

jasonrohrer wrote:

So... this is a very deep subject that in many ways cuts to the heart of these kinds of games.
I do worry that if we pushed down to, say, 20 coins, that players would respond to the added risk and reduced skill depth by reducing their buy-ins. Maybe go from $1.00 games to 20-cent games so that the amount risked per round is the same as before.

The average buy-in for games is already pretty low, how much lower could it get? I mean, I have never heard of a gambling game before where it was so difficult to convince people to even bet $1.00. I think in a way, the skill depth is too high. Unskilled players are too scared of skilled players because they will have no chance whatsoever to win, and skilled played are too afraid of other skilled players because they don't want to lose precious money when it is so hard and time consuming to earn it in the first place. Reducing the skill depth may be the only way to get over this hurdle and get players actually moving money around. Besides, there is still plenty of skill depth in the picking to make up for what would be lost in the betting. Cordial Minuet is not poker, after all.

jasonrohrer wrote:

But anyway, my job as a designer is to figure this out. I don't want to throw it at players as yet another option for them to pick every game.

I'm not usually one for quotations, but there is a particular quotation that I always keep in the back of my head when designing a computer program:

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."

It is one of the truest things I have ever heard uttered by another person. The temptation when designing something is always to make it as simple and elegant as possible. You never want a design to be cluttered by confusing and unnecessary complexity. Especially if it's something someone else will have to see, or even interact with. But you will notice that in spite of a world of programmers, many of whom aspire to this principle, most games still have more than one configuration option. I mean, just look at a game like StarCraft... The idea that you should be able to pick a single stack size that would be better than any other may just be one of those cases where you are making things too simple. If having different stack sizes adds variety and enjoyment to the game, then the price of simplicity may very well be too high.

Edit: Another question you might want to ask yourself as a designer, is do you even have the necessary information to determine what stack size works the best for the majority of players without testing it in some way?

Last edited by AnoHito (2015-01-06 08:37:49)

jasonrohrer · 2015-01-06 15:51:43

Oh, I wasn't saying I wasn't going to test it.

But handing the option to players and letting them tell me which option they liked best isn't how I would test it.

As far as your Starcraft example goes, whenever I see lots of options like that, I feel like the designers copped out of their job. They have defaults that they settled on, of course, but they don't trust their own defaults.

Contrast that with the great board games, which almost always have NO options at all.

I think they take their job as designers more seriously because:

1. They're committing something to print that can never be updated later after it ships.

2. They're trusting players to implement their rule complexity for them.

Finding the sweet spot where a game operates at its best is usually a pretty long and bumpy process. The Castle Doctrine saw something like 35 revisions, with some major mechanical changes along the way, before it really felt right.

So, at revision 11, we're less than half way there!

Anyway, I need some input here: if I'm going to tweak this and measure the results, what should I be measuring? Percentage of rounds where someone folds? Percentage of rounds that make it to reveal? Game length in seconds?

.. · 2015-01-06 16:17:08

jasonrohrer wrote:

And the idea was that if people wanted higher antes per round, they would simply set them through the betting mechanism after the first turn.

Yes, because I wish that the antes were larger, I usually try betting a fixed amount on the first turn. Some players oblige me, others exploit me. As you said, it doesn't work because it's not a blind bet.

When I brought this up before, Asminthe pointed out that increasing the ante would decrease the number of rounds, which I agree is generally bad. But wait, actually it's only bad if the number of rounds isn't boringly high to begin with. If conservative play results in potentially more rounds than both players are willing to play before getting bored, then increasing the ante/reducing coins might have less effect than expected.

I think that a 5 coin ante might be larger than needed -- 3 coins is still 3 times more, so shouldn't it still have a large effect? Also, I suggest increasing antes rather than decreasing number of coins, because often you will want to raise 50% of your current total bet, so still want granularity.

As for what you should measure: well, measure it all. I suggest trying to reduce the percentage of rounds that are "uninteresting": those where someone folds away only their 1 coin ante. Maybe plot the distribution of 'uninteresting round percentages' to see the difference between players with different styles and skills. For example, maybe 30% of games have rounds which are 80+% uninteresting. I think what everyone is asking for is to reduce "uninteresting" rounds/play. Alternatively, look at number of rounds (don't want to reduce that much) and average transfer of coins per round (it's possible that raising the ante doesn't have much effect on profit/round, because profit is dominated by a few rounds with big bets)

Last edited by .. (2015-01-06 16:19:34)

AnoHito · 2015-01-06 16:21:41

jasonrohrer wrote:

Contrast that with the great board games, which almost always have NO options at all.

Go is the best board game ever conceived of in my opinion, and even go players can't settle on the best komi (handicap for the second player)...

jasonrohrer wrote:

Anyway, I need some input here: if I'm going to tweak this and measure the results, what should I be measuring? Percentage of rounds where someone folds? Percentage of rounds that make it to reveal? Game length in seconds?

Hmm... Well, it's kind of subjective isn't it? Ideally the right chip count should be the one players actually like the most. Which is tough because I think any chip count is going to alienate at least a few players. I don't think a metric like how often players fold is going to tell you much about that. I think if there is anything that will tell you how well a chip count is working, it will be the average amount of time spent playing by all the players who sign on for a given day. I think that if more players like the chip count, it stands to reason they will be having more fun when they play with it, and will want to keep playing for a longer amount of time. Maybe look at the ratio of the total players to the total tribute too, since that will be a good indicator of how much money is actually moving around, and besides that it will tell you what is the most profitable chip count is for the person running the server.

computermouth · 2015-01-06 16:24:07

Game length in seconds could be deceiving, but would probably average out over a large number of games. Maybe measure rate of investment?

Also, with Starcraft, tens(hundreds?) of thousands of active players seeking wildly different modes of gameplay warrant those modes of gameplay. I think further down the road separate lobbies for game modes could be a great option for CM, but only once the community's at the point where I can drop in and immediately find a few games in my budget range.

jasonrohrer · 2015-01-06 18:15:54

Well, it's a bit strange, but moving the game toward what players like the most isn't what I'm trying to do here.

I'm trying to move the game toward its ideal form, whatever that is, where it fully embodies the aesthetics that I want it to embody. "Boring slog, one chip at a time," isn't the target aesthetic, of course.

For example, players might "like" more luck in a game that is really a game about skill. By reducing the coin count or raising the ante, we increase the impact of luck in the game.

In the extreme, imagine if we reduced it down to 1 coin each and played one round. Yes, a skilled player would still win the majority of games through the picking game, but beyond that, the impact of the inherent uncertainty of the picking game would be magnified.

Perhaps my goal should be to balance these two skills in the game. Perhaps right now, the betting skill is given too much weight, and the picking skill doesn't matter very much.

Anyway, I can lay out my aesthetic goals:

--Tense, agonizing decisions at every turn.
--Frequent situations where you might be falling into a trap set by your opponent.
--Frequent situations where your opponent is falling into a trap that you've set.
--Watching your opponent closely to learn their patterns and eventually exploit those patterns.
--Always feeling like it was your fault when you lost, that you've learned something, and that you can play better next time.

What we're missing now might be the first aesthetic.

The last aesthetic is one that players, generally, don't like. It's much more pleasant to blame a loss on a bad roll of the dice than to take the blame for it yourself. We saw this in The Castle Doctrine, where when you die, it was always your fault, but this causes players to quit instead of "just one more game."

The "Just one more game" aesthetic often means that there is a roulette wheel under the hood (especially for turn-based games). See Spelunky, FTL, or any other Roguelike, and also Poker.

BUT, just because players don't like the feeling doesn't mean it's not the RIGHT feeling for a game to have. That's the difference between designing with intention/authenticity and pandering.

zed · 2015-01-07 01:46:46

One thing maybe worth mentioning: the problem I have with deep stacks is risk
aversion. I'm quite sure that if I ever ended up in $10 game, and my opponent
went all-in, I would fold even if I were sure the odds were in my favour. It's
just too much to gamble.

cullman · 2015-01-07 02:34:59

I'd be in favor of a 3 chip ante if we think 5 chips is too much. Failing that "we" could implement a big/small blind type of structure where it alternates between making one player front 3 chips and the other front 1 chip like poker.

fuwjax · 2015-01-07 07:42:11

I'd like to caveat this by pointing out that I have not played even one game of CM. I love gaming and game design; I just don't enjoy gambling online.

It seems to me that the major consensus is that "conservative play is boring, but safe" which to be fair isn't exactly true. I'm sure it is both boring and safe, it's just not conservative. The style of play is similar to how you'd bet conservatively in a blind bluffing game, but in most of those games betting is the major source of information exposure. In other words, "conservative" play in those games is about giving as little ambiguous or false information as you can, using trustworthiness as a (generally poor) tactic. In CM, information abounds. The expected values early in the game may be wide open, but the expected values late in the game are almost completely known. Betting here is just a facet of the information, instead of all of it.

With an ante or a blind, two people playing at roughly the same skill level will fold equally often, so the change will be a wash. The underlying problem is that folding resets the information, and you can reset for free. At some point in the round the expected value to call for one player shifts negative, so the appeal of a free alternative is obvious. It's probably worth making folding cost something explicitly. Instead of the tribute being a traditional rake, (by the way, I am a bit confused on the tribute, if you play 200 rounds in a game are both players at 0 chips?) it might be an interesting idea to make the tribute the cost to fold. In other words, if both players call all the way to the end of the round, which is something I assume almost never happens, then there's no tribute. But either player can fold at any time by paying one chip to the house. Or maybe one chip for each round folded. There you go, each game costs at least 5 chips to fold, but not all of that may go to your opponent. If you fold early, your opponent doesn't get the cash, but you also won't be able to win it back.

Anyway, just thought I'd toss my 2 cents in here since I'm not planning to do it in the game. Y'all have fun!

AnoHito · 2015-01-07 08:02:04

Interesting idea... I like it actually. I like it a lot.

Edit:

Right, so after giving it some thought, I think this is pretty much the best idea I have heard to make Cordial Minuet less conservative. And actually, I think the cost of folding never has to be more than one chip. If the cost of folding was a tribute of one chip that neither player would get back, it means you can pressure the other player to commit to a round that they might not have complete faith in simply by raising one chip. It makes no more sense to fold than it does to call, as long as you believe there is still a chance you can win. But now you have committed two chips to the game, so the cost of folding is now three. So in the next round, if the other player still believes in the strength of their position, they can raise to three, and it puts you under even more pressure to call. For every betting round, the option of raising by one puts the other player in a position where calling seems more appealing than folding if they have any reasonable chance of winning. Meaning that it shouldn't be too hard to get another player to commit five chips to a game. And once they have committed at least two chips to the game, even a conservative player may call a raise that is more than one. It's brilliant actually. Seriously Jason, do this.

Last edited by AnoHito (2015-01-07 08:25:03)

jasonrohrer · 2015-01-07 19:25:36

Isn't this similar to a forced bet of 1 chip every round?

What's the point of having that folding fee go to the house?

fuwjax wrote:

At some point in the round the expected value to call for one player shifts negative,

I'm pretty sure this is NOT true in every round. There are situations where your score is higher than all but one of your opponent's 6 possible scores (so you have +0.833 EV), and your opponent has the highest score (so they have +1 EV). Even after reveal, your score can be above one of your opponent's two remaining possible scores, giving you 0 EV, not negative.

I'm trying to avoid things that add an extra layer of complication to an otherwise standard betting structure that everyone understands.

Raising the ante would be clear, because 2 (or 3, or 5) would just be the ante that everyone saw.

"Fold" in general means "cut your losses here." Having a chip fly to the opponent or the house on folding would need explanation and justification to everyone who was confused by it.

When you all are complaining about conservative players who fold all the time, are you talking about players who fold to a raise of 1 after the first pick? Or players who won't match even higher raises?

AnoHito · 2015-01-07 19:42:14

jasonrohrer wrote:

Isn't this similar to a forced bet of 1 chip every round?

Not really. It still makes sense to fold if you don't think you will win, or else you might lose even more than the extra chip you would pay to fold. Calling is still more expensive than folding, because after you call, folding later would be even more expensive. The extra chip just means that you have more motivation to call a raise even when you don't have a clear advantage. And it may often happen that neither player has enough confidence to raise even one chip after a pick. That's the advantage of the simultaneous betting system.

jasonrohrer wrote:

What's the point of having that folding fee go to the house?

I can't speak for fuwjax, but personally I believe the advantage would be that having the extra chip be the tribute would mean you wouldn't gain any extra chips by pressuring the other player to fold. I think that is required to maintain fairness, or else the winning player would be gaining one more chip than they actually risked by raising if the other player folded.

CORDIAL MINUET ENSEMBLE

#1 2015-01-05 18:51:22

How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#2 2015-01-05 19:18:10

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#3 2015-01-05 19:23:50

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#4 2015-01-05 20:45:05

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#5 2015-01-05 21:10:26

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#6 2015-01-05 21:17:23

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#7 2015-01-05 22:26:49

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#8 2015-01-05 23:37:54

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#9 2015-01-05 23:43:17

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#10 2015-01-06 02:29:53

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#11 2015-01-06 02:46:18

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#12 2015-01-06 04:10:07

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#13 2015-01-06 06:06:03

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#14 2015-01-06 08:27:39

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#15 2015-01-06 15:51:43

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#16 2015-01-06 16:17:08

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#17 2015-01-06 16:21:41

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#18 2015-01-06 16:24:07

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#19 2015-01-06 18:15:54

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#20 2015-01-07 01:46:46

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#21 2015-01-07 02:34:59

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#22 2015-01-07 07:42:11

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#23 2015-01-07 08:02:04

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#24 2015-01-07 19:25:36

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

#25 2015-01-07 19:42:14

Re: How to Fix Cordial Minuet

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