Werewolf LXXII: Chess (Checkmate!)

[Neon_Chaos]

Game over.

[jeheinz72]

Why did Narc die too? If PB has two queens, shouldn't it be 3-2-1?

[jeheinz72]

Originally Posted by The Jackal

That was a fun game, the wolves were lucky to be in a position to win at the end there. Damn you PB, damn you and your Penguins too.

Yeah, we made a solid comeback. Who knows, if PB was around, I think I might've gotten him. But c'est la vie.

[Passacaglia]

Good game, everyone! I had a lot of fun running it!

A lot of the dead folks have had a chance to see this already, but here's the spreadsheet that kept track of everything going on in the game:

http://www.geocities.com/amadaun17/WWChess.xls

[jeheinz72]

Fun game Pass, thanks for it. I had a great time playing.

Oh, and Jackal and I have enormous cojones for killing Collins when Narc told me he was protecting him.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by jeheinz72

Why did Narc die too? If PB has two queens, shouldn't it be 3-2-1?

PB lost his Pawn powers when he became a Queen.

[Neon_Chaos]

There was no way that black could win in the end-game scenario.

It was either White or Wolves, and I really didn't care much who won or lost by then.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by jeheinz72

Fun game Pass, thanks for it. I had a great time playing.

Oh, and Jackal and I have enormous cojones for killing Collins when Narc told me he was protecting him.

Seriously. I was sure you guys had it won at that point.

[jeheinz72]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

Seriously. I was sure you guys had it won at that point.

I was shocked it worked out. I figured that even if he thought I was a wolf he wouldn't actually give me a chance to do it.

I think our big big mistake was night-killing Path the night we did instead of Collins or PB actually. I know I underestimated the pawns until it was too late.

[Neon_Chaos]

I pretty much had Jackal pegged as a wolf when he hadn't died in 4 days.

No way the wolves let a seer live that long.

I knew jeheinz was a wolf when he didn't go to trap me (i was "in his sights", and he had a basic idea of where everyone was... I could have been easily boxed in by one move, I believe)

[jeheinz72]

Originally Posted by Neon_Chaos

I pretty much had Jackal pegged as a wolf when he hadn't died in 4 days.

No way the wolves let a seer live that long.

I knew jeheinz was a wolf when he didn't go to trap me (i was "in his sights", and he had a basic idea of where everyone was... I could have been easily boxed in by one move, I believe)

Yeah, I was surprised I wasn't hit hard by that.

But I couldn't risk accidentally killing you, and sweeping to my right was the only move that guaranteed that.

Pass said if I ran into you I automatically killed you, like I coudn't put in an order to make sure I stopped short of you.

[jeheinz72]

I was really surprised PB voted for me. I thought leaving work yesterday that I had it. Drat

[ntndeacon]

we had discussed voting out both heinz and Narcizo. we purposely split our vote.

[jeheinz72]

Originally Posted by ntndeacon

we had discussed voting out both heinz and Narcizo. we purposely split our vote.

Oh that's right, once PB became a queen you two could PM, couldn't you?

[ntndeacon]

yes, and I believed at that point that it was a symmetric wolf alignment, so I trusted PB. and we made up a plan to have both rooks voted out. that way whichever was the wolf would be ousted.

[jeheinz72]

Originally Posted by ntndeacon

yes, and I believed at that point that it was a symmetric wolf alignment, so I trusted PB. and we made up a plan to have both rooks voted out. that way whichever was the wolf would be ousted.

Yeah, that was our worry with giving up Jackal to get by, that people would realize it wasn't rook-knight-bishop-pawn

[KWhit]

It was infuriating to be dead in this game as I felt like I pretty much knew who the wolves were from really early on - I had correctly surmised that the teams' wolves were mirror images of each other from day one.

I didn't follow too closely after I was killed, but did nobody mention that and use that to find them?

[Passacaglia]

The symmetry of the wolves being rook-knight-rook-knight was not intentional. The only criteria I had in mind were that there would be two White wolves and two Black wolves, and that two wolves wouldn't be PM partners with each other (i.e. having the same piece and color on the board).

[KWhit]

Looks like you guys were answering my question as I was typing.

[mccollins]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

PB lost his Pawn powers when he became a Queen.

He should have had a vote for each queen, but that wasn't clarified in the rules.

When PB had one Queen and one Pawn, did he have 2 votes then?

[hoopsguy]

Fun game. I think it is the best one you have run, Pass.

I was pretty disappointed with biting it at the end of Day 1 after working as hard as we did to avoid the highest vote counts on me and Jackal. Seriously, we were very cooked most of that day and there was a ton of work behind the scenes by the wolf team to try and architect a day that would work out in our favor. I wish I had more time to play with the other guys that were wolves, as I think that was my first time playing wolf with any of them.

The one nitpick that I have on the game is that the pawns not only had four votes each, but they could communicate with a partner. With two blocks of 8 votes in the early going, it really made the vote a crapshoot for anyone else. If I had it to do over again, I would play a very cautious game until we identified the pawns (we already knew the knights by virtue of our roles) and go after them with vigor.

I also would like to have seen the pawns with an option to use anywhere from 1-4 votes. I don't think they would have come out with guns blazing on four votes early in the game if they had the option to "lighten" the vote, except in the case of KWhit and his partner where they were attempting to not die. I think that one change would make the game a little more strategic ... with the current ruleset the pawns almost have to be eliminated early to have a chance of controlling the vote. Similarly, the pawns know they have a disproportionate amount of control ... probably not the best feeling when they don't know if they are making good/bad votes.

[jeheinz72]

Yeah, if I had it to do over again I would've wanted to just night kill Knights and Pawns. I can't believe I missed that fact either.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by mccollins

He should have had a vote for each queen, but that wasn't clarified in the rules.

When PB had one Queen and one Pawn, did he have 2 votes then?

The rules said he would lose his Pawn powers -- I thought that covered it. He didn't have two votes when he had one Queen and one Pawn.

[hoopsguy]

Ah, who am I kidding? I don't think I'm capable of playing a "very cautious game".

Still, I would have tried hard to ID the pawns before I started pissing people off

[hoopsguy]

The continuous JEHeinz posts suggesting "why is everyone playing like a wolf????" cracked me up as I was reading along.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Fun game. I think it is the best one you have run, Pass.

I was pretty disappointed with biting it at the end of Day 1 after working as hard as we did to avoid the highest vote counts on me and Jackal. Seriously, we were very cooked most of that day and there was a ton of work behind the scenes by the wolf team to try and architect a day that would work out in our favor. I wish I had more time to play with the other guys that were wolves, as I think that was my first time playing wolf with any of them.

The one nitpick that I have on the game is that the pawns not only had four votes each, but they could communicate with a partner. With two blocks of 8 votes in the early going, it really made the vote a crapshoot for anyone else. If I had it to do over again, I would play a very cautious game until we identified the pawns (we already knew the knights by virtue of our roles) and go after them with vigor.

I also would like to have seen the pawns with an option to use anywhere from 1-4 votes. I don't think they would have come out with guns blazing on four votes early in the game if they had the option to "lighten" the vote, except in the case of KWhit and his partner where they were attempting to not die. I think that one change would make the game a little more strategic ... with the current ruleset the pawns almost have to be eliminated early to have a chance of controlling the vote. Similarly, the pawns know they have a disproportionate amount of control ... probably not the best feeling when they don't know if they are making good/bad votes.

Thanks! I agree that it's my best game so far, but I think my first two were pretty much bombs, so that's not saying much.

I can see where people are coming from on the Pawns, but I don't think it's that big of a deal. The Pawn power ended up changing the result of only one day's vote, and even then, there were three Pawns on hoopsguy (one was enough to kill hoopsguy, but two were needed to save KWhit). KWhit did have a nice advantage for sure, knowing that SY had 4 votes also, so hoops was his best bet. But even then, if any of the votes on KWhit were Pawns, KWhit would still have gone down. As the game goes on, I anticipated more Pawn deaths on the board, plus some mounting distrust between the Pawns. I think that giving the Pawns the ability to lighten their vote makes them too powerful -- the idea was that they really needed to take some responsibility in their vote, since it counted so much. I think this also opened people up to vote for anyone, rather than feel like they have to vote for someone "in the running" -- maybe one of the few votes on that person is a Pawn, or maybe a Pawn will join them.

[st.cronin]

Why did the wolves kill Qwikshot? That seemed to be a highly questionable move.

[KWhit]

BTW, Pass. I thought that was a great game. The chess board added a lot, I think.

I wish I could have been around for more of it, but that was really fun.

[jeheinz72]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

Why did the wolves kill Qwikshot? That seemed to be a highly questionable move.

Our thinking was that he was about to clear PB, and at the time PB had been shadier than Narc had been. We couldn't let that COT expand much further. We had to leave some people behind to attempt to pin the final wolf on at the end.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

Why did the wolves kill Qwikshot? That seemed to be a highly questionable move.

I thought that was a bit surprising, too. My take on that was that The Jackal revealed as a Knight on the first night, and goes untouched, but Qwikshot reveals as one, and gets killed as soon as possible. I figured everyone would look at The Jackal at that point.

[jeheinz72]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

I thought that was a bit surprising, too. My take on that was that The Jackal revealed as a Knight on the first night, and goes untouched, but Qwikshot reveals as one, and gets killed as soon as possible. I figured everyone would look at The Jackal at that point.

Yeah, but at that point we knew Jackal was going to out RendeR as a wolf the next day.

[Passacaglia]

By the way, reading the PMs between jeheinz72 and Narcizo was a thing of beauty. When mccollins died, Narcizo was pretty much convinced he had blown the whole thing. I thought he had, too, until PurdueBrad managed to save the day (although I'm not sure if it went down like he thought it would).

[jeheinz72]

I was sure I was going to mess up my PM's, sending a Wolf one to Narc. Frankly, I'm surprised I didn't.

I wasn't even running the game and I had to clean out my PM's 5 times.

[st.cronin]

Render and I hardly communicated at all. I actually was pretty suspicious of him because he didn't move. I did freely share my board info and scans with him, although we never really talked much about strategy.

As I argued, once Qwikshot was killed, the board balance was disrupted, and white could afford to ignore the wolves.

[Passacaglia]

I discovered that there was an option to download all my PMs as a text file, which was enormously helpful to me, since I wanted to save them all. I think I had to do that something like ten times.

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

I discovered that there was an option to download all my PMs as a text file, which was enormously helpful to me, since I wanted to save them all. I think I had to do that something like ten times.

How have you ever run a game without doing that?

[jeheinz72]

Yeah that's a handy thing...

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

How have you ever run a game without doing that?

For the BCS game, I just copied and pasted PMs I thought were interesting into a text file. I didn't see that I could download them all in one batch until this game.

[Narcizo]

Thank god I'm quitting this game. I'm such a total ídiot.

[path12]

Good game Pass. I didn't have Jackal or heinz on my radar at all when I died.

I wish I would have lasted long enough to really make an attack. My second move was not where I originally stated, which ended up putting me in the middle of the board -- I think that was beneficial to see where everyone was, but not for survival purposes.....

[path12]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

How have you ever run a game without doing that?

I've never done that. Had no idea you could until right now.

It's fitting that I have the banner "Are you an idiot?" at the top of my screen right now.

[path12]

Originally Posted by Narcizo

Thank god I'm quitting this game. I'm such a total ídiot.

Obsessive, yes. Idiot, no. I hope you're not really quitting.

[st.cronin]

Narc, you're one of my favorite players. I'm insisting that you play in the game I run (3 games out).

[jeheinz72]

Ditto that Narc. You weren't an idiot by any stretch, you just got the misfortune of dealing with me and all my lies in the game.

You really didn't play nearly as badly as I led the thread to believe.

I hope you don't "retire" one bit.

[hoopsguy]

I know it is no fun feeling like you screwed up a game, particularly after investing 7-10 days playing. That said, your team won, Narc

Hope you enjoy a short break and come back refreshed, be it for Cronin's game or another one in the future.

[PurdueBrad]

WAHOO!!! Way to go white team and ntndeacon, nice job with the splitting of votes. I knew that if we could pull off getting both, we would be guaranteed to get the wolf. In all honesty, I incorrectly assumed that I still had two votes and that we would need Neon to vote the right way to tie it, thank goodness this wasn't the case although I did have the wolf.

Heinz, you may have tried to spin me but in all honesty, I thought the voting record was VERY odd and I am going to be especially stubborn and obstinate after Hoops got me AGAIN.

Very, very nice.

Pass, great game and I learned something about Chess and may even try to take it up.

Mccollins was a great partner, as was ntndeacon.

This puts me in a great mood!

[hoopsguy]

Heh, I made a comment in a PM to the wolves post-game suggesting that you (PB) are a tough guy to move from an opinion ... at least for me.

For what it is worth, I thought Heinz put out just an outstanding position/argument this morning on why he was a good guy. But tough to argue the approach that you and NTN took on how to best work the end-game.

Nice job by the villagers down the stretch, apart from that little RendeR mistake. Why does that always happen to him in games where I'm a wolf? Even when I'm dead, he still gets set up

[PurdueBrad]

Narcizo, the white team won, you certainly didn't mess up IMHO. Things happen during the game but it isn't like you were working with 100% information and then did something else, you took a couple guesses and gambles. I think you're one of the deepest thinkers on here from an analysis standpoint and see angles that a lot of us would miss. I think the big thing is just to temper some of them with the idea that sometimes the most reasonable explanation is the right one. But I would hate to see you not play, you have been a good player in the games I've been in.

[jeheinz72]

Yeah, I must add, that had I actually been a villager, Narc would've been a blast to be PM-partners with. Some of his ideas had some merit to them.

[jeheinz72]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Heh, I made a comment in a PM to the wolves post-game suggesting that you (PB) are a tough guy to move from an opinion ... at least for me.

For what it is worth, I thought Heinz put out just an outstanding position/argument this morning on why he was a good guy. But tough to argue the approach that you and NTN took on how to best work the end-game.

Nice job by the villagers down the stretch, apart from that little RendeR mistake. Why does that always happen to him in games where I'm a wolf? Even when I'm dead, he still gets set up

Yeah, I think with PB and NTN split I was doomed either way. With them split, and then Narc and I of course split, that left Neon, who voted for me anyhow.