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Private kibitz log from 
Vsotvep
Round 29
Iâm not sure if Martin has completely given up or is just acting like it, but at least thatâs what he appears to claim in his private messages. His new goal is to lose, but keep his group on the board. I find it irrational and had higher expectations of Martin, but I guess the goals of the game are not defined well enough for players in a bad position.
My strategy does not change: as long as there are three opponents, I canât play G9. D7 has become even more important, as Martin wants to play it as well. Letâs hope the two irrational players donât work together in blocking me, or if they do, that Martin blocks and Haze takes D7 (for some reason).
- D7
- A1
- A8
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Iâm guessing le_4tc looks likely to win?
Martin is looks like they are suiciding their group by filling eye space, and it feels like Haze doesnât have very many options for legal moves.
In theory Vsotvep can try to get ahead with kind of 1v1 endgame vs le_4tc but they started behind on points right? I think they have had some pretty clever ideas about move orders and collisions so it could be doable.
Letâs look at some snapshots. White looking more comfortable early on/less cramped, less fighting.
Again, makes sense to team up so White doesnât run away with a big slice of the board and probably enough eyespace to live
Is White still the biggest threat anymore? (Maybe, maybe red is still killable)
Should we think about stopping red getting four eyes? Blue needs to secure his own group for a few turns first. White probably canât get more than two eyes.
Blue needs to secure shape against white and black. Black and yellow more or less dead but could still be useful to stop red getting more eyes.
Some tension with white and blue. Saving/capturing the two stones makes sense. Presumably black stones would get captured on the right.
Maybe someone shouldâve convinced yellow to play certain moves. I mean unless red asked them to play this?
Maybe the person with three eyes should be limited so they canât become un killable?
Big discussions about draws by white and blue looking stronger, but are we going to let red get four eyes? Aiming to be unkillable should be an advantage right?
White should be killable, blue killable, red getting to four eyes is making it harder to be killable, will require teamwork of every other player. White could make a temporary three eyes but the two eyes in the corner could be falsified with team work.
Capturing the four yellow stones will be bad unless thereâs a good follow up play. Yellow is out, black is more or less out but could be instrumental in capturing, blue and white killable in theory with teamwork. Red in a strong position.
I think weâre letting red get four eyes and possibly some miscommunication.
I would be demotivated as white, red getting the option for four eyes after capturing yellow, white colliding with black, blue not wanting to help against red and playing dame to gain an endgame point. It might look like white could have a points lead (close to reds count), but a points lead with a killable group? That and you donât feel like blue is likely to work with you over red.
Especially when it gets this far. You have only two eyes a white. Your possible ally black needs to self Atari to even fill a liberty of blue who has three eyes. You need to get cooperation of both red and black to kill blue to really stand a chance.
Unless youâre good at diplomacy (and white tried and failed earlier with draw negotiations) itâs unlikely the game gets to counting with white still alive, since they have quite a number of points in area. So you have to try negotiate a draw again maybe?
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I think the frustration expressed by 
martin3141 ultimately stems from his perception that Vsotvep will not change course from eliminating martin3141 and/or part of a ploy to build sympathy.
Maybe the game is headed toward an endgame like this, with a 2-way battle between 
le_4TC and Vsotvep to see who wins
However, martin3141 should want to convince Vsotvep this end game is not in his favor, and argue that le_4TC would most likely win in this situation. martin3141 should even threaten to throw the game in favor of le_4TC, even by threatening to self-eliminate while maybe even 
Haze is still alive (but not actually want to fully follow through on it), in order to sway a seemingly risk-averse Vsotvep to get on board with stopping le_4TC from winning.
Working together, it is possible for martin3141 and Vsotvep to establish an endgame that looks something like this, in order to force a three-way draw. martin3141 has the lead in score, but is forced to accept a draw, since the other two players can eliminate them, while le_4TC is forced to accept the draw, since Vsotvep could let martin3141 win instead as a threat.
Of course, in such a situation le_4TC would instead try to convince Vsotvep to capture martin3141 instead, in order to play out the 2-way battle instead of settling for the draw. It all comes down to Vsotvepâs risk tolerance/aversion.
It seems that martin3141 believes that this 3-way draw is untenable, and that Vsotvep would risk losing in order to have a shot of going for the win, and hence martin3141 maybe is trying to speed up their own demise (or at least give the appearance of such) in order to punish Vsotvep for not working toward the draw.
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This seems a bit harsh. Has anyone any examples of games where thereâs any rules to motivate play when in a losing position? I donât think standard risk for instance offers much motivation to play when youâre in a losing position. You could in theory hold out to capture a territory each turn and try get a massive reinforcement card, but supposing you were in such a losing position with one unit left per territory there would be no point in waiting to be beaten.
Some of the newer mario karts (mario kart wii onward?) would give the player in last place big power ups to either mess up whoever gets first place or a bullet to make them hopefully not last place. I think people on average resent this mechanic though?
I donât think we would want a spend your captured stones to nuke someone elses group mechanic.
Even playing for a share in a draw isnât really a great incentive for a lot of players I would wager. Choosing between working really hard for a draw or resigning I can imagine wonât be enough incentive for a lot of people.
I think Haze was great for still continuing while being in a not so great position for most of the game.
At the moment though, White could be captured this turn though right? A play at A8, A6 and D7 simultaneously?
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Is this not already a settled position?
Looks like 4 pt. for Orange, 9 pt. for Blue, and 10pt. for White (if we assume the top-side area is shared).
There seem to be no point plays left for any colour.
Or is there now play over who can cooperate to capture Black physically on the top side? I havenât really been following. Yeah, I guess itâs that.
We are using area scoring, which avoids having to figure out who gets credit for captures.
Black could potentially be eliminated. White could potentially be eliminated as well. In theory, Blue could even be eliminated. However, whether any of those things happen depends on whether the players are willing to do so.
Thereâs been a lot of discussion in the game thread that reveals somethings about the playersâ motivations. Thereâs also some private kibitz logs from Vsotvep in this thread, and weâve discussed various end game possibilities above as well. Itâs quite possible that no one else gets eliminated in this game.
If no more captures are made, then le_4TC will win since they are leading with 28 points. Unless, of course, they vote to draw instead, but maybe thatâs unlikely as it stands, diplomatically speaking.
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So even though in theory Vsotvep can get captured it probably wouldnât benefit anyone.
I can imagine le_4tc coming out on top, theyâre already âleaning intoâ that side of the board.
I donât know how easy it would be for Vsotvep to stop. In theory if all three other players played at G7, H6 and J9 then, and suppose Vsotvep plays d7, everything gets captured. In theory Vsotvep could block one of the points G7, H6 and J9 and hope for a collision and then play d7 next. There would also be strategies to counter this like two of the three players playing D7 to collide and the third at another collison and then all three playing the eye points (or the two of the three left) in the next round of moves. I donât know if thereâs a winning strategy outright.
I presume Vsotvep will try to capture at d7 next though, maybe Martin will too?
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The Game has ended with a Victory for 
@le_4TC
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I was just about to ask @Vsotvep, but I see that he has already made this thread public. Thank you!
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This was really interesting to read through! (Iâll admit I skimmed over some of the details)
This is a bit pedantic of me, but let me just respond to this old post:
Shifting the scores does make a difference if each playerâs goal is to maximize their own score (which was the idea). It means that making 20 points while the winner makes 21 points is better than making 22 points while the winner makes 24.
We have of course moved on in new directions with that discussion by now, just wanted to clarify what I meant back then 
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Payouts donât necessarily dictate preferences, especially when the numbers donât directly correspond to any real rewards.
I think you are right in saying that the shift removes any absolute scoring bias, however, even without the shift, the players may be more concerned about relative scoring rather than the absolute numbers, especially if they are primarily focused on the prestige of winning.
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