another tess puzzle! what should "theAlmighty" do?

does he have a good chance of winning this round? tieing? what's his best move?

Viewing Game #653937 
Reverse Battle From Game 651502
This game was last modified on Sat Oct 25, 2008 18:12:21

* Next Turn * Player: theAlmighty *heavenly* *Silver Medal in Men's Basketball* *Silver Medal in Men's Fencing* *Silver Medal in Men's Judo* *Gold Medal in Men's Table Tennis* * Next Turn *
Button Man: Strik    Score: 16 (-17.3 sides)   Rounds Won/Lost/Tied: 2 / 2 / 0 (out of 3 round(s))
Captured Dice: X Swing 20-sided die

Dice	8-sided die	Poison 10-sided die	X Swing (with 4 sides)
Value	7	8	3
Dice	Null 4-sided die	8-sided die	12-sided die	Null 20-sided die
Value	3	8	6	9

Player: ElihuRoot *Dead Dude* *Fanatic* 
Button Man: Tess    Score: 42 (17.3 sides)   Rounds Won/Lost/Tied: 2 / 2 / 0
Captured Dice: 16-sided die, Shadow 16-sided die

Oh, yay! A Tess problem!

Have I mentioned that I love null dice? Tess is not the greatest recipe, of course,
but I still love puzzles involving null dice.

Actually, maybe this only involves them tangentially. Isn't my best bet to get the 20-sided to survive? But should I take the shadow 16? or maybe something else?


Button Men Game #653937
Reverse Battle From Game 651502

Skills in this game: Null, Poison, Shadow, X Swing
Player: ElihuRoot *Dead Dude* *Fanatic*
Your Button Man: Tess (n4 8 12 n20 X) Score: 20 (5.3 sides) Rounds Won/Lost/Tied: 1 / 2 / 0 (Out of 3 wins)
Your Captured Dice: None

Null 4-sided die	8-sided die	12-sided die	Null 20-sided die	X Swing (with 20 sides)
1	8	10	12	6
8-sided die	Poison 10-sided die	Shadow 16-sided die	16-sided die	X Swing (with 4 sides)
2	8	16	12	4

Opponent: theAlmighty *heavenly* *Silver Medal in Men's Basketball* *Silver Medal in Men's Fencing* *Silver Medal in Men's Judo* *Gold Medal in Men's Table Tennis*
Button Man: Strik (8 p10 s16 16 X) Score: 12 (-5.3 sides) Rounds Won/Lost/Tied: 2 / 1 / 0

Two questions about this situation

1. does it make more sense to use my 20-sided die or my 18-sided die?
2. does it make more sense to take his die with value 2 or one of the dice with value 4?

For both of these, there are tradeoffs (for example, in #2, the three dice with value 4 threaten only 6 values of my rerolled die (1,2,3,4,8,12) vs. 7 threatened values if he's left with two values of 4 and one value of 2 (1,2,3,4,6,8,10); on the other hand, leaving with him with unrolled dice of value 2 may be preferable on subsequent turns to leaving him with unrolled dice of value 4.

Anyway, there must be a single best answer -- but without doing the explicit calculations, I can't quite see it.


Skills in this game: Reserve, Unique, X Swing, Y Swing
Player: ElihuRoot *Dead Dude* *Fanatic*
Your Button Man: Guillermo (6 10 20 uX uY) Score: 33.5 (6.3 sides) Rounds Won/Lost/Tied: 2 / 2 / 0 (Out of 3 wins)
Your Captured Dice: 4-sided die, 10-sided die

20-sided die	Unique X Swing (with 18 sides)	Unique Y Swing (with 1 sides)		10-sided die
20	13	1		1 Captured last turn
4-sided die	4-sided die	4-sided die	4-sided die
4	2	4	4

Opponent: jimmosk *Classically Fuzzy* *Bronze Medal in Men's Bars* *Bronze Medal in Men's Judo*
Button Man: Soja's Guardians (4 4 4 4 4 10 r10 r12) Score: 24 (-6.3 sides) Rounds Won/Lost/Tied: 2 / 2 / 0
Captured Dice: 6-sided die, 10-sided die

what's more profitable?

I could either reroll my 20-sided die in an attempt to get one more high number (but probably allow him one more turn to capture a die before having to reroll his (9,9)-sided die);
or I could reroll either my 14-sided die or 13-sided die, capturing his (6,6)-sided die, and almost certainly forcing him to reroll sooner -- but almost assuredly with smaller values on my own dice! I haven't worked the math out specifically on this, but initially, I thought one was obviously right -- now I'm not so sure. What do you think?



Button Men Game #653086
This game is 'for fun' and does not count for player rankings.
Arena Game: Generate a Random Button Man: Fantasy/Club Foglio (4 Dice, Swing)

Skills in this game: Turbo, Twin, V Swing, Y Swing
Player: ElihuRoot *Dead Dude* *Fanatic*
Your Button Man: RandomBM ((4,4) 14 20 20 Y) Score: 51.5 (7.6 sides) Rounds Won/Lost/Tied: 1 / 1 / 0 (Out of 3 wins)
Your Captured Dice: Twin V Turbo Swing Die (both with 12 sides)

Twin Die (both with 4 sides)	14-sided die	20-sided die	Y Swing (with 13 sides)		20-sided die
2	11	3	11		12 Captured last turn
10-sided die	Twin Die (both with 6 sides)	Twin Die (both with 9 sides)
1	7	15

Opponent: taurik *mindmeld* *Cunning 7*
Button Man: RandomBM (10 (6,6) (9,9) (V,V)!) Score: 40 (-7.6 sides) Rounds Won/Lost/Tied: 1 / 1 / 0
Captured Dice: 20-sided die

Back again -- morphing die question

So j. has to attack, and almost certainly should take the morphing-20 sided die.
but does it make sense to take it with HIS morphing die? argument yes: he needs big dice
to have a chance of forcing me to reroll my 20-sided dice; argument no: it's almost certain to get captured, and he'd give me 8 points as his morphing die increases.... also, does rerolling with your other dice showing 3-5-5 threaten me as much as rerolling with the remaining dice showing 3-4-5? Maybe the fact that MY two other small dice show 3 and 1 mitigates this somewhat.

or am I grasping at straws here and overthinking it? remember this is all BEFORE doing any specific computation...

Tournament #12831: "Beating the stats" tournament for Jl8e Current Round: Round 4. (organized by glassonion)

Top 10 buttons ranked 40-60% overall using which jl8e has played 10 or more games. Please pick randomly.

This game was last modified on Fri Oct 3, 2008 08:01:11

Player: ElihuRoot *Dead Dude* *Fanatic*
Button Man: Talus Score: 57 (24.3 sides) Rounds Won/Lost/Tied: 1 / 1 / 0 (out of 3 round(s))
Captured Dice: 20-sided die

Dice	4-sided die	Morphing 20-sided die	20-sided die	20-sided die	X Swing (with 10 sides)
Value	3	4	19	18	1
Dice	4-sided die	Morphing 12-sided die	20-sided die	X Swing (with 5 sides)
Value	3	4	5	5

* Next Turn * Player: jimmosk *Classically Fuzzy* *Bronze Medal in Men's Bars* *Bronze Medal in Men's Judo* * Next Turn *
Button Man: Talus Score: 20.5 (-24.3 sides) Rounds Won/Lost/Tied: 1 / 1 / 0
Captured Dice: None

Results from last turn:
ElihuRoot is performing a skill attack with a Morphing 12-sided die showing 10,a 20-sided die showing 7 and a X Swing 10-sided die showing 1,
targeting jimmosk's 20-sided die showing 18.

Since ElihuRoot attacked with a morphing die (Morphing 12-sided die showing 10), the number of sides it has is changed to 20.
The Morphing 20-sided die is rerolled and the new value is 4.
The 20-sided die is rerolled and the new value is 19.
The X Swing 10-sided die is rerolled and the new value is 1.