first post of 2026! and BMAIBagels computations puzzle me

 Obviously, I've been neglectful of this; I don't know if it will get better.

And this isn't a puzzle, really, but something I've noticed about playing BMAIBagels -- Bagels has had a clever challenge on the buttonweavers site and I've been playing his bot a lot; it's fast and usually a pretty strong player, though I do think the algorithm it uses  may not always pick the absolute best move.

one feature it gives is the bot's calculation of its probability of winning. It's usually a pretty good measure of how the round is going, though I've noticed it can be off by a few percent even in cases where there's only one move left (e.g. I have one attack left, and I'll win unless my 20-sided die rolls a 1 and it claims it has a 3% chance of winning, not a 5% chance]

But every now and then its figures are so far off, I wonder if there's not a programming error. For example: in the situatoin below, I can't lose -- if I capture both its dice, I win and if it's forced to swallow my poison I'll win -- yet it thinks it has a 92.5% chance of victory!  What outcome is it ignoring, or what strategy is it misevaluating?

(UPDATE: As a result of my calling it to his attention, Bagels identified and fixed two bugs in his code, one error in computations involving twin dice and another that exited the odds calculation early in some situations where the best move calculation appeared lopsided)

Pony problem

 I need to capture both the g(12) and X=15 to have any chance of winning this round [in fact, the threshold for a tie is ending with 6 more sides than xmbrst.

but what attack gives me the best chance of being able to take both the stinger and swing dice?

a poison puzzle from blackshadowshade

 

He encountered this situation in a recent game. I haven't thought about it at length, but I'm pretty sure I know which die I would use to make my attack; which die I would capture is a little less clear, but I have reasons for that, too. But I don't want to give spoilers and, anyway, I might be wrong.

 

only one post in all of 2024! I'll shoot for at least 2 in 2025

 though maybe this one shouldn't count, it's a pretty basic exercise, I just thought the specific numbers were interesting and surpisingly close.

I have to take the f(8), but I could do it with any of 3 dice. What are my chances of victory with each one?

Should I take the initiative here? And if I do, then what?

 I would need to turn both focus dice to 1.

If I gain the initiative, I'd have know way of  summing to 18; but if I lose the initiative,  my f(12) could be captured, leaving me with no way to sum to 18.

If I *do* gain the initiative, what should I take? the z(12) feels very dangerous, especially with both focus dice having value 1 after gaining the initiative. On the other hand, if I hope to ever force the (20) to reroll, I have to take out the stinger die.

I think this problem could be tweaked to be more subtle, but it still illustrates an interesting computation.

I'm not sure this is hard -- devious obviously must take both of my dice to win -- but the weak dice might make the strategy trickier (or do they? I think I could tweak the values in this puzzle to make it a lot more borderline, this is close but not too hard to resolve)

Anyway, devious has 3 possible attacks, but  one of them (taking my (8) with the weak die with current value 7) is clearly no good, after the weak die reduces, there'll be no way to make a skill attack sum to 12. 

So should he take my (8) via skill attack? he'd have only two chances out of 6 (rerolling a 4 or 5) of being able to then take my s(12) and win.

Or should he take my s(12) via skill attack? both weak dice would reduce to 6 sides, and if I'm able to take both, I'll win. But if I only manage to take one, the other one will reduce to 4 sides when it recaptures me... From the current score, he'll gain 20 of my sides, but lose l lose 6 sides that are captured, and another 6 sides would be lost to weak-dice reduction... I think he squeaks through. 

But what are my chances of being able to take both of his weak dice?

I have a question, but not an answer.

This is not the most fun button to play -- but sometimes there might be an interesting decision to make. Is this one of those times?

I need to gain 50 more sides to at least draw. I can see two possible paths to that

To achieve a tie while only losing ONE p(30),  I'd have to capture all of von pinn's dice, for a net gain of 26 sides, and lose no more than the 4 sides of the g(4). To do this, I must immediately get the (12) sided die to safety.

On the other hand,  if I somehow manage to get both p(30)s captured, I'll probably win -- unlesss I eat the p(6,6) but not the (20) along the way. How likely is this to be achievable? And what should I do first if I wanted to pursue this strategy? Or should I just try to save the (12) sided die first, and then turn to this as a back-up plan?