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.

It has been too long since I posted -- well, here's a new puzzle.

To win, I've got to get bmai to reroll the 20-sider, and sooner is much better
than later. On the other hand, I really don't want him to be able to reroll the
12-sider, either. What do you think I should do?

Button Men Game #642946
Play the AI! You will be assimilated and stuff.

Skills in this game: Focus
Player: ElihuRoot *Dead Dude* *Fanatic*
Your Button Man: Phoenix (4 6 f8 10 f20) Score: 26 (-14 sides) Rounds Won/Lost/Tied: 1 / 2 / 0 (Out of 3 wins)
Your Captured Dice: 10-sided die, Focus 6-sided die

4-sided die	6-sided die	10-sided die		Focus 8-sided die
4	5	10		4 Captured last turn
6-sided die	Focus 12-sided die	20-sided die
4	3	16

Opponent: bmai *AI* *111111101001000001100 as of 9-22-03*
Button Man: Kakita (6 f6 10 f12 20) Score: 47 (14 sides) Rounds Won/Lost/Tied: 2 / 1 / 0
Captured Dice: Focus 20-sided die, Focus 8-sided die

bmai's Response

I am 45.5% in 55 games against you. I am 31.0% in 29 games when playing Kakita. I am 52.0% in 25 games when playing against Phoenix.

OK, this one is slightly doctored from an original game... but here's the general idea
it's the "coming out" roll, and while the opponent has the initiative, you have focus dice
Say you have (this is really what I *did* have, as Konami)
6-sided die showing 3 ,
8-sided die showing 2,
Focus 10-sided die showing 5,
Focus 10-sided die showing 2, and
X Swing 20-sided die showing 13

OK? but your opponent has

4-sided die showing 1
12-sided die showing 3
12-sided die showing 1
20-sided die showing 15
X Swing 20-sided die showing 18

In the original (the two dice with value 1 were shadow dice, but that gets in the way here, so I'm changing it.)

OK, so there's no doubt you're going to turn both focus dice to 1 to get initiative. But the question I want to pose is -- does it make ANY sense to take the 20 sided die showing 15 over the 20 sided die showing 18? This may seem like a no-brainer, but I was momentarily caught up short by some arguments for it...