I took the game-weighted November percentages of the 1,000 "top" players in the zero data set with the following results:

07.2 07.9 10.2 14.0 17.5 20.3 22.9

which compares with the percentages under the old scoring (in effect since February) of

09.4 09.2 10.6 12.7 16.7 19.1 22.3

The new zero datum has a greater tilt toward the worse finishes (except for seventh, which is probably more connected to poor starts than negative skill)*. The new datum also does not have the disparity of second place having the lowest percentage of finishes. The new datum puts more weight on first place than second.

*No, it had to do with a transcription error of a zero for a nine. The original post had a value of 22.0 for seventh place.

KDice Trainer for iPhone is now on the App Store! Ryan worked on making a fast single player version of KDice that captures all of the elements that make kdice.com popular. You play against up to 6 out of 99 bots and work your way from 100th place up to 1st if you’re lucky.

The interface is clean and clear and allows you to configure the type of game (2-7 players, map size, difficult) without a configuration screen. Configuration screens are confusing and often make things more complex than required. In this app there is no configuration screen but instead these configuration options are built into the leaderboard where you select who you want to play.

The leaderboard has 99 bots named after some of the top KDice players. The AI is fairly complex giving each bot unique decision making combinations. As you work your way up the leaderboard the bots get smarter and harder to beat.

The touch screen on iPhones is a natural fit for selecting areas to attack. You simply slide your finger from the territory you’re attacking from to the territory you want to attack. Even with a full map attacking is easy and accurate.

The landing page:
http://iphone.kdice.com

On the App Store:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=310652813&mt=8

I've been writing a single player version of KDice for the iphone over the past few months and need to start getting ready to launch it.

I wanted to reach out to the kdice community to see what kind of role you'd like to play. I was going to create a seperate community at iphone.kdice.com. Any volunteers to welcome iphone players there?

Also, I need to write a description for the trainer when it appears on itunes. I was thinking of something from this community explaining what kdice is (ie more than just a game of luck) and a challenge to compete against the best.

Let me know what you think.

Here's a sneak peek:
http://twitpic.com/2lc1v

Since Ryan changed the proportions of points going to first place, second, third, etc. at the beginning of February, to increase incentives for going for the win, the zero datum has to be recalculated to fit the TAZD (Test Against Zero Datum) to the new incentives. I have done so, with the following observations.

1. I took the top 1,013 zero-scoring players on the leaderboard. Of these, only 641 had played one or more regular game.

2. Of these 641, I took the player average of percentage profiles with the following result:

03.1 03.3 05.6 13.9 22.1 24.0 26.0

These are likely of not much use since most of the 641 players had played only one or a few games and their zero scores likely reflect only an incidental situation and not their true skill.

3. I then took a game-weighted average of the percentages and came up with

09.4 09.2 10.6 12.7 16.7 19.1 22.3

These do not differ much from the numbers under the old incentives and has the curious result that second place gets a little more emphasis than first. But they do differ in the predicted direction.

4. One factor thay may affect the reliability of the zero datum is the buy-in effect of tournament play. Some of the current occupants of the zero-score part of the leaderboard may be there because of net negative draw in tournaments. Players with negative skill in regular play are more likely to have positive draw. So I decided to do a draw-weighted set of percentages (which is equivalent to point-weighted number of finishes) with this result:

05.7 06.2 07.8 10.3 17.3 22.6 30.1

Which of these three sets of numbers is the best fit for a typical zero-score player in regular play?

I invite your comments.

Just a couple small changes this month from a few requests:

1) Point distribution has changed giving more to 1st place. Here's the old on a 0 table:
+60, +42, +30, 0, -30, -42, -60
and here's the new:
+100, +50, +25, 0, -20, -35, -50
Where are the extra points coming from? Last month I had thought I introduced the +70 points per game but instead I just raised the amount each player risks by 10. Well, the month had to play out because mid month changes are not cool. This month we have +70 points on all tables (which doesn't mean much on 5000). We'll get more point inflation from this but it should make things a bit more fun and should change game strategy slightly to favor getting 1st over 2nd or 3rd.

2) You can now join member tournies if you bought the one time point bonus but are not a member.

Thats it. Most of my free time this month has been spent getting the iphone single player version done. It's looking good and I hope to get it out soon.