jurgen, will you buy this site? <3
i'll buy stars if you do ^^,

i believe its [email protected]

the common opinion of players here is that Ryan will drastically overvalue kdice's worth, since this is his baby. good luck though.

think it was kreuz that said the longer you play the more you get to know your opponents. murti has always been a sick sick PGAer. if he likes you, he wont ever attack you and will ruin himself before he hits you. if he doesnt like you, he will ruin himself in order to take you down with him. ive been on both sides of his mood swings. you can quickly figure out whom he likes after a couple games, and then its a matter of putting a microscope on every click he makes in a game, so that as soon as he makes one obvious biased move, you call him out on it, and propose a counter. proposed counters are ALWAYS noticed on top tables, and people will generally listen to your logic. (by the way lastmurti=longhair, not sure which screenname you referred to.)

now lets look at the top tables from a regular's perspective. i tend to argue that the common regular is a point-thirsty manipulator, so all of this rests on that potentially erroneous assumption.

top player (TP) sits in the game, looks at opponents, sees 5 people he knows, and 1 unknown newer player.

TP clicks on newer players stat page, sees that he has practically no experience on top tables. huzzah! a chance to manipulate the noob. TP has two possibilities of manipulation: short term or long term.


SHORT TERM

if you move away from TP he will eat your tail and claim that he couldnt trust you because you are an unknown. if you dont move away from him, he will condescend towards you and get pissy that you arent moving away, when its obv a situation where you should silently truce. he will hold this against you for the end game play.

throughout the middle of the game, he will attempt to silently truce anyone that isnt you. he might try to backstab you at some point. if you flag to him, and you are vulnerable, he will say too bad its too weak, and eat you anyways. if you flag and you arent vulnerable he still might take a couple lands for taxation. and at end game he will figure out devious ways to make your flag appear weaker than others.

at end game, he will try aggressively to silently or loudly truce anyone else that isnt you. if you bitch about anything, he will say too bad you noob you shouldve been using the chatbox more, afterall this is a top table, and thats how we roll.

basically, short term situation presents TP with the opportunity to screw you for points. very good chance that you will never show up on the top tables again, so if TP isnt the one to screw you, some other TP will... might as well be him. and there probably wont be any meaningful backlash. youll PGE him? too late you dont have enough points to sit with him again. youll leave a bad review? laughable, no one on top tables gives a shit about reviews. the only way to truly scare him is to post in forums a recap of the action along with screenshots throughout. that MIGHT get the attention of a mod, who might slap the TP on the wrist, or MAYBE a slight ban. but lets be honest, chances of a noob knowing to do all that is like 0.000% (to the nearest thousandth)


LONG TERM

TP will become quite overtly magnanimous, saying things like 'nice roll!', 'man, so unlucky!', and 'i dont like sitting the color that won last game either!'... just surface-level kiss-up stuff. noobs will generally notice when people compliment them or sympathize with them, and will overvalue it. esp if that person has a lot of medals. instead of thinking of TP as a douche who wastes too much time on an online game for fake trophies, they will see you as a laidback genius who is a level above all those idiotic moronic pointwhore TPs.

TP will also become quite vocal when you attack them, even in situations where its painfully obv that you should attack them. 'you didnt have to do that!', 'i wasnt a threat!', 'no worries dude, i flag, just let me eat some back.' but in no way will TP ever get pissy... he will just try to find some sympathy points.

in midgame TP will find ways to take some of your dom, whether you are flagged to him or vice versa, all while making you believe that he is doing you a favor.

doesnt matter who gets what place. what matters is that TP has you in his pocket for future games at top tables now. so he can continue milking dom points from you every game, while you continue to believe that he is doing you favors while every other TP is an arrogant ass pointfarmer.


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either way, TPs are sneaky conniving devils who over the years have efficiently maximized the rate of farming points from noobs. this happens in pretty much any game with a social aspect though, not just kdice.

feels good to get a nice walloftext off my chest. been too long since thats happened.

oh and as far as das goes, if he has stacks on you, doesnt matter who you are, he wont respect your flag. if you have a stack on him to deter him from farming you, then sometimes he will farm you based on who you are or leave you alone based on who you are. he knows where the lines are in every relation he has here. he can dick me for a game or two, but he knows once he goes too far, i will go over-the-top PGE on him, and itll cost us both a shitton of points in the long run... we like to call that 'egofest'.

oh, concerning the long term vs short term....

the majority of noobs on top tables will only be around for a short time. they grow disinterested in the social aspect. they find a new online game. they got lucky to have those points in the first place (tourney win). whatever. so fucking them out of points is okay, because theyll never be back to seek vengeance.

the minority are the ones that actually stick around.

so some TPs fuck noobs, and get more points over short term, while some TPs kissup to the noobs, and get more points over the long term.

mathematically i think it makes sense to fuck them in the short term. because even in a long term relationship, eventually the noob will become a TP himself, at which point you can no longer milk dom points from him.

but personally i still go with the long term method, so i can try to feel good about myself. i can pretend that im a nice guy and actually care about people, while avoiding the reality that im a pointwhore who is doing more devious manipulation than any TP who fucks you short term.

long term strategy you described is the formula for gold. anyone remember the noob armies shadolin had back in the day?

in general... if you can afford it never get a bad reputation with anyone. at all costs keep good reputation with everyone and you will probably be handed more than a few games. sometimes just because people prefer you over someone else they dislike. generally if there's a random guy on the table fuck him. if there's a random guy in a position of power then i go for the long term strategy and i try to coach them/assure my high place through the game.

I didn't read all this, but I do have two things to say:
1) Don't play for points. Play for fun.
2) If you MUST play for points, just play upper tables more frequently and chat it up with people that are there. You become "one of them" in no time. Pretty simple.

^^Why women never get first in this game.

Loobee