[CC8] Final: TOFU (34) vs LHDD (27) - TOFU Wins - 2/15/19

[EBConquer]

Good read, thank you!

I'm average btw. lol

[DoomYoshi]

betiko has won more money playing on this site than anyone else (winning Conquer Cup 2x)... that should account for something

[ZaBeast]

I also hope that we'll be allowed to pick more trench games in the future, as it's clearly your forte, and you deserve that.

Not sure your leaders got the memo

I only just learned that TOFU has a position on this. I haven't spoken to the leaders about it, but I'm sure they have good reason for that stance. I could well be missing something.

I'm sure they have a reason. I doubt it is a valid one, because I haven't seen them support it with decent arguments in the CAT forum

[iAmCaffeine]

If you reach the level of Don/Paengars (sorry anyone else in LHDD who is on that level too), I will play you, because your skill level would compel me to take that challenge. Let me know if you think you've made it.

I don't think you know betiko good enough to make such a judgement.
He definitely reached equal level of skill than me. ( kinda the other way around actually). He just became a bit careless after reaching 10k games.

I've seen him play in this war, and some of his moves were subpar at best. No great player would have made those moves.

Yes, you need to play someone a lot to know they ARE great, but you can very quickly see that someone is average, as great players don't make that many poor moves. Great players also aren't so very very bad at analysing the fortunes of their own team... they tend to understand the maths better than that and have the ability to analyse more correctly. betiko fails both of these tests.

So I think I can confidently say that I do know him well enough to make such a judgement. Although you are right, I don't know you or Paengars well enough to make such a judgement. Simply going off your reputation. Perhaps you'll prove me wrong and be average too!

Either you missed Don's point or just chose to ignore it, but he's saying that betiko has proven he can be a great player previously. These days he doesn't put as much effort into the game as he used to. I think those around at the time can testify that he was a very good player, at a wide variety of game modes too. He can also be emotional. I've seen josko and CoF make bad moves before and say/do stupid things, does that mean they're not or have never been good players? You're not as dense as this posts suggests you are either. Nobody is perfect. Nobody except me anyway.

Or you chose to ignore mine... or internet forums aren't the best way of ensuring accurate and complete communication. I suspect the second, but perhaps not!

The evidence I've seen would suggest that betiko was never a great player. I believe his knowledge and ability isn't that of someone who was once great, and deteriorated.

People can go from great, to not great, it happens all the time. There is usually evidence of their previous greatness in their speech and understanding. Most of us have examples in our own personal lives. Mine? I used to be a great poker player, and I'm not a great poker player anymore. I don't play enough, I'm careless, and I get distracted. I can still get by and do make money out of it, but I'm quite average. I could hold a conversation with a currently great player though, and they would find it very clear that I was once a great player, even though my knowledge is rusty.

I recently I played poker against a businessman who claimed he was a great poker player in the past. He was never great, that became very clear within 30 seconds. He simply misunderstood so many basic concepts of the game. He knew some buzzwords, but didn't actually understand their application. A great player may not always follow those concepts, but they will do so knowingly, with good reason. This guy just misunderstood them.

I get that same feeling with betiko. Beyond the constant whinging and whining (which doesn't make someone bad in itself), he simply doesn't seem to grasp aspects of the game in the way that I believe a great player who lost his touch would.

Perhaps I could be convinced otherwise. Perhaps his incessant need to prove that his complaining is justified creates a public refusal to admit that black is not white. Perhaps internally he knows he was wrong? If that's the case, then hell, maybe he could have been great? Anything is possible, but on evidence, it's unlikely.

Just to clarify, I think betiko is good. It's always difficult to tell in team games, but he seems to be good. Perhaps we just have a different definition of the word great

As other posts are saying, I think it simply comes down to what you define as great.

[rockfist]

I also hope that we'll be allowed to pick more trench games in the future, as it's clearly your forte, and you deserve that.

Not sure your leaders got the memo

I only just learned that TOFU has a position on this. I haven't spoken to the leaders about it, but I'm sure they have good reason for that stance. I could well be missing something.

I'm sure they have a reason. I doubt it is a valid one, because I haven't seen them support it with decent arguments in the CAT forum

Rubbish. You wouldn’t know a decent argument if it hit you in the face.

[ZaBeast]

I also hope that we'll be allowed to pick more trench games in the future, as it's clearly your forte, and you deserve that.

Not sure your leaders got the memo

I only just learned that TOFU has a position on this. I haven't spoken to the leaders about it, but I'm sure they have good reason for that stance. I could well be missing something.

I'm sure they have a reason. I doubt it is a valid one, because I haven't seen them support it with decent arguments in the CAT forum

Rubbish. You wouldn’t know a decent argument if it hit you in the face.

Good thing I don't have much to worry about then.

You're the only one who came close to giving one, and if the rule is to prevent rounds from lasting longer, it's incredibly misguided and not very effective. Done came out with evidence that trench is not significantly slower than no-trench, and even if it was, as it is now, the second set (or all quads) could be all trench, and those are the games that usually finish the latest

[hopalong]

I'm average btw. lol

That's what your wife says to not hurt your ego.

[loutil]

Anyways, regarding poker, the game has evolved greatly in the past 10 years and players are now more of math geniuses and less of instinct and body language experts. Would you agree on what I said before though? That poker is less based on luck than CC? Do you think it's normal to be able to do the kind of bombing I did on you on stalingrad last night?

Poker has more evolved over the last few years with GTO (Game theory optimization). Instinct and reads need not apply. I play high stakes poker, so I know this well.
Regarding your bombing in Stalingrad...I would rather you had failed . That was a SICK roll you had bombing away 16 troops with just 2 planes with 4 troops each.

[EBConquer]

I'm average btw. lol

That's what your wife says to not hurt your ego.

You bastard!

[betiko]

Anyways, regarding poker, the game has evolved greatly in the past 10 years and players are now more of math geniuses and less of instinct and body language experts. Would you agree on what I said before though? That poker is less based on luck than CC? Do you think it's normal to be able to do the kind of bombing I did on you on stalingrad last night?

Poker has more evolved over the last few years with GTO (Game theory optimization). Instinct and reads need not apply. I play high stakes poker, so I know this well.
Regarding your bombing in Stalingrad...I would rather you had failed . That was a SICK roll you had bombing away 16 troops with just 2 planes with 4 troops each.

To be fair, one had a 4 and did jack shit... it’s the 5 that went going and going and going lol. Thought it killed much more than that... didn’t count but looking at the global troop count at the end of my round i thought 20ish

Also what do you mean by need not aply? That they shouldn’t Be taken into consideration? There would hardly be any room for hero calls, or anything a bit flamboyant. They might not be long term winners but hey...

[.SCuD.]

Spoiler

If you reach the level of Don/Paengars (sorry anyone else in LHDD who is on that level too), I will play you, because your skill level would compel me to take that challenge. Let me know if you think you've made it.

I don't think you know betiko good enough to make such a judgement.
He definitely reached equal level of skill than me. ( kinda the other way around actually). He just became a bit careless after reaching 10k games.

I've seen him play in this war, and some of his moves were subpar at best. No great player would have made those moves.

Yes, you need to play someone a lot to know they ARE great, but you can very quickly see that someone is average, as great players don't make that many poor moves. Great players also aren't so very very bad at analysing the fortunes of their own team... they tend to understand the maths better than that and have the ability to analyse more correctly. betiko fails both of these tests.

So I think I can confidently say that I do know him well enough to make such a judgement. Although you are right, I don't know you or Paengars well enough to make such a judgement. Simply going off your reputation. Perhaps you'll prove me wrong and be average too!

Either you missed Don's point or just chose to ignore it, but he's saying that betiko has proven he can be a great player previously. These days he doesn't put as much effort into the game as he used to. I think those around at the time can testify that he was a very good player, at a wide variety of game modes too. He can also be emotional. I've seen josko and CoF make bad moves before and say/do stupid things, does that mean they're not or have never been good players? You're not as dense as this posts suggests you are either. Nobody is perfect. Nobody except me anyway.

Or you chose to ignore mine... or internet forums aren't the best way of ensuring accurate and complete communication. I suspect the second, but perhaps not!

The evidence I've seen would suggest that betiko was never a great player. I believe his knowledge and ability isn't that of someone who was once great, and deteriorated.

People can go from great, to not great, it happens all the time. There is usually evidence of their previous greatness in their speech and understanding. Most of us have examples in our own personal lives. Mine? I used to be a great poker player, and I'm not a great poker player anymore. I don't play enough, I'm careless, and I get distracted. I can still get by and do make money out of it, but I'm quite average. I could hold a conversation with a currently great player though, and they would find it very clear that I was once a great player, even though my knowledge is rusty.

I recently I played poker against a businessman who claimed he was a great poker player in the past. He was never great, that became very clear within 30 seconds. He simply misunderstood so many basic concepts of the game. He knew some buzzwords, but didn't actually understand their application. A great player may not always follow those concepts, but they will do so knowingly, with good reason. This guy just misunderstood them.

I get that same feeling with betiko. Beyond the constant whinging and whining (which doesn't make someone bad in itself), he simply doesn't seem to grasp aspects of the game in the way that I believe a great player who lost his touch would.

Perhaps I could be convinced otherwise. Perhaps his incessant need to prove that his complaining is justified creates a public refusal to admit that black is not white. Perhaps internally he knows he was wrong? If that's the case, then hell, maybe he could have been great? Anything is possible, but on evidence, it's unlikely.

Just to clarify, I think betiko is good. It's always difficult to tell in team games, but he seems to be good. Perhaps we just have a different definition of the word great

I don't pretend to be one of the greatest, what I do pretend is that I understand perfectly the things you say, but with all the depth of my experience, and extensive knowledge of past and present CC players, and a very broad knowledge of game modes and ALL maps this site offers. Some of the things you say are just arrogant little prick material that doesn't know what he's talking about.
Laughing Cavalier once wrote a great post about what is being a great CC player all about. I think everybody loved that post because it was so true. Time and effort are some of the most important variables.
I believe that a site full of people with interests in strategy games have an intelligence above average; that the majority has the potential to be really good but doesn't bother. How many times have I faced remarcably intelligent players with fantastic processig capabilties? I think the smartest and most skilled players on CC are the multiplayer freestyle speed escalating players. That race is kind of exctinct now as they are mostly gone (extreme ways is one of them though). Just play a guy like king of gods or great ollie, or even josko in those type of games and your mind will hurt. That's the most hard core CC you'll ever play.
Some players just don't bother with team games, or with game selection. I just think you are complete TOP material SCUD.
The type of player that is all about his score, game selection, very little experience yet thinks he'son the very TOP of the food chain because of the time and effort he dedicates to his games.... yeah, I think that defines pretty well what I think of you. a TOP player that has never been general and yet sees himself as the conqueror. You chose the wrong clan mate.

Anyways, regarding poker, the game has evolved greatly in the past 10 years and players are now more of math geniuses and less of instinct and body language experts. Would you agree on what I said before though? That poker is less based on luck than CC? Do you think it's normal to be able to do the kind of bombing I did on you on stalingrad last night? What is even the point of caring a lot about this game?

This is a game for fun. Ever since I'm a dad I just stopped caring, for me this game is just to have fun. Most old time players have either left the site (already did a couple of times) or come and go but are not as serious as they were before. Ask COF, pretty sure he isn't as involved as he used to at his finest. The clan scene is not as it used to, people play much more casually than a few years ago.

Just be more humble, don't judge books by their covers (especially if you're a head hunter...). And just remember that in the kingdom of the blindmen, the one eyed are kings.

I don't know what a TOP player is, so that whole bit is lost on me. I'm not going to comment on whether or not you understand what I said before. I believe that you think you understood it though, so I do believe you are being honest, regardless of if you are correct or not.

Anyway, more interested in this bit: (nothing like a good derail)

Anyways, regarding poker, the game has evolved greatly in the past 10 years and players are now more of math geniuses and less of instinct and body language experts. Would you agree on what I said before though? That poker is less based on luck than CC? Do you think it's normal to be able to do the kind of bombing I did on you on stalingrad last night? What is even the point of caring a lot about this game?

Half agree. I was part of a poker club in Cambridge Un back in the day. It was mostly made up of maths students / PhD's etc. Many of us were doing cool new stuff with maths back then, and we just destroyed everything in our path. The good players in the $5k cash games were very capable with GTO even 10 years ago. It's what made it so easy to beat the $400-$1k pros who took a step up to try their luck... they just had no idea how to handle their AJ mid position raise being reraised by K5 from the cutoff. Eventually, that stuff has pervaded through all levels of poker, and you'll even find people in the $200 games correctly re-re-raising with a rag queen.

Strangely, this conversation reminds me of those times. Players would say to a 21 year old me "you've been here 5 minutes and you're saying that famed players with 20 years experience and huge tournament wins like Simon Trumper / Dave Devilfish Ulliot / Ross Boatman are all crap, and just wouldn't cut it in your uni game? They would tear you a new asshole, arrogant shit". Well... they were probably right about the arrogant part, at least.

Intuition is an odd one. Your subconscious can work things out, so you may have to trust it, but almost all the time in poker "intuition" simply means that you can't figure out where you are logically. Confirmation bias will make you believe your intuition helps in the long run, as you will excuse the poor decisions you made because of it. I made hero calls all the time, but it wasn't intuition, it was a calculated decision. On a basic level, if the story they are telling makes no sense, they probably either rivered a set AND are misplaying it by betting big when there is a straight out there, or they are full of shit (third pair can look like gold dust at that point).

Body language will always have a place. Put a purely online player in to a live card room where he makes the mathematically correct play of shoving with air, and all the maths in the world won't cover up his nerves... because the fact is, in that instance, he does want you to fold. I think maths players can eliminate their tells more easily though, because they can look at their moves dispassionately. That sames maths nerd, having done that same thing 100 times in a live game will start to not give a shit if you call, because he knows he's playing the right move. It's a lot easier to hide your tells when you are less emotionally invested.

Pattern recognition is massive. How does player A react to situation X?
Memory is big too, and related to pattern recognition. What style of bet does player B make when he holds card type Y? This stuff isn't easy to hide with GTO. It is possible, but in doing so people will give up a different edge, that of maximum exploitation against weak opposition.
GTO is absolutely huge, but even the worlds best mathsy players move away from it a little when they reach their peak.

I understand your comparison between poker and CC. I think they are similar. There are so many variables of each, that either could be described as being luckier depending on the situation.

[loutil]

Both of you should read, if you have not already, Ship it Holla Ballas.

[rockfist]

We are ahead, but it will be much closer than this score and we don't have 31 games wrapped up. That is my technical analysis.

[IcePack]

I heard your lead is all luck

/me grabs the popcorn

[rockfist]

Of course you heard that. But let me ask you a question, is your performance in CL this year all luck so far? Could there be some skill in how you use your luck? I'm not saying. I'm just saying.

[Donelladan]

I heard your lead is all luck

/me grabs the popcorn

Nah FNNA was luck and skill. The rest is all luck.

[fairman]

Anyways, regarding poker, the game has evolved greatly in the past 10 years and players are now more of math geniuses and less of instinct and body language experts. Would you agree on what I said before though? That poker is less based on luck than CC? Do you think it's normal to be able to do the kind of bombing I did on you on stalingrad last night?

Poker has more evolved over the last few years with GTO (Game theory optimization). Instinct and reads need not apply. I play high stakes poker, so I know this well.
Regarding your bombing in Stalingrad...I would rather you had failed . That was a SICK roll you had bombing away 16 troops with just 2 planes with 4 troops each.

Back to what I wrote against OSA, Dices seems more extrem that they should. In a way or in an other.
I've played more than 10k games, and these extrems were not so common before. I feel that the strat we used is less important than dices now. That's why we wanted more trench, to have more influence. And that's probably why you choose escalating as well.

Let's try to count the number of games decided by dices instead of strat, and I'm sure that you would still win, but I personnaly think that more than half of this 60 games have been decided by dices and it's frustrating.

Anyway, you deserved this final and the spread is wide enough to not incriminate dices here. Congrats

[fairman]

For Scud ...

A TOP Player is a player that write with blue color in the forum ...

[rockfist]

Its not the color of the writing it was the content and frequency of controversy surrounding the writing that was staggering. That man seemed to exist to stir the pot.

[betiko]

Its not the color of the writing it was the content and frequency of controversy surrounding the writing that was staggering. That man seemed to exist to stir the pot.

haha!

I don't have the time right now to comment on everything since my last post and a lot of interesting things that has been posted mostly the poker stuff...

but scud, what I meant by that is the following: TOP is a rather new clan (maybe 2 years old now?) that was created by guys that were 100% score oriented, they started recruiting the site's top score clanless people... most of them had no experience in team games, not a lot at least. And basically, as soon as they were formed, they self proclaimed themselves as the very best clan... and started facing only mediocre clans and beat them all.... and given how the clan scoring system works they indeed reached number one spot quickly without facing any strong clan..... and they had a very annoying attitude, which made everybody (or close enough) hate them.
On top of depicting themselves as the very best, they saw themselves as the white knights of vertue honoring everybody with their wise words and fairplay and life lessons. Oh, and they were too afraid to participate in the CC cup because it could damage their clan ranking. Also, their leader at the time, paulatpeace got involved in some cheating stuff and he got site banned... and started becoming nuts and hacking into all his ex teammates accounts....

oh well, TOP has cooled down by now. At the time it could've been seen as a very hard core insult to be called a TOP player just kidding mate

[Extreme Ways]

Its not the color of the writing it was the content and frequency of controversy surrounding the writing that was staggering. That man seemed to exist to stir the pot.

haha!

I don't have the time right now to comment on everything since my last post and a lot of interesting things that has been posted mostly the poker stuff...

but scud, what I meant by that is the following: TOP is a rather new clan (maybe 2 years old now?) that was created by guys that were 100% score oriented, they started recruiting the site's top score clanless people... most of them had no experience in team games, not a lot at least. And basically, as soon as they were formed, they self proclaimed themselves as the very best clan... and started facing only mediocre clans and beat them all.... and given how the clan scoring system works they indeed reached number one spot quickly without facing any strong clan..... and they had a very annoying attitude, which made everybody (or close enough) hate them.
On top of depicting themselves as the very best, they saw themselves as the white knights of vertue honoring everybody with their wise words and fairplay and life lessons. Oh, and they were too afraid to participate in the CC cup because it could damage their clan ranking. Also, their leader at the time, paulatpeace got involved in some cheating stuff and he got site banned... and started becoming nuts and hacking into all his ex teammates accounts....

oh well, TOP has cooled down by now. At the time it could've been seen as a very hard core insult to be called a TOP player just kidding mate

It's still an insult, though. If you say "TOP player", it's either someone that is in TOP to follow instructions and does that quite well, but that does mean he wouldnt be exactly a standout player in a midtable clan (which for a topclan player, is an insult). If it's not that, it means you're arrogant, have a big ego and talk too much when you're accused of something. There's a few that dont fit these of course, but vocal TOP players often aren't the most well-liked by the clan community.

[.SCuD.]

Its not the color of the writing it was the content and frequency of controversy surrounding the writing that was staggering. That man seemed to exist to stir the pot.

haha!

I don't have the time right now to comment on everything since my last post and a lot of interesting things that has been posted mostly the poker stuff...

but scud, what I meant by that is the following: TOP is a rather new clan (maybe 2 years old now?) that was created by guys that were 100% score oriented, they started recruiting the site's top score clanless people... most of them had no experience in team games, not a lot at least. And basically, as soon as they were formed, they self proclaimed themselves as the very best clan... and started facing only mediocre clans and beat them all.... and given how the clan scoring system works they indeed reached number one spot quickly without facing any strong clan..... and they had a very annoying attitude, which made everybody (or close enough) hate them.
On top of depicting themselves as the very best, they saw themselves as the white knights of vertue honoring everybody with their wise words and fairplay and life lessons. Oh, and they were too afraid to participate in the CC cup because it could damage their clan ranking. Also, their leader at the time, paulatpeace got involved in some cheating stuff and he got site banned... and started becoming nuts and hacking into all his ex teammates accounts....

oh well, TOP has cooled down by now. At the time it could've been seen as a very hard core insult to be called a TOP player just kidding mate

Oh Christ. Well it fits the rest of the stuff you were saying, so that makes sense

I'm not a big score fanatic tbh. I have regular challenges against players whose score is far below their skill level (CoF, rock etc). Definitely not the thing to do if you want a good score! Getting a really high score just seems to be a willingness to farm unexpectant players on maps where the luck factor is limited... sounds kinda dull.

I will however self proclaim Tofu as the very best clan so perhaps there is something in that TOP player thing after all

[Chariot of Fire]

Back to what I wrote against OSA, Dices seems more extrem that they should. In a way or in an other.
I've played more than 10k games, and these extrems were not so common before. I feel that the strat we used is less important than dices now. That's why we wanted more trench, to have more influence. And that's probably why you choose escalating as well.

Let's try to count the number of games decided by dices instead of strat, and I'm sure that you would still win, but I personnaly think that more than half of this 60 games have been decided by dices and it's frustrating.

Anyway, you deserved this final and the spread is wide enough to not incriminate dices here. Congrats

Bravo I agree with this so much. Since my return to CC it's evident that something in the dice program changed and now so many games are decided in early rounds due to extraordinary dice. For me it has taken a lot of the fun out of the game, because strategy goes out the window. As a consequence I've become a lesser player as I don't spend as much time forecasting several moves ahead the way I used to as it seems pointless. Someone comes along and rolls 12-0 with a 3 deploy in R1.

And thank you for your gracious last remark. You live up to your name sir.

[iAmCaffeine]

Back to what I wrote against OSA, Dices seems more extrem that they should. In a way or in an other.
I've played more than 10k games, and these extrems were not so common before. I feel that the strat we used is less important than dices now. That's why we wanted more trench, to have more influence. And that's probably why you choose escalating as well.

Let's try to count the number of games decided by dices instead of strat, and I'm sure that you would still win, but I personnaly think that more than half of this 60 games have been decided by dices and it's frustrating.

Anyway, you deserved this final and the spread is wide enough to not incriminate dices here. Congrats

Bravo I agree with this so much. Since my return to CC it's evident that something in the dice program changed and now so many games are decided in early rounds due to extraordinary dice. For me it has taken a lot of the fun out of the game, because strategy goes out the window. As a consequence I've become a lesser player as I don't spend as much time forecasting several moves ahead the way I used to as it seems pointless. Someone comes along and rolls 12-0 with a 3 deploy in R1.

And thank you for your gracious last remark. You live up to your name sir.

Dave?

[Chariot of Fire]

This is the sort of shit I'm talking about

Game 18711897

I love that it happened after my earlier post, just to prove a point. A player can drop 3 on his first turn and roll 17-1. What a f'in joke!

I'm done with this 'game'. I'd like to go out on a high please