Texas Hold'em Mafia (Day 3 - An Unexpected Twist)

[Sabrar]

Do you know if that's happened before?

I'm not sure when she started doing it and I'm having trouble finding the first instance when she argued that analyzing pre-game content would be valid. I know I reminded her to do this in Shakespeare III but I don't think it was an integral part of D1!bessie yet.

[plytho]

unvote

Note: I'm still super busy but I'll try to catch up with the game and get some reads some time today (and thats a plytho weekend promise guarantee)

I think Sabrar is likely town because of the no comment reply from LaserGuy. This implies Sabrar hasn't asked the question before and is basing his points on his reasoning about what semi open and non bastard means.

Why couldn't someone of any alignment ask the mod a question by pm, then ask the same question in thread because they want to be seen asking the question, or because they want the answer public, even if they know the answer would be no comment?

Town would (should) state the answer to the question before publicly asking the mod. Or at least not pretend like the answer is something else.

Scum definitely could ask questions privately before asking them publicly and act surprised by the answer. But, I don't this particular question would be asked by scum as they sort of know the answer.

Yes but you’re ignoring my point that perhaps scum wants to be seen publicly asking the question.

Well, not really? I feel like I answered what you asked (about private and public questions) and you're now shifting your question to something related but not quite the same.

I'm aware that scum!Sabrar could have asked the question as I mentioned here and I've also mentioned the reason I don't think scum!Sabrar would have asked that question [url]here[/url].

[wam]

I'm putting vicarin into the town category as well as I don't see scum Vic putting that much effort in.

Interesting, as I’ve seen Vicarin put a great deal of effort in to a game as scum and as town. His content level was not only high in WoT3, it was apparently good enough that even when he claimed scum he was only lynched by a 4/3 margin. You should remember this as you were scum with him in that game. So I’m suspicious that you possibly are looking for an easy read, or a reason to town read Vicarin. And I don’t agree with the underlying idea of your statement, as Vicarin and others on this forum put in a lot of effort regardless of alignment, and also will look up previous games to support an argument. So is there anything you find particularly townie in Vicarin’s content, or is this based entirely on his number crunching and researching old games?

It's not about content leveks I agree vicarin content is high irrespective of alignment but I can't see scum Vic do it the diging through past games.

[wam]

Quite a few people being pretty damn quiet right now, is there really that little to discuss?

Can't speak for.others but I was asleep!

[Mark_Cangila]

Quite a few people being pretty damn quiet right now, is there really that little to discuss?

I'm still sorta lost.

[Sabrar]

And why would that be? Do you have issues with the setup? What makes this game different than your previous ones?

[Mark_Cangila]

A lot of randomness mostly. Plus a quick deluge in D1 that feels way faster than other games.

[Mark_Cangila]

Also, I agree that we shouldn't claim suits. If scum do have PR safe claims, I still see no bonus to claiming suits now, instead of doing then along with full claims. If scum don't have pr safes, claiming suits now could be directly damaging, as Mpolo mentioned.

[Sabrar]

Plus a quick deluge in D1 that feels way faster than other games.

Alien Warfare produced 2 more pages at the beginning of D1 in the same amount of time so I'm hoping this won't be a problem for you. Why are you concerned about the randomness? At least you know what type of roles to expect, unlike in the previous closed setups.

[Mark_Cangila]

Really? It might also be because high school and stuff. In MS I could use my chromebook after I finish work to post and stuff.

[Mark_Cangila]

Also,I don't buy the argument that Vic is town bc of post quality. In I believe meta he posted less than normal and still was town.

[Mark_Cangila]

Ignore that post. Vic wasn't accused of low content in that game (I think.) He was accused in wot3, where he was scum.

[BoomFrog]

I agree with Sabrar's reasoning that there are no safe claims.

This is a town-slip. This misunderstanding of Sabrar's point is very unlikely to come from scum mpolo who knows mafia have safeclaims. Mafia!mpolo would have seen Sabrar was 'wrong' and reread his point before agreeing.

I expected Zennii and Sabrar to notice, and hoped someone else would notice like Bessie or plytho.

@Zenii: What were you thinking about this at the time and now?

[Zenii]

I agree with Sabrar's reasoning that there are no safe claims.

This is a town-slip. This misunderstanding of Sabrar's point is very unlikely to come from scum mpolo who knows mafia have safeclaims. Mafia!mpolo would have seen Sabrar was 'wrong' and reread his point before agreeing.

I expected Zennii and Sabrar to notice, and hoped someone else would notice like Bessie or plytho.

@Zenii: What were you thinking about this at the time and now?

I see your reasoning, but this could equally come from scum mpolo. Any mafia player with a developed theory of mind ought to be able to think at least a step or two ahead and present ignorance. "Town slips" like these is why cemper was able to skid by in NNY despite his overt scuminess. I don't at all think that an mpolo who didn't read the rules wouldn't be capable of deducing that because scum have safe claims, he should support the opposite view in thread.

[mpolo]

I was out of the house most of today (nice weather -- sorry). Most of what I've seen looks pretty typical for day one.

Vicarin's meta analysis is interesting, but I suspect a null-tell. I sincerely doubt that somebody would always say "joke vote if I'm scum, not if I'm town". I want to give him townie points, but it is nit-picky enough that it could be coming from either direction. Neutral.

Sabrar is looking typical and generally townie. Of course he totally burned me in the last game. Grr. So I'm not going to firmly commit on him, but will read a town lean here.

BoomFrog's pointing out a "town slip" on me feels like it's coming from a townie place. (The truth is, I had missed the part of the rules that there were safe claims, partly because I was rushing to get a post in from having missed day begin. In any case, I did later come to understand what Sabrar had said and still agreed with it.)

[Vicarin]

@mpolo: I don't think plytho would create such a pattern on purpose, that would be silly of him. Entirely possible that he thought that he doesn't have enough stuff to discuss as scum early most time, and throws out the random vote in order to pad his opening post. Of course, now I've pointed it out, this will be completely useless for future games.

As Zenii said, 'town slips' are usually pretty bogus and manufacturable by scum. Putting much stock into them is a good way to lose.

@Mark: I think you've been in enough games by now to have a tough idea of how much everyone's going to post, and as Sabrar pointed out, there's been significantly more stuff in other games. I know you wanted to have a scummy meta (I have no idea why) but you really need to put out content so that people can try to sort you.

Ah well, Mark isn't the worst offender now by far, that would be SuperJedi...

[bessie]

I don’t suppose you’d like to share this meta read?

You didn't make a confirmation-post analysis. Especially after I broke my tradition of doing only blank confirms.

This is so bizarre I don’t even know where to start. I’m not even going to discuss what I think of your meta reads, I’m going to concentrate on the read itself. I sometimes analyze confirmation posts. I also like to do setup spec. This are things I do as town and as scum, and things I sometimes skip as town and as scum. It is NAI.

Do you know if that's happened before?

I'm not sure when she started doing it and I'm having trouble finding the first instance when she argued that analyzing pre-game content would be valid. I know I reminded her to do this in Shakespeare III but I don't think it was an integral part of D1!bessie yet.

Even more bizarre that you would make such a read without doing the analysis yourself.

Summary of bessie’s games, most recent first.

Spoiler:

wam’s Chaos Mafia. I was Mafia B. I did not do a confirmation post analysis (note that there was very little to analyze, I would classify all as NAI). Neither you nor anyone else mentioned it, but plytho and moody did call my opening content standard. Here was my reply.

I called bessie's content standard because her opening posts sound like every opening post she makes it's a pretty neutral assessment.

And as you noticed I didn’t do the confirmation post analysis. The confirmation phase and game start happened while I was asleep, I wasn’t expecting game to start so I didn’t allow myself time to play in the morning, so I made a quick informational post and went to work. By this time I got home at night, I felt that there wasn’t much point, as I found everyone’s post to be acceptable (even Madge’s, as it contained no game information, we all know she is excited, and there wasn’t the “hey everyone feel sorry for me and allow for it in your reads because I have to play” vibe I got from her post in WoT3).

I haven’t done setup spec yet either.

Wheel of Time 3 Mafia. I was town. I did a confirmation post analysis here, very little to analyze. Setup spec here.


Alien Warfare Mafia. I was town. I did not do a confirmation post analysis. I did discuss it a little here.

I strongly disagree. Everything posted in the game thread is content and fair game for analysis. I’m going to sleep and can’t dig it up now, but it’s not too hard to find past references. Just search my posts for my position on analyzing confirmation posts. Will be happy to provide multiple links tomorrow if necessary.

See also here for some additional background on my views on analyzing pre-game content (scroll to end).

Stellaris Mafia. I was mafia. I did a setup spec and a confirmation post analysis. See here.

I see there was an interesting amount of content posted in the confirmation phase. bessie's confirmation post analysis:

See also here where I discuss why I analyze pre-game content with Evil George Washington.

Newbie New Year Mafia. I was town. I did not do a confirmation post analysis. But me doing confirmation post analysis was discussed in this game, because Peaceful Whale did one, and I accused him of copying my meta for it.

Representative post here.

Please explain where you got the idea that it is more likely for scum to joke confirm than town. How did you formulate this theory?

(Why am I being grilled on this?)

Your analysis of the confirmation posts was in an odd place, it was on P5, in your 20th game post, well after your first reads list. It would have been more natural in one of your early posts, and on the first day. Hmm, this may be complicated to explain, and it will be wine soaked, and additionally my ego may be gratuitously involved. But oh well what the heck I think that you are trying to act townie by using the play style of a townie player as a model.

See also here (underlining added).

Or maybe they had it suggested to them by a scum teammate and went about it in a transparent way? Can't just ignore the scum daychat, they must have had quite the long conversation by now.

Vicarin, you’re new so I’ll explain this one a little better. I am accusing Peaceful Whale of copying my meta to appear townie. Note: I accused Peaceful Whale of copying my reads in Crossover (no time to dig up links right now because Crossover was long). I’m known for having a townie meta (as cemper keeps reminding everyone), for tunneling (as Peaceful Whale himself pointed out in this game), and for analyzing confirmation posts (which almost no one else does). For an example see Shakespeare, where Sabrar said he was eagerly awaiting my confirmation post analysis here.

Secret Santa 2017. I was mafia. I did a confirmation post analysis and setup spec. See here.

Ok, no suspicious confirmation posts. Rule clarifications, availability are acceptable topics, as they contain no game content. Sabrar’s enthusiasm has already been noted.

Halloween Mafia. I was town. I did not do a confirmation post analysis. There was no confirmation phase. I did a setup spec.

Refrigerator Mafia. I was town. I did confirmation post analysis and setup spec. See here.

Well, let’s see. No one had a suspicious confirmation post.

Crossover Mafia. I was town. I did not do a confirmation post analysis. There was no confirmation phase.

X-Men Mafia. I was town. I did not do a confirmation post analysis. Note that there was a lot of pre game discussion regarding role mechanics in the confirmation phase.

Shakespeare Mafia III. I was town. I did not immediately do a confirmation post analysis. And I was prodded by Sabrar to do one. See here.

On a really serious note I'm eagerly awaiting bessie's analysis on DGames, LaserGuy, SDK, YOLOSWAG and Znirk.

My confirmation post analysis here.

And see here, it is mentioned that many players know I do this (underlining added).

Third, I am further suspicious of this matter because I rather suspect that Sabrar was referring to bessie's well-known proclivity to analyse confirmation posts for scum, not in fact due to a confirmation of bessie's townie status. I am eager of the opinion that Sabrar has more tact.

The Dark Tower. I was town. I did not do a confirmation post analysis. I did a setup spec.

Diablo Mafia. I was town. I did not do a confirmation post analysis. But I did discuss confirmation posts. See here. This may be the game when I really started regularly scrutinizing confirmation posts, because I was kicking myself pretty hard for not going after SDK for his confirmation post, when I had a gut feeling about it.

SDK: Am I overthinking things when I look at SDK's first post (before official day start) and see him distancing himself from his buddie boomfrog? Or is that too far into rule-breaking territory to start playing the game before the official start?

I had this very debate with moody et al. in Wheel of Time 2 (quick summary, dimochka claimed militant atheist in his confirmation post and voted for the mod). I attacked dimochka for it and got pretty much uniformly beaten down because (1) pre-game doesn’t count, (2) it was just a confirmation post, and (3) it was obviously a joke because militant atheist isn’t a real role that gets used and I should know this. I objected strongly to all three of those reasons. My arguments were that (1) anything posted in the game thread was content and should be considered fair game, (2) scum has been caught based on their confirmation posts (examples were presented), and (3) fine, I’m dense. Anyway, I thought too much argument against me was based on (3), and that the point I was trying to make was (1), which was being brushed off.

To answer plytho’s question, I don’t know. In general, I believe anything posted in the game thread is content. You shouldn’t get to go back and say “what I posted there doesn’t really count, because I wasn’t playing yet” (exceptions made for real life notifications and other spoilered content). Does SDK’s post qualify as non content? Probably, but we won't really know until endgame. If he’s town, yes? If he’s scum, maybe?

Wheel of Time 2. I was town. I did not do a whole confirmation post analysis, but I attacked dimochka for his confirmation post here.

1. For posting game content during the confirmation phase. While this was not specifically prohibited in the opening post, it’s going against tradition to post game content until the mod officially starts the game.

Note that I only covered the first page of the forum but I think I covered enough.

So anyway, point is, this is part of my meta, and it has been discussed in public. I am very aware of it, as is everyone else. So I don’t see how you can use me not doing a confirmation post analysis as a meta scum tell. Somewhat related relevant post from Wheel of Time 3 (underlining mine):

Major point against her (not the Gojoe post, tell was made public so won't be used in the future): not commenting on my mistake in setup-spec.

Interesting side note: It seems that there has been a trend toward not posting “game content” in confirmation posts, possibly because I have been scrutinizing it?

Conclusions:
1. You are throwing out a scum read of me to fish for reactions, and/or to see if anyone follows you on this.
2. You do believe you have a meta scum tell but this isn’t it, it’s something else that you have yet to reveal.
3. My posting up until the time of your post had been very light (for me) and your meta reads list was a way to prod me (and perhaps others) to post more.
4. This is really all about you you you. You made a clever and NAI confirmation post. And you’re disappointed that I didn’t do a confirmation post analysis and point it out (I'm leaning here ).

Back in a bit.

[bessie]

I knew I had too many links in my previous post and I would somehow screw it up. I reversed Diablo and Dark Tower. So switch labels.

[Vicarin]

Hmmmm, so if I count them correctly (some are debatable), that's 2 mafia with conf post, 1 mafia no conf post, 3 town conf post, and 8 town no conf post? Making a no conf post game to be more likely bessie being town than normal, if that's all you have to go on.

[BoomFrog]

I see your reasoning, but this could equally come from scum mpolo. Any mafia player with a developed theory of mind ought to be able to think at least a step or two ahead and present ignorance. "Town slips" like these is why cemper was able to skid by in NNY despite his overt scuminess. I don't at all think that an mpolo who didn't read the rules wouldn't be capable of deducing that because scum have safe claims, he should support the opposite view in thread.

Mpolo didn't like to try and be tricky. He always plays it safe. I agree I got tricked by cemper, and I held onto the cemper slip too long, but my track record in recent memory on town slips is like 5/7 town. (I was also wrong about dimochka in Shakespeare III. )

...

That's actually not better then guessing randomly. Still for D1 I think mpolo is more likely town then most including Sabrar and plytho who are both very capable of presenting their current content as scum.

[Zenii]

Vote: SuperJedi

[Zenii]

If your scum he's scum. I don't see scum boomfrog going after a newbie town beginning of day 1.

Why is this?

[Sabrar]

@bessie: I feel you misrepresent a couple things.
- You note for Chaos that there was very little to analyze however you do not do the same for Dark Tower, Diablo, NNY, Alien Warfare. This way the number is padded towards not doing it being normal.
- As you yourself mention you have only started doing this regularly after Dark Tower, so for Shakespeare it wasn't that established (as I have already said), my poke at you there was mainly for fun and I think LaserGuy's comment was a slight exagerration due to his verbosity.
- this is related to something else, here you 'accuse' me of wanting to discourage discussion. I highly disagree, that point is a mere tangent in the overall issue and yes, I do think we should focus on more productive things during our limited time, as already discussed elsewhere scum can blend in by talking about irrelevant things. BTW you should have asked me to do the analysis which I actually started already, instead of doing it yourself, we both know that I have more time than you to waste on this game. You're probably not going to like me too much if you're Town but you're being overdefensive here in the face of a scum-lean (which is not even the same as a scum-read).

BTW my conf-post this game was spur of the moment, it occurred to me after I received my role-pm so it probably is AI, not that I would fault you for thinking otherwise. The rest of your 4th point is valid though. But if you're really curious my scum-lean comes from:

PS: I freely admit that my meta-reads are bizarre. But why is this such news to you?
PS2: @SuperJedi: AI and NAI mean alignment-indicative and not-alignment-indicative respectively if you're not yet familiar with those terms. BTW why are you not posting?

Hmmmm, so if I count them correctly (some are debatable), that's 2 mafia with conf post, 1 mafia no conf post, 3 town conf post, and 8 town no conf post?

Why did you include the games with no confirmation phase/no strange conf-posts? Why would you think they are relevant?

[bessie]

I was feeling a tiny bit insulted by wam's statement, nice to see you think I put a lot of effort in in general

I appreciate your enthusiasm for the game, and the effort you put in to playing (and your continuing Gojoe commentary after you are dead) even when we are on different sides, or when we don’t agree, or when I am annoyed with you.

It's not about content leveks I agree vicarin content is high irrespective of alignment but I can't see scum Vic do it the diging through past games.

Hmm. It is true that my comments were based on my impression of Vicarin’s personality, as Vicarin does not have a lot of meta to read yet. Also note that this type of meta read is not my strong area (as I’ve said many times previously). However, it is my opinion that your reasoning is (1) lazy, (2) faulty, (3) false, or (4) all of the above.

I'm still sorta lost.

Mark_Cangila, I understand that you (and SuperJedi) are relatively new to mafia, busy with school, and are possibly overwhelmed, but we need content from you. Mark, perhaps you can follow the advice I gave SuperJedi in this post and make a reads list. The issue with lurkers is that if you have no content we can’t read you, and if you are town and make it to endgame, you are a liability. Consider the situation if the final three are Good Content Townie, Good Content Mafia, and Lurking Townie. Chances are the game will be decided by Good Content Townie. Who do you think s/he is going to vote for? Also, I’m not trying to be mean about this, but if you’re town and you’re not going to help catch scum, you aren’t that big of a loss.

I agree with Zenii and Vicarin re townslips.

Ninja’d by Sabrar. Will read.

[bessie]

- You note for Chaos that there was very little to analyze however you do not do the same for Dark Tower, Diablo, NNY, Alien Warfare. This way the number is padded towards not doing it being normal.

I included every regular mafia game on the first page where I was a starting participant (except Wheel of Time). I rearranged the order to be chronological. Some games I had better memory of, some I didn’t remember until I skimmed through them. I noted interesting/relevant posts as I went along (and somehow reversed Dark Tower and Diablo). There was quite a bit so I started at the top and summarized and picked out some representative posts and some other posts I thought were more relevant to the discussion. I tried to cut out as many quotes as I could, and keep my summaries brief. It wasn’t my intent to show that not doing a confirmation post was more normal for me as town or as scum, just that it has happened as both.

There was also the observation that “pre-game content” has been tapering off. Extrapolate what you wish from this.

BTW you should have asked me to do the analysis which I actually started already, instead of doing it yourself, we both know that I have more time than you to waste on this game.

I was probably going to check your work anyway.

BTW my conf-post this game was spur of the moment, it occurred to me after I received my role-pm so it probably is AI, not that I would fault you for thinking otherwise. The rest of your 4th point is valid though.

All I know is that it is the Joker. This particular image is from one of the Batman movies that I have not seen. So if you are trying to reference something that occurred in that film, I won’t get it. And I’m sorry Sabrar that I didn’t acknowledge it with a smiley at least, when I saw it I thought it was clever and funny and NAI because there are no jokers in this game.

But if you're really curious my scum-lean comes from:

Intentional?

[Sabrar]

But if you're really curious my scum-lean comes from:

Intentional?

Nope, was in the process of writing it out when I interrupted myself with something else and after I came back to this I forgot I started to put this down (and somehow managed to skip it during preview as well). But here is what I envisioned in my mind happening:
- bessie is looking forward to scum-read me
- suddenly she's scum and knows I'm town so she has to proceed carefully
- she is very self-aware that I might get suspicious if she tries to sheep me again
- she looks for any excuse to be suspicious of me and latches onto me 'discouraging' discussion
- she knows she's supposed to conf-post analysis but she views my Joker as an intentional gambit and is unsure how to react because she can't put down an honest opinion
- therefore she deliberately skips that part

[Sabrar]

@BoomFrog: where do you draw the line about mistakes being AI? Do you think Mark's use of the word quality instead of quantity here is relevant? Why or why not?

[Vicarin]

Hmmmm, so if I count them correctly (some are debatable), that's 2 mafia with conf post, 1 mafia no conf post, 3 town conf post, and 8 town no conf post?

Why did you include the games with no confirmation phase/no strange conf-posts? Why would you think they are relevant?

Hmm, was just trying to get a rough idea of numbers. I think if I was trying to support your premise, then the most charitable numbers I could get would be 2, 1, 4 and 4 respectively, which still means that a game without a confirmations analysis is more likely to be town for bessie than the base chance. Unless you'd classify them differently? Your meta read is very weird when the probabilities would indicate the opposite of what you want to show. Seeing as you'd gone to the problem of crunching the numbers for the setup, checking the numbers behind such a read should have been a priority before putting it out there (I know that's funny coming from me after what you drew me up on ).

[Vicarin]

Hey Somitomi, how about a reads list?

Maybe I'll go for the double-modprod request on Somitomi and SuperJedi in an hour and a half...

[Sabrar]

Weekends usually count as half so mod-prod is not yet due (though I would fully agree with it).

[Vicarin]

Ah, yeah, dammit.

[Vicarin]

Eh, may as well try, need to get them to do something...

Can we get modprods for Somitomi and SuperJedi?

[Mark_Cangila]

@Mark: I think you've been in enough games by now to have a tough idea of how much everyone's going to post, and as Sabrar pointed out, there's been significantly more stuff in other games. I know you wanted to have a scummy meta (I have no idea why) but you really need to put out content so that people can try to sort you.

Why do you think I want a scummy meta? I like playing scum, as I have said, but I never said I want a scummy meta.

[Mark_Cangila]

I honestly feel like the conf post issue is a red herring and judt an extension of Vic and bessie fighting a lot. The issue is that a conf post analysis can't happen if there are no interesting conf posts. So please, both of you, stop for the time being.

[Mark_Cangila]

EBWOP just

[Mark_Cangila]

EBWOP again. Sabrar not Vicarin. My point still stands though.

[somitomi]

Sorry everyone, these days I spend the weekends with windows and magic. I'll read my backlog in a few hours, but I can't promise reads today.

[somitomi]

EBWOP: Forgot "important" link

[SuperJedi224]

So I guess I'm supposed to try posting here more often.

[Sabrar]

@Vicarin: who are your scum-reads?