Board Game Arena

The code for rolling a dice is fairly simple to program. The code to rig a game so that people have built-in winning streaks or beginners have outrageous luck is rather complicated and you really have to ask why anyone would go to all that trouble.

I too am filled with rage when it seems that suddenly, my opponent starts with a Yahtzee like 80% of the time. The other day my opponent needed nothing less than five sixes on the very last throw to win, and guess what, they only bloody got it. I somehow avoided throwing my laptop out of the window.

But I just did a little test. I got all of my Yahtzee game results (938 games) and plotted wins - losses with time. After 300 games I was at net +40 wins. Then there was a long period of bad luck that dropped me to -25 by 600 games. Since then it's been hovering between -10 and -20.

I generated 25 sequences of 938 numbers randomly assigned to be +1 or -1, to represent game results in which winning or losing is just purely down to chance. These sequences look qualitatively very much like my win-loss evolution. After 938 random games, the 25 players end up with net win-losses of between about -60 and +60, pretty much uniformly distributed. The course of my 938 games does not look at all unusual.

So from this I conclude

• The game is unlikely to be rigged or flawed. Game outcomes are almost entirely random
• Long overall losing sequences naturally occur in a series of random events
• Our perception of random does not correspond to what random actually looks like
• This does not stop me from feeling deeply persecuted during a long overall losing sequence
• It also does not stop me feeling powerful and superior during a long winning sequence.
• Rage-playing Yahtzee when you are on a losing streak is very unhealthy.

wrldtrvllr wrote: ↑24 July 2020, 17:56

• Our perception of random does not correspond to what random actually looks like

I wish more people would realize this

wrldtrvllr wrote: ↑24 July 2020, 17:56

• Rage-playing Yahtzee when you are on a losing streak is very unhealthy.

Not to mention expensive, if you have trouble avoiding tossing the laptop out the window.

The game is super rigged, it's based on throwing dice and hoping for a result. You didn't think you can control the dice did you?

wrldtrvllr wrote: ↑24 July 2020, 17:56 So from this I conclude

• The game is unlikely to be rigged or flawed. Game outcomes are almost entirely random
• Long overall losing sequences naturally occur in a series of random events
• Our perception of random does not correspond to what random actually looks like
• This does not stop me from feeling deeply persecuted during a long overall losing sequence
• It also does not stop me feeling powerful and superior during a long winning sequence.
• Rage-playing Yahtzee when you are on a losing streak is very unhealthy.

Much of what you say is very true, but i take issue that "game outcomes are almost entirely random". It may be that YOUR games even out to around 50:50 because your skill level is roughly average for the players on BGA, but that doesn't mean the game outcomes are random.

At a guess I would say around half of Yahtzee games that I play end up being resolved by luck (one player gets just systematically better rolls than the other, or it's just very close and one player gets a Yahtzee when the other doesn't). But in the other half it's the decisions the players make that leads to the outcomes. If you roll 2/3/4/5/5 do you re-roll a 5 for a Large Straight? Or re-roll 2/3/4? Or is this late in the game and you need two Sixes for your bonus and it's worth better re-rolling all five? I think people underestimate just how many decisions a game of Yahtzee actually contains, and every time there is a decision there is the opportunity for a skilled player to - in the long run - make better decisions and win more games.

Quitting the site too many doubles by far in backgammon. The purpose is probably to flatten advantages for the better player by making luck factor super high. But when it happens to beat the curve in over 100 games in a row it is not bell curve thing (my brother who lives away from me so on different system also has noticed this) but one of 4 things.

1. Add luck so as to not discourage weak players
2. really crappy dice programming
3. Trying for some reason to shorten games
4. Fixes are. (since both sides roll too many doubles figure this unlikely)

But in any case I will find a more honest site as far as dice are concerned.

I played the same opponent back to back - he gets two yahtzees in both games.

I've noticed (and other players have too) too many coincidences for the dice rolls to be random, e.g. same doubles as opponent right afterwards a frequent occurence.

Michaelismyname wrote: ↑10 August 2020, 04:19 I've noticed (and other players have too) too many coincidences for the dice rolls to be random, e.g. same doubles as opponent right afterwards a frequent occurence.

Please provide statistical proof. All games can be replayed by any member of the BGA community.

RicardoRix wrote: ↑25 July 2020, 14:34 The game is super rigged, it's based on throwing dice and hoping for a result. You didn't think you can control the dice did you?

IRL, with enough training, you can roll the dice on a way to make you have more chance to have favorable rolls.
It's not the case here in BGA


Hum, I don't think I'm enough obvious, yeah it's ironic.