The brettspielwelt.info Weblog

I really hate to complain right off the bat, but …

A friend highly recommended this games site. I’m on a slow modem connection so I downloaded the installation file on campus where I have access to high speed, then brought it home and installed it on my machine.

So now here I sit and wait while it is loading update upon update. It has been a half hour with no end in sight. many of the things it is downloading appear to be for games I may never have an interest in.

Why couldn’t it have allowed me to download those with the installation file, when I had the fast connection?

Bob Harris

Where do you sign up for lotteries or to you just have to play that game to get ‘registered’?

Can’t Stop is basically a “risk management” game. Once you understand the game mechanic, all that you need
to do is learn when to go and when to stop. I know different players have different strategies and you’re strategy
must be flexible enough to take into account the board position and the opponents you are up against.

Hopefully we can get a nice discussion of strategies.

I’ll start off by giving a few general hints and tips.

1) It is usually best to hold off on placing your 2nd and 3rd markers for as a long as possible.
There are times your roll gives you the best possible location for your 3rd marker, and in that case I
would place it.

2) Try and avoid having all 3 markers higher than the 6 or lower than the 8. If you have only high or only low
markers, you have much less flexibility.

3) It is better to have all even markers such as 4,6,8 than all odd markers such as 5,7,9.
The reason for this is because to make an odd number , you must have both an even and an odd die roll.
Whereas, to make an even number, you could have 2 evens or 2 odds..

4) This isn’t so much a hint and tip, but a source of information. I created a puppet named Scarne
Scarne lives in room C10-13 and you can get odds information from him. If you tell Scarne what your 3
numbers are, he will tell you the odds of a sucessful roll. Just use the command.
If your 3 numbers were 2 7 8 then if you are in C10-13, just type
@rolls 2 7 8

if you aren’t in that room, then use a /tell command

/tell Scarne @rolls 2 7 8

Boomer

The most important thing to remember when playing Bluff is the dice odds.

You have a 1/6 chance on a die being a star and a 1/3 chancd of it “being equivalent to” a number 1-5.
They reason for the 1/3 chance is stars are wild and count for any bid.

Always check how many dice you can’t see and remember that on average 1/6 of that amount will be stars
and 1/3 of that amount will a number 1-5. This will give you a general idea if a bid is below/above average.

For example: Let say you have 4 dice and the other players have 12 dice total.
And you roll a 1 2 5 *

On average, the 12 other dice, will have 2 5s and 2 stars.
Adding this to your 1 5 and 1 star, makes a bid of 6 5’s an average bid. Likewise
3 stars or 5 4’s would also be an average bid.

If you are making a bid and the amount is far above average, you are taking a risk. This might mean it’s time
to do a reroll, the increase the average and make you bid less risky.

One question I her often is “When is a good time to bluff?”

Bluffing is more an art than a science. Knowing your other players is very important.

However, I can give you a few guidelines.
When making below average bids, the player after you will be reluctant to call the bid
since it has a high likehood of being correct. It’s therefore reasonably safe to bluff when making
below average bids.

Bluffing stars when you have none can be extremely dangerous.

If the player going after you has a very high percentage of the dice remaining, bluffing
is dangerous. Likewise, when the player going after you has very few dice, bluffing
is safer.

When you have lots of stars, It’s no so good to bluff, since your stars will be useful
for any bid made.

Lastly, a very general rule. I prefer to bluff when I have a weak hand and not bluff
when I have a strong hand. I call this bluff from weakness, bid from strength.

What’s a weak hand? well 1 2 3 4 5 is pretty weak. With this hand
I don’t have many good options, so bluffing looks like a good option.

What’s a strong hand? well 4 5 5 * * is rather strong, I wouldn’t be
bluffing with this. I don’t need to.

How to be a better player.

Here is you chance to share your hints and tips with your fellow players.

Comments, Hints and Tips about how to use BSW

Here is your chance to add content to the Brettspielwelt English help server.

Hopefully many of the excellent players will post some strategy tips.

Boomer