Subject: SSC - Unofficial upcoming schedule.

Date: Thu Sep 12 23:15:07 2013
User: outskirts
Message:
8x5 - easy

Date: Thu Sep 12 23:15:37 2013
User: outskirts
Message:
oops. I thought it was Friday.

Date: Thu Sep 12 23:17:39 2013
User: outskirts
Message:
Saturday Sep 14 competition will be 8x5.

Date: Mon Sep 23 10:02:19 2013
User: joeygray
Message:
I was looking again at your post from: Fri Jan 18 02:10:57 2013, which is itself a paste of free's original master schedule: week 0 = 7x3, 11x2, _9x1, 10x3, _8x2, 9x4, 10x0, 12x1, 6x4, 8x5; week 1 = 9x3, _7x5, 11x1, 10x2, 12x0; week 2 = 6x5, 13x0, 10x1, _8x3, 11x0, 9x2, _7x4. "week 0" games are either very hard (10 sum), or easy (13 sum). "week 1" games should be medium (12 sum). "week 2" games should be hard (11 sum). I think it's correct to 'promote' zero cell games with respect to difficulty, as he did for 13x0. (I think we've all experienced that zero cell games are the hardest in their respective summed-ness category.) But he didn't do it right. He left 12x0 in the medium category, and promoted 13x0 all the way to hard. Thus, 13x0 is treated as harder than 12x0! It should be the other way around, we should treat the 12x0 as hard and the 13x0 as medium, in other words switch them in the master schedule. Agreed?

Date: Tue Sep 24 10:57:22 2013
User: TitanicTony
Message:
Hey Joey, GOOD suggestion! It also has the advantage of having 13x0 come up more often (every 15 weeks, instead of every 21 weeks), and 12x0 come up less often (every 21 weeks, instead of every 15 weeks). I never worried about it very much because 1) the 'categories' happened before I got involved, and 2) the 'difficulty' designations seemed somewhat arbitrary. In fact, the whole 'scheme' seemed weird to me -- 10 'week 0' games, 5 'week 1' games and 7 'week 2' games??? I would have split 'week 0' into two groups of 5 ('easy' and 'very hard'), and numbered them from 1 to 4! I might even have eliminated 2 of the 'week 2' games, in order to have a nice, neat '4 groups of 5' scheme. Anyway, I like your suggestion, and will implement it if there are no strong objections. Anybody else want to comment???

Date: Tue Sep 24 11:25:01 2013
User: TNmountainman
Message:
Why, though, would one want 13x0s *more* often, and 12x0s *less* often? Even though I really had very little time to play this past Saturday, it was great to be able to either get some traction - or not - in a more constrained time frame. More generally, Tony, there was a very great amount of debate (and care) put into the original groupings and all that. Even though the categories "happened" before you got involved, those discussions are still there to be absorbed and learned from. I wasn't personally much involved (if at all; I'm not sure) in that discussion, but it certainly was well vetted and raked over the coals at great length and deliberation. Because of that carefully-thought-out process, I would argue for some care before making changes. All that said, smelly and I merely play (or *don't* play, depending mostly on difficulty) just whatever comes up, so I don't have strong feelings, really. It's not like it's the U.S. Constitution or the Magna Carta, after all.... As almost an afterthought, and since the vast majority of our players are in the Northern Hemisphere, would it make any sense to have a seasonal component to the competitions? I.e., have the clickfest-type variants roll around more often in the wintertime, when more of us may be cooped up, and have the Daylight Savings Time season have more of a shorter-time-horizon-per-attempt flavor? I realize that's somewhat of a U.S.-centric viewpoint; it's just a thought....

Date: Tue Sep 24 16:44:10 2013
User: joeygray
Message:
Well, it was indeed deliberate to group the very hard and very easy together so that they get one sixth each, on the theory that we'd be bored with too many easy ones and discouraged by too many hard ones. I might have tried to make the medium and hard rotation the same length, by picking the easiest hard one and demoting it to medium, but I must say I'd have no clear rationale for which one that would be. So I don't propose any other changes. Incidentally, that basic rotation-of-six that we have sort of cries out for the standings to be 12 weeks in width, instead of the 10 you are doing, but yes yes I know for formatting reasons we can't. *smile*.

Date: Tue Sep 24 16:54:41 2013
User: SAB
Message:
Then why not standings of six weeks instead of ten? I like the idea of the seasonal component, but roo and friends might well think otherwise.

Date: Thu Sep 26 20:49:15 2013
User: DebbyJ
Message:
I'm bumping this tonight because I may be late getting home from work tomorrow and I don't want to forget and leave anyone hangin'. Tony, we will need you to keep up with the next few weeks and post a new schedule when you can as this one runs out after October 19th. h2h User: TitanicTony Message: I guess that this SSC schedule is no longer "unofficial", since I seem to be in charge now. Sorry about not posting the upcoming game at the end of the results. This is what is coming up while I am away: 21 Sep 2013: _ 12x0 (should be "medium" difficulty). 28 Sep 2013: __ 9x2 (should be "hard" difficulty). 05 Oct 2013: __ 7x3 (should be "very hard" difficulty). 12 Oct 2013: __ 9x3 (should be "medium" difficulty). 19 Oct 2013: __ 7x4 (should be "hard" difficulty).

Date: Wed Oct 2 00:36:29 2013
User: TitanicTony
Message:
Hey TN, "one would want 13x0s *more* often, and 12x0s *less* often" because, 1) 13x0 is more popular than 12x0, and 2) I personally prefer 13x0 over 12x0. Also, it is really a very minor change. I certainly will not sift through the entire discussion to find out if where to put 12x0 was even debated. I have read, I think, that 13x0 (a 13-sum game) was put in group 2 (the 11-sum games) simply *because* of its popularity, so that it would be played more often than if it were left in group 0 (where it 'belongs'). I don't have to decide before 30 November, when 13x0 is next scheduled to be played. If I do decide to make the switch, it will probably not be until 5 weeks after that when 12x0 is next scheduled to be played. So, there is still lots of time for (shudder) more discussion...

Date: Wed Oct 2 03:00:06 2013
User: TNmountainman
Message:
One of the original goals (as I remember it), Tony, for this competition, was to get people to play other variants that they normally wouldn't. I think it's been at least moderately successful in that, imho. Before the SSC, 13x0 was, I think, the most popular non-8x4 variant. (And that excludes the trivial variants like 9x5 or 10x6, of course.) This was at least partly the result of someone asking Denny many years ago what his favorite variant was, and he replied (and this is *far* from verbatim) something along the lines of: "I used to like 6x6 quite a bit, but lately I find myself playing a lot of 13x0." And let me emphasize that that is an extreme paraphrasing, and many years ago. [Pardon me, Denny, if I somehow remember your postings incorrectly.] Almost immediately, as I remember it, 13x0 got a huge jump of player activity, which (I think) has remained. So.....if one of the aims of these competitions is to get people playing outside of, and beyond, their comfort zones, then it's been a good thing. And since 13x0 already gets a lot of play, then 'promoting' 12x0 (or 5x8 or 9x2 or whatever) hopefully opens the eyes of those who otherwise haven't, or weren't going to, play the other (dare I say) 'esoteric' variants. And, again, especially for the winnable flavor, a 13x0 day will likely take several hours, whereas a 12x0 day will probably take less than 1/2 the time - probably far less. So it makes more for a "competition", as opposed to the endurance contest 13x0 often is. But.........**truly** it's not even a moderate deal to me, either way. Just pointing those things out.

Date: Thu Oct 3 02:03:14 2013
User: TitanicTony
Message:
Well, TN, I must say that your "out" was very well pointed! Maybe we should put 13x0 back in group 0, where it would only get played once every 30 weeks, or, as a 'compromise' we could just leave it where it is, getting played once every 21 weeks. I wish you hadn't mentioned W13x0, which is MUCH easier than regular 13x0. For me, 12x0 is only about twice as hard as 13x0, and I will never get a 'long' streak in either one. Re. playing time, for me it is pretty much the same: I can spend 5+ hours getting to a streak of 150, or I can spend about the same amount of time (or more) trying 10 times to get to a streak of 25, or in the hardest variants, trying 30 times to get to a streak of 5. Anyway, thanks for the time you took to write! PROBABLY I am convinced. Hey, joeygray, any further comments???

Date: Thu Oct 3 02:34:39 2013
User: TNmountainman
Message:
Let me add that really it should be what the most people want. I truly don't care; I was just making the argument and giving a bit of historical context. Your comments about multiple attempts makes me again raise the idea of a "deadly" WWC, or SSC, for some variants. I saw that you and others made multiple runs today, whereas I only made one - not counting the ongoing ~15 or so streak I had from the last time we did this, that I had to burn off, and didn't know I had it until I'd already played several games. Of course nothing wrong with multiple attempts, but it would be more interesting, if occasionally, a player only got 1 crack at it, for the easy and semi-easy ones, or maybe 5 cracks at it for the hard ones, or whatever - you know, some sliding scale. And I know this idea probably won't attract much support, but I just hate the thought of being 'tied down' for such long periods (although of course that's my choice, ultimately). But to me, 5 hours is just way too much of a day to "waste". That's why smelly and I don't play the easy ones. As to 13x0 vs. 12x0, of course regular 13x0 is *not* harder than W13x0 - it's just that there are many 'land mines' to disrupt streaks. If one compares regular 13x0 to 12x0, the winning percentages are about 97% compared to about 90%, which translates to losing about 1 game out of every 33, vs. about 1 game out of 10 for 12x0. I.e., slightly more than 3 times as "hard" statistically. Thus, tangentially, regular 13x0 is much more suited (than the winnables) to a daily competition, since one may win, or challenge for a win, with maybe 50-80 or so victories, vs. almost however much patience one has to keep winning the winnable ones. (And I know that's not strictly true, of course, as mistakes can be, and are, made.) I've made this point before, and we don't need to go down that road again; I'm just lobbying, sort of, for minimizing clickfests - but I don't expect my argument to carry the day -- and that's fine. Again - whatever the most peeps want should be what it is....

Date: Thu Oct 3 14:58:09 2013
User: TitanicTony
Message:
Hi TN, I have often thought that it could be interesting to have a third weekly competition. Maybe you would like to organize a "Monday competition" consisting of "difficult only" variants. You can choose the day, the variants, the 'rules', the scoring method, AND you can post the reminders and the results. Regarding "deadly", how could the number of 'tries' be monitored??? I now feel that I will not 'tweak' the SSC, unless several more players ask for it (even though I personally would prefer 13x0 to be played more often).

Date: Thu Oct 3 15:14:43 2013
User: firenzes_mother
Message:
TN, please include 4x4s. I don't think enough people appreciate how much fun they are.

Date: Thu Oct 3 15:19:59 2013
User: TNmountainman
Message:
I will not be doing this. Shockingly, I actually *do* have a life outside of this site. And I never know what variant is coming up until someone posts a reminder. I'm very thankful to free@last, Tony, and whoever else has contributed to making the competitions happen, but I don't think I need to go even deeper into the freecell universe. (Famous last words?)

Date: Fri Oct 4 01:43:53 2013
User: TitanicTony
Message:
firenzes_mother: nice try... TN: I tried to make it sound 'easy', but was pretty sure that it was NOT what you wanted to do. Maybe someone else will rise to the challenge -- maybe you could 'get it started' by making a few suggestions?? In any case, for your "thanks" you are very welcome! And, I thank you for all of your help over the months (might be years by now?) in keeping me 'accurate'.

Date: Fri Oct 4 12:29:47 2013
User: joeygray
Message:
Well, the only basis under which I suggested the change was to more logically fit the 1/6 - 1/3 - 1/3 - 1/6 difficulty paradigm that was established. The two reasons for NOT changing - that the status quo is good enough, and that somebody likes a particular variant more than another one - were of course not addressed by my suggestion, and of course are just as valid a criteria as mine, so no objection here to leaving it alone.

Date: Fri Oct 4 12:46:16 2013
User: TNmountainman
Message:
joeygray: "I think it's correct to 'promote' zero cell games with respect to difficulty, as he did for 13x0. (I think we've all experienced that zero cell games are the hardest in their respective summed-ness category.) But he didn't do it right. He left 12x0 in the medium category, and promoted 13x0 all the way to hard. Thus, 13x0 is treated as harder than 12x0! It should be the other way around, we should treat the 12x0 as hard and the 13x0 as medium, in other words switch them in the master schedule. Agreed?" ------- It's been too long for me to remember this exactly, but I'm doubtful that free@last make a "mistake" in the way he categorized the variants. My (VERY vague) memory is that putting 13x0 where he did was a concession/realization/whatever-one-wants-to-call-it for that particular variant because of its popularity. The decisions he made were after a lot of input and consideration. So...point being (and only to the best of my recollection, which is faulty), I think it was by design - but I don't remember the exact impetus for said design. Sidenote: I am surprised to see 10x3 listed as one of the variants to be played. (Thankfully) I don't recall it coming around. (See a followup post for comments about the idea of a new competition.)

Date: Fri Oct 4 13:02:45 2013
User: TNmountainman
Message:
Although I am not going to organize a new competition of only harder variants, I will throw out some observations, just in case someone else is tempted to go down that road.... 1. Not that it's an insurmountable problem, but a new competition would certainly run the risk of partially cannibalizing the two which are already extant. 2. IF someone wanted to start such a thing up, I think keeping the 'cycle' shorter would be a good idea, as well as starting the scores over after some period of time, probably even just one cycle. The idea of starting the scoring over would give it a sort of "it's a new morning!" feel... Of course, I realize that really, since old scores drop off as the variant is repeated, there's an element of that present already. I just think there's a psychological difference between the two scoring methods. 3. Make them hard, but not discouragingly so. Until it should possibly gain acceptance, design it so that one can get a few shots at it and quit after at most an hour or two. I realize that all that's nebulous, so, as an example, keep them at most 11 sums, and omit the easier 8x3 and 9x2 variants from the mix. So something along the lines of 11x0, 10x1, 7x4 (questionable), 6x5, 7x3, 8x2, etc. I'm not sure where to put the "hardness limit" on the upper end. Are 6x4s and 7x2s *too* hard? I'll leave that to whoever wants to start it up. 4. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think with the tournaments available, this may just be too small of a niche subset of players to make it attractive. And to repeat, maybe I'm wrong. 5. All these "extracurricular" competitions would certainly benefit from Denny codifying them in his database, but I know that ain't gonna happen, and this is not such a call, as we all realize although Denny is nigh unto a superman, he's still just him....

Date: Sun Oct 6 17:42:18 2013
User: TitanicTony
Message:
Hey TN, 10x3 is in group "0" and is played once every 30 weeks. It was last played on 11 May 2013 and will next be played on 7 Dec 2013. Re. Denny, he already did a lot (in addition to everything else) by having the 10 'new' winnable variants. It would be nice if he would devote just *one* motf to the existence of the WWC and SSC. And, if he ever gets 'desperate' for something to do, he could implement a 'scores page' for the "prolific streaker" and "prolific winner" indexes. Re. a 'harder' competition, I doubt that I would be interested - I already have enough trouble with the SSC -- I nearly 'died' Saturday trying to get past 5 in 7x3.

Date: Fri Oct 11 07:27:07 2013
User: DebbyJ
Message:
bump 12 Oct 2013: __ 9x3 (should be "medium" difficulty

Date: Thu Dec 12 17:16:00 2013
User: TitanicTony
Message:
This thread has been badly hijacked. AND, I have failed to use it recently for its intended purpose of showing the upcoming SSC schedule a month, or more, in advance (due to the very complicated variant rotation scheme). The upcoming SSC variants are: 14 Dec 2013: _ 10x2 (should be "medium" difficulty). 21 Dec 2013: _ 10x1 (should be "hard" difficulty). 28 Dec 2013: _ NO SSC Competition! !! !!! 04 Jan 2014: __ 8x2 (should be "very hard" difficulty). 11 Jan 2014: _ 12x0 (should be "medium" difficulty). 18 Jan 2014: __ 8x3 (should be "~hard" difficulty). 25 Jan 2014: __ 9x4 (should be "easy" difficulty). 01 Feb 2014: __ 9x3 (should be "medium" difficulty). 08 Feb 2014: _ 11x0 (should be "hard" difficulty).