Hey thanks Uber :) I actually didn’t know I won until you said that. I played early I think, like a bit after midnight, and wasn’t on here much or at all the next day so didn’t get to check.
I haven’t played HS much in a while before this week bc I used to waste a lot of time on it.* I get fixated on game time so I’d restart sometimes 20x, even 40x or more if I went over a certain limit. Without fail I’d always tire and leave final attempt at a much lower tally than previous attempts.
This week I kept my tally low, restarting only if I flubbed. When I played the 10x1, I checked the previous hot streak variant day before which I played only once and I came in second, which confirms what I think I already knew- my compulsive restarting of HS never did me any good.
*Still, can be a fun distraction during down time, and no true freecell enthusiast should ever fear wasting time, ha
Hey y’all- I have a HotStreak question for ya.
So, I check some threads occasionally when I’m not playing, but I’m not super great abt it. Happened to notice some of the CongratsEllie2 thread that I think got deleted, for reasons I neither know nor care to know really, if it’s to do with heated discussion or whatever. Not trying to stir anything up bc this is off topic to much of that thread prob, but related bc it deals with one of the few posts I saw, from I think rbw? (Tho can’t be sure.)
Anyway, rbw or someone posted something, not offensive at all , abt how yes he doesn’t think it’s fair when ppl use decks, but it’s Denny’s site and he should make the rules. He/she said they also felt similarly abt hotstreak when ppl play a lot and how he/she doesn’t think that’s v fair and proposed a limit, but that got nixed and he was fine with it bc again, it’s Den’s site.
To clarify, rbw wasn’t being rude and wasn’t singling anyone out, but I was confused because while I can see the using decks issue being controversial, I had no idea playing HS several times may be, and that’s something I do a lot, so pls lmk if it’s a faux pas.
I don’t use decks, my feeling is that cheats the player using them moreso than others, as to me the whole point of playing anything like this is simply to improve, learn, and think on your toes. However, I suppose it depends on what each is trying to improve. If ppl use them to study then I could understand that better I guess. Regardless, even if its fully decided by all that it’s wrong, there’d be no way of enforcing it. Not unless we all played via webcam and that’s not something I’d sign up for. There’s no way of knowing who does that—for all we know some who complain abt it could just as easily being doing it. It’s totally honor system, thus, it’s a moot point imo so to talk abt it seems only to stir the pot. (Not that I don’t get why it’s under discussion.)
However, with HS I often play several times. And I mean a whooole lot some days. I’m not actually trying to beat another person when I do it, but rather myself. As explained in above post, I can get kind of ocd abt it and I thought that the risk of doing worse on next attempt was part of the point of HS, bc it raises the stakes. It not like I think ppl can’t see my # of attempts, if anything it’s kind of embarrassing bc it’s like a big sign that says “this girl has ocd” ha (only with freecell, mainly) So I’m not trying to be devious abt it or anything.
My idea of healthy competition is that it doesn’t exist unless that competition is with yourself alone. It has little to do with other peoples scores. To single out another person and try to beat them isn’t healthy competition, that’s vendetta. I think the point of playing with other people is simply that if someone else can do it, it can be reasonably assumed I can too, within limit. Obvi if someone is super expert I’ll realize I’ll need quite a while to get to that level, but other than that, people’s scores only serve as an admirable goal- not something I actively try to beat them on, but rather when I play HS I’m constantly trying to outdo myself. Quite a few times I’ve made the top score and started all over only to make lower. Also, I like to set time limits with myself, and if I go even a few secs over on a game, I’ll restart, if I have nothing else to do.
However, I’m still fairly new on here and I don’t want to offend or upset anyone, so pls lmk if that’s rlly annoying.
When I see what the variant is I'll either have a number in mind I think I should reach or
if it's an easier variant I'll play until I go the full thirty minutes and I'll play until I get there.. If it's 10 x4 or 9x5 I'll stop at a couple , those just give me a headache.. You should probably stop around 100 tries but that's not the record I believe.
Go,
trying many times when really playing-to-solve HS games is not a problem
trying many times by quitting apparently difficult games after 1 sec is the problem . Because it counts as played and lost without trying to play it, the stats and game ELO are impacted (and not your ELO)
"trying many times by quitting apparently difficult games after 1 sec is the problem . Because it counts as played and lost without trying to play it, the stats and game ELO are impacted (and not your ELO)"
Hot streak does not change the game ELO.
I brought up the number of hot streak attempts because a top player took 72 tries one day and bumped me from 3rd to 4th for the day.
the top 3 spots are the only ones that matter to the record keeping that Hop maintains. My feeling was that there should be some kind of reasonable limit, but it's not that big a deal. The person who was quitting immediately said they were having some kind of technical issue, but there seemed to be a translation issue trying to understand them. I originally thought they were trying to get a small advantage by finding an easy first game.
Hops hot streak records. Players / Medals tracks the cumulative totals:
Hot Streak Records (neocities.org)
Seb-
I see. I wasn’t thinking abt game elo. Like Jackstraw, I tend to have an idea of how many I should get w a variant. But annoyingly, when it’s one I like to speed on, sometimes I’ll get weird abt it and set a time limit for myself per game. I haven’t rlly thought of it as a major competition bc it seems like not many play it, so I sort of just play around with it I guess
Let’s say it’s 11x0, depending on lvl, I may try to keep it at 2 mins or under. With a rlly easy one like 9x5 or so, I may try to keep each under a 1:00 or 1:15. So if it says I’ve played 50x or something, most of those I simply exit out of if I go over a min, or 2 mins, whatever limit I set per game.
That’s what I’ve been doing at least, but I hadn’t considered how tossing a game for no reason can affect the games elo, esp if I do it a lot.
That gives me a good reason to try to break that habit, bc often when I do that it’s rlly just a time waster anyway. And on final play I always end on lowest score bc by that point I’m just zonked.
Like a few days ago, I had 18, played more, got fixated on keeping under a minute, midnight comes, I think I landed on like 7 bc I was out of time. And the times I only play a few I always do better. So it’s a dumb habit anyway and was trying to quit just bc it rlly can suck up time. I’ll try to knock it off. And hey thnx for the info y'all :)
Rbw- yea my bad, was replying and my tablet died. Wanted to say, even if it doesn’t mess with game elo, I’m still srry bc I’m sure I’ve prob done that many before. Idk my record but I can totally see me playing 80x and exiting most after a min if I go over. Sometimes I’ve done it if I’m just taking long on a move.
I hope that wasn’t me that did that to you, but if it was I promise I wasn’t trying to be a jerk. Freecell checks all the boxes for things I can get fixated on. Some days I’m more abt solve, other days, speed, but almost always I make little mini challenges for myself and HS is rlly good to binge that with.
I only look at top score to gage if it’s something I should be able to get. If it’s a variant I’m no good at, I won’t even try to touch top place. If it’s one I know I can reach, I’ll try for it but I’ll get frustrated when I can’t do better than whatever I just got and I’ll zone out on trying for a while.
I’ve never exited right after start to get an easier game, but I’ve exited many times a few secs in if my dog interrupts me to give her a blanket. I try to only play HS when she’s settled, but she likes to psyche me out repeatedly bc she hates when I’m on my tablet ( / attending to anything other than her).
Anyway, thnx also for info. I didn’t know Hop had a record for top 3 hotstreak, but that’s cool.
I also get kind of ocd w daily comps, but not as bad as HS. The only thing I rlly note with others scores are tourneys. I’m never trying to best anyone rlly tho, I just gage my improvement. So like, if I were suddenly closer to some of y’all in time on tourneys, I’d know I’m doing something better. But I’m never like, cussing FGN for winning or anything, ha
there is no direct impact, true but there is ELO correction overnight per variant
we might need ElGuapo input here to give some insights on how it works
GoAdopt..... No it wasn't you. Feel free to play as many times as you want. I do it too sometimes. The person with the 72 tries was a top speed player that's been MIA a couple of months. I could tell they were going for 1st because they had 2 scores that day that beat mine, but only managed to get 3rd for the day.
Seb- gotcha. That makes sense.
Rbw- glad it wasn’t me, still sort of a newb here so want to make sure I don’t step on toes. And thanks :) recently I’d cut back on HS for a while anyway, just bc of how much time I waste on it, ha. I’ve played a bit past week or so but hopefully won’t keep being neurotic abt it just bc it’s so draining for me anyhow
CubicSprock came back to beat us all in hot streak.
I haven't checked those pages recently. When I switch to the first-attempt-only winners, I have noticed that jimmyp beats calicokid in Medals.
"not even the variant-level adjustments"
Question for ElGuapo if you have the time. Do the variant level adjustments take the player ELO's playing the games into account or do they just use an absolute number of wins and losses for that level to calculate the variant adjustments?
What’s your response mean, Uber? Caught all but that one. I’m not good with the site lingo yet so jw if that has specific meaning
The variant level adjustment (we call it a boost, although it can be up or down) isn't a once a day thing, it's continuous. We just update the "about" page once a day with the new averages. All that's happening is a fraction of every point exchange from rated play gets applied to the entire level. So if you beat a particular 5x7-6 game and it loses 1 point, the entire 5x7-6 set of games also loses a tenth of a point. Variants that already have a ton of play are assumed to have pretty accurate game ratings, so the boost fraction is small. That keeps things consistent and protects the system from one aberrant player making a mess by, say, intentionally losing. In variants with less play we're less confident that the ratings have reached parity so we boost them more.
"The variant level adjustment"
Thanks. Sounds reasonable and it does capture the player ELO.
"When I switch to the first-attempt-only winners, I have noticed that jimmyp beats calicokid in Medals."
I think jimmyp plays mostly 1 try each day. Yesterday was an outlier where he got the gold for 1 try and only won 1 game.
That doesn't take anything away from some of those lightning fast streaks he has.