Subject: hot streak

Date: Mon Jul 13 14:31:51 2020
User: Denny
Message:
I'm thinking of having the Hot Streak 30 Minute Daily Extravaganza be all winnables plus 8x4 (which is all winnable). Since it's a streak competition I don't think there should be unwinnable games. What you think? Variant of the day or is each day a mix? Everyone gets their own mix of games or everyone plays same games like duplicate bridge? You'll have 30 minutes from the moment you deal the first Hot Streak game. And results will not be available until the following day so that no one gets discouraged by someone else's big streak. That all seem mostly OK? Denny

Date: Mon Jul 13 14:35:20 2020
User: BuzzClik
Message:
I think the duplicate bridge scenario is the one that levels the playing field for all participants.

Date: Mon Jul 13 14:56:25 2020
User: redberet
Message:
If you play the same games, then it's more like a mini tourney and the idea is streak which is random. Streak is luck and skill. The only thing that should be level is the starting level.

Date: Mon Jul 13 14:56:53 2020
User: HopDiriDiriDattiriDittiriDom
Message:
In previous discussions we had some ideas about not losing a streak in a variant not necessatily winnable. Since this is new, maybe you could implement it here: You do not lose your streak when you lose a game when its stats is 0/x. Can we do it here and be not limited to winnable variants only?

Date: Mon Jul 13 15:00:15 2020
User: Denny
Message:
red - not like a tournament cuz you pick your time.

Date: Mon Jul 13 15:14:02 2020
User: free@last
Message:
Although I usually like a 'less luck, more skill' idea, in this case I think that more luck might encourage more people to play. If it's less luck then I'd expect it to mostly be the Tournament people playing. My preferences: -one variety a day (to start) -I also think all the variety should be one level -different group of games for everyone I don't have a strong preference on 'only winnables'. Allowing non-winnables adds luck along with variety. Most of the winnables are on the difficult side. Normally I would have no interest in playing, say, 10x6 but if it's a half hour I might give it a go.

Date: Mon Jul 13 16:38:21 2020
User: joeygray
Message:
This doesn’t affect the streak database, right? Then you can easily solve the winnable problem just by refusing to deal any un-won games. That opens you up to any plain variant, any difficulty level, as long as the selected game has been played before and won.

Date: Mon Jul 13 16:44:41 2020
User: Denny
Message:
OK, I think I'm hearing "make it random game selection" for each person. How about a list of variants to include, winnable or otherwise. And a percentage for each. For instance, since 8x4 is far and away a favorite I think I'd make about 50% 8x4-10. What you think? So my picks would be: 8x4-10 50% 13x0-5 10% 7x5-7 5% 12x1-6 5% 5x8-8 5% 9x5-10 5% 7x4-5 5% 4x10-6 5% 8x3-5 5% 5x9-7 5%

Date: Mon Jul 13 17:52:56 2020
User: kangaroo
Message:
I agree this will appeal mainly to tournament players, some of whom, like me, suck at streaking. In fact, it's just the inverse where in this case the winner solves the most games in a fixed time*. Like who can run the furthest in an hour. It's still a good idea because lots of people enjoy doing the esoteric! *A reworked version of the Lightning tournament in fact!

Date: Mon Jul 13 17:54:35 2020
User: Oded789
Message:
No, please don't make it a mix and don't make it only winnables either. I think for a start any of the SSC easy and medium types + 8x4 will do. Or even simpler, take your all AIO options and choose one for each day. If there's a technical way to serve only winnables from variants other than the 10 above, that's an option for later, but I doubt that's feasible.

Date: Mon Jul 13 18:28:12 2020
User: Oded789
Message:
Or the Twelve variants, that'd work too. Or a combo for the pool to choose from. But one for each day. As given by WRAC, possible variants are: AIO: 11x0 @ diff level 1-3 (that one would better be dropped for the hot streak; perhaps 12x0 too) 5x8, 7x4, 6x5 @ diff level 4-6 12x0, 10x1, 9x2, 8x3, 7x6, 7x5, 6x6, 5x9 @ diff level 7-9 8x4 @ diff level 10 13x1, 13x0, 12x1, 11x2, 11x1, 10x3, 10x2, 9x5, 9x4, 9x3, 8x5 @ diff level 10-12 Twelve of a Kind: 5x9, 5x10, 6x6, 6x7, 7x5, 7x6, 8x3, 8x4, 9x2, 9x3, 10x1, 10x2, 11x1, 12x0, 12x1, 13x0

Date: Mon Jul 13 18:43:09 2020
User: The_Inquisitor
Message:
If you have a streak going in any of these variants, and you lose a game in that variant during this Hot Streak, do you lose your streak?

Date: Mon Jul 13 18:50:53 2020
User: MrFixit
Message:
Oh no, you never lose a streak! How about a mode called Groundhog Day where you get the same game over and over and you just see how many times you can win it in 30 minutes?

Date: Mon Jul 13 19:04:47 2020
User: joeygray
Message:
Lol!

Date: Mon Jul 13 19:43:58 2020
User: rbw--3
Message:
If there's no set time and everyone gets the same games, people could sign on to a different user after playing through.

Date: Mon Jul 13 19:48:34 2020
User: Denny
Message:
Good catch rbw. I think we're currently talking about having a random selection of games but the variant stays the same for a given day so we wouldn't hit that.

Date: Mon Jul 13 21:10:50 2020
User: free@last
Message:
I hope when this gets going you'll have JSON for it so hop or Joey or I can make up some new competition from it. :)

Date: Mon Jul 13 23:00:23 2020
User: redberet
Message:
Clever minds are never idle.

Date: Wed Jul 15 20:45:00 2020
User: Denny
Message:
I'm leaning towards only having winnables so you don't get on a nice run and then get clobbered. Also, I'm going to bias towards easier because I don't think we need another elite-only feature. I'm hoping to have something that appeals to the broader user base here even if it leaves the hard-code folks a bit cold. Denny

Date: Wed Jul 15 21:35:56 2020
User: Oded789
Message:
The set of winnables is harder than most variants with a win rate of 99% or higher. 4x10, 5x8, 6x5 or even 9x2 aren't that appealing to the broader base. Leaning towards easier? Then take the easier ones of the pools above (with a few additions), 12 to 14-sum games: 13x1, 13x0, 12x1, 11x2, 11x1, 10x3, 10x2, 9x5, 9x4, 9x3, 8x5, 8x4, 7x7, 7x6, 7x5, 6x8, 6x7, 5x10, 5x9. Something like that.

Date: Wed Jul 15 21:41:49 2020
User: Oded789
Message:
Yeah I know there's also one 15-sum variant there. 6x9 is an additional option. But this relatively easy narrows are a minority in the proposed set anyway.

Date: Thu Jul 16 04:29:30 2020
User: Denny
Message:
good points. but i’d also like to try to avoid the sheer “how fast can you click” stuff. maybe just 12 and 13 sum games.

Date: Thu Jul 16 09:28:35 2020
User: free@last
Message:
Hopefully you'll get some stats that show what is more/less popular. Maybe do something like NY Times crossword. Monday is easiest, harder each day through Saturday then Sunday is big puzzle. Just an idea to file away. Hamster wheel needs grease.

Date: Thu Jul 16 11:21:52 2020
User: MrFixit
Message:
That's another good idea. I'm going to have daily game generation decoupled from the server so we can fiddle with it. Tournament stuff is currently decoupled too but it's a tangle of game generation, schedule and theme, and web page with user schedule so it's tended to be more cast-in-stone than I'd like. I think WRAC maybe originally owned the schedule page and the generation logic. Some rainy day I'll concoct some JSON representation tha I can use to generate the schedule and drive cron/generation logic.

Date: Thu Jul 16 11:29:24 2020
User: firenze
Message:
Rainy day?? In Arizona??

Date: Thu Jul 16 13:29:18 2020
User: jimmyp
Message:
There's nothing wrong with an occasional click-fest. You still have to win every game. Maybe not 16-sum but 14-sum games are still losable if you are clicking as fast as you can.

Date: Thu Jul 16 20:29:14 2020
User: Denny
Message:
How about I let one of you gen the games? I'll put up a UI that lets you select the next 30 days of games or something like that. Then I don't get blamed! Denny

Date: Fri Jul 17 14:13:00 2020
User: Oded789
Message:
I'm writing in this thread on purpose. Well, if you take my suggestion of 13x1, 13x0, 12x1, 11x2, 11x1, 10x3, 10x2, 9x5, 9x4, 9x3, 8x5, 8x4, 7x7, 7x6, 7x5, 6x9, 6x8, 6x7, 5x10, 5x9 and add the harder w7x4, w8x3, w9x2 that covers almost a month even if you do one each. And then the more popular ones can appear twice as often. (the 13x0, 12x1, 11x1 could be of the winnable kind if you insist)

Date: Mon Jan 11 10:21:09 2021
User: Oded789
Message:
Only less than 5 months in, the innovation seems to be sadly and rapidly declining. From 70-90 players daily early on (with a record 95 in one day), we got down to 40-45 a month ago, and now we're struggling to break 30. It's like a new toy has been brought to the freecell store and the old one was cast aside.

Date: Mon Jan 11 11:06:29 2021
User: ElGuapo
Message:
I'm hopeful that will pick back up in a couple of weeks. Ratings are getting attention only because they move so much in the early going. Once they're established there's really nothing to do about them and hopefully people rediscover HotStreak.

Date: Sat Mar 13 05:17:45 2021
User: sprucegoose
Message:
These hot-streak, which I only discovered about a week ago, are all supposed to be winnable? I can't seem to get started on today's 12x0. Game #: 15779 Game stats: 7/0/0.00% Difficulty: 6 I thought I saw a line of attack, but it required one freecell, and it's late and I'm sleepy.

Date: Sat Mar 13 09:20:45 2021
User: Uberman
Message:
No, the Hot Streak games are only winnable if the variant is one of the following:- 4x10, 5x8, 6x5, 7x4, 8x3, 9x2, 10x1, 11x1, 12x1 or 13x0. Other variants, such as today's, are just going to be a bit of a lottery I'm afraid, like it would be if you were playing any other 'non-winnable' variant.

Date: Tue Oct 19 18:38:51 2021
User: Dr.Bombay
Message:
I (mistakenly) thought averaging less than 60-seconds per game in 7x5-2 in Today's hot streak would be competitive. Definitely wrong on that one. Looks like you should be aiming for around 30-seconds per deal to compete with the top speed players, not 60.

Date: Wed Oct 20 17:26:41 2021
User: calicokid
Message:
Good to know, lol.

Date: Fri Jul 15 22:36:27 2022
User: Kaos
Message:
Nice to see I’m ahead in the one-attempt hot streak for today. Definitely some very challenging deals in 9x1, even at climate level one.

Date: Sat Aug 13 17:32:16 2022
User: rbw--3
Message:
Just an opinion, but when there's a tie for the number of games in a streak, the ranking should be the person with the least number of tries first followed by the time of the streak. This is todays ranking so far: # User Start Streak Elapsed **** Tries**** 1. _.!._ 14:15 11 22:30 791 2. Uberman 04:30 11 24:56 1

Date: Sat Aug 13 17:34:00 2022
User: rbw--3
Message:
format was lost when I hit post - games won are both 11 tries are 791 vs 1.

Date: Sat Aug 13 21:02:26 2022
User: HopDiriDiriDattiriDittiriDom
Message:
" the ranking should be the person with the least number of tries first followed by the time of the streak. This is todays ranking so far: " I provide the results for those who attempts once. Check the link. Heading says "multiple" and to the bottom there is a link to switch to "Solo" Then go to "Podiums". Uberman is listed first. All other stats are adjusted for those who attempt once. Go to "Players" for example. calicokid has 98 records for "Solo" and 120 in "Multiple".

Link: Hotstreak results.

Date: Sun Aug 14 01:31:02 2022
User: Uberman
Message:
To be honest, I'm kind of impressed that someone has made 791 attempts! I probably would've gotten bored after about 591.

Date: Sun Aug 14 06:58:47 2022
User: ElGuapo
Message:
Except they weren't real "attempts." He's giving up game after game the moment it loads. He just added a fake loss to 2% of the level 10 games, in one day. I really, really wish it would stop.

Date: Sun Aug 14 08:22:32 2022
User: rbw--3
Message:
Maybe looks at where the aces are a quits if not positioned well.

Date: Fri Oct 28 15:29:26 2022
User: Dr.Bombay
Message:
This was a tough deal to get when you are trying to catch calicokid in today's 4x9-3 hot streak: Game: 4x9 18244-3 Game stats: 4/1/25% Player Elo: n/a Elapsed: 3:10 I'm guessing if I stared at it for fifteen minutes or so I might be able to win it first time but then what would be the point?

Date: Fri Oct 28 16:13:21 2022
User: calicokid
Message:
Not sure how I got as many as I did. I have been using 4x9 difficulty 12 to rebuild my ELO, so maybe some of that paid off? It's a very frustrating variant for me, right up there with 6x6, I don't know what it is but those two really give me the fits.

Date: Fri Oct 28 17:51:31 2022
User: Dr.Bombay
Message:
"Not sure how I got as many as I did...." lol. One of the things I resisted forever in playing tournaments is just jumping in with whatever approach hits you first. It's clear your instincts are first-rate, ck. So, then all you need is for Denny to send you a bunch of deals that suit your instincts. That said, streaking in 4x9 vs. hot streaking in 4x9 are very different in deals like the one I got there. All four attempts were mine. There are two very-low red cards buried all the way down. You can't get to either with a blitz. There are just three approaches when you are crunched for time: 1) gamble that you can get to the diamonds, 2) gamble that you can get to the hearts, 3) gamble that if you build up enough black cards, the red log-jam will break.

Date: Wed Nov 30 01:48:27 2022
User: Uberman
Message:
aschdog, winning 6 of the last 8 Hot Streaks, appears to be on a.....wait for it.....hot streak. He/she doesn't seem to be playing tournaments anymore (6th on the All-Time list), so looks like HS is getting their focus these days.

Date: Mon Jan 29 01:38:40 2024
User: Uberman
Message:

Is Hot Streak glitched today or nah? Showing the same variant as yesterday like it's not updated properly, but not showing the variant on the leaderboard(?)

Date: Mon Jan 29 09:11:14 2024
User: rbw--3
Message:
Seems glitched. I clicked through without paying attention and lost my 3rd place from yesterday.

Date: Mon Jan 29 09:21:38 2024
User: GoAdoptADog!
Message:

Maybe I broke it playing it all day yday.

Kept starting over trying to keep each game at a minute or less, before wound up going to bed with like one or none, lol. I don’t think hot streak can handle my ocd w this game.

It prob gave up and is seeking employment over in solitaire land. 

Date: Mon Jan 29 11:20:48 2024
User: JackStraw
Message:

Played it again last night and got same score as previous day

although I don't think it registered

Date: Fri Apr 26 01:27:18 2024
User: Uberman
Message:

Congrats on your first Hot Streak win GAAD! Some of those 10x1s are no (dog) walk in the park, fo' sho'.