Texas Hold'em Mafia (Day 3 - An Unexpected Twist)

[LaserGuy]

Texas Hold'em Mafia (Newbie Game)

In life we are all dealt cards
Some have it easier and some have it hard
But it’s all in how you play your hand
You can fold or you can raise and make a stand!

Rules:

Mod: LaserGuy
Speed: 7 days, nightless. Aim will be to have days end Tuesdays around 9-10 am PST and the new day begin around 1pm PST.
Bastardry: None. Semi-open setup.

Standard Rules:

Spoiler:

1. Do not talk about the game outside of this thread, apart from a properly labeled spoiler in the discussion thread.
2. Please stay on topic at all times.
3. Lurking is frowned upon; if you need to drop out, please let me know as soon as possible. If someone feels that another player isn't contributing to game play, please make me aware. Modkills will be handed out if replacement cannot be found without regard to balance.
4. If you aren't part of this game, please do not post in the thread.
5. Once the day phase has ended, do not post in the thread.
6. You may not quote the contents of any PM related to this game, but you can paraphrase.
7. If you have been killed in game, don't say anything for the rest of the game.
8. You may not use encryption systems in order to communicate privately or circumvent these rules.
9. You may not edit your posts unless explicitly told to do so by the mod (which is not in any way expected to happen).
10. You cannot ruin the game for other players.
11. You must play to achieve your win condition.
12. Please make an effort to include the mods on all PMs. Mistakes happen but make me aware if they do.

Voting rules:

Spoiler:

1. To vote for a player, please write: Vote: <player> on a separate line.
2. You may unvote a player using Unvote, but you are not required to do so to change your vote.
3. If a player secures more than 50%+ of the total available votes, they will be hammered. The day phase will end immediately.
4. The lynched player’s role PM will be revealed at the start of the next day phase.

SPECIAL NEWBIE TIPS/ADVICE:

Spoiler:

1. Be active! Talk to people and engage in discussion. Don’t worry about being right or wrong. The more you talk, the better you’ll play!
2. The mafiascum website here is a great resource for learning mafia terms and strategy. Feel free to PM the mod or ask any of the players here questions if you need assistance.
3. The GoJoe Memorial Thread here is a place where players can go to post their private thoughts about the game. Any post in this thread marked as part of Poker or Texas Hold’em mafia should be considered a game spoiler and MUST NOT BE READ until you are dead or the game is over. Feel free to post your thoughts in GoJoe if you wish, but you are not required to.
4. If you wish to sort posts by author to see only the posts of one player, please scroll to the bottom of the page and click the indicated location.
   
5. Searching for posts by player name is STRONGLY DISCOURAGED as spoilers posted in GoJoe will be unmarked in this search feature.
6. Note that you are not allowed to edit your posts.

Game Specific Rules (IMPORTANT: Please Read):

1. In general, game days will last for 7 days, starting at ~1:00pm Pacific Time and ending at ~9:00 am Pacific Time. Extensions will only be granted in the event of a replacement if the mod deems it necessary.
   
2. You may post in thread during the day phase but not the night phase. It is night as soon as the mod posts a day-end post, or a hammer vote is cast, in which case it is automatically night, whether or not a mod has made a day-end post. Note that this means you may not post content after a hammer vote.
   
3. Do not lurk! One post per real-life day is the recommended minimum. Consideration will be given for weekends and holidays. If you are going to be away for an extended period, please let me know. Otherwise, you will be prodded after 48 hours of inactivity. Failure to respond to a prod within 48 hours will result in a replacement or modkill.
   
4. In the event of a tied vote, the result will be No Lynch. Players may choose to vote No Lynch instead of casting a normal vote. If there is a tied vote between a player and No Lynch, then it is a No Lynch.
   
5. Any night actions must be sent by PM before the end of the day. It is your responsibility to ensure that your night action is submitted on-time. If a hammer vote is placed, there will be grace period of 24 hours, or until the normal end of the phase, whichever is shorter, to change your actions.
   
6. You can send backup actions but don't make the conditions too complicated. You can change your night action at any time up until the end of day.
   
7. Players with chat privileges may chat at any time in their private thread so long as they are alive, including during pregame and during the brief night phases.
   
8. Mafia will be given safe claims.
   
9. I will announce MYLO and LYLO. These conditions will be announced solely based on the number of players remaining in the game and will not take into account any powers or potential interactions between them.
   
10. Mod posts in bold are game posts. Everything in bold you may take as 100% true to the best of my knowledge. Posts in italics are flavor posts. These are simply there to tell the story. It is possible that some flavor may loosely reflect the current state of play, but you should not attempt to read any game-related information into flavor posts.

Players:

1. Zenii
2. Plytho
3. SuperJedi224
4. Mark_Cangila
5. Sabrar
6. Vicarin
7. mpolo
8. somitomi
9. moody7277
10. bessie
11. BoomFrog
12. wam

[LaserGuy]

SETUP DESCRIPTION:

This is a semi-open setup. It consists of 9 Town and 3 mafia.

Each player’s role PM will contain a playing card drawn from a standard 52 card deck. This corresponds to your role in the game. Players suited HEARTS, DIAMONDS, or CLUBS are always TOWN. Players suited SPADES are always MAFIA.

If you are TOWN, your role will be determined as follows:
2-10 - Vanilla Town
Jack - Town Gunsmith
Queen - Town Tracker
King - Town Vigilante
Ace - Town Innocent Child/Mason*

(If Town draws a single Ace, they will be an Innocent child; multiple Aces will form a mason group).

Thus the Town can consist of 0-3 gunsmiths, 0-3 trackers, 0-3 vigilantes, and 0-3 innocent child/masons, with the remainder made up by Vanilla Town.

If you are MAFIA, your role will be determined as follows:

2-10 - Mafia Goon
Jack - Mafia Odd-Night Jack-of-all-Trades
Queen - Mafia Even-Night Roleblocker
King - Mafia Two-shot Rolestopper
Ace - Mafia Vanilla Cop

Thus MAFIA may have 0-1 of any of the list power roles. In the event that Town receives equal or fewer PRs than mafia will be considered a misdeal and the cards will have been redealt.

Note that roles are not unique, but cards are.

Night actions will be resolved in the following order:
Roleblock, Rolestop, Doctor, Kill, Vanilla Cop, Rolecop, Gunsmith, Tracker. Actions in the same position will be processed simultaneously (e.g. if two players attempt to kill each other, both will die).

Role PMs:

Vanilla Town:

Spoiler:

You are the <Card> of <suit>

You are Vanilla Town

Powers
-You have no powers except your vote

You are aligned with Town and win when all threats to Town have been wiped out.

Town Gunsmith:

Spoiler:

You are the Jack of <suit>

You are a Town Gunsmith.

Powers
-Each night, you may target a player. You will receive a result of “Has a gun” if they have the capacity to kill. You will receive “Does not have a gun” if they do not. If your power fails for any reason, you will receive “No result”.

Specifically you will receive “Has a gun” on Mafia and Town vigilantes; you will receive “Does not have a gun” on all other Town.

You are aligned with Town and win when all threats to Town have been wiped out.

Town Tracker:

Spoiler:

You are the Queen of <suit>

You are a Town Tracker.

Powers
-Once per night, you may target a player. If that player visits another player during the night, you will be given the name of the player(s) that they visited. If they did not visit anyone, you will receive “Did not visit anyone”. If for any reason this ability fails, you will receive “No result”.

You are aligned with Town and win when all threats to Town have been wiped out.

Town Vigilante:

Spoiler:

You are the King of <suit>

You are a Town Vigilante.

Powers
-Once per night, you may target a player. That player will be killed and removed from the game unless they are somehow protected or your ability is blocked.

You are aligned with Town and win when all threats to Town have been wiped out.

Town Innocent Child:

Spoiler:

You are the Ace of <suit>

You are a Town Innocent Child

Powers
-At any point during the day phase, you may send a PM to the mods indicating you wish to activate your power, and you will be mod-confirmed as Town to all players. We may not be able to respond instantaneously to your request, so please plan accordingly with respect to game deadlines or hammer votes.

You are aligned with Town and win when all threats to Town have been wiped out.

Town Mason:

Spoiler:

You are the Ace of <suit>

You are a Town Mason

Powers
-You have chat with <player(s)> and may communicate with them in your private QT here <link> at any time.
-<players> are confirmed Town to you, and you are to them.

You are aligned with Town and win when all threats to Town have been wiped out.

Mafia Goon:

Spoiler:

You are the <Card> of Spades

You are Mafia Goon

Powers
-You have a factional kill that one member of your faction may use each night to kill a player of your choice.
-You have chat with <players> and may communicate with them in your private QT here <link> at any time.

You are aligned with Mafia and win when mafia controls half of the votes or nothing can prevent this from occurring.

Mafia Odd-Night Jack-of-all-Trades

Spoiler:

You are the Jack of Spades

You are Mafia Odd-Night Jack of All Trades

Powers
-You have a factional kill that one member of your faction may use each night to kill a player of your choice.
-On ODD numbered nights (N1, N3, N5), you may choose to use one of the following powers. Each power may only be used once per game. You may use this in addition to your regular night kill.
--One shot roleblocker. Target a player. Any actions they attempt to take during the night will be blocked
--One shot doctor. Target a player. Any killing actions targeting that player will fail.
--One shot rolecop. Target a player. You will learn that player’s role. If for some reason this is blocked, you will receive “No result”.
-You have chat with <players> and may communicate with them in your private QT here <link> at any time.

You are aligned with Mafia and win when mafia controls half of the votes or nothing can prevent this from occurring.

Mafia Even-Night Roleblocker

Spoiler:

You are the Queen of Spades

You are Mafia Even-Night Roleblocker

Powers
-You have a factional kill that one member of your faction may use each night to kill a player of your choice.
-You are a roleblocker. On even nights (N2, N4, N6), you may target a player. Any actions they attempt to take during the night will be blocked. This may be used in addition to your factional kill.
-You have chat with <players> and may communicate with them in your private QT here <link> at any time.

You are aligned with Mafia and win when mafia controls half of the votes or nothing can prevent this from occurring.

Mafia 2-shot Rolestopper

Spoiler:

You are the King of Spades

You are Mafia 2-shot Rolestopper

Powers
-You have a factional kill that one member of your faction may use each night to kill a player of your choice.
-Each night, you may choose to target a player. Any non-killing actions that target that player will fail. You may use this ability only twice per game.
-You have chat with <players> and may communicate with them in your private QT here <link> at any time.

You are aligned with Mafia and win when mafia controls half of the votes or nothing can prevent this from occurring.

Mafia Vanilla Cop

Spoiler:

You are the Ace of Spades

You are Mafia Vanilla Cop

Powers
-You have a factional kill that one member of your faction may use each night to kill a player of your choice.
-Each night, you may choose to target a player. You will receive a result of “Not Vanilla” if that player holds a face card or ace, regardless of suit. Otherwise, you will receive a result of “Vanilla”. If for some reason this ability is blocked, you will receive a result of “No result”
-You have chat with <players> and may communicate with them in your private QT here <link> at any time.

You are aligned with Mafia and win when mafia controls half of the votes or nothing can prevent this from occurring.

[LaserGuy]

Role PMs are out. Please confirm receipt of role PM in thread. Game will start once 10/12 have confirmed.

[wam]

Confirm

[Sabrar]

Confirm

[moody7277]

Shuffle up and deal.

[plytho]

Confirm

[somitomi]

Confirm

[Zenii]

Confirm.

[Vicarin]

Confirm

[SuperJedi224]

Confirm.

[bessie]

Confirm.

[BoomFrog]

Confirm

[LaserGuy]

Announcer:
“Hello and welcome to the final table of the International Poker Expo. I’m your host, Kipp Bird. Today we have a very exciting event where twelve players will each have a chance to win that life-changing one million dollar first prize. Joining me today in our coverage is our very special guest, Canadian International Master François Dupont.”

François:
“Merci, Kipp, je suis tellement excité d’être ici aujourd’hui.”

Kipp:
“Um, this is an English stream François.”

François:
“Oh, désolé. Ah, I am happy to be being here with you, Kipp.”

Kipp:
“Now, François, what do you expect to see today?”

François:
“Kipp, I think we will see a variety of different playstyles here today. I expect to see the higher rated players will probably try to assert their dominance early, maybe with a more daring opening to try to get a win against the more inexperienced player. Inexperienced players will try to play a quiet, solid game, usually.”

Kipp:
“And what approach would you be taking if you were playing today?”

François:
“Oh for certain I would play aggressively. If I were White in my first game, I would be eying the Grand Prix attack or the Morra Gambit. As Black I often play the Geschev Gambit to open a tournament. It is very sharp and is a sideline that few players know.”

Kipp:
“Um… what are you talking about?”

François:
“My favorite openings in chess, just as you asked.”

Kipp:
“Chess?! What about Texas Hold’em?”

François:
“What is Texas Hold’em?”

Kipp:
“Poker?”

François:
“Je ne comprends pas.”

Kipp:
“I thought you were an International Master?”

François:
“I am. I am one of the top rated Canadian chess players and was asked to comment on this event.”

Kipp:
“But this is a poker tournament.”

François:
“Mon Dieu. C’est incroyable que ce crétin puisse perdre mon temps avec ce merde.”

Kipp:
“Um, okay folks, we’re experiencing some technical difficulties here at the booth, so why don’t we just get the game underway and we’ll get back to you.”

Security:
“Excuse me.”

Kipp:
“Who are you?”

Security:
“I’m from security. We’ve just received a tip that members of the spade mafia have entered this event.”

Kipp:
“It’s a poker tournament. Half the players are gangsters or criminals.”

Security:
“We believe that they may be colluding with each other to win the prize.”

Kipp:
“Well, we’ll tell the players to keep an eye out and report anything suspicious. For now, shuffle up and deal!”


Day 1 has begun. With 12 alive, it is 7 to hammer. Deadline is Wednesday October 17 at 9:00 AM PST (UTC -8)

[wam]

vote sabrar

Might as well prempt 8 pages of arguing.

So setup speculation I'm guessing 9-3 (irony).

Welcome all newbies!

[BoomFrog]

Hey ya'll. Sorry I confirmed late and made everyone wait overnight. Hopefully our two remaining players have not been lost to the void. Although since the setup is so randomized, one or two random modkills D1 doesn't actually change the balance of the game I think.

[BoomFrog]

Welcome to the game SuperJedi224. Do you have previous experience playing mafia?

[SuperJedi224]

Welcome to the game SuperJedi224. Do you have previous experience playing mafia?

Yes.


Now let me find a d12... OK.

vote vicarin

[LaserGuy]

@SuperJedi: I'm not positive that you did this or if I'm just not paying close attention, but please note that you are not allowed to edit your posts. If you want to add more to a post, do it in a separate post.

[SuperJedi224]

@SuperJedi: I'm not positive that you did this or if I'm just not paying close attention, but please note that you are not allowed to edit your posts. If you want to add more to a post, do it in a separate post.

I'll keep that in mind going forward then.

[somitomi]

Vote: BoomFrog
I've been waiting all day, dammit.

[Sabrar]

Welcome SuperJedi! Hope you'll enjoy your stay with us.

Some math on what to expect:
04% chance of Town having 1 PR
27% chance of Town having 2 PR-s
37% chance of Town having 3 PR-s
23% chance of Town having 4 PR-s
08% chance of Town having 5 PR-s

35% chance of scum having 0 PR-s
52% chance of scum having 1 PR
13% chance of scum having 2 PR-s

Food for thought: if any player ever claims a face-card to avoid getting lynched then s/he should simultaneously reveal the suit as well.

Vote: wam

I missed doing this last game so much...

[BoomFrog]

Vote: SuperJedi224

Trying too hard to emphasis the meaninglessness of their random vote indicates a paranoia about meaning being attached to their action.

[Sabrar]

Oh really? And you didn't find wam's "(irony)" equally suspicious?

[BoomFrog]

Oh really? And you didn't find wam's "(irony)" equally suspicious?

I don't get why he said "irony" now that I think about it.

[moody7277]

It seems to me that setup spec like what wam did when in an open, newbie friendly setup is redundant, hence the "irony". Sabrar crunching the numbers is much more constructive.

Vote: somitomi

for being so good being scum last game.

[plytho]

Food for thought: if any player ever claims a face-card to avoid getting lynched then s/he should simultaneously reveal the suit as well.

Thought: how does that help against safe claims?

Vote: Mark_Cangila

I've been scum with him so I don't need a lot to read him.

Also, I'm super busy this week and weekend so I'll have a very slow D1.

[Mark_Cangila]

Confirm

Vote: Sabrar
The irony was self explanatory.

[Sabrar]

Thought: how does that help against safe claims?

Just think about it for a little while.

[Vicarin]

I'd gone to the effort to work out a bunch of the stats yesterday, and then Sabrar scoops my results. Bah. Well, posting what I had yesterday, to confirm that his numbers look pretty much correct. Spoilered for length.

Spoiler:

Ok, so, the percentage probabilities for the different setups that can occur are, in terms of (Town PRs, Mafia PRs) (Horrible formatting because I just copy pasted results from 10^5 simulated setups and couldn't be bothered to format them).

4.4920 0 0 0
9.7172 16.9535 0 0
10.9203 18.5310 7.0346 0
6.7628 11.3189 4.3688 0.3322
2.3384 4.0041 1.4579 0.1172
0.4493 0.7718 0.2561 0.0229
0.0471 0.0737 0.0266 0
0.0024 0.0012 0 0

Top left is 1 town PR, 0 scum PRs, then each row downwards increases the town PRs by 1, and each column to the right increases scum PRs by 1.

If you're a town PR (with no other info), then the probabilities are:

1.4581 0 0 0
6.3084 11.0063 0 0
10.6342 18.0455 6.8503 0
8.7809 14.6964 5.6725 0.4313
3.7953 6.4986 2.3662 0.1902
0.8751 1.5032 0.4987 0.0447
0.1070 0.1674 0.0604 0
0.0063 0.0031 0 0

If you are vanilla town, then the probabilities of each get adjusted to:

6.0710 0 0 0
11.4914 20.0488 0 0
11.0692 18.7837 7.1305 0
5.7125 9.5610 3.6903 0.2806
1.5802 2.7058 0.9852 0.0792
0.2277 0.3912 0.1298 0.0116
0.0159 0.0249 0.0090 0
0.0004 0.0002 0 0

Trying to work out the probabilities for what information you have if you're an innocent child or Mason in particular is rather annoying, so I'm probably not going to bother.

If you're mafia, just ask and I'll post the probabilities from that point of view

Overall, the most useful information to be obtained from this is that town on average has 3.08 PRs and Mafia has 0.8. If you're a PR, then there's still on average 2.45 other PRs out there, while if you're vanilla, you can expect a total of 2.89 PRs instead.

Mafia have the advantage of knowing a lower bound on the number of PRs we have, but in most setups, it won't give them terribly much information, so that's nice.

Funnily enough, I was wondering if we should go further than the suit claim on claiming a PR (which I think is clearly a good idea): is it beneficial for everyone to claim their suits D1?

[Vicarin]

Vote: plytho

Pretty sure he's scum.

[Mark_Cangila]

I also don't understand how the face card suit thing works.
@Sabrar: Please explain as much as possible without ruining the method.

[Vicarin]

He's saying that if someone claims a face card (e.g I claim I have a King - I'm a vig) then they should also simultaneously claim their suit at the same time (e.g I claim I'm the King of Hearts).

[Vicarin]

Also,

@SuperJedi: why'd you use a D12?

[Mark_Cangila]

I mean I don't understand how it is supposed to help with safe claims. Also, what is D12?

[Vicarin]

I'll let Sabrar explain that when he wants to seeing as I'm pretty interested in seeing people's responses too.

A d12 is a 12-sided die, the terminology most commonly comes from Dungeons and Dragons players.

[SuperJedi224]

@SuperJedi: why'd you use a D12?

Because I don't own any d11s.

[Vicarin]

You actually rolled a physical d12? Huh.

[Zenii]

Welcome to the game SuperJedi224. Do you have previous experience playing mafia?

Yes.

How much?

We should claim suits now. There's no down side. Well there is one, but it's minuscule. The advantage of reducing scums' flexibility wrt claiming is greater.

[Vicarin]

Oh yeah, forgot to put in an important part of the stats I calculated: if you're a gunsmith, there's on average about 2/3rds of a vigilante, meaning that a positive result is mafia about 9/11ths of the time, ignoring all other factors. Hence, gunsmiths should be pretty trusting of a positive result in general.

@Zenii: I don't know if I'd call it miniscule, but yeah, I think the benefits are worth it. Good to see you back properly too