WoV Golden Balls Challenge

Quote: TIMSPEED

I'm glad to see my strategy of having the fewest winners worked.
Finsrule, you can thank me later, lol.

The only strategy you really had was to guarantee that you would finish out of the money.

Quote: RaleighCraps

Throw in my Fed option, where a Fed play causes the Steal to lose, and now you can have some serious head games going on.

I think your suggestion degrades the game into a random "rock, paper, scissors" game. Not too interesting in my opinion.

Well, shoot, if I knew almost nobody was going to be donating to The Wiz's charity, I wouldn't have done so, either! I just didn't want to look like an @$$hole for not helping contribute to the next prize pool!

Quote: SOOPOO

I think I read Mission is donating $50 to a leukemic girl. Mission, would you NOT have made a $50 donation had you not won?

I did not know that I was going to win $50 until the fourth round partnerships were announced. I have put a ten-spot in the bucket already, and at one point, I anticipated the win was going to be $18, so I was going to have The Wiz put some money on the Hard-4 and see if I could multiply it, and if not, I was going to just donate the $18 if it lost.

In the meantime, since The Wiz is matching donations to his selected charity for the next prize pool, I have chosen to do that instead, and will donate $50 to the girl with leukemia directly since I don't feel very good about taking my winnings from this contest away from her.

You know, the idea of donating to the Wiz's charity or not is actually split/steal one more time. If you share with his charity, everyone gets a bit more in the pool for the next game. If you "steal" and go for your own take, the pool for the next game isn't increased. Though in this case, there's no real bad effects if you do or don't split for yourself.

Quote: Ayecarumba

I also offer my congratulations to the winners. I am very curious about the process leading up to the decision to steal. Was it Wong Bo going it alone, or was there a vote? If a vote, was it unanimous?

I would like to thank everyone for the congratulations. I will detail how I ended up being one of the winners, at least until the last round, because it seems that WongBo does not wish to discuss the last round at this time.

FinsRule (Round 1): Bribery. FinsRule seemed to be strongly of the impression that I was going to steal given my comments, in-thread. I tried to convice him that I would never be foolish enough to steal in the first round, but he wasn't having it. Ultimately, I told him that if he were to share and I stole, then I would pay him $25 directly, that way he would know that I was sharing. It was a gambit in that he would now know that I basically had to share, but I think he also realized that stealing from me in Round 1 would give him nearly no chance of survival in later rounds.

TheCessPit/WongBo (Round 2-Team Leader): Bribery. I explained to my opponents that the most they could win if they were to fly it solo for the rest of the game was $100/apiece, and it would be nearly impossible for anyone to trust them if they decided to steal in the second round. This being the case, I ran the same gambit and told them that if they were to share and I stole that I would pay them each $100, thereby virtually guaranteeing that I would share because, if not, the best I could do was break even flying it the rest of the way with FinsRule.

TimSpeed (Round 3-FinsRule Leader): FinsRule seemed to value my input in this round, and I was honestly very surprised because I thought that it was all over anyway and that TimSpeed would just steal again. My opinion was that FinsRule should just go ahead and steal on the off-chance that TimSpeed actually did share, (which he claimed he was going to do) but I simply told FinsRule that I thought TimSpeed was lying because, well, I thought he was lying.

Many People (Round 4-WongBo Leader): I was active in this Round. I will not give any details as WongBo seems to wish to remain mum at this point.

Quote: Mission146

TimSpeed (Round 3-FinsRule Leader): FinsRule seemed to value my input in this round, and I was honestly very surprised because I thought that it was all over anyway and that TimSpeed would just steal again. My opinion was that FinsRule should just go ahead and steal on the off-chance that TimSpeed actually did share, (which he claimed he was going to do) but I simply told FinsRule that I thought TimSpeed was lying because, well, I thought he was lying..

like I told FinsRule, I made the choice to split because I knew wasn't advancing, and if there was a TEAM1 split, I knew yall would STEAL from them...so I was basically ensuring shack would be paying out...
Fins actually offered me $20 to take the split...which was actually the correct expected value...but it was $200 or nothing for me...

Quote: paisiello

I think your suggestion degrades the game into a random "rock, paper, scissors" game. Not too interesting in my opinion.

It is close to rock, paper, scissors, BUT it is NOT the same game. That is mostly a random choice game.

With my suggestion, you still have the option of Share-Share, which does not exist in R-P-S.
Steal-Steal gets you both nowhere.
With my option ,if you KNOW your opponent is intent on stealing, then you still have an option, which in the current game you have NO option.

I'm not going to convince you to like my addition to the game, but it most certainly is not a random R-P-S degredation.

Quote: RaleighCraps

With my suggestion, you still have the option of Share-Share, which does not exist in R-P-S.
Steal-Steal gets you both nowhere.
With my option ,if you KNOW your opponent is intent on stealing, then you still have an option, which in the current game you have NO option.

So what? Maybe you know your opponent is going to choose "paper", too. I think it is the same difference.

$125 of the $200 was donated to charity, and matched to the Golden Balls II prize fund.

I'd be interested to hear from the two team captains about what went into the decision to share/steal.

A tad narcisstic or merily cystic. Either way you choose its all the same in the end.

Quote: Mission146

What I Think Will Happen

TimSpeed has shown that he does not need to share, however, he obviously needs our team to share in order to advance. Given his questions about the EV of his portion of the game, it is clear that he wants to advance and collect rather than have the $200 added to the prize pool for the children next game.

TimSpeed needs us to share...

Interesting.

My theory is that TimSpeed will offer FinsRule half of whatever he (TimSpeed) wins in order to compel FinsRule to share. FinsRule would really have little reason to decline this offer because, if TimSpeed elects to steal, then we are gone anyhow. TimSpeed's proposition would be simple, "Half of what I may win, or a guaranteed nothing." Furthermore, even if TimSpeed did share with our team, then each Member of our team would be talking $40, Max, whereas TimSpeed can win up to the full $200 flying it alone which would result in $100 for FinsRule.

It's your honor and your choice, FinsRule, but if you are going to be an honorable man, you must steal from TimSpeed. TimSpeed, you can compensate for your earlier transgressions against you fellow man...knowing we are going to steal...by advancing us and choosing to share. It's up to you guys.

FinsRule, if TimSpeed does make that offer...of thirty pieces of silver....

Will you really hang your team on this Cross of Golden Balls?