Giving odds

Carln0130

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With brand new players you are just teaching so any handicap is sorta meaningless. With a player that has some experience under their belt, pick a scenario that is unbalanced and take the underdog side and maybe even give up the balance. This can make for a better game without playing for the other player. People learn best by doing. After the game, give feedback about what they did right or wrong. At Albany a friend of mine who is a strong gamer, but not a lot of ASL experience played a really good game and lost it because he pooched (not to be confused with the ASL player of the same name) the endgame. After the game he asked if his defense made sense. I told him he played a great game and just made a rookie mistake at the end. That lesson will be far more indelible than if someone had told him the moves to make as the game played out. JMHO...
Steve
This.
 

bendizoid

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I’m a Rhodes Scholar from the school of hard knocks.
 

Stewart

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With brand new players you are just teaching so any handicap is sorta meaningless. With a player that has some experience under their belt, pick a scenario that is unbalanced and take the underdog side and maybe even give up the balance. This can make for a better game without playing for the other player. People learn best by doing. After the game, give feedback about what they did right or wrong. A

I told him he played a great game and just made a rookie mistake at the end. That lesson will be far more indelible than if someone had told him the moves to make as the game played out. JMHO...
Steve
What I do with inexperienced players is when they are taking an action that is obviously a "rookie mistake" is to ask.... Are there other directions or options you can use to get that squad across the street? Why would you fire/not fire all of your SW at a target?

After we go over the pros and cons (DURING the GAME for INSTANT feedback), my opponent will choose whatever of the options were described, right or wrong.
And we continue. KNOWING all of your options is playing the game. If you don't know all of your options you are playing the game with all of your knowledge that you have accumulated.
The more knowledge, the more decisions. What decisions you make are solely based on your whims and desires.

I try to NEVER tell them to take a specific action, only point out...consequences...
 

lightspeed

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Has anyone ever tried giving someone odds before and if so what form did it take?
I'm going to answer by avoiding your question and making a few suggestions.

When helping someone else learn, I have given them the task of keeping track of the phases.
I look everything up (IFT and otherwise). Actually, I almost never look stuff up as most of it
is seared into my brain.

I will only suggest something after I ask the padawan what he thinks would be good to do,
and only if it's obviously (to me) a bad move. I've also let the padawan be the phasing player
on each turn. I find that they often will find their own mistakes that way.

When they wish to defend, I ask them to set up, and then sit in my seat so they can see their
defence from (literally) a different angle.

Good luck!

indy
 

Bad Dice

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Which brings things back to 'teaching'.

You learn best when you fall down hardest. You also learn about as well when you say to yourself, 'I'm learning this game'.

We've all found our most valuable lessons at the hands of opponents who beat the living dog-snot out of us. When you learn a game, or anything else, it's all about the dog-snot.

BD
 

Robin Reeve

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I beg to differ.
Good teaching is a balance between giving information, counsel and letting someone learn through experience.
Throwing people in the pool to teach them how to swim is a myth - and a dangerous one in this case.
 

Bad Dice

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Good teaching is also getting kicked in the head a couple of times, evaluating the experience, and pressing on.

This is not to say that your argument does not have validity, only that you learn best when the lesson comes at a price.

I hereby decree that all games of ASL should be played with a bowl of M&Ms at the ready. You do something good, you give yourself an M&M. You do something bad...you get the idea.


BD
 

Stewart

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Why do we give trophies to 17th place....

They need to be told they suck ass and if they want something, they need to WORK for it.
 

lightspeed

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Good teaching is also getting kicked in the head a couple of times, evaluating the experience, and pressing on.

This is not to say that your argument does not have validity, only that you learn best when the lesson comes at a price.

I hereby decree that all games of ASL should be played with a bowl of M&Ms at the ready. You do something good, you give yourself an M&M. You do something bad...you get the idea.


BD
I think you and Robin are really saying the same thing. It's the "evaluating the experience" part that is
important. Losing badly, in itself, is often not enough. It is now part of my postgame clean up phase
to try to have a discussion with my opponent about the match, and to stay away from discussions about
dice.

In fact, after my wife and I cook, we have a debrief. The standard question are "What did you like?" and
"What would you suggest for next time?"


indy
 

Robin Reeve

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I prefer to be right than rough.
When teaching a kid how to play soccer, I won't throw my 80 kg and all my strength in the contest.
But I won't play sloppy either.
 

Stewart

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What about winning.
"How do I lose the game is easy"
"How do I win the game" is what's necessary

Build on what is being done correctly.
Always telling what they do wrong isn't really the best method.

"Exit VC"
Managing CX status. Is he cx when engaging the enemy our does he come off AS he engaged.

Reading VC every turn.
Focus on objective.... Ask questions
Does it matter how many enemy we will
How many we lose?
Focus on the objective, proper resource usage comes with that.
 

Bad Dice

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Which is the point I was making. Win or lose, what's important is to look at how the scenario went, what you did wrong, did right; what went wrong and right, and how best to synthesize what you've learned into better overall game-play.


BD
 

TheSQLGuru

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This may not apply to more "normal" teaching situations, but when I was teaching my then 10-yo daughter to play Starter Kit, I did various forms of DRM modifications and Mulligans to give her a chance to "compete", have some positive outcomes and make it more "fun". I would make sure to explain how "doing dumb stuff" but having the dice make them seem awesome for any particular roll didn't actually make those silly plays better. The obverse was equally true. She is very intelligent though, and since I made her memorize the odds of 2d6 cumulative values as the first thing she did, she quickly grokked how important decision making using probabilities was. She still despised having to "learn" the rules though. :rolleyes: And her little-person brain just wanted to roll those dice, and wanted to avoid negative outcomes. Thus lots of prep fire, and less guys getting broken while they tried to move. :)

Over time she became better and better, and the "benefits" she got tapered off and eventually completely went away. At her peak she could regularly beat most adult players straight up, including yours truly on occasion. ? I am so happy she has decided to come back into the fold!!
 

holdit

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Over time she became better and better, and the "benefits" she got tapered off and eventually completely went away. At her peak she could regularly beat most adult players straight up, including yours truly on occasion. ? I am so happy she has decided to come back into the fold!!
Pretty much how golf handicapping works. :)
 
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