What makes a good player?

[sann0638]

So, having seen that Lycos won poo bowl with a team that he's "not very good at", I was just wondering what makes a good player? Why is it that some people win lots of tournaments? There is an obvious comparison with chess, in that good players are good because they:
a) know openings (equivalent to knowing how to set up)
b) can think many moves ahead and analyse what might happen
c) have lots of experience, so know what might happen in different situations

Are these things the bedrock, or is that it? I've left it to tournaments, because in league play things like inducements and team development play more a part.

Looking to pick people's brains to improve my own play.

Mike

[Grogmir]

Pretty much like playing all games, understand the rules, tactics and teams involved is a good start. Then play as many games as you can, practice really does make perfect.

However like all tourniments there will be people that put these all together better than others and more consistantly.

I've played Lycos in a Tourni (twice actually) and can tell you need is by far and away the best player I've played at the game. His use of defensive positioning and crowd pushing technique is of particular note. These I would suggest are at a more advanced level than others play at... but this isn't the whole story - he is also more consistent, stratigic (he once pushed me into score to give himself an extra turn to win the match + tourni, which he did.) and calm, far to many people get upset about or plan for bad dice.

THere's a saying in backgammon - the only important roll is the next one.

That's more than enough lycos lovin' from me.
Grog

[DoubleSkulls]

Lycos is pretty good, I taught him everything he knows

Good play is very often about understanding risk management and the consequences of things going wrong - and the risk reward ratios you are working to.

Its easy to say "do the no/very low risk stuff first and then the important stuff, and then the less important stuff in ascending order of risk" - which is what most good coaches do. The difference is understanding why you are doing that and therefore optimising the ordering of your moves and the risks should things go wrong.

Now its easy to interpret that last bit as "protect yourself" but it isnt' really. Really its about the price of failure and what opportunity cost are you willing to bear to protect yourself against a bad die roll.

e.g. moving a player next to the ball after a kick off. Now if you don't do this you've got an extra player on/near the LOS to help beat up your opponent - but you do it because if you a) turnover before picking up the ball or b) fail to pick up the ball the consequences are lower - and generally speaking the opportunity cost of having that player there is low - you've normally got enough players to get all your 2 dice blocks and a 2 dice blitz without them.

The classic mistake is not standing all your players up at the start of the turn and moving them somewhere. Now the reason coaches don't do this (other than absent mindedness) is because in their heads they see a better move for the player if they wait. So the opportunity cost for doing the no risk move of standing up is that you might be in a worse tactical position than if you waited for the position to change to get into the better position. So the trade off is that you overrate the importance of being in one position compared to the penalty of being of the floor should you turn over. In most instances the perception of the better move being worth waiting for is wrong - but making the call on when its better to stay on the ground is a difficult one to get right and the sign of a top coach.

Oh, and then there are placement and tactics which are important too.

[fen]

I'm going to boil this down to a single sentence.

"Being able to achieve the desired result in a turn with as few dice rolls as possible."

[rodders]

Assess Risk, Manage Risk roll as few dice as possible.

[polarbear]

Of course you can hone all of the aforementioned skills at the Porky Bowl 08

[Meradanis]

All those things that have been said are totally true. I want to add some more points:

Know your team ! I once went to a tourney with a team I haven't had time to play before. I managed to finish my paint job until the day before the tourney started, I've been proud of my nice minis, and lost nearly all of my games. You have to have some standard strategies with your team, like those chess opening moves. Otherwise, you'll make tactical errors, even if they're only small ones. But those small error will sum up, and you'll loose the game.

In my opinion, choosing the fitting race for the tourney is a big part of beeing able to win. You have to analzyse the format of the tournament, how much money for team building, how many skills, and also very important, when do you get those skills (before the tourney starts, or during play).
I'll give you an example: Normally, dark elves aren't the typical tournament winners. But let's assume the tourney is 1.100 mil, +5 skills in advance (so you're playing with the same team every game). Now you can play with five AG4 Blodgers, which really boosts this team. Botz Bembel Bowl (60 attendees) uses these rules, and last year, the final game has been DE vs DE.
If you're not sure about this stuff, just stick with the big 5: Undead, Dwarves, Orcs, Skaven and Wood Elves. Statistically, those 5 win more often than any other teams. And if you're not sure about your own choaching skills, don't choose Skaven or Wood Elves. They require a higher amount of experience.

And now I'll share you a secret. Nearly as important as beeing a good coach is plain old luck. What is luck ? Luck is a matter of timing !
I've seen a large tournament (6 games, more than 60 coaches) where a medium-grade player made his way up into the final game. He played worse than most of my league mates, but the kick-off results loved him. He took many unnecessary risks, but his dice didn't fail him (until the final game). So medium-grade coaches can rock if they're more lucky than you.
But even if you're an expert coach, you need luck (=timing). Which races do you play against ? If I'm coaching Amazons and have to play 4/6 games against Dwarves, it's good night most of the times. What about my skill choices ? If you choose Tackle early on, but play against bashers only, you've got a waisted skill. And when do you face other expert coaches ? Playing swiss system, you will have to play against other winners if you won your matches. But you could draw an expert coach for the first game (bad for you), or play against medium-grade players later, who are ranked up high because they had some lucky games (generally good for you).
And of course there's still the luck/timing factor during your games. If two expert coaches face each other, normally those games end up with a draw, unless: One of them manages to roll more casualities/KO's early on, or one of them fails one of his crucial rolls (2+ Hand-off with Catch for the easy touchdown, double '1').

Don't get me wrong, beeing a very good coach gives you a better percentage of reaching the top tables. And if you're playing many tournaments, you'll manage to do so eventually. But without luck (and I don't mean above than average dice rolls, only better timing), you won't make it.

[sann0638]

Thanks for all the long posts (and plugs for Porky Bowl). What about knowing the teams that you come up against? Best to stick with one team to master it, or play with lots of teams to learn them? (or both? )

[Digger Goreman]

What about knowing the teams that you come up against? Best to stick with one team to master it, or play with lots of teams to learn them? (or both? )

Or play against them a lot.... The one time I played against a developed Woodie team I didn't figure out how to deal with leapers till after the game... and the defeat.... Next time... next time....

[Marlow]

Or play against them a lot.... The one time I played against a developed Woodie team I didn't figure out how to deal with leapers till after the game... and the defeat.... Next time... next time....

So how do you deal with leapers?
Wide cage, lots of guard players...

[tenwit]

Banana skins around the ball carrier.

The trick is to remember to pick them up before your turn.

[DDogwood]

And now I'll share you a secret. Nearly as important as beeing a good coach is plain old luck.

This cannot be overstated. Given fairly balanced teams, 90% of the time, the better coach will win at Blood Bowl, because he is better at managing his risks and exploiting his opponent's weaknesses. The other 10% of the time, Nuffle will conspire to make life miserable for him with bad kickoff results, unlucky deaths, and so on.

A good coach can mitigate the effect of rolling double skulls or having a player die inconveniently, but the greatest coach in the world can't win if he only rolls 1s and skulls.

I think that, after a certain point, coaching skill is a measure of how far down the bell-curve of luck you can be and still win games.

[Digger Goreman]

So how do you deal with leapers?
Wide cage, lots of guard players...

Time will tell... but I think a tight X formation (ball carrier center and at least two guards on opposite corners, all figs within 1 square of the ball carrier) might work best... that way he has 1/2d block...

or...

Put the ball carrier in the center of eight guys and say "Hey, wanna blitz all this?!" Wonder who would win the battle of the "pounds"...?

A little more seriously than #2: Get your league to go strictly by the book (challenge system), and every time possible slough off the Woodies to a Dwarf player... let the cheeses play the cheeses....

[ngoike]

What about knowing the teams that you come up against? Best to stick with one team to master it, or play with lots of teams to learn them?

I'd recommend finding a team you like, and get very comfortable/good with them first. As part of this I recommend playing against alot of other teams (Elves, Dwarves, Stunty, Orcs, etc...) so you can see both how other teams play and are successful.

Once you have built experience, there are many different reasons for playing other teams.

-A new challenge/getting bored with the same team
-To paint a new team
-You may want to try a new play style (finesse vs bashy) or a stunty team for fun
-Rules updates may change how a tam plays, and give you a reason to change
-Certain teams play better in certain formats, as has already been discussed, certain teams are more capable in certain tournament formats

If you plan on going to tournaments, I recommend having played against most teams at least a couple times. You don't want to have never played a unique team like nurgle, and have to learn at a tournament. Also make sure you have experience of how your team needs to play against the "popular" teams, like wood elves, orcs, skaven, dwarves, etc...[/quote]

[fen]

Time will tell... but I think a tight X formation (ball carrier center and at least two guards on opposite corners, all figs within 1 square of the ball carrier) might work best... that way he has 1/2d block...

or...

Put the ball carrier in the center of eight guys and say "Hey, wanna blitz all this?!" Wonder who would win the battle of the "pounds"...?

Keeping Guard players next to the ball carrier helps. But the main way I've stopped them is buy building mauls rather than cages. If you have a depth of 3 to 4 squares in your defence then it can be very problematic for a leaper to get in. You want to force them to make at least two 3+ or 4+ Dodges before they can get to leap in (or after they've lept).

It's easier to do this against most Elf coaches as they tend to do a lot of dodging away, which leaves you free to manuver into a looser formation that 'orbits' around the ball carrier rather than the 5-man-X. The looser formation also tends to give you a fouling op with 2-3 assists, just make sure the foul target (if they are inside your maul) doesn't have leap themselves - or make sure you can break armour.

Against the Elf teams who are willing to pin your key players by giving you blocks, well it can get tough to have enough free men. But those coaches are a rare breed. You have to aim to thin out those players who have you tied up before they swing in and go for popping the ball.

The other way is to spend your defensive drives terminating their leap players. Block, Tackle, Mighty Blow, Piling On and a DP foul is the best way to go if you choose that route.