History of guessing

At the end of this post, having stream-of-consciousness-style rambled about things for a few paragraphs, I’m going to invite readers to maybe prevent me making a rule change that I might regret, so do read on!

Long term players will remember how it used to be, of course, when it comes to guessing. Newer players might only know the way it is now. As I type, in 2019, players make their guess from a list of items that contains only those things that actually appear in the calendar. It has been this way for a few years, having evolved – the first time a list appeared was in 2013 and that contained 36 items, i.e. anything up to twelve (I can’t remember exactly how many) red herrings. This was decreased to 30 items (i.e. up to six red herrings) the next year, and then down to the current zero red herrings system in 2015. It has been that way ever since, and I am, broadly speaking, a fan. One stage I would like to take it to, and might well do for next year, is to include a single red herring – this would give everyone a choice to make on day 24; I think it is possibly a weakness of the system that anyone paying attention can gain themselves 24 points on the final day. That said, to do this might not be compatible with the next thing I’d like to turn my attention to, and this is the main point of this post.

Currently guesses are hidden from everyone – including the players that made them – after the 18th day. I reasoned that it didn’t matter if you didn’t know your own guess, as you could simply assess what you’d want it to be and submit it again. The reason the guesses were hidden in the first place was to prevent a situation where a player could secure a victory simply by matching the guess of the players behind them in the table rather than guessing “properly”. In the current days where everyone normally ends up on the same guess by the end anyway this is probably rather redundant, and in any case, if you have established a lead then maybe this could be seen as a reward for doing so? In any event it’s unlikely just one player (especially on the current scoring system) will be close behind and you can’t neutralise the guess of more than one player at once anyway…

So I guess I am giving provisional notice of two changes: (1) to be implemented this year: I am proposing that guesses are no longer hidden after day 18 as I assess that it is largely redundant to do so, and (2) to be implemented from 2020 onwards: to add one dummy item to the selection list to give players a choice to make on day 24.

There are surely side-effects to these choices that I haven’t thought through, so please leave comments (either for or against) if you have an opinion on the above. Much appreciated, thank you!