[Dixonary] Strategic votes

[Kathryn Lance]

Pardon my ignorance, but what are "strategic" votes? I have never tried to
use a strategy in voting, just read through the list of defs once or thrice,
and then pick the ones I think it might be. I'm almost always wrong,
however, and would appreciate learning some strategy for better voting.



KL





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Paul Keating]

Let me outline one way to go about strategic voting.

Rule 5 says you are to vote for the def(s) you think to be the true one.

That is a bad rule: firstly it is unenforceable (because what you think
cannot be determined), secondly it is woefully undemocratic (because it
seeks to interfere in your right to cast your votes as you see fit), and
thirdly you can't possibly think that more than one is true. This is not
1984. (You might think that two are _likely_ but the rule doesn't talk about
likelihood.)

Commonsense has prevailed, and the bit about voting for the def you think to
be the true one has, I'm glad to say, been ignored wholesale. Some players
routinely vote saying "randomly, 1 and 14" and nobody ever chips in to say
that voting randomly is against the rules, though, strictly speaking, it is.
Using a random number generator is obviously allowed, because nobody can
stop you, but _saying that you do_ is not allowed. Which is why it is a bad
rule.

So, now that we have that out of the way, why on earth would you vote for a
def you are sure is fake? Well, because your first aim in this game is to
achieve the second-highest score. Suppose there are two defs running
neck-and-neck to win. And suppose one of them is yours. A strategic option
is to vote for both of them. Your vote for your own def doesn't count, of
course, but other players don't know you've done that. So you put the other
player in the lead, but it looks to everyone else as though the two defs are
still running neck-and-neck.

Votes have a magnetic quality. If you vote early for your own def you will
get more votes than if you didn't. I can't explain it but it does work.

So, voting for the two leading defs, one of which is yours, will garner
extra votes for both (which you want, of course), and only you will know
that your def is one behind because one of the votes for it is yours and
doesn't count.

This stategy is likely to work well, unless the other def you voted for is
the true one, in which case you've cooked your own goose, because now you've
put yourself 2 points ahead of the competition.

So, the trick is to vote for defs that are doing nearly as well as yours,
but which you are pretty sure are fake. Or, if you're not sure they are
fake, then at least be sure that voting correctly will not give you the 2
points needed to win.

--
Paul Keating
The Hague


----- Original Message -----
From: "Kathryn Lance" <klance801 (AT) comcast (DOT) net>
Subject: [Dixonary] Strategic votes


> Pardon my ignorance, but what are "strategic" votes?