Match-maker, match-maker, make me a match!

This blog post has been a long time coming. I couldn't write it due to a long running practical joke which finally came to a conclusion last week. A large segment of my friend base believed that I came back engaged after my trip back to Sri Lanka due to a story dreamed up by one of my best friends. Of course I decided to fan the flames of that story (all the while dropping hints) in order to see who would smell the rat and who would stay gullible. 

The best lies are the ones which are half true and now dear reader, I can divulge what actually happened on my trip away in Sri Lanka.

Whilst overseas, my dad decided to take me to my uncle's home for a 'catch up' with the family and 'some close family friends'. I've known for a while that my folks have been searching for partners for me, but this was six days into the holiday and without any smell of a setup, I had gotten complacent. By the time dinner was done the 'family friends' had come over and with a daughter in tow, I knew it was a setup**. I was furious, but couldn't make a scene in front of two families so I put on a smiling face and greeted the family and the girl.

The unfortunate thing was, she was one hell of a catch. She was very forward, played sports, had an active social life, was a wonderful pianist (my dad requested her to play) and she was pretty. It was unfortunate because being the moron that I was, I decided to be somewhere between civil and friendly instead of going all out to make an positive impression. Whilst still annoyed at being in the dark about all this, I still kicked myself for botching it up. Especially since my family had gone to a lot of effort already, I decided to give this entire process a fair go and went ahead to the various setups my parents had filtered.

Girl 2: Worked in IT as a tester. I was utterly charming and she made for decent conversation. On paper it made for a reasonable match, but in reality, there was a significant lack of chemistry from my side. There simply wasn't the spark there was with the first girl.

Girl 3: Was in the middle of NOWHERE. It was a 3 hour drive through god-knows-where to get there. By the time I got there, my back was killing me from the driving and I was hardly in the mood to be charming. Luckily enough, she really wasn't my type. Way too timid for someone with an personality like mine and she just couldn't make conversation.

Girl 4: Utterly disillusioned by this point, I spent most of this one playing with my 6 year old cousin whilst my dad did the interrogation. She looked as disinterested in being there as I was, so luckily this ended quickly.

The idea is the next time I return that I have another look, but this is giving me good incentive to avoid going back for a while.

So the irony here is that I put some really high artificial barriers to entry when I'm interacting with the ladies in SL, but over here I'm knocked over by the first pretty face which is nice to me. It is an awful double standard. So, with not much happening here and no real wish to go back and continue the Sri Lankan match making process, I'm stuck.

In order to get out of my current rut, Cat told me to get myself on RSVP, which initially seems like an extreme measure until you strip away the emotional aspects. This is a classic Long Tail situation. Think about it this way. A lot of hookups and lot of incredibly good looking people appear in bars and pubs. But that said, your typical bar/pub only appeals to about 5-10% of the population you could date. Distribution is difficult because it usually requires a significant amount of courage to present yourself to another person. Filtering is impossible, because even if you could hear over the awful music, people don't tell you enough about them to make a informed decision (well unless you just want a shag, in which case the looks are enough data).

Enter the Internet.

Places like RSVP, Lava and the myriad other sites represent the long tail of the dating market. 

There are thousands of people available on these sites, and whilst they don't currently represent everyone, they would probably cover another 40% of the potential market.

Distribution is easy, everyone places information about themselves onto the website, filling out what they are like. Anyone with access to a computer can do it, you don't need to argue with bouncers and its for the most part free! 

Of course with this many people on the net, it makes it even more difficult to find someone you like. Luckily there are filtering mechanisms. Being able to filter out on age, race, pets, preferences towards Star Trek vs Star Wars, almost anything, gives unbelievable ability to find someone who you might be compatible with. The 'relative' anonymity of the process also improves chances of personalities being correctly portrayed rather than the usual mask people wear in public. Unfortunately you also miss 60% of the conversation due to the lack of body language. 

It would be funny if there was a rating system for people as well, in the same vein as Amazon. "I dated James for two years, it was awesome. Highly recommended" - 5 Stars. It would highly flawed since the biggest problem is that breakups nearly always result in 1 star ratings of each other regardless of how '5 star' you were in the 'honeymoon' stage. But I digress.

So with this many great reasons to be listed, why am I not? I don't know, but I suspect its the same naive reason every other single person uses. We're all waiting for our Princess Charming to come along and whisk us away to somewhere beautiful.

** For those who are unaware of Sri Lankan custom, matchmaking is a fairly common occurrence even today. Both boy and girl have full control over the process and the family who does the match making simply act like a dating service, except with pre-approval from the parents already granted (since they helped set you up remember). After you find someone you like you conduct a normal courtship and if that fails, you start again. My cousin went through 89 girls before he found the right girl for him (and he's still happily married with several beautiful kids). In general the program has a incredibly high success rate.

Board games and you: A guide to a true nerd sport.

My friends pointed out, moderately bitterly, that I have an affinity to economic board games. And looking back over the past, I've noticed a tendency to win significantly above average. Which is ironic considering my real-life financial situation, but I suspect board games reward the type of behaviour which would otherwise back-fire in real life. So I figured I'd share some of these thoughts as in the hope it will lead to some more intense games in the future, rather than a grimace of "Not again".

I originally wrote this blog with specific problems and examples from each board game, but I deliberately made it generic and applicable across multiple games, for as Drucker said in the Effective Executive, 'most problems are generic and can only be solved through a decision which establish a rule or principle'. This is also partly to help anyone outside of my work group who will not understand the specialized language of the games being discussed.

* Early investment. No.1 rule is anything that provides continuous and preferably exponential investment HAS to be done early. Example 1: In Peurto Rico, an early cheap investment in a 'Small market' accelerates your money making and allows you to get a 'Large market' quickly which accelerates your funding again. Example 2: In Acquire, Forcing an early merge allows you to get substantial cash infusion which you can invest into other hotels, allowing you to become majority share owner in them as well.

* Understand your resources by themselves and with respect to the environment. Each resource has different uses in each phase of the game and you need to understand how to best utilize them. For example: Puerto rico, there is only one good you can sell at a time, so generating a tonne of coffee or tobacco is generally useless. Having one coffee available at all times is plenty.

The second point is just as important. Each resource is has different value based on what people have done. Arms races will on the other hand will kill both players. Playing contranian often works in your favour. E.g. Settlers, if everyone shoots for brick and wood, there will a flood of these resources and you, the contrarian who owns the only sheep suddenly has a lot of power. Alhambra is a prime example. Those who do an arms race to own all the "valuable" 'Purple' buildings might end up having to share points, whilst he who notices this and moves into the "cheap" 'Blue' buildings might get to keep all of those points.

* Over-diversification is a bad idea. Just like real-life, over diversification hurts more then it helps. In nearly every game, you will end up highly overstretched. In Settlers, having access to every resource-type square probably means you have a lot of settlements and no cities to accelerate cash. In Acquire, having a stake in every hotel means you'll likely not get Majority OR Minority shareholder bonuses. In Puerto rico, having more than 2 types of production means you're wasting money on production plants which should have gone to support buildings.

* Strengthening your own hand is always preferable to damaging another's. Don't try to hurt a particular person, even if they seem to be in the lead, if by doing so you sacrifice a better play for yourself. The only exception to this is if you can screw everyone else at once. Example: In Puerto rico, 'Trading' to make more cash to buy that building you always wanted is generally the best move. However if by 'Captain'ing you can force everyone else to dump heavily goods whilst allowing you to have some minor benefit, then this may be a better choice.

* Communication on and outside of your round is vital. As a general rule, you want to steer people towards making a decision that benefits you. The only way to make that succeed honourably is to help them make a decision that benefits the both of you, but screws someone else. Staying quiet can help if someone else is propositioning a decision which fits into your plans.

* Medium-term planning is your friend. As a general rule, people will make decisions (or randomness will) which will make long term planning exceptionally difficult, if not outright impossible. Medium term prediction is reasonable and advised however. E.g. In Acquire, if you have two pieces which will make a hotel, but they are far away from any merging, holding them in reserve until there are hotels closer to that location is advised. E.g. In Puerto rico, you can think in terms of up to 3 rounds in advance since with the small number of 'roles' that can be played, the role you need played before it gets to your turn has a high chance of being played in each round.

One fantastic skill that I would also recommend is keeping a good idea of what resources others have got. It's one I'm generally utterly poor at with my short-term memory, but it makes decision making a lot easier.

That is all I've come up with so far. Hopefully it gives some insights into how I play.