MAFIA XXXVI: ODDJOB'S REVENGE

[DemonRHK]

@Demon,

I don't ever recall seeing this angry tone from you. But you've been expressing yourself this way all game. What gives?

This is incorrect. I was quite calm at the start of the game but have slipped with each day that snowy has been saved last minute.

Also, this is a character attack, not anything on what I stated.

[Foxcastle]

Balki, you asked me to re-read and reconsider, and I did, and you're not going to win any points if your rejoinder to that is "but really, re-read and reconsider!"

My point is that Scum Balki had flexibility there to be on either wagon at the end, and he would have viewed his vote to be critical. I'm just nearly 100% certain that if I was scum in that context I would have switched my vote and lynched Bozo without forcing Ike into a claim or die situation. And I don't think you --not knowing me as well as I know me -- could get to 100%. But I think that if you read it carefully and think critically about it, you would conclude that it is at least unlikely that I am Scum, if Ike is Scum.

Uh huh, sure... I think you're a smart enough player to know that if you jumped off Ike to Bozo, you'd be scumread for it eventually. I think you did bus Ike, and the thing about making bussing look convincing is that you have to follow through!

The interesting thing though, is that this is all speculative, because you vanished 40 minutes out. But you haven't mentioned that at all despite a major component of your defense here being what scum-Balki would/could have done. Scum-Balki wasn't even here! Whether you made yourself scarce or had IRL commitments, I think you left your vote on Ike as a bus and left, so that you'd have plausible deniability for whatever happened.

[bo_sox48]

Balki strikes me a little odd here. He'd been on Ike since 24 hours out, and had been around and posting (lightly) up to 39 minutes to EOD, and then vanishes (including for all of N1). The last thing he does is challenge Bozo on his Ike vote, ultimately townreading him for it. Then pops up right at the start of D2 with a RB claim. I think Balki could have anchored a bus vote on Ike, and then felt like it was too risky to move, and then vanished to have plausible deniability that there was nothing he could have done.

This is interesting. I went back and read Balki's D1 in iso and found this goodie on page 11:

When I read Ike on pages 7-8, I see a wide breadth of focus. Asking questions to several people and displaying a reaction to current events. Possibly consistent with a townie who, as Ike says, is "trying to facilitate conversation." [...] But I don't see much direction to his posts. I don't see difficult questions or urgency to engage or move the conversation forward. The questions feel more, to me, like "Look, I'm reading the thread and asking questions." A couple of his posts stand out in that regard:

This is really, really dry for a scumread. Perhaps it's suitable for early day 1, and it is clear from the next few pages that Balki wasn't done questioning Ike yet. How does this lead to a scumread, though? Well, on page 12:

When I read Ike I see someone trying to be a part of the thread without really showing any conviction or follow-through with it. To me, that looks more like someone going through the motions of trying to look busy than someone actually trying to solve a puzzle.

And on page 19:

I also feel like this statement: "I feel like at least one is hiding in Peter, Bozo, Reeder, RHK, Chaqa, Ezio but lack of posts/questions/answers from these people doesn't give me a good feel on who I should be looking at," is the kind of thing that scum say. I mean, the odds heavily favor that there is "at least one" scum in a random group of six players. I feel like scum tack on this sort of list in an effort to distance themselves from a partner or two without adding any heat to said partner. Not conclusive -- town could say this too -- but I'm feeling more settled on the Ike wagon right this moment.

At this point, I'm still trying to understand the nuance of this argument. Ike is doing town things like engaging in discussion and he continues doing so throughout much of the day, yet you scumread him for what exactly, Balki?

Likewise, why didn't you jump to bozo? You were coming at him pretty good when you up and left for the day.

[bo_sox48]

About EOD1, I think Bozo was right when he said nothing happened when he put Peterlund on the lead, but he started to get voted when he put Ike on the lke.

Where is this?

[bo_sox48]

I want to emphasize a point I made earlier -- I think that an important consideration today is that shrinking the Cop pool is dangerous.

We have a living, hidden Cop who has at least two scans. This is by far are biggest asset, and if Town wins this game, I think it will be because we have a very powerful Cop reveal at some point.

Scum are obviously desperate to kill Cop right now.

The Cop pool consists of all of our remaining townies who have not been leading wagons in the final moments of a phase. The way I see it, it looks like this:

Cop Pool
Balki Bartokomous
Chaqa/Bo
Dargorygel
DemonRHK
DrCJG
Ezio
Peterlund
Rdrivera2005
Reedeer1/Foxy
Thamrick
TrPrado
Yavuzovic

Probably Not Cop
RagingIke297
Snowy801
Jamiet99uk

The Cop Pool is smaller for scum, of course, as they can remove their own members from the pool. And they may be able to shrink it further based on things that people have said in game.

Scum would love to lynch a townie who is in the Cop Pool today.

For these reasons, I am more inclined to lynch Ike, Snowy, or Jamiet today than I otherwise would be.

We also have 5 scum to catch. Can we aim at them?

[Foxcastle]

I want to emphasize a point I made earlier -- I think that an important consideration today is that shrinking the Cop pool is dangerous.

We have a living, hidden Cop who has at least two scans. This is by far are biggest asset, and if Town wins this game, I think it will be because we have a very powerful Cop reveal at some point.

Scum are obviously desperate to kill Cop right now.

The Cop pool consists of all of our remaining townies who have not been leading wagons in the final moments of a phase. The way I see it, it looks like this:

Cop Pool
Balki Bartokomous
Chaqa/Bo
Dargorygel
DemonRHK
DrCJG
Ezio
Peterlund
Rdrivera2005
Reedeer1/Foxy
Thamrick
TrPrado
Yavuzovic

Probably Not Cop
RagingIke297
Snowy801
Jamiet99uk

The Cop Pool is smaller for scum, of course, as they can remove their own members from the pool. And they may be able to shrink it further based on things that people have said in game.

Scum would love to lynch a townie who is in the Cop Pool today.

For these reasons, I am more inclined to lynch Ike, Snowy, or Jamiet today than I otherwise would be.

We also have 5 scum to catch. Can we aim at them?

Better not, at least not until we've outed our real PRs...

[bo_sox48]

I realize that posting while reading means that a lot of my questions have already been asked. Oh well.

[bo_sox48]

I want to emphasize a point I made earlier -- I think that an important consideration today is that shrinking the Cop pool is dangerous.

We have a living, hidden Cop who has at least two scans. This is by far are biggest asset, and if Town wins this game, I think it will be because we have a very powerful Cop reveal at some point.

Scum are obviously desperate to kill Cop right now.

The Cop pool consists of all of our remaining townies who have not been leading wagons in the final moments of a phase. The way I see it, it looks like this:

Cop Pool
Balki Bartokomous
Chaqa/Bo
Dargorygel
DemonRHK
DrCJG
Ezio
Peterlund
Rdrivera2005
Reedeer1/Foxy
Thamrick
TrPrado
Yavuzovic

Probably Not Cop
RagingIke297
Snowy801
Jamiet99uk

The Cop Pool is smaller for scum, of course, as they can remove their own members from the pool. And they may be able to shrink it further based on things that people have said in game.

Scum would love to lynch a townie who is in the Cop Pool today.

For these reasons, I am more inclined to lynch Ike, Snowy, or Jamiet today than I otherwise would be.

We also have 5 scum to catch. Can we aim at them?

Better not, at least not until we've outed our real PRs...

He's really not doing anything that outs PRs, but he is trying way too hard to make it look as if he doesn't want to out PRs.

[Foxcastle]

We also have 5 scum to catch. Can we aim at them?

Better not, at least not until we've outed our real PRs...

He's really not doing anything that outs PRs, but he is trying way too hard to make it look as if he doesn't want to out PRs.

Yeah, I'm especially fond of:

Another option is to say "Hey Doc, CC if you're out there." That is lower risk, because it reduces the risk we lynch our Doctor. But I don't think Ike is Doc, and I'd rather take this risk in an effort to keep Real Doc hidden.

[rdrivera2005]

About EOD1, I think Bozo was right when he said nothing happened when he put Peterlund on the lead, but he started to get voted when he put Ike on the lke.

Where is this?

Here

bozotheclown
Day-1 00:10
page 27
I voted to bring peter even with Ike and got no votes. Then I voted to put Ike back ahead of peter and got 5 quick votes. I think there is a good chance not all 5 of those votes were town votes.

http://mafia.peterlund.se/e/web/msgs?g= ... id=w:16820

[Balki Bartokomous]

Balki, you asked me to re-read and reconsider, and I did, and you're not going to win any points if your rejoinder to that is "but really, re-read and reconsider!"

My point is that Scum Balki had flexibility there to be on either wagon at the end, and he would have viewed his vote to be critical. I'm just nearly 100% certain that if I was scum in that context I would have switched my vote and lynched Bozo without forcing Ike into a claim or die situation. And I don't think you --not knowing me as well as I know me -- could get to 100%. But I think that if you read it carefully and think critically about it, you would conclude that it is at least unlikely that I am Scum, if Ike is Scum.

Uh huh, sure... I think you're a smart enough player to know that if you jumped off Ike to Bozo, you'd be scumread for it eventually. I think you did bus Ike, and the thing about making bussing look convincing is that you have to follow through!

The interesting thing though, is that this is all speculative, because you vanished 40 minutes out. But you haven't mentioned that at all despite a major component of your defense here being what scum-Balki would/could have done. Scum-Balki wasn't even here! Whether you made yourself scarce or had IRL commitments, I think you left your vote on Ike as a bus and left, so that you'd have plausible deniability for whatever happened.

The bolded text above is really thing I've read that has caused me to suspect your slot as scum.

I have been reading you as Town because I've been reading Ike as Scum, and late in the day on Day 1, Reedeer cast a very powerful vote to lynch Bozo over Ike. And I saw that and thought, well, if Ike is scum, Reedeer has to be Town.

But then you make the bolded comment above in the context of a theory of yours that it's a Balki/Ike scum team.

Doesn't add up.

If it's a Balki/Ike scum team, why would I need "plausible deniability" after keeping my vote on Ikaneko? Hmmmmm? If it's a Balki/Ike scum team, wouldn't I want to be around to take credit for that flip? I mean...the only rationale for bussing my teammate all day Day 1 would be to become widely town read for it, right?

Why would I need "plausible deniability"?

I am beginning to suspect that you wrote it this way because you know RagingIke is Town. If that's true, then Reedeer's vote on Day 1 is hardly clearing, and the fact that he was rather disinterested all day makes sense, as we would have been in a Town v. Town scenario.

I wouldn't lynch Foxcastle today, because the read is entirely derivative of RagingIke's alignment. But if it turns out that RagingIke is Town, then Flxcastle is probably scum.

[Balki Bartokomous]

He's really not doing anything that outs PRs, but he is trying way too hard to make it look as if he doesn't want to out PRs.

What does that mean? Like what?

[Foxcastle]

If RagingIke is town I will RagingQuit this game.

(Not actually, of course.)

[Foxcastle]

But you're not going to back your little theory up with a vote, Balki? Of course you're not, because if I did get lynched, there'd be a lot of attention on you for having precipitated it. (Not that I think you'd have actually have the votes.)

[Balki Bartokomous]

At this point, I'm still trying to understand the nuance of this argument. Ike is doing town things like engaging in discussion and he continues doing so throughout much of the day, yet you scumread him for what exactly, Balki?

I feel like I explained my thinking pretty well in thread. Can you tell me what part of it you don't understand?

Generally, I reject scumhunting that says: "X is not making sense so he's scum. Y said something inconsistent, so she's scum. Z says things that are logical and asks lots of questions so he's town."

I look for someone who is manufacturing arguments, trying to blend in with town, trying to avoid suspicion.

It's hard. And I can't say that I'm super great at it. But that's a very general sort of thing I'm looking for. You can find people who are trying to blend in because they may ask lots of questions, but the questions are not part of a sincere scumhunt. They don't really care about the answers. Their not really trying to solve a puzzle, they are trying to look like they are trying to solve a puzzle.

That's why I'm not really buying the Snowy is scum argument, especially the one that Jamiet made. Because Scum rarely say something like "I'm not really trying, I'm not going to be around, I haven't really invested in the game." That is the opposite of trying to blend in with town.

And that's why I felt that RagingIke was likely to flip scum on Day 1. I felt like his questions showed effort to blend in, but not effort to puzzle solve. I felt like he was manufacturing a process. I felt like he was asking questions without direction or follow-up. It didn't seem to me like he cared what the answers were.

Likewise, why didn't you jump to bozo? You were coming at him pretty good when you up and left for the day.

You can find the answer to this in the thread too, and it dovetails with my basic thinking on mafia described above. When I questioned Bozo about his late vote switches, his responses seemed sincere and not panicked, or premeditated. He was not coming up with good excuses or making any effort to avoid suspicion for some very late vote flops, and it just struck me as townie. It struck me as someone who was floundering around in the dark, not someone who was doing something with a purpose and with a ready made alibi.

[Balki Bartokomous]

But you're not going to back your little theory up with a vote, Balki? Of course you're not, because if I did get lynched, there'd be a lot of attention on you for having precipitated it. (Not that I think you'd have actually have the votes.)

Do I strike you as someone who plays the game by avoiding attention?

No -- my theory on you depends entirely on RagingIke's alignment. So, I would not lynch you unless we find out that RagingIke is Town.

[DrCJG]

I want to emphasize a point I made earlier -- I think that an important consideration today is that shrinking the Cop pool is dangerous.

@ Balki - I started to write this post to say I didn't quite agree with your opinion to lynch Ike, but as I have written it I could almost get behind it. Unfortunately, I have to run to a meeting but I will continue my train of thought later. But for the moment...

I agree that we need to be careful about not lynching or forcing the cop to reveal and ASSUMING that Ike is either scum or doctor, he will simply be (or claim) RB'd ever day so if we mislynch we wouldn't really be losing a PR.

For the time being though, I will place my vote on my continued top scumread ##vote Yav

I am also going to do a full read through as I think its time I make a better association list. I hope yall have already (or will formulate one) that you can compare to mine when i post it later.

[bo_sox48]

If RagingIke is town I will RagingQuit this game.

(Not actually, of course.)

Well I was hoping we would have a wager here, but that died quickly.

[bo_sox48]

He's really not doing anything that outs PRs, but he is trying way too hard to make it look as if he doesn't want to out PRs.

What does that mean? Like what?

I mean your play so far today has been more primarily focused on avoiding outing PRs, particularly the cop but secondarily a CC to the doctor (since you seem to be convinced, maybe rightly so, that Ike is not the doctor), than it has catching the mafia. I understand that Ike is your strongest scumread, but to discount other scumreads that you or others have simply because they don't fit into your arbitrary definitely-not-cop category is pretty absurd.

[Foxcastle]

If RagingIke is town I will RagingQuit this game.

(Not actually, of course.)

Well I was hoping we would have a wager here, but that died quickly.

I mean, I wasn't going to drop out of the game, but we can do the whole "If RagingIke is town, I'll volunteer for the lynch!" thing. But I've always kinda thought that was dumb. (Besides, that would put us at LYLO if he's town and you mislynch me too.)