--- On Thu, 2/19/09, David L. Willson <DLWillson@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Any player with a guessing stone may guess ~every~ time a
> koan is completed.
However, for competitive Zendo experiences, I suggest a different guessing mechanic (think of guessing as initiating a guessing phase with an instantaneous auction):
While both sound good, I wonder if they might sort of break the Mondo economy? That is to say, someone who is doing well with Mondos has an advantage when their turn comes and they think they are one or two binary trees away from the solution. Normally, one can "spam" guessing, getting new disproof koans all the while, to roll to a victory. Having it go round-robin might hamstring the person who has a lot of stones, while giving too much of an advantage to some who otherwise hasn't done well with Mondos.
The auction thing mitigates this somewhat--if it's my turn and I have stone advantage, I get my one free guess and then I have the stick WRT winning a follow-up auction. But I could also be "baited" by having someone else with a lot of stone feign starting an auction just to siphon off my stone (i.e. they bid 0, while I bid thinking I'm going up against all of their accumulated stones). Hmmm... OK, it adds another layer of strategy, for sure. But I'm not sure I like the dilution of the purity of the base rules (and this is from the guy who wrote Ikkozendo).
Worth a try, some rainy evening. But definitely changes the game balance.
David