Don Sheldon <don.sheldon@xxxxxxxxx> typed something resembling:
On 2/20/09, David Artman <david.artman@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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).
Do it like a chinese silent auction: the one who bids the most pays as
much as the second highest bid, all other stones are returned.
Another option: an all-pay auction. That is, the current player makes
a starting bid, and in turn order each player must make a higher bid
than the current winner or pass. Once you've passed, you cannot join
back in. Continue going around until all players pass. All players pay
the amount that they bid; nobody gets any stones back.
I haven't thought about how this affects the main game, the strategy
of bidding, or how badly you can game this system. But I'd love to
hear others' thoughts.
Harold