Who has the oski edge?

Does the first or 2nd player have the edge?

I'm starting to feel many start positions favour the 2nd player. If player one has to allow a longer word than the one he/she plays and player two can keep matching the opponent after that, then player two will win!

white have biiiiiig advantage it's sure black should get some extra points at begining but how many? It's hard to say... Second player (white) can allways play 1 letter longer word then black.

I think that 70-80% or even more% of games are taken by white.

But when I play black I'm more motivated to play longer word to surpass white. If I'm white I only trying to play the same or if it's easy to find longer word.

But I think that black shoul'd get few extra points at begining.

Words tend to get longer over time. Therefore the player who plays last has a advantage.

There should be a handicap of ~ (average length of final word in a completed game)/2

but final word usually is only created to beat black player so if I nead 3 letter word to beat him then I won't look for longer one. So it isn't good I think. Or maybe it's count that also? It would be probably (4-6)/2 I think so it is 2-3 points extra?

Some kind of pie rule or an auction to offset any disadvantage, may be the solution.

How about on the first turn, the board is filled with 19 different letters, placed "upside down" so that no one can see. The first player picks a letter on his turn, then the second player picks a letter on her turn. Whomever picks closest to "A" goes first and whomever picks closest to "Z" goes second.

auction would be good but how to do it in OSKI? Maybe 5 random letters at begining and who give more is second player but his oponent get that points and possibility to create word 3-5 letters long?

Your solution Ray is random and still second player have an advantage. It change only that one player can allways be 1st and even if he is good he can not win as much as he could if he would be second.

Second player definitely has an edge, but I don't think it's as big as some of you might think. In the first couple of moves, second player can make 2 or 3 bonus points with an oppening sequence like 4-5-5-6 (points). But after that the words tend to be the same length till the end of the game.

I would settle with a handicap of 2 maybe 3 points, but definately not more than that. Perhaps 2,5 which results in no ties possible, as in GWG.

-michael

I also don't see the advantage being more than 3 points, after that it is probably possible to keep pace. The expectation however will vary from grid to grid so a static handicap amount probably would also be problematic.

In my opinion no draws isn't a virtue. If two players are half a point apart then it should be a draw. When you have no draws you are saying you can play optimally and lose!

I agree that the almost-fetishistic desperate avoidance of draws is wrongthink.

A crazy, very unconventional alternative: offer black the opportunity of swaping after white first move (or maybe, even after white's second move). Might not work, but sounds like fun to me! 8-)

Something like that is what I meant by a pie rule.

Since the size or even the existence of the second player's advantage depends (I presume) on what the initial 3-letter word is, it's sufficient for the one player to set up that first word, and the other player to choose to go first or second.

I highly doubt if there should be any balancing rules, really. Oski has one great advantage against other word games, and that is the speed and simplicity. If any rules are added, those should at least be very dynamic and elegant. Auction is way too heavy, pie rule probably a wee bit too heavy too. Point compensation? Maybe. It's not too elegant or dynamic, though. Depends on level of play and all.

It's unclear, how big white's advantage really is. It seems big now, but in part this might be because people haven't learned to play well. If white works hard on making the board as difficult as possible, the linear lengthening of the words won't continue for long. At endgame white should be at an advantage, as they get to pick the best hexes while black is left with the worst. How often the last word is as long as the penultimate? I bet with good experienced players it's rather rarely.

Actually my guess would be, that the SOWPODS-savvy monsters we so fear, envy and hate will be solving the game at the penultimate move, so at the top level the ultimate move will be only a formality.