My wife came in to see me watching a PowerPoint presentation with a slide titled "When to consider shooting yourself." 10/10 will watch with boss around next time.
@@thunderspark1536 Should've used the Panic Attack. It fires in a fixed pattern and the decreased accuracy on subsequent shots shouldn't matter (one shot should be enough)
@@Disatierethats just gamblers fallacy tho? The chance of hitting 10 heads in the row is the same as 10 tails, or 3 tails then 7 heads, or any other combination
I wish I was making this up, but I couldn't even if I tried. I live in student family housing with my college, and I was watching this video on my TV. Apparently, someone had peeked through my blinds at the EXACT MOMENT the text "When you should shoot yourself" was on screen. They promptly called campus Public Safety, and I got a knock on my door 20 minutes later from a public safety officer checking if everyone was alright. I then had to explain that, no, I was not planning on shooting myself; I was watching a video discussing strategy in a video game where you play Russian Roulette with a shotgun.
The dealer is playing optimally. He shoots himself to convince you that shooting yourself is a good idea. If he convinces you of that, your odds of winning will drop far more than the 5% he sacrifices to convince you in the first place.
The AI in the original release of the game was more responsive to player behaviour. This lead to players such myself intentionally shooting ourselves more often than made sense, because it made the dealer AI play more aggressively and shoot themselves more often. Then you just switch back to playing optimally for the final round while the AI acts crazy.
the way I like to simplify it is that unless one of you has beer, every shot in the loadout has to be fired at *someone*. The more of those are fired at you, regardless of who's firing it, the more likely you take damage.
@@airplanes_aren.t_real Yes, beer and cigarettes will help you live longer. Actually though, beer is phenomenal because it can let you take some of these scenarios and reduce or eliminate the chance for you to take damage. You generally want to save beer, unlike cigarettes which you should almost always smoke immediately to get them out of your loadout (as long as you're not wasting them of course). Take a dead simple "one live one blank" scenario, you and dealer both have two charges, but the dealer has a hacksaw. If you shoot the dealer, there is a 50% chance of doing one hit to dealer, and a 50% chance of it being blank and then dying to dealer since he will always know what the last shell is when it is reached. This is less than optimal, so the better choice is to shoot yourself. The odds change to a 50% chance to take one hit, but still live, and a 50% chance to get a blank, and then do one hit to the dealer. This scenario is covered in the video, and obviously taking a 100% chance to live is better than a 50% chance to die, even if shooting yourself is less than ideal. Beer is so strong because *it let's you "shoot yourself" but every shell is treated as a blank* so if we go back to the "one live one blank" scenario, we still see that shooting ourselves is optimal, but taking damage from it is not. Instead what we do is drink one beer and cycle the shell out. There is a 50% chance it's a blank and we then hit the dealer for one, and a 50% chance the shell is live. If we didn't have beer, we would have shot ourselves and taken one hit. So although beer doesn't change our best scenario (hitting the dealer for one) it has improved our worst scenario (taking one hit). The rules for using beer is virtually identical to shooting yourself (there can only be one live, if you're preventing lethal, if you want to get to the next round, etc.) but there is one stipulation: You should only use beer if the number of beers you have is equivalent or to the number of blanks still in play, otherwise you should shoot yourself.
@@airplanes_aren.t_real With no items, it's always better to have an odd number of shells when you're shooting. So, use a beer when it's an even number. If it's odd and you have two beers, using them both is useful if you don't mind ejecting all the shells and getting more items to garantee a kill on the next round (don't do this if you're possibly at kill range (1 or 2 life) and the dealer has 3 or more)
As Markiplier said once: "I'm not going to go out pointin' that at myself. If I die, it'll be because I pointed it at him." This is the logic behind shooting the Dealer almost all the time (ignoring known blanks).
Imagine that, instead of allowing the player to shoot themselves, the game gives the player another ability: On each turn they can choose to hand the gun to the dealer without firing, and the dealer must shoot at the player once receiving the gun. If the dealer fires a live round, he can shoot again, skipping the player’s turn. This hypothetical ability is functionally equivalent to shooting oneself, but I am willing to bet that no one would even consider to use such an ability without knowing what type of shell is coming next.
I don't mean to argue and I've yet to watch the video cuz I'm trying to understand myself, but I'm curious why would forcing the dealer to take worse odds at landing a shot be bad? Wouldn't a miss, which is more likely, just make his odds at landing a bullet better?
Well it seems my issue was I am mostly unfamiliar with the game rip. I had an assumption that the amount of shots would be equal between both players (being 6) and now I am just an idiot
Maybe you can also work towards getting an extra item for a round if you pull it off enough times to better your own turn economy. Also, perhaps you have a streak for how many times you've successfully pointed the gun at yourself without taking damage, which rewards more bonus money the longer the streak is.
As a stats professor, I love this video! Excellent analysis. If the game didn't involve shooting yourself/the dealer, I'd assign an analysis of Buckshot to my classes. Fun game though!
A shame, but you can always make it into something different to analyze for class, like a card game or something, something still interactive but not about shooting others or yourself
could always try censoring the idea to a deck of 5 cards where one is a point and you choose to either give the card to your opponent or keep it for yourself before looking at it
@@genericfurrygaming374 the game could be giving or taking cards! Black cards don’t give points, red cards give points, it’s like golf so too many points is losing… If you take a black card you’re free to take or give another card from the deck, if you take a red card or give any card to the opponent the opponent goes next. handcuffs and magnifying glass can stay the same (or to continue the obfuscation, magnifying could be “peeking” and handcuffs could be “tying”), hacksaws are just “doublers,” cigarettes are “subtractors” (no negatives values allowed in points though)! It’s always possible to obfuscate stuff like this. Although good luck if someone knows the game and connects the dots haha
You can adjust the context to being a red card/blue card where pulling a red card removes health, putting a sticker on the card is like a handsaw, eating skittles is like smokes, and you can get a peek token or force skip turn token.
ok, but to be fair; which it more likely, that humans are innately bad at understand statistics or that humans are innately bad at understand statistics and the way we describe statistic problems is also pretty vague?
@@TheRabbitPoet Statistics are extremely simple. You split an event into a number of equally likely possibilities, and then branch out for each subsequent event. Occasionally it's more complicated, but that's it 90% of the time. Humans just like patterns. Randomness doesn't mesh with our brains because we want to think things are happening for a reason. when Jack played, the first half dozen rounds mostly had the first bullet as a blank, and his brain took this as fact most of the way through the video.
A lot of the time when people screw up the Monty Hall problem it is because the person asking it phrases the question incorrect. It is important to emphasize that the host will only **ever** open an empty door (or a goat door, whatever version you are using). Plenty of people phrase it so it would be reasonable to infer that the host could have opened the door with the car which completely messes up the whole concept of the question.
you can think of aiming at yourself as giving the dealer another turn where he can only aim at you, and if he hits a live you dont even get a turn its funny how the intuition changes when you rephrase it
From a purely “Presentation Oriented” perspective, this video is fantastic. The dark background with contrasting text color, The concise text that doesn’t overcrowd the slide, Images and examples when necessary focusing on Visual Elements with the speaker explaining each to give them context, Super job as always. Your videos are a treat, and they make me feel like I’m sitting in a meeting with a very charismatic presenter.
I think one of the reason why people immediately think of shooting themselves in this game is because when the game got introduced to them as “Russian Roulette”. Even when I tried this game, my first instinct is to shoot myself, then learning that you could shoot the Dealer made me think if I shoot him or myself as my first move. Even some of my friends did shoot themselves on their first playthrough and continue doing so, because some of think that the main idea of the game is to survive a game of Russian Roulette, instead of trying to defeat the Dealer.
Yeah the name Roulette makes us think we have to do it in the spirit of the game / we NEED to do it in order to play. It’s the conscience of how this works. Then after this video and the comments you realise that yes the point is to beat the game and it clearly says you don’t have to point the gun at yourself at all.
same, i tapped on the video, went out, quickly watched a video to get the rules and context, then came back don't know if i'll ever play it but i'm here for the maths
Imagine playing normal Russian Roulette with the twist being you can also choose to shoot your opponent instead of yourself while your opponent picks between you and themself randomly and there’s just a crowd of people going “No, shoot yourself! You’re ruining the game by playing it wrong!”, because that’s basically just Buckshot Roulette sans items
It just occured to me that theres a non zero chance that some idiots out there who actually would play real life russian roulette might have adopted this games ruleset of being able to shoot your opponent.
Saw this video, then played Exploding Kittens for the first time. Used this strategy to mop the floor with my opponents. Ty for teaching us proper statistics
I was hoping that the cell phone, adrenaline shot, and inverter would be included in the factors to consider. They're game-changing, and the new smarter dealer is absolutely counting shells and won't waste any items when no live rounds are left (except for adrenaline, cigs, meds, and inverters obviously)
This whole video can be summed up as "Losing your turn to the dealer who has to make a choice isn't as big of a risk as literally blowing your brains out over the wall".
The concept of items turns this on its head because you generally want to give the dealer a turn as late as possible, so aiming at yourself can be better. Sometimes this even manifests into "you should drink the beer cans until the last 2 shells". It's not just limited to specific scenarios like the dealer having a handsaw but him being down 1 HP on you.
If you make the dealer use items as late as possible by intentionally delaying his turn by shooting yourself it means you have hit blanks on yourself, which makes the density of live rounds on his turn higher, which is even worse if he has items. It is absolutely limited to specific scenarios
tbh besides it just being an interesting breakdown of probability and game mechanics I kinda love dissecting the hell out of what's supposed to be a dark, haunting experience about someone willing to throw their lives away so frivolously for some cash, to the point where there's slightly more than zero percent chance of losing.
Your videos convinced me to buy the game. Beat the normal game first try, and then got to a million in endless after a good handful of tries. Also runs great on my Steam Deck, so that'll be nice for killing time here and there.
This reminds me a lot of the Monty hall problem. Its common for people to disregard previous statistics when a new variable is added and just focus on the "new" statistics. I think this is why people get so focused on the "incorrect" objective of the game. Excellent video, i dont play this game but your explaination of statistics are great!
Shooting yourself is not very good for getting more damage on the dealer, sure, but it is a very important tool if you identify a round as one that you need more to survive than to win. I noticed and commented on a couple of these scenarios on your juiced dealer ai video. In general, if there is enough saws+bullets such that it's very likely the round will end the game, you need to focus on different goals like delaying damage you take or, in the worst case, taking a single point of damage instead of a guaranteed 2 points, etc. I did since analysis of the most dangerous rounds where you lost a run to a misplay, namely not changing to a survival strategy when you had more than enough information to see that it was necessary, and the results can be surprising.
The fact that I was able to sit through this entire video without getting bored yet I would fall asleep if I was being taught anything like this in a class is shocking 😭
When clicking this video, I did not know that Buckshot Roulette is a game. I thought it was some bizarre variant of Russian Roulette. I was really interested xD
I love this bit of stats, and you having that beautiful beat going on in the bg. Feels like you're coaching us in the restroom before we have to go and take on the Dealer.
This video made me realize that sometimes using the magnifying glass doesn't even give an advantage and that the beer is more powerful than I thought. Of course it all depends on the items and how many lives vs blanks are there but in your case of 1 live and 4 blanks you are already shooting on the odd numbers which gives you an advantage, knowing the next shot is a blank and shooting yourself doesn't really make it better since now there is a 50/50 chance for both to shoot the opponent if you are constantly shooting each other, which was already the case but in the dealer's turn instead of yours. But with the ai it is always beneficial since between you shooting and the dealer shooting themselves you get more chances of dealing damage.
It works if we think of every shot as dealing damage equal to its probability too. You wouldn't shoot yourself for .2 damage and then shoot the dealer for .2 damage, you'd just shoot the dealer for .2
fun statistics fact: when asked to pick between three closed doors, and then have a non-winning door opened, and asked to choose whether to stay with your choice or change it, your odds of getting the winning door actually are different from when you first chose even if you keep the same door. Information changes odds. I think this is something people struggle to intuit when it comes to bsr
It's really simple to intuit. Your odds of picking a non winning door is higher because there are more of them. You will most often pick a non winning door, therefore when the other non winning door IS opened, you will know that most of the time, the last unopened door will be the winning one.
this becomes super understandable if you imagine you pick out of 100 doors, and then 98 of them get opened. now what do you think, the door you happened to pick is the right one, or the only other one that the host didn't open?
I guess a better way to put it is you're giving yourself better odds, yes, but you're also giving the dealer better odds, so you're gaining no advantage over your opponent and just risking shooting yourself. Mabye that could be mitigated if you both had seperate guns that were just loaded with the same configuration, rather than sharing a gun.
it's so interesting how even if each move on it's own is perfectly justified, the whole game might not make sense at all it has so much implications in other places and even irl too...
The year is 2024, I'm turning 21 this year, it's 4am and I am sat here on my cracked iPhone 8 watching a man who sounds like Dagoth Ur explain when exactly you should decide to shoot yourself in a video game.
I think this video was very well made, but I think it could be a little easier to explain. If you imagined all the previous bullets, it really emphasizes the importance of shooting. If there are 2 rounds left, it's not actually a 50/50, but rather an 80/20. The reason why shooting yourself is always bad is because if there is an even number of bullets, both players are equally likely to get the live round. So in that circumstance, it is better to always shoot. If there is an odd number of rounds, you get a one round advantage. With that one round advantage, you have 2 options. Target yourself to get an 80% chance of equally likely odds as the opponent, with a 20% chance of failure with the extra round, OR target the opponent with a 20% chance of success, and an 80% chance of equally likely odds. In other words, there is not a single instance where targeting yourself is worthwhile, unless items are involved.
2:49 I mean, speaking realistically I'd rather not get my face blown through with a shotgun slug at all, even if I somehow magically get resurrected with a defibrillator.
The way this video is presented makes me feel like I'm sitting in a dive bar, shady restaurant, or bus stop, and this is being explained to me by a guy who has personally participated in this game, and who does so once every few years when he's short on cash. An old card shark who gambles for much higher stakes.
Another edge case would be if you need to get to new items quickly. Say you have 2 health, and there are 2 live 2 blanks left, but dealer has 3 health, 2x magnifying glass and 2x inverter. If you shoot the dealer, you lose 100%. If you shoot yourself and hit a blank, you can shoot dealer afterwards and survive to the next items (dealer only gets 1 turn).
This video reminds of Magic the Gathering. A common beginner's mistake is valuing your life total too much. The only life that matters in MtG is the last one in most games, and so your goal isn't "Don't take damage", the goal is to lower your opponent's life to 0 before yours hits 0. It doesn't matter how much you win by, it only matters whether or not you win. I see it reflected in the initial goal analysis of "predict the next shell" or "kill the dealer". Classic beginner mistake in games.
I think that's a bit different but the understanding that life is a ressource *does* help for the scenario where you do shoot yourself actually. But for the more general point I don't think there's that much overlap, except maybe a general aversion to losing control. In mtg people don't like when their opponent makes progress and that comes from a good place, it's good to not want your opponent to approach victory, but a competent opponent in a multiplayer games will always attempt to do things you don't want them to do so it's wise to accept some amount of unavoidable loss as a cost for doing your own powerful things. In buckshot roulette I feel like people just feel more in control when they get to keep their turn so that's the appeal of shooting yourself. But it doesn't contribute to winning at all so I think it's a more fundamental misunderstanding of how the game works
@@Laezar1 i think there's plenty of overlap. Its the same idea in a beginner's mind. "Oh, letting my opponent possibly lose me life is bad, I need to do everything to avoid that." Rather than "I need to do everything to defeat my opponent." A beginner's mindset will very much be defensive, as they aim to lose less, rather than win more. That's exactly what the "clinging to control" is in buckshot roulette, and what a lot of beginner's do in MtG. The shift from losing less to winning more is a big one on MtG, and, I think, clearly demonstrated here in buckshot roulette, but if you still don't see it that way, I understand.
This is so interesting. I'm a mathematician but I only considered taking the basic probability into account, not all probability scenarios at once. Very compelling
The youtuber Merg actually managed to figure that out without analysing the statistics of the game. His video is titled "Always shoot the dealer" if you want to see.
34:30 actually that's a really good way to think about it. shooting yourself is basically taking the dealer's turn for him, so you only wanna do that if certain things would get worse for you if he was able to take his turn
I think the real problem is that people overthink these things. Every time the gun is pointed at you is a chance to get shot. So, if you don't wanna get shot, don't point the gun at yourself. It's that simple.
Breaking news: Suicide rates drop to 0 after TH-camr explains why you statistically shouldn’t shoot yourself. In other news: gun homicides have raised significantly in the same timeframe
The analysis seems correct, but I think the most thorough analysis would come from game-tree search / minimax. The state space seems small enough (I'm guessing) that you can brute force it and definitively determine when it makes sense to shoot yourself.
24:15 it's important to factor in turns. If you keep saw yo could give first turn of next loadout to dealer because he shoots himself with a blank. If you give up a saw you could go first in the next loadout because he shoots you with alive round
Watching this videos reminded me a lot of my discrete class and trying to figure out if I can prove any of the percentages you displayed via induction! Thanks for amazing watch
Counter-conventional statistical probabilities, mixed with the question of whether or not one should shoot oneself in the face? Truly this is the Monty Hall problem for the modern millennial
the music still playing in the background makes me feel like im at this nightclub taking a semimar from someone who learned to game the system before i go play the dealer
so, if i understand this right, there's basically a set number of shots to be made each round and you want as few of those to be targeted at you. makes sense
Shooting ourselves always feels to me like giving the dealer an extra turn. Which is the opposite of why people do it, since they mean to take turns away from the dealer. So basically whenever i don't know the next shell, but know there is a live in there, I can't do it... You explained it nicely 🙂
My favorite part is that he explained this in pretty much every video already, just obviously not as in-depth, but definitely enough to understand. Probabilities ain't that hard, but if people can't listen -> process things then yeah, nevermind expecting them to understand maths... and the worst part is... they're so confident that they're snarky about it, only to be dead wrong... ICANT
As I see it, the booze is the most powerful item in the game for four reasons: first, it's essentially shooting at yourself without the danger of taking a hit meaning any time it's better to shoot yourself you can instead avoid taking damage as the obvious repercussion. Second, it's a wonderful way to deny the dealer the chance to take a turn with the potential for you to deal guaranteed damage should the last round or two rounds, should you have handcuffs, have at least one live left. Third, if you can't kill the dealer in the current round, you have the potential to eject a live round, especially if it's the last round in situations where you can make the dealer waste items. It's always super useful to get the dealer to use the saw when you know it's guaranteed to be a blank. The other situation is you eject a blank and get to take a shot. Fourth, if the dealer made it so they are shooting the odd rounds, you can take back the odd rounds advantage.
For me, as long as I start the round, the more shenanigans I can make before the dealer. So, shooting my self or even not dealing damage in a round at all are valid options.
Quickest way it clicked for me was realizing that, items aside, the best case scenario for shooting yourself when there are more blanks is that you're just going to keep doing it until you get down to there being an equal numbers of blanks and lives and it becomes a 50/50. So you took a series of risks just to get down to a 50/50 chance, which is obviously bad
I was aiming for the 1 mil challenge and i was on 709k cash. It was Round 2 and the dealer was on 1 hp. It was a 8 round shot and the next shot is unknown. The dealer has every item at that moment, and i told myself i would lose the game right here if i shoot myself and take dmg. For whatever reason, i gaslit myself to shoot myself hoping it was a blank and took dmg and lost the whole run. This video is a great ‘salt in my wound’. Amazing video
One thing I seem to see a lot of from watching playthroughs of buckshot roulette is people always assume the next shell is a blank when they decide to shoot themselves. Or that logically it has to follow an alternating pattern of blanks to live. probability is more then just "Oh there's a 20% chance its a live round." No, you have to consider what order the shells could be loaded in, and count what's in the chamber. just because the odds are 2 live, 3 blank doesn't mean you should shoot yourself. There are at least 4 combinations in the sequence in which Both live rounds can be chambered back to back. Which means, in any instance your odds are better aimed at shooting the dealer than assuming the next shell is a blank. Simply put, the more shells you have, the greater the probability and variation in loadouts and shell order. Which all just points to a better chance at shooting the dealer, than yourself.
all of what you described was already intuitively clear to me, even without calculations now i just wonder why i still can't pass my probability and statistics course
2 Live scenario: 2 lives, two duds. You have four life and Dealer has two saws and cufs. You should selfhit because taking 1 down to 3 is better than getting doublehit, and depriving Dealer of 1 out of 2 live hits is beneficial. Haven't done the math, but is self hitting beneficial here? Phrasing courtesy of youtube's filter.
Good point! Didn't think about that scenario. Yes, you may want to aim at yourself there to eliminate the possibility of dying on dealer's turn. However, I would probably only consider this if I have a good shot of killing on my next turn, otherwise you have a good chance of ending up in the same scenario in the next loadout and you're going to be at less health
i think the fact it's called roulette trips people up in the logic because they forget you have hp in this game and therefore should be optimizing for dps over not dying
Unbelievable. I’ve barely seen any gameplay of this game and I only just heard about it from this channel being in my recommended. But I keep watching these vailed Comp Sci lessons. Good job I guess?
My wife came in to see me watching a PowerPoint presentation with a slide titled "When to consider shooting yourself." 10/10 will watch with boss around next time.
pfffft
nice 420 likes
@@aboveaveragegaming5503 not anymore 😏
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 I was not expecting this to be the top comment
Are you considering now?
thanks for the 40 min explanation on why shooting myself with a shotgun is a bad idea
It’s a shocker!
Don't do it. I did it last night and almost died
@@Happy_capy. Almost? You must've done something wrong then
@@ethanlivemere1162Random bullet spread caused most shots to miss him.
@@thunderspark1536 Should've used the Panic Attack. It fires in a fixed pattern and the decreased accuracy on subsequent shots shouldn't matter (one shot should be enough)
this video has told me we need a multiplayer update for competitive buckshot roulette players like yourself
What an amazing idea
Its on roblox
My brother and I designed a way to play buckshot roulette with poker cards. This was before endless mode came out tho, so it could use some reworking
someone made a vrchat world like that
PvP would actually change this game so much I wonder how it would look at "top level"
The issue is people think of each shot as an isolated gamble instead of a consecutive series of gambles that affects one another
just like flipping a coin, the chance is always 50/50 but you're not going to get a coin to land on heads 10 times in a row.
@@3meritetrinel50 well THEORETICALLY... its possible
@@3meritetrinel50 No, because flipping a coin is indeed an isolated gamble that does not affect the following one
@@rainydeestarthe likelihood of flip PATTERNS is not however
@@Disatierethats just gamblers fallacy tho? The chance of hitting 10 heads in the row is the same as 10 tails, or 3 tails then 7 heads, or any other combination
I've lived to see someone argue that shooting yourself in the face with a shotgun is "generally a bad idea"
I barely understood the video; shit went over my head. Gotta be honest though, this really helped me understand the argument
even statistically irl it's never a guarantee it gets the job done
@@janefkrbttdepends on the weapon. The derringer is a bad choice
Don’t shoot yourself in general tbh
i wonder why
need to test that
brb, going to go test this theory
Mmm it hurts and can be expensive.
@@Tathanic or is it
Lemme go buy an expensive blood transfusion and defibrillator setup to try this out, just like in the obscure video game Buckshot Roulette
I wish I was making this up, but I couldn't even if I tried.
I live in student family housing with my college, and I was watching this video on my TV. Apparently, someone had peeked through my blinds at the EXACT MOMENT the text "When you should shoot yourself" was on screen. They promptly called campus Public Safety, and I got a knock on my door 20 minutes later from a public safety officer checking if everyone was alright. I then had to explain that, no, I was not planning on shooting myself; I was watching a video discussing strategy in a video game where you play Russian Roulette with a shotgun.
Quite whimsical and silly situation. 7/10 on the silly scale.
Unfortunate for you, but it is good to know that your campus takes their student's well-being seriously.
And then everyone clapped, right?
@@Illdos that's def the biggest solace i got from this situation lol
@@kokopossumO’ ye of little faith in the honesty of strangers…
The dealer is playing optimally. He shoots himself to convince you that shooting yourself is a good idea.
If he convinces you of that, your odds of winning will drop far more than the 5% he sacrifices to convince you in the first place.
Biggest brain play
@@gekigami1791Yet he keeps getting advantages BECAUSE he shoots himself and most of time gets blanks
The AI in the original release of the game was more responsive to player behaviour. This lead to players such myself intentionally shooting ourselves more often than made sense, because it made the dealer AI play more aggressively and shoot themselves more often. Then you just switch back to playing optimally for the final round while the AI acts crazy.
the way I like to simplify it is that unless one of you has beer, every shot in the loadout has to be fired at *someone*. The more of those are fired at you, regardless of who's firing it, the more likely you take damage.
So always use beer and cigarettes?
@@airplanes_aren.t_real Yes, beer and cigarettes will help you live longer.
Actually though, beer is phenomenal because it can let you take some of these scenarios and reduce or eliminate the chance for you to take damage. You generally want to save beer, unlike cigarettes which you should almost always smoke immediately to get them out of your loadout (as long as you're not wasting them of course).
Take a dead simple "one live one blank" scenario, you and dealer both have two charges, but the dealer has a hacksaw. If you shoot the dealer, there is a 50% chance of doing one hit to dealer, and a 50% chance of it being blank and then dying to dealer since he will always know what the last shell is when it is reached. This is less than optimal, so the better choice is to shoot yourself. The odds change to a 50% chance to take one hit, but still live, and a 50% chance to get a blank, and then do one hit to the dealer. This scenario is covered in the video, and obviously taking a 100% chance to live is better than a 50% chance to die, even if shooting yourself is less than ideal.
Beer is so strong because *it let's you "shoot yourself" but every shell is treated as a blank* so if we go back to the "one live one blank" scenario, we still see that shooting ourselves is optimal, but taking damage from it is not. Instead what we do is drink one beer and cycle the shell out. There is a 50% chance it's a blank and we then hit the dealer for one, and a 50% chance the shell is live. If we didn't have beer, we would have shot ourselves and taken one hit. So although beer doesn't change our best scenario (hitting the dealer for one) it has improved our worst scenario (taking one hit).
The rules for using beer is virtually identical to shooting yourself (there can only be one live, if you're preventing lethal, if you want to get to the next round, etc.) but there is one stipulation: You should only use beer if the number of beers you have is equivalent or to the number of blanks still in play, otherwise you should shoot yourself.
@@airplanes_aren.t_real With no items, it's always better to have an odd number of shells when you're shooting. So, use a beer when it's an even number.
If it's odd and you have two beers, using them both is useful if you don't mind ejecting all the shells and getting more items to garantee a kill on the next round (don't do this if you're possibly at kill range (1 or 2 life) and the dealer has 3 or more)
As Markiplier said once: "I'm not going to go out pointin' that at myself. If I die, it'll be because I pointed it at him." This is the logic behind shooting the Dealer almost all the time (ignoring known blanks).
Imagine that, instead of allowing the player to shoot themselves, the game gives the player another ability: On each turn they can choose to hand the gun to the dealer without firing, and the dealer must shoot at the player once receiving the gun. If the dealer fires a live round, he can shoot again, skipping the player’s turn.
This hypothetical ability is functionally equivalent to shooting oneself, but I am willing to bet that no one would even consider to use such an ability without knowing what type of shell is coming next.
Funny how the presentation is more important to us than the actual logic behind it.
holy shit you're right. damn. I should've realized
I don't mean to argue and I've yet to watch the video cuz I'm trying to understand myself, but I'm curious why would forcing the dealer to take worse odds at landing a shot be bad? Wouldn't a miss, which is more likely, just make his odds at landing a bullet better?
Sorry, I haven't watched the video 😅 I am just too deep in thought to focus on his voice, im sure he explains it all 😽
Well it seems my issue was I am mostly unfamiliar with the game rip. I had an assumption that the amount of shots would be equal between both players (being 6) and now I am just an idiot
Pointing to yourself should earn you extra money/score so that there's incentive to take risks, no matter how superficial.
Maybe you can also work towards getting an extra item for a round if you pull it off enough times to better your own turn economy. Also, perhaps you have a streak for how many times you've successfully pointed the gun at yourself without taking damage, which rewards more bonus money the longer the streak is.
@@iamdoom9810or more points at the end of the
@@GhostwalkerSparrow But money is your points in this game
In a VR Russian roulette game on steam you can't shoot anyone else without using coins you earn by shooting yourself with blanks.
@@Xuda That sounds fun. What's the name of the game?
i love eating live rounds though
mmm yummy buckshot
Maw always tell me to git ma daily metal intake.
Mmmmm tasty gunpowder!
Delish 😋
As a stats professor, I love this video! Excellent analysis. If the game didn't involve shooting yourself/the dealer, I'd assign an analysis of Buckshot to my classes. Fun game though!
Yeah, a shame about the subject matter issue, but always nice when you can tie lessons to a fun game :^) Thank you!
A shame, but you can always make it into something different to analyze for class, like a card game or something, something still interactive but not about shooting others or yourself
could always try censoring the idea to a deck of 5 cards where one is a point and you choose to either give the card to your opponent or keep it for yourself before looking at it
@@genericfurrygaming374 the game could be giving or taking cards!
Black cards don’t give points, red cards give points, it’s like golf so too many points is losing…
If you take a black card you’re free to take or give another card from the deck, if you take a red card or give any card to the opponent the opponent goes next.
handcuffs and magnifying glass can stay the same (or to continue the obfuscation, magnifying could be “peeking” and handcuffs could be “tying”), hacksaws are just “doublers,” cigarettes are “subtractors” (no negatives values allowed in points though)!
It’s always possible to obfuscate stuff like this. Although good luck if someone knows the game and connects the dots haha
You can adjust the context to being a red card/blue card where pulling a red card removes health, putting a sticker on the card is like a handsaw, eating skittles is like smokes, and you can get a peek token or force skip turn token.
I routinely find myself amazed at how poor the innate human understanding of statistics is.
I couldn’t agree more but it’s a known fact that 99% of gamblers quit before they hit big so I’m shooting myself every time brother
@@jedibob12345 you have to eventually win statistically, stay strong brother
@@Mike-official But was it going to be worth it?
ok, but to be fair; which it more likely, that humans are innately bad at understand statistics or that humans are innately bad at understand statistics and the way we describe statistic problems is also pretty vague?
@@TheRabbitPoet
Statistics are extremely simple. You split an event into a number of equally likely possibilities, and then branch out for each subsequent event. Occasionally it's more complicated, but that's it 90% of the time.
Humans just like patterns. Randomness doesn't mesh with our brains because we want to think things are happening for a reason. when Jack played, the first half dozen rounds mostly had the first bullet as a blank, and his brain took this as fact most of the way through the video.
Statistically optimal play takes away the thrill of potentially shooting yourself in the face
Found Midari Ikishima
"Cause shotgun bullets are bad for your health." - Ice Cube
What song?
@@pirat5234 Check Yo Self
@pirat5234 check yourself before you wreck yourself
The Monty Hall problem and this game are a perfect example of how hard it is for most to understand how dependent events affect probability.
The monty hall problem was pretty interesting (didnt watch this dude explain a different one)
A lot of the time when people screw up the Monty Hall problem it is because the person asking it phrases the question incorrect. It is important to emphasize that the host will only **ever** open an empty door (or a goat door, whatever version you are using). Plenty of people phrase it so it would be reasonable to infer that the host could have opened the door with the car which completely messes up the whole concept of the question.
you can think of aiming at yourself as giving the dealer another turn where he can only aim at you, and if he hits a live you dont even get a turn
its funny how the intuition changes when you rephrase it
Mine stayed the same, mostly because last I checked, Shooting your chin does DAMAGE
Welcome buck to backshot roulette class with professor Kissboy.
wait, ain't you that dude who bully adhd furry femboy minecraft streamer with youtube donos? TdLmc or what the name of that dude
This somehow reminds me of Professor Lando
From a purely “Presentation Oriented” perspective, this video is fantastic.
The dark background with contrasting text color,
The concise text that doesn’t overcrowd the slide,
Images and examples when necessary focusing on Visual Elements with the speaker explaining each to give them context,
Super job as always. Your videos are a treat, and they make me feel like I’m sitting in a meeting with a very charismatic presenter.
I was just thinking the same thing. This dude has had to give some presentations in his time, and nails it.
The green background is reminiscent of a table at a casino
So what you are saying is "The more the gun is pointed at you, the more likely you are to be shot." Makes sense to me lol, great video!
I think one of the reason why people immediately think of shooting themselves in this game is because when the game got introduced to them as “Russian Roulette”. Even when I tried this game, my first instinct is to shoot myself, then learning that you could shoot the Dealer made me think if I shoot him or myself as my first move. Even some of my friends did shoot themselves on their first playthrough and continue doing so, because some of think that the main idea of the game is to survive a game of Russian Roulette, instead of trying to defeat the Dealer.
Yeah the name Roulette makes us think we have to do it in the spirit of the game / we NEED to do it in order to play. It’s the conscience of how this works. Then after this video and the comments you realise that yes the point is to beat the game and it clearly says you don’t have to point the gun at yourself at all.
I didn't realize I signed up for statistical analysis class
That's why I'm here. I don't even know this game!
same, i tapped on the video, went out, quickly watched a video to get the rules and context, then came back
don't know if i'll ever play it but i'm here for the maths
I saw the length and reckoned it had to be either very clicj bait or very in depth probability analysis
“Shooting yourself with a blank grants an item next round”
That’s how to fix
Imagine playing normal Russian Roulette with the twist being you can also choose to shoot your opponent instead of yourself while your opponent picks between you and themself randomly and there’s just a crowd of people going “No, shoot yourself! You’re ruining the game by playing it wrong!”, because that’s basically just Buckshot Roulette sans items
It just occured to me that theres a non zero chance that some idiots out there who actually would play real life russian roulette might have adopted this games ruleset of being able to shoot your opponent.
@@mercury5003 Called Russian poker "Commonwealth v. Malone"
The way I looked at it was, to paraphrase a famous quote, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take (at the dealer)
statistics can be unintuitive if you dont know them, but i find it funny how dont shoot yourself in the face is something that takes a whole debunking
This is funnier if you close your eyes and imagine Joe from Family Guy is teaching you something he researched on Wikipedia the other day
God im not the only one who thought he sounded like patrick warburton
I didn’t even notice at first and now it literally sounds exactly like him to me
Saw this video, then played Exploding Kittens for the first time. Used this strategy to mop the floor with my opponents. Ty for teaching us proper statistics
I was hoping that the cell phone, adrenaline shot, and inverter would be included in the factors to consider. They're game-changing, and the new smarter dealer is absolutely counting shells and won't waste any items when no live rounds are left (except for adrenaline, cigs, meds, and inverters obviously)
Well, all those have only just been added with the steam release, so we'll have to wait for an updated video.
If a hardened badass sits on one side of the table and Steve Urkel sits on the other, always bet on Urkel.
This whole video can be summed up as "Losing your turn to the dealer who has to make a choice isn't as big of a risk as literally blowing your brains out over the wall".
With the background music playing, it sounds like you’re in the bathroom explaining all of this to someone who’s about to play
The doctor that revives you when you first go down
@@GhostwalkerSparrowIf some update confirmed that dude was Delightful Kiss Boy in canon that would be crazy.
@@candy-ass4915 lol indeed
The concept of items turns this on its head because you generally want to give the dealer a turn as late as possible, so aiming at yourself can be better. Sometimes this even manifests into "you should drink the beer cans until the last 2 shells". It's not just limited to specific scenarios like the dealer having a handsaw but him being down 1 HP on you.
If you make the dealer use items as late as possible by intentionally delaying his turn by shooting yourself it means you have hit blanks on yourself, which makes the density of live rounds on his turn higher, which is even worse if he has items. It is absolutely limited to specific scenarios
tbh besides it just being an interesting breakdown of probability and game mechanics I kinda love dissecting the hell out of what's supposed to be a dark, haunting experience about someone willing to throw their lives away so frivolously for some cash, to the point where there's slightly more than zero percent chance of losing.
I mean the odds are pretty good
Your videos convinced me to buy the game. Beat the normal game first try, and then got to a million in endless after a good handful of tries.
Also runs great on my Steam Deck, so that'll be nice for killing time here and there.
This reminds me a lot of the Monty hall problem. Its common for people to disregard previous statistics when a new variable is added and just focus on the "new" statistics. I think this is why people get so focused on the "incorrect" objective of the game.
Excellent video, i dont play this game but your explaination of statistics are great!
Shooting yourself is not very good for getting more damage on the dealer, sure, but it is a very important tool if you identify a round as one that you need more to survive than to win. I noticed and commented on a couple of these scenarios on your juiced dealer ai video.
In general, if there is enough saws+bullets such that it's very likely the round will end the game, you need to focus on different goals like delaying damage you take or, in the worst case, taking a single point of damage instead of a guaranteed 2 points, etc.
I did since analysis of the most dangerous rounds where you lost a run to a misplay, namely not changing to a survival strategy when you had more than enough information to see that it was necessary, and the results can be surprising.
Yup, included a section with a few of these scenarios, I def have overlooked a few of these in my own gameplay 👌 But I am improving!
The fact that I was able to sit through this entire video without getting bored yet I would fall asleep if I was being taught anything like this in a class is shocking 😭
speaks volumes about the massive failure that's the average education system
When clicking this video, I did not know that Buckshot Roulette is a game. I thought it was some bizarre variant of Russian Roulette. I was really interested xD
I love this bit of stats, and you having that beautiful beat going on in the bg. Feels like you're coaching us in the restroom before we have to go and take on the Dealer.
This video made me realize that sometimes using the magnifying glass doesn't even give an advantage and that the beer is more powerful than I thought. Of course it all depends on the items and how many lives vs blanks are there but in your case of 1 live and 4 blanks you are already shooting on the odd numbers which gives you an advantage, knowing the next shot is a blank and shooting yourself doesn't really make it better since now there is a 50/50 chance for both to shoot the opponent if you are constantly shooting each other, which was already the case but in the dealer's turn instead of yours. But with the ai it is always beneficial since between you shooting and the dealer shooting themselves you get more chances of dealing damage.
It works if we think of every shot as dealing damage equal to its probability too. You wouldn't shoot yourself for .2 damage and then shoot the dealer for .2 damage, you'd just shoot the dealer for .2
Wowie, 40+ mins of buckshot information. What a treat from the kissboy!
fun statistics fact: when asked to pick between three closed doors, and then have a non-winning door opened, and asked to choose whether to stay with your choice or change it, your odds of getting the winning door actually are different from when you first chose even if you keep the same door. Information changes odds. I think this is something people struggle to intuit when it comes to bsr
Well- in a way it does, yes. If you pick a non-winning door and get yourself a winning door presented there's a 0% chance you will win now
It's really simple to intuit. Your odds of picking a non winning door is higher because there are more of them. You will most often pick a non winning door, therefore when the other non winning door IS opened, you will know that most of the time, the last unopened door will be the winning one.
this becomes super understandable if you imagine you pick out of 100 doors, and then 98 of them get opened. now what do you think, the door you happened to pick is the right one, or the only other one that the host didn't open?
monty hall
What a positive message from The Kisser himself. You will love yourself NOW!
I guess a better way to put it is you're giving yourself better odds, yes, but you're also giving the dealer better odds, so you're gaining no advantage over your opponent and just risking shooting yourself.
Mabye that could be mitigated if you both had seperate guns that were just loaded with the same configuration, rather than sharing a gun.
it's so interesting how even if each move on it's own is perfectly justified, the whole game might not make sense at all
it has so much implications in other places and even irl too...
The year is 2024, I'm turning 21 this year, it's 4am and I am sat here on my cracked iPhone 8 watching a man who sounds like Dagoth Ur explain when exactly you should decide to shoot yourself in a video game.
I think this video was very well made, but I think it could be a little easier to explain.
If you imagined all the previous bullets, it really emphasizes the importance of shooting. If there are 2 rounds left, it's not actually a 50/50, but rather an 80/20.
The reason why shooting yourself is always bad is because if there is an even number of bullets, both players are equally likely to get the live round. So in that circumstance, it is better to always shoot. If there is an odd number of rounds, you get a one round advantage.
With that one round advantage, you have 2 options. Target yourself to get an 80% chance of equally likely odds as the opponent, with a 20% chance of failure with the extra round, OR target the opponent with a 20% chance of success, and an 80% chance of equally likely odds.
In other words, there is not a single instance where targeting yourself is worthwhile, unless items are involved.
Nah his explanation does it better
The dedication of the game’s community with in-depth probability theory research is phenomenal
2:49 I mean, speaking realistically I'd rather not get my face blown through with a shotgun slug at all, even if I somehow magically get resurrected with a defibrillator.
The way this video is presented makes me feel like I'm sitting in a dive bar, shady restaurant, or bus stop, and this is being explained to me by a guy who has personally participated in this game, and who does so once every few years when he's short on cash. An old card shark who gambles for much higher stakes.
Another edge case would be if you need to get to new items quickly.
Say you have 2 health, and there are 2 live 2 blanks left, but dealer has 3 health, 2x magnifying glass and 2x inverter. If you shoot the dealer, you lose 100%. If you shoot yourself and hit a blank, you can shoot dealer afterwards and survive to the next items (dealer only gets 1 turn).
Thats not really an edge case though. If you shoot yourself and its a live you still lost.
The quiet music in the background makes me feel like I’m in a trance
A delightful kisstrance
no way is that a new litty litty fuego slide deck
I mean this in the nicest way possible, you sound you're about to tell life to take the lemons back
This video reminds of Magic the Gathering. A common beginner's mistake is valuing your life total too much. The only life that matters in MtG is the last one in most games, and so your goal isn't "Don't take damage", the goal is to lower your opponent's life to 0 before yours hits 0. It doesn't matter how much you win by, it only matters whether or not you win. I see it reflected in the initial goal analysis of "predict the next shell" or "kill the dealer". Classic beginner mistake in games.
I think that's a bit different but the understanding that life is a ressource *does* help for the scenario where you do shoot yourself actually.
But for the more general point I don't think there's that much overlap, except maybe a general aversion to losing control. In mtg people don't like when their opponent makes progress and that comes from a good place, it's good to not want your opponent to approach victory, but a competent opponent in a multiplayer games will always attempt to do things you don't want them to do so it's wise to accept some amount of unavoidable loss as a cost for doing your own powerful things.
In buckshot roulette I feel like people just feel more in control when they get to keep their turn so that's the appeal of shooting yourself. But it doesn't contribute to winning at all so I think it's a more fundamental misunderstanding of how the game works
@@Laezar1 i think there's plenty of overlap. Its the same idea in a beginner's mind. "Oh, letting my opponent possibly lose me life is bad, I need to do everything to avoid that." Rather than "I need to do everything to defeat my opponent." A beginner's mindset will very much be defensive, as they aim to lose less, rather than win more. That's exactly what the "clinging to control" is in buckshot roulette, and what a lot of beginner's do in MtG.
The shift from losing less to winning more is a big one on MtG, and, I think, clearly demonstrated here in buckshot roulette, but if you still don't see it that way, I understand.
This is so interesting. I'm a mathematician but I only considered taking the basic probability into account, not all probability scenarios at once. Very compelling
The youtuber Merg actually managed to figure that out without analysing the statistics of the game. His video is titled "Always shoot the dealer" if you want to see.
This is feels like a presentation you would watch in school
“In this game” is pretty important context I did not have coming into this
34:30 actually that's a really good way to think about it. shooting yourself is basically taking the dealer's turn for him, so you only wanna do that if certain things would get worse for you if he was able to take his turn
I think the real problem is that people overthink these things. Every time the gun is pointed at you is a chance to get shot. So, if you don't wanna get shot, don't point the gun at yourself. It's that simple.
Worst video for parents to walk in the room without having context
19:20 Kurt Cobain homeschooling his kids be like:
Basically: why swallow the risk of loss more times than you need to. Give the risk to the dealer, instead.
Breaking news: Suicide rates drop to 0 after TH-camr explains why you statistically shouldn’t shoot yourself.
In other news: gun homicides have raised significantly in the same timeframe
i watch you for 1 second and i feel myself getting 10x better at this game.
You sound like Patrick Warburton delivering a Khan Academy lecture.
A simpler way to put it is there are more chances that you get shot as opposed to more chances to shoot the dealer.
I’m so glad I found you this is golden buckshot content
The analysis seems correct, but I think the most thorough analysis would come from game-tree search / minimax. The state space seems small enough (I'm guessing) that you can brute force it and definitively determine when it makes sense to shoot yourself.
I can't believe you made a 40 minute presentation to prove the haters wrong :D Good work
24:15 it's important to factor in turns. If you keep saw yo could give first turn of next loadout to dealer because he shoots himself with a blank. If you give up a saw you could go first in the next loadout because he shoots you with alive round
The sheer lack of understanding when it comes to how gambling works is probably why gambling is so profitable
Watching this videos reminded me a lot of my discrete class and trying to figure out if I can prove any of the percentages you displayed via induction! Thanks for amazing watch
Counter-conventional statistical probabilities, mixed with the question of whether or not one should shoot oneself in the face? Truly this is the Monty Hall problem for the modern millennial
TLDR first turn advantage is huge, and even the 1/5 chance you give it up puts the odds in the dealer's favor.
I'm almost DREADING the eventual YTP that will come from your videos
the music still playing in the background makes me feel like im at this nightclub taking a semimar from someone who learned to game the system before i go play the dealer
so, if i understand this right, there's basically a set number of shots to be made each round and you want as few of those to be targeted at you. makes sense
Shooting ourselves always feels to me like giving the dealer an extra turn. Which is the opposite of why people do it, since they mean to take turns away from the dealer. So basically whenever i don't know the next shell, but know there is a live in there, I can't do it... You explained it nicely 🙂
My favorite part is that he explained this in pretty much every video already, just obviously not as in-depth, but definitely enough to understand.
Probabilities ain't that hard, but if people can't listen -> process things then yeah, nevermind expecting them to understand maths... and the worst part is... they're so confident that they're snarky about it, only to be dead wrong... ICANT
I don't even own this game. I just like the voice. I could listen to this man talk all day.
the dealer made one fatal mistake: he signed a contract with a stats nerd
As I see it, the booze is the most powerful item in the game for four reasons: first, it's essentially shooting at yourself without the danger of taking a hit meaning any time it's better to shoot yourself you can instead avoid taking damage as the obvious repercussion. Second, it's a wonderful way to deny the dealer the chance to take a turn with the potential for you to deal guaranteed damage should the last round or two rounds, should you have handcuffs, have at least one live left. Third, if you can't kill the dealer in the current round, you have the potential to eject a live round, especially if it's the last round in situations where you can make the dealer waste items. It's always super useful to get the dealer to use the saw when you know it's guaranteed to be a blank. The other situation is you eject a blank and get to take a shot. Fourth, if the dealer made it so they are shooting the odd rounds, you can take back the odd rounds advantage.
Love your backshot roulette videos, keep it up
minor spelling error
im crying
@@calook1334are you sure that's a misspelling?
For me, as long as I start the round, the more shenanigans I can make before the dealer. So, shooting my self or even not dealing damage in a round at all are valid options.
Quickest way it clicked for me was realizing that, items aside, the best case scenario for shooting yourself when there are more blanks is that you're just going to keep doing it until you get down to there being an equal numbers of blanks and lives and it becomes a 50/50. So you took a series of risks just to get down to a 50/50 chance, which is obviously bad
I was aiming for the 1 mil challenge and i was on 709k cash. It was Round 2 and the dealer was on 1 hp. It was a 8 round shot and the next shot is unknown. The dealer has every item at that moment, and i told myself i would lose the game right here if i shoot myself and take dmg. For whatever reason, i gaslit myself to shoot myself hoping it was a blank and took dmg and lost the whole run. This video is a great ‘salt in my wound’. Amazing video
One thing I seem to see a lot of from watching playthroughs of buckshot roulette is people always assume the next shell is a blank when they decide to shoot themselves. Or that logically it has to follow an alternating pattern of blanks to live.
probability is more then just "Oh there's a 20% chance its a live round." No, you have to consider what order the shells could be loaded in, and count what's in the chamber. just because the odds are 2 live, 3 blank doesn't mean you should shoot yourself. There are at least 4 combinations in the sequence in which Both live rounds can be chambered back to back. Which means, in any instance your odds are better aimed at shooting the dealer than assuming the next shell is a blank.
Simply put, the more shells you have, the greater the probability and variation in loadouts and shell order. Which all just points to a better chance at shooting the dealer, than yourself.
This pretty much matches what my AI does too, minus adjusting for the base AI wasting items or shots ofc.
TH-cam's shadow filter is fun to work with when talking about this stuff!
Yeah, annoying to deal with, it gets my own comments on my own vids sometimes lol
all of what you described was already intuitively clear to me, even without calculations
now i just wonder why i still can't pass my probability and statistics course
2 Live scenario:
2 lives, two duds. You have four life and Dealer has two saws and cufs. You should selfhit because taking 1 down to 3 is better than getting doublehit, and depriving Dealer of 1 out of 2 live hits is beneficial.
Haven't done the math, but is self hitting beneficial here?
Phrasing courtesy of youtube's filter.
Good point! Didn't think about that scenario. Yes, you may want to aim at yourself there to eliminate the possibility of dying on dealer's turn. However, I would probably only consider this if I have a good shot of killing on my next turn, otherwise you have a good chance of ending up in the same scenario in the next loadout and you're going to be at less health
i think the fact it's called roulette trips people up in the logic because they forget you have hp in this game and therefore should be optimizing for dps over not dying
If only Kurt Cobain watched this video
Unbelievable. I’ve barely seen any gameplay of this game and I only just heard about it from this channel being in my recommended. But I keep watching these vailed Comp Sci lessons. Good job I guess?
So turns out Merg's strategy in his second video was optimimal. Wasn't just luck.