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All the specific strategies and guides can be found on the spyparty forum

Tell[]

A tell has 2 main components:

  1. Spotting probability. The chance of the sniper to observe a given tell.
  2. Interpretation certainty. The probability for the sniper to interpret a given tell correctly.

Another common, but more specific classification is to distinguish into

  • Hard tells, which have a very high interpretation certainty
  • Soft tells, whose interpretation certainty is usually not as high

Hence, the sniper tries to maximize his certainty about the party-goers identity by spotting and iterpreting various tells. Once he has accumulated enough certainty he will shoot.

The spy on the other hand tries to minimize and obfuscate the sniper's certainty about the party-goers identity.

Attention resource[]

Spyparty only works  because the sniper has limited mental resources with which he can analyse the party. Spotting a tell needs resources and so does interpreting. The sniper's task is to allocate his resources amongst the possibly observable tells as well as deciding whether to interpret an observed tell or not.

For example, a solid beginner strategy is the so called "camping of hard tells". There, the sniper allocates almost his entire observing resources into spotting a few or even a single hard tell (e.g. swap), meaning a tell with very high interpretation certainty. By doing so, he dramatically increases his probability to spot the given tell and once he does, the interpretation certainty of the tell might be enough to warrent a shot.

Mathematical Description (...)[]

Let N be the number of non-cast party-goers i and M the number of emitted tells j of any given guest, then the sniper shoots once the sum of all Sij * Cij of any given party-goer i exceeds an individual certainty threshold epsilon, with Sij being the probability of the sniper catching the tell j of guest i and Cij the certainty with which he will interpret the observed tell correctly.

Common pitfalls for snipers[]

  • Trying to interpret observations of unknown pattern. E.g. spotting a guest returning briefcase and making assumptions, without knowing how the briefcase works
  • Spreading your attention too thinly
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