Codenames 21

[JR4]

Here are my thoughts on the round:

As you surely have guessed by now this was my first attempt at being spymaster. It was a lot of fun but at the same time I had a hard time avoiding ambiguity. The fact that my team had discussed every single word on the board that was left at my third clue (!) speaks for itself.

My game plan was to make aggressive clues, going for 3 words whenever possible. Fenn played very solidly, carefully avoiding dangerous words and just worked his way through the board while I desperately tried to catch up with him taking huge risks.

My first clue was DRIVER 3. What I tried to clue here was basically someone who is driving some sort of vehicle. PILOT and LIMOUSINE were obvious but the third one was more tricky. Lewwyn got it right straight away, I was indeed going for GLOVE as the third word. As a backup I had UNDERTAKER and POST, so surely nothing could go wrong then? I checked for golfing clues and was surprised with MAPLE but that was grey, so no disaster if you guessed that. CALF does make sense but I never though of Cattle (calf driver). HOOD would have been a small disaster as that was perhaps the hardest word to clue for Fenn (and it was blue, of course). A pass on the third word was still okay.

So, Fenn got AIR and SOUL on his second guess. I decided to try to catch up with blue team with BOX 3. I can see why my team could think of a million words for that clue. I aimed for GLOVE and POST (obvious) and one of UNDERTAKER, BOTTLE, DIAMOND or HONEY as the third word. Yes, I know, that probably wasnt`t the best clue. Again you got the two first words and disagreed vehemently over the last one. I was surprised to see MAPLE but at least it wasn` blue so we still had a fighting chance. HOOD and DOCTOR would have been pretty much game over at that point. 

PALM and DOCTOR were taken off the board on the next guess which put us in some trouble. With four words remaining (and blue with just two) I had to try to finish on that very turn. But, well, after thinking a bit about it I clued FINALIZED 4. What I meant to clue was basically something that has reached its final form (plus Undertaker that would be obvious), excluding HOOD, including BOTTLE. I didn`t realize at the time that a 4 clue would lead you away from BOTTLE. Sorry about that. Anyway, Lewwyn got it right again but we were never going to win with you not guessing BOTTLE. I thought that UNDERTAKER and DIAMOND would be obvious, BOTTLE would be likely and hoped you would go for HONEY over HAM (which you actually did).

So, lesson learned. I`ll try to narrow down the choices next time.

[Mardoc]

Phew, glad the rest of you overruled me at the end. I don't think Diamond bottle would have been much of a challenge to clue.

@JR4: you came awfully close. I think you'd have won if we made any slip. It's naturally hard to be precise and aggressive at the same time - but just a little more luck would have given you the win.

So obviously we need a third round . I assume we've got to wait for Pindicator to be home from work for our next board, so we have a little time to figure out the details.

I'm willing to spymaster for blue, or to guess again. I see sunrise has previously wanted to not be spymaster; Dave, do you have a preference?

[DaveV]

Either is fine with me; should we go back to your proposed coin flip?

[Mardoc]

Either is fine with me; should we go back to your proposed coin flip?

Nah, I'll just declare you blue spymaster third round.

[WarriorKnight]

GG blue. Tiebreaker time. Who wants to spymaster for red?

JR4, it was a good show for your first time. It’s generally hard to plan a strategy before seeing the board, as sometimes a lot of overlapping words make high number clues impossible. My advice would be to remember previous clues with the +1 guess, as we might have guessed Glove on a future round if you didn’t reclue it with Box (despite passing on the first turn), and we probably would’ve got bottle on the last round with Finalized 3 IMO (as we would assume that glove was the driver word so we guess bottle as our next box word). But it’s all in good fun.

What was the Assassin btw?

[JR4]

What was the Assassin btw?

COMPOUND was the Assassin. It was mentioned by both teams but I don`t think anyone was particularly close to actually guessing it.

[JR4]

My advice would be to remember previous clues with the +1 guess, as we might have guessed Glove on a future round if you didn’t reclue it with Box (despite passing on the first turn), and we probably would’ve got bottle on the last round with Finalized 3 IMO (as we would assume that glove was the driver word so we guess bottle as our next box word).

Ah, I see. But you mentioned an array of different words on DRIVER and HOOD in particular would have been bad. I thought that reclueing GLOVE was the only way to keep you away from guessing that.

[rho21]

I thought you might be aiming for the Blind Watchmaker at the end there. Well played blue team.

[Fenn]

On the last clue: I was pretty sure calves didn't get blindfolded in real life, but it was the only thing I could think of to tie the two words together (I hadn't considered Leather), so I hoped that adjacency from horses would be enough to nudge you in the right direction.

Early on I avoided SOUL,AIR and PALM to hopefully make cluing more difficult for red team; after Calf and Hood came up in red's thinking I left those for later in the hopes they might be guessed. Going first and taking an early lead in words guessed led me to play conservatively and give out 2-word clues. Even knowing that the last two words would be tough to clue (whatever the specific combination), I think it was the right play.

[Mardoc]

On the last clue: I was pretty sure calves didn't get blindfolded in real life, but it was the only thing I could think of to tie the two words together (I hadn't considered Leather), so I hoped that adjacency from horses would be enough to nudge you in the right direction.

This game!  Deliberately implying something false, that the audience knew was false...works.  I know, you know, but you don't know I know, so it's fine.

Early on I avoided SOUL,AIR and PALM to hopefully make cluing more difficult for red team; after Calf and Hood came up in red's thinking I left those for later in the hopes they might be guessed. Going first and taking an early lead in words guessed led me to play conservatively and give out 2-word clues. Even knowing that the last two words would be tough to clue (whatever the specific combination), I think it was the right play.

I'm sure JR4 appreciated it   . Sounds like at minimum you pushed him to reclue glove, so that was probably worth a word in itself.