this guide is meant solely for those of you who have 1) lots of time and 2) no healthy aspirations in life. i.e. for those who want to get kdice trophies, especially gold. the basic table strategies of this game have been covered in others' guides (wish, grun, XC). however, mastering those strategies will only bring you up to par with the top ~100 players in this game.

its been said several times at the top tables that we all have the same level of strategy. only rarely do people make tactical mistakes. so, why do some people get gold trophies, why do some people consistently get top ten? sure, number of games played matters a lot. if two people have the same skill set, but one plays twice as many games, then they should have roughly twice as many points. sure, random luck has a lot to do with it. every month there is someone who gets more lucky starts than everyone else, and benefits from that.

the one thing that is overlooked the most often in this monthly competition is the metagame. lets refer to wikipedia for a defintion: "Metagaming is a broad term usually used to define any strategy, action or method used in a game which transcends a prescribed ruleset, uses external factors to affect the game, or goes beyond the supposed limits or environment set by the game. In other words, sometimes using out-of-game information to affect one's in-game decisions."

ok, lets cut to the chase. ill list off all of my metagaming strategies, point by point:

1) be more respected than the next guy. fairly often during the game, people are presented with the option of attacking one of two people. strategy says it doesnt really matter which one they attack, and which one they decide to be nice to. at this point, they dont simply flip a coin. instead, they look at the names behind the colors, and think, hmmmm. which one do i like more, which one annoys me, which one is the biggest threat to me in the monthly standings, etc.... if you have garnered enough respect, then the person who is deciding will tend to say... hey, thats montecarlo, and hes a good guy. i dont give a shit who the other guy is probably, so ill attack them. and this makes you finish higher. (more on how to earn respect later). this also definitely comes into play towards the end of the month, when everyone starts to realize which players have a shot at getting the gold. based on their experience playing with the competitors, they will choose who they would like to see win it all (or who they would absolutely NOT want to see win it all). pet and sam had a photo finish one month that sam shouldve won if there had been no metagame. however, a couple more people decided they wanted to see pet win more than sam, and therefore pet won.

2) never PGE. there is nothing more damaging to a monthly run than having a consistent PGE. two cases here: either someone hates you so much that they start the PGE, or you hate someone else so much that you start it. if its the latter case, you can kiss your monthly goal goodbye. i did this once in january, because i got so pissed off at leekstep that i publicly announced PGE for all the shit i felt he had put me through over the months. before making this decision, i had to realize that i would not get 1st for the month if i were to carry out the threat. i was willing to sacrifice my finish for the PGE. if its the other case, that the PGE is a result of someone else making the decision to target you, its not quite as bad. try as hard as you can to humor them, make fun of yourself, etc, especially if they are a respected member of the community, and hopefully they will forgive you soon enough. if they arent respected, then you have the option of corraling your posse (since you are respected) to squash them. they will quickly tire of being squashed, and will quit sitting with you, and go whine in their lower tables.

3) kiss up to the noobs. new people are so cute. theyre so moldable. lots of them come to the big tables with the preknowledge that big tables are full of old-boys-club assholes who will screw them into oblivion. whenever anyone has low expectations, play off of that. be nice to them, truce them often, give them basic introductory advice to the high tables, do anything to keep them around the high tables. they will be extremely and overly thankful, which will result in them rarely choosing to attack you, and even when they do, they apologize profusely, and will throw at least 3 games your way later on. also, they arent as concerned with getting a 1st, so when you truce them evenly, they are quick to say, thanks thanks thanks for getting me to the top two in the endgame, because of your being nice to me, i will flag to you, and you can have 1st. i.e. they dont realize how big a difference it is between 1st and 2nd place points, theyre so happy to just be positive.

4) help the whiners. same principle as the previous rule. whiners always get gangbanged because everybody hates a whiner. if you are the one person who steps in and helps them out in a game, they will remember you, and will always repay you at least 2-for-1 for your kindness. even old pros act this way. when they hit that incredibly unlucky streak of a whole day of unlucky starts and -2 losses, if you protect them in a game, and even flag a 1st to them, and say, hey dude, i felt bad for you, hope this gets you out of your slide... they remember the favor, and will repay you at least 2-to-1 for your kindness. (the one exception to this rule is pat whalen, who whines even when he gets 1st, and thinks he owes no one anything. in fact, they owe him more 1sts because he only got 1st last game).

5) dont play nice with only an exclusive group. if you only play with your cabal, the other 95 out of top 100 will notice quickly. in order to get 1st, you need more than 5 votes towards the end of the month.

6) try to distract everyone from how serious you are at your run for 1st. "i just want top ten." (straight lie). "i want pet to win more than sam." (i want me to win more than either of them). "im going to china on the 20th". (when rnd will start playing as me, and then ill cancel my trip to secure 1st). another common tactic is a propaganda smear campaign, where you convince everyone of any possible pga conspiracy that doesnt involve you, and how you want them to help you defeat said conspiracy. remember what the last six letters of conspiracy spell.

7) earn respect. this is done in several ways:
a) play a long time at a high level.
b) make witty forum posts.
c) attempt crazy rolls sometimes just for bragging rights (wish won a 3v7, i won a 2v6, etc...).
d) say hello to as many people as possible, and ask about their real lives, as though you actually care.

8) unspoken pgas are the most dangerous weapon. call this what you will: pga/otf. during my january run, wishbone hardly ever attacked me. but people knew this would happen going into the game. they would plan accordingly. on the last day of january when i had an insane run, there were several people who decided they wanted to see me win the month. my favorite was uyd. i noticed that he didnt cripple me a couple of games in a row when good strategy said that he should have, and then i started playing games with him and taking advantage of the fact. did uyd ever tell anyone he was pgaing me? no. did he ever tell me he was pgaing me? no. does uyd have AIM? hell if i know. totally unspoken. wayyy more dangerous than the wishbone otf. whenever you have a very friendly and successful game with someone in one game, i think it is worth the risk to assume they will want to work with you again the next game. youre safe until someone else picks up on the correlation (and these correlations are HARD to notice). when they do accuse you of pga, both people will vehemently deny, and the rest of the community will think, hmmm, montecarlo and... uyd? nah.

9) farming is acceptable in some circumstances. if you make a joke out of the farm, people wont get that upset. "im gonna farm the shit outta all of yall", "stfu, cows cant type." its amazing how little people get upset if you make a joke out of it. on the other hand, if you try to farm silently and seriously, people will generally hate you, and you will have a few hour-long PGEs to deal with afterwards.

10) dont target your chief opponents until less than a week is left. if you never target your chief opponent, then they will have an easy road to possible victory. if you target them from day 10, then neither of your scores will increase as fast as everyone else's. so theres a balance as to when you should formally start the affair. but, dammit, once the battle is on, target the shit outta them. remind all of your otfs that you want 1st, and youre scared that this other dude might get it. whenever you sit with this person, change priorities from getting 1st to getting more points than him/her. i dont care if that means a -600 5th for you. if it means a -2000 7th for him/her, its worth it. otherwise, theres a chance that you end up 2nd and him 3rd, with only a couple hundred point differential. if you ever catch them playing a game without you, go join the gallery, and try to throw any kind of sly or overt propaganda out to the table to get your opponent prematurely killed. basically, this is a PGE, but its between 1st and 2nd overall, and its a gentlemanly PGE... if you drop all of the negative smear youre loading into the chatboxes against the dude.

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basically, it all comes down to two things:
o earning and keeping respect.
o fooling others into thinking they owe you more than they do.

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i'll add more stuff later when ryan implements an edit function.