Drinking

Does anybody have some tips that I could use to get my drinking standing up? I can only beat people of master/renowned standing...

I am a legendary Drinker and my tip is the pick on the greenies. Stand
in the in and announce that you would like to drink and someone will
challenge you... Usually someone green.



Oh and only drink on days of free drinking that way there will be more green challengers.



Is that cheap of me? Maybe but we're pirates.

I believe that drinking effectively relies on understanding the scoring and piece probabilities very well, know your mugs and know your opponents mugs. The better you can calculate relative value of moves in your head, the better you will do. There is no getting around the fact that this is a mathematical game, randomness only adds probabilities to the equation, which can still be considered in mathematical terms.

Basically, to deal with probabilities (true in drinking and td): just multiply the value of a move or event by its probability to get its relative worth.

Some quick tips:
*There is a big difference between winning a row on an unstained spot versus a stained one. You either get 100 or 200 points with no barrels involved. This means that you should try to net unstained rows for yourself, and if you can't prevent your opponent from winning a row, you should still expend some effort in preventing them from scoring an unstained row, if possible.
*Barrels are worth 100 points on an unstained row. So if you have a chance to place a barrel, don't waste it. Barrels are excellent, you like barrels, just don't drink them all at once, that's usually bad.
*Fries are rare, if you are behind, try to stop your opponent from gaining rows by blocking them. Needing a piece of a specific color and shape is much worse than needing one of two pieces of a color and shape, sometimes it is worth to decrease the odds of completing that row in this way, but not always.