You will have plenty of top ELO games coming here soon. I do my best to pace myself and not burn out trying to play 100-150 games as fast as I can for the leaderboard. I’ll be real with you, after you hit around 1700 ELO, generally the lobbies aren’t that different in terms of skill. The biggest thing is playing optimal regardless of the skill level - That means consistently making good decisions and that can be exercised during any game or arena.

Well you have to factor in a few things. Red will be a big target considering his blocking spots are very easy for us - 10 brick, 6 wheat, and the doubled 5 sheep. He will also have the wheat port with his incoming settle which won’t help his threat levels. If you think about my blocking spots… I really have the 4 ore with orange since the 9 brick is shared. Sure they can block the 8 wood but everyone knows that is a bad block. als to stay favorable, and maybe even make a development card play to secure army. Pacing is a tricky topic as it’s not like he did anything “wrong” but he could have definitely be a little bit less aggressive early on and made some more favorable moves/deals with the board to not be as jarring. Like the solo on the 8 wood is just not a good social move and will give him more of target status than if he didn’t. Given his early moves and pacing, he became a larger target. Though I do like aggressive building with cities and settles, I am also aware not to ruffle early game feathers.

*in addition to the chess player, I can’t edit the original since mobile YT is garbage

I named my cat after Tal the chess player! You got it.