The critical round: how reds choose a line

The choice of line is the deciding vote. It may take place at seven, at eight or at five if a balance was played. How do you determine who is the sheriff and which team is the civilian one? Besides speeches, position, moves, emotional play and the meta level, we also have the sheriffs' checks and communication inside the teams. This lesson is about them. (At six the line is not chosen: two are simply raised on the different versions.)

The sheriff's line

The "more sheriff" is the one who made the right checks and took actions that increase the town's chances of winning. As with determining a role, there is no hundred percent determination here. We proceed from the concept: if one of the sheriffs plays as would suit a black, he is mafia (or cannot play, but that is cured with time).

The sheriff's checks must be informative and give many colours. A good leader goes to check conflicting links to get a clear layout of the table with one check. Hiding information is blackness. Three kinds of checks help the mafia, so a sheriff who makes them is black in most games.

a) Giving the real sheriff as black on the second night. It is unprofitable for the mafia to colour the town, so that civilians do not use the count. It is typical of a false sheriff to give the real sheriff as a check.

b) Checking a dead player on the second night and later. There is no information, and the mafia is fine. Plus the blacks can combine killing an unwanted player with hiding information: we went for a black card, but the player died, who knew.

c) Checking a player who is red for all. Nobody would have played against him anyway, and his colour gives nothing. Good blacks arrange to kill the same character the next night, but already as a check and not as someone who understood the game. A frequent situation: the false sheriff finds a "black" who is in conflict with a player who by the logic of the game is red, then goes to him and finds a civilian. Now you know this is black play. A possible mixed-colour play with a red check is not an argument for many players.

Reddening checks

There are also checks that make a line red:

a) Giving the "sheriff" as a checked black on the first night. This is bad for the mafia: the tempo falls, the possibility of raising a red or protecting your black by giving him as a checked civilian is blocked. The sheriff will not be removed in this round, and two members of the team will be under threat. The check is good not only because of the weakness of the line for the blacks but also because of the common scheme in which the checked black reveals himself to the sheriff in reply. Its execution by the blacks leads to the strategy of team against team.

b) Giving a killed player as a checked red on the first night. If the player himself is not a checked black (it is easy to invent a check of the killed), he gives tempo to the other team and does not protect his own. Revealing a second line with a killed player is meaningless.

c) Two black checks in a row. They cut the number of winning variants, looking from the civilians' side: the sheriff leaves the town no chance of voting on unchecked reds in every round from the first. The strongest sheriff line: a black check of a player who is not the false sheriff, then a second black check (in two nights by the critical round the whole mafia team is found).

The team line

Colossal information is given by the interaction between mafia players and their speeches when leaving the table.

a) The farewell speech of a player who left through a balance. Remember the speech of the departed in the vote, especially if he does not know his sheriff. Listen to the arguments he gives, how and to whom he addresses them. Resentment and sincere bitterness speak of a civilian's card. If he has nothing to say, finds it hard to state thoughts about those who remain and to reason about future votes, there is a high chance that a mafioso left.

b) Communication inside the team. The more communication between players, the redder they are: approval, conflicts, gathering hands against each other, interrupting, micro-gestures, squabbles say that among them there is a civilian. Blacks usually do not focus attention on each other and steer clear of members of their own team. The rule does not work against the cunning and self-confident.

c) An unexplained change of preference in the line. The main principle for determining a black: a player first chooses the line of the real sheriff, and then without arguments and without events that overturn the table changes his opinion to the opposite.

It is useful to reread the chapter from the viewpoint of the mafia, the don, the sheriff and again the civilian: it has many instructions and tactics for all the roles.

For the black

Checks that give the sheriff, a killed player or a player red for all suit the mafia: any that give no information. Giving on the first night a checked black as the sheriff, or a dead player, is rather a red line, provided the revealed one is not a black check.

Questions for self-check

1. Which check is more profitable for the don if: a) the blacks sit well; b) the don spoke badly; c) the blacks sit badly; d) regardless of this?
2. Which check of the false sheriff is the least profitable for the black team?
3. On which night is it better to give your own black as black?
4. What is the advantage for the mafia of calling their blacks red and playing with each other? What is the disadvantage?

Practice

For three recordings write out the checks of both sheriffs by night and note which of them are informative and which concealing. Determine the line from them.

Typical mistakes

• Choosing a line by the speech alone.
• Not listening to the farewell speeches of the departed.
• Ignoring communication between players.
• Changing the line without an event.

Source of the idea. The chapter "The critical round. Deciding on a team" from Dmitry Novik's book "Mafia in the Style of Zen" (2020).