Reliability of judgments: what can be considered dependable

In Mafia you cannot know a player's colour for certain, but you can assess how dependable your judgment is. In "50 Shades of Red" Novik proposes four levels of reliability and shows that every judgment has a weak spot that the opposing team exploits. Below these levels are set out in our structure. All percentages belong to the author; they are his experience, not measurements. Treat them as guideposts and check them at your own tables.

Level one: almost a hundred percent

In the absence of gross mistakes at the table, six things are dependable.

If there is a single sheriff at the table, his colours are true.
A player who in the critical round revealed himself as the sheriff without being your red check is black.
If a sheriff gives you, a red, as black, he is not the real one.
In the guessing round, with a two-sided red check, the unchecked player by the remainder is mafia.
If the sheriff is dead, five are at the table and there are two live red checks, the rest outside your trio are one or two blacks.
A player directly admitted he is mafia. This is the consequence of a mistake by the blacks.

Note: the only source of colour that does not depend on behaviour is the sheriff. Everything else you consider dependable is dependable only as long as the blacks have not thought up a counter-move.

The danger of mixed colours

The most frequent trap of strong blacks: a colouring action plus shooting the sheriff. The blacks deliberately play different colours so that the town decides there is no link between a black and a red player. Colouring actions include: removing a black check with the deciding fourth hand in the round at nine, asking for the mafia to be checked, voting together with the sheriff against the false sheriff, putting a hand to raise a black in round zero, standing in a hard counterweight with the mafia. So a red who sees such an action should not hurry to the conclusion that the player is red.

Level two: about ninety-five percent

For tournament level, "practically always". There are counter-strategies for the blacks, but these are gambles with lowered chances.

A civilian broke the table at ten and assigned a shot, so he is a civilian. Counter: switch your beacon to his target.
A killed player who did not reveal himself as the sheriff is a civilian. Counter: a quiet self-shot with a hard testament.
A player killed on the first night who called himself the sheriff is the real sheriff. Counter: a self-shot on the first night with a red check of an inconvenient player.
If in the round at nine an unchecked player was removed by three or four hands, there is a black among those who voted. Counter: remove your own badly speaking black.
A night at six without a killing (a miss) means two blacks at the table. Counter: a deliberate miss when you are the reddest.

Level three: about seventy-five percent

A player in the critical round, choosing between two versions, twisted his hand and started a revote (a car crash), so he is a civilian. Counter: a tie split so that the red hand delivers, and then finish off.
In the critical round a final speech with a foul-shout, an accusation of the kind "this or that one is mafia", means there are not two blacks in the link. Counter: spend the foul to drown one of your own.
The reddest at the table is not shot two rounds in a row, so he is mafia. Counter: do not kill the reddest, and then "eat" the argument.
The sheriff first plays against a suspicious player, then gives him as red, and this is confirmed: the real sheriff. Counter: this is how to "prove" sheriffhood by giving an inconvenient player as red.
Raising three at nine without a break: among them one black and two reds. Counter: break into a civilian under the second hands, do not let the pair rise.

Level four: sixty-five to seventy and below

There are no dependable counter-strategies here, but there is little dependability too.

A civilian's testament "definitely red" or "definitely black" means the role corresponds to the testament.
A player in round zero plays hard against another, calling him mafia, via a car crash raising the pair: in the link there are one or two blacks.
In the round at nine only civilians' hands removed a player: the voted-out player is mafia.
In the farewell minute of a non-critical round a player says that in a hard counterweight a particular player is certainly leaving: in the link there are not two mafia.

Two kinds of information and where the pyramid comes from

The author first divides information into two kinds: objective (true) and subjective (subject to cognitive distortions). With good play by both teams the only hundred percent way to determine a player's colour is to start from the sheriff and his checks. Everything else depends on people's behaviour, and so reliability decreases. The author asks not to judge him strictly for "Captain Obvious": for beginners these links are not obvious, and the point is that you can be absolutely sure of the first five if there are no gross mistakes at the table. By a gross mistake he means, for example, revealing as the sheriff for a civilian against the real leader of the reds, or inventing checks for the sheriff. Take these points as "sure things", your concrete support.

Why even a formally right conclusion can deceive: the author's example

You are the sheriff and found a player to be mafia. This player, when attacked, called himself by your role and voiced a black check, calling for a balance. He was not believed, you were, the false sheriff was removed, and you were killed at night. By formal logic the black check of your opponent is a red player. But is it so? The black player could have given his own black as black so that the town got the impression they were on different teams. Then the real black check deliberately speaks badly and sets the civilians against himself. And after the sheriff is killed, the one the mafia gave as a "black check" becomes red for the town, and he wins the game. Hence the boxed rule: if there is a way to become red for the town without a check, an experienced mafioso will use it himself or with the team's help. The scheme: colouring action plus shooting the sheriff equals victory.

Counter-strategies and gambles

For the "practically always" level (by the author's estimate, in a tournament it may be otherwise in at most five games out of a hundred), counter-strategies for the mafia are given in brackets. The author warns: this is a gamble and play with lowered chances compared with the optimal strategy. Even after making a "colouring move" you are not guaranteed against removal, because besides moves the town assesses players by emotions. Examples of counter-strategies: switch the beacon to the target of the civilian who broke the table; use a quiet self-shot with a concrete testament that the mafia are civilians (a quiet self-shot is removing your own black from the game at night without the sheriff's reveal, which breeds conflicts in the town by the count); kill yourself on the first night with a hard testament and a red check of an inconvenient player; remove your own badly speaking black to destroy the link; make a miss on purpose, but only when you are two blacks and you are the reddest by logic. All the details of these techniques are covered in the third-level lessons.

A special rule: the sheriff does not assign shots

Among the judgments the author singles out one for which there is no counter-strategy. Colouring through assigning a shot to the civilians ("a break and assigning a shot") he considers forbidden and proposes removing from the game for it. For the mafia to adapt to this move, it must show at the agreement that despite the shouting we still shoot as agreed, or give a separate clear gesture for a self-shot with the highest priority. The rule: the sheriff does not assign shots. A colouring move through assigning a shot, in his words, kills the whole intellectual side of the game.

On the limit of reliability

The author fairly stipulates that all facts and interpretations from the seventh to the twenty-third (not marked as hundred percent) can be questioned: the stated percentage of reliability is subjective and derived from his experience of play. He also declines to sum up the chapter: in it, in his words, every sentence is already the quintessence of a thought, and to generalise is to destroy. We in the Academy keep the same caveat: the percentages belong to the author and are not measured.

How to use this ladder

Determine which level your judgment stands on, and do not decide until you find a judgment higher up.
Ask yourself whether this fact was created deliberately (a counter-strategy). The higher the level, the rarer, but the more valuable the deception for the blacks.
Do not add up weak judgments into a "strong" one: four conclusions at sixty-five percent do not give ninety-five, they often depend on each other.
Record conclusions and their source in order to analyse mistakes later.

For the black

The same ladder shows which red judgments you need to break. If the table is used to believing "red, because he broke the table and assigned a shot", you can use the counter-strategy, but only when the other options are worse, and always prepare an explanation.

Practice

Make a table of five judgments of the ninety-five level and five of the seventy-five level. For each come up with a situation in which the blacks would deliberately create such a fact. Compare your table with a partner's.

Typical mistakes

Believing the author as fact without checking on your own players.
Thinking the blacks do not know these rules (at strong tables they do).
Forgetting the caveat: all percentages are the author's experience.

Source of the idea. The chapter on reliable judgments from Dmitry Novik's book "50 Shades of Red" (2021). The percentages belong to the author and are given as his estimates. The wording and order of presentation are ours.