Special schemes of the blacks: break, three sheriffs

Strategy and tactics are different things. You feel like a beer: that is strategy. How you get it and drink it is tactics. Playing a balance with buying a civilian hand, playing mixed colours or making a false sheriff's self-shot has long become routine. In this lesson are schemes that have not yet had time to become popular. Every such game turns the civilians' brains inside out and makes the game unforgettable.

A note on notation. As in the lesson on the self-shot, a check is written with two letters: the first is the colour announced to the table, the second is the real colour. BB is a black given as black, BR a red given as black.

Scheme 1. Play through a break and insurance

At the agreement the don shows that a black from the first half of the table breaks on a civilian, and a black from the second half insures, not letting it happen. The one who saved the civilian at the price of sacrificing one black fits firmly into the red team. A good variant: insure the first time, not the second. The civilian leaves, after the night eight remain and the critical round. The black who broke is lifted, and then the game is won two to two or in the guessing round coloured by the mafia.

The top skill of the scheme: break on your own black while a third black insures. Then two mafia at once will be red for the town, but this is quite risky.

Scheme 2. Agreement in the dark

Civilians who play by metastrategies and non-verbal signs like to watch the communication between the mafia players and draw conclusions about team membership from it. This gap can be closed as follows: the don does not take off the blindfold and does not meet his blacks. He shows that he is the sheriff and gives the online gesture. Thanks to this the communication between the black players is broken. You cannot read someone who does not know his mafia.

Scheme 3. Playing three sheriffs

The scheme has many drawbacks that its merits do not cover.

1. The town is given a large amount of information.
2. The mafia team demonstrates at once two active colours out of three people.
3. The sheriff cannot be killed.

The main use: sit together through the round at nine or play a balance, leaving the better of the two sheriffs against the real one. Checks are given by both lines only BB or BR, so as not to accidentally give the real civilian leader as red.

Instead of two false sheriffs on the mafia side the author recommends hard cover by the blacks of their single leader who gives checks. In the critical round the extra sheriffs give up the role, explaining that they were just covering because there was no second line (or they do not believe in it). The only thing required: synchronise the checks and reveals at the agreement.

Scheme 4. Giving a black as black on the first night

The black player whom his own mafioso gives must say "I am the sheriff" and give a check back. He is not voted, he sits. After that the real red leader is killed, and the "BB" says he did not want to become a victim of the balance. The false sheriff is removed, and our hero becomes red for the whole town. The scheme is played if the town does not vote those who named themselves the sheriff.

For the red

1. If two players pass themselves off as the sheriff and both have strangely agreed checks, see whether one of them is covering the other.
2. If next to the red leader sits a "sheriff" who does not reveal but got a check "BB", compare his behaviour with his behaviour before the night.
3. If the don behaves at the agreement as if he does not know the team, compare it with his choice of online.

Application

1. "Smear" your own with insurance at a car crash.
2. Do not let the civilians logically tie you into one black team.
3. Where possible cover the sheriffs and give up this role in the critical round.
4. Knock down the count of the game, having a plan for the win.

Self-check questions

1. Give at least two ways to frame, to blacken a civilian. These are two new special schemes: any ways of making a player mafia without a check.
2. Two lines of play. Can you remove two of your checked blacks and win without killing the sheriff?

Practice

Choose one of the four schemes and rehearse it with partners in five training games, swapping roles. At the end of each game write down at what moment the scheme was uncovered by the table and by what sign.

Typical mistakes

• Breaking the synchronisation of checks and reveals.
• Applying the scheme without preparing the team.
• Using three sheriffs against a table that counts well.

Source of the idea. The chapter "Special schemes of the blacks" from Dmitry Novik's book "Mafia in the Style of Zen" (2020). The explanations and observation questions were compiled by us. The remark that scheme 1 "top skill" is risky is the author's.