Just found out Catan tournament winners memorize dice odds down to the exact percent

I stumbled on a spreadsheet from a regional qualifier that listed the probability of every single resource combination appearing after a 7 roll, and it turns out the best players adjust their strategies based on that number down to the decimal point, which blew my mind because I just roll and pray - has anyone else looked into the math side of competitive board games?

2 comments

2 Comments

leelewis24d ago

Actually the 7 roll probabilities are usually calculated on a 2d6 distribution, not resource combinations. Each number has a fixed chance based on how many ways two dice can add up to it. 7 has 6 out of 36 combos so its about 16.67%. The real trick in Catan is knowing that 6 and 8 are the next best with 5 combos each, which is about 13.89%. Some players overcomplicate it by tracking specific resource combos after a 7, but that's mostly useless since the robber resets everything anyway.

finleythomas23d ago

Man, I used to swear by tracking resource combos after a 7 in Catan, but @leelewis’s breakdown of the pure 2d6 math actually changed my mind. Seeing 7 at exactly 6 out of 36 combos makes me realize I was overcomplicating things since the robber really does reset that whole system anyway. Now I just focus on placing my settlements near the 6 and 8 numbers instead of worrying about what came before the 7.