Six Tips to Stop The Competition in Can’t Stop
by Aurore Inara
Can’t Stop is a simple push your luck game designed by Sid Sackson and originally published in 1980 and is currently available to play on BoardGameArena (BGA). I was first introduced to the game on the Decision Space discord and I was immediately hooked. I have a soft spot for push your luck games like Quacks of Quedlinburg and Incan Gold.
I’ve been asked to write some strategy tips for Can’t stop, which I will. But I will also get into why I think Can’t Stop is a better push your luck game than other games in this genre.
Can’t Bust
Can’t Stop is special among the push your luck games I have played. While some games like Living Forest, Mystic Vale, and Quacks of Quedlinburg have a push your luck element, it is often unwise to do so. The deck (or bag) building elements are what drive those games, and the push your luck allows for a little bit of extra potential, but not much more. Why? Because in those games you’re guaranteed to bust.
When you’re drawing from a limited set of objects and don’t return those objects back into the pool you will eventually bust when all the remaining options are bad. But even before that point, the chances of busting increases every time you pull out an object until the inevitable halt. Not so in Can’t Stop. Can’t stop affords you exactly the same chance of success from the first time you’ve established 3 columns until you bust.
If you rolled a 6,7, and/or 8 for five times or 15 times in a row, the chances of you hitting it again is always 92%. Before your first roll, the chance of rolling one of 6,7,8 twenty times in a row is only 19%, but if you already rolled 6,7,8 nineteen times in a row, the chance of yet another 6,7,8 is again 92%. The only thing that changes is how much you have to lose if you bust.
This sort of push your luck means that if you are behind you are very much incentivized to push your luck indefinitely. Push it as hard as it will go. And if you win, that makes for one hell of a story.
Can’t Stop is special because it lets you push your luck as much as you want. Incan Gold is somewhere in between. While you can’t push your luck indefinitely, you definitely have to push your luck some if you want to win and you can push it quite a bit.
Solving Can’t Stop
The moment I learned the rules for Can’t Stop I had the feeling it could be solved. I’m not very good at math, but I am a fair programmer and I had a general idea of how I would approach it. I ended up not doing it because I figured it would ruin the game for me, but the thought process helped me come up with the general heuristics of how I play.
Points per turn
The easiest heuristic is about how many points you’ve gotten so far. A full column is worth 1 point. Break it up by the number of steps and multiply by how far you’ve gotten. For example, the 3 column has 5 steps. If you got 3 steps in that’s 1/5 times 3, so 3/5 of a point.
An average game of Can’t Stop has about 6 rounds, and by that time you want to have 3 whole points. That means that on average you need to get more than half a point per turn to win. Tally up how far you’ve gotten and if it is lower than 0.5 you should probably keep going. If you busted in early rounds, you’ll need to make up for it and so you’ll need to increase your minimum points per turn accordingly.
Pot Odds
Pot Odds is a common concept in poker where you multiply the size of the new pot by the chance of winning it. And if that number is bigger than the call cost you should go in. I think a similar approach can be established for Can’t Stop. If the chance of losing is smaller than the increase in the amount of points you can gain with a good roll, you should keep going.
Calculating pot odds for Can’t Stop is not easy, which is a good thing. But to illustrate the idea, imagine that you have 0.5 points so far this turn, and you need to roll 6,7,8 to get another 0.1 point. The chance of winning 0.6 points is 92% and the chance of winning 0 points is 8%. A 92% chance of increasing your pot by 20% is good. Once you have 1 point, then it will be a 92% chance of increasing your point by 10%, still better than the 8% chance to lose. It balances out when you get to about 1.2 points, which is usually about where I stop if I’m going up the 6,7,8 columns early on.
My top Heuristics for Can’t Stop
Here are the heuristics I came up with while playing Can’t Stop. I’m by no means the best at this game, but I think it works well.
1. Control the center columns
If you have a chance to climb up 6,7,8 together, you should do so. The chance of hitting one of those numbers is 92%. That means you have a 65% chance of hitting them 5 times in a row and a 43% chance of hitting them 10 times in a row. It is entirely possible to fill a column in one go with 6,7,8.
2. Leverage the a center column
You won’t always get a chance to play 6,7,8 or even 5,6,7. When you’re forced to take a low or high number it’s often a good idea to combine it with a center column number to enable multiple successful rolls.
3. Take a small advancement in edges
Sometimes you’ll get rolls with tough numbers, like 1,1,2,3. It is better, in my experience, to take the third of a point in the 2 column than to try and climb 3+4. Sometimes the follow up roll gets me a 12 and I’m happy with a 0.6 points and stop.
4. Play safe in the late game
Sometimes everyone gets to 2 points blocking off multiple center columns. In such a late game state the game will last longer than the usual 6 rounds and people are going to bust without even getting one step off. If you get even 0.3 points it can slowly close you in on the win.
5. Realise when your opponent is about to win
If your opponent just needs to roll a couple of 5s to win, don’t stop! Keep going for the win because your opponent is likely to do the same. High risk, high reward!
6. Leverage open columns
Especially in the late game, but can also work earlier. If you are going up 1-2 columns and you have the option of going up them more or opening a third column, it is often the best to stay on 1-2 columns as long as possible to ensure your next roll cannot bust.
However, I may break this heuristic if I have 2 columns in 6,7,8 and I am offered the third.
Try it out, see if you can stop
Can’t stop is a really fun game, especially online. I play it a lot asynchronously and you get to play out all your pushing of luck in one go. Unlike Incan Gold, that doesn’t work well asynchronously because you have to wait for all players to choose their actions.
I also use it to quiet down my ADD while working. I start up a 3 player real time game on BGA, and work. My turn comes around and I play it, then tab back to my work. This back and forth keeps my brain busy and stops it from wandering off into social media. I have a set time to play my turn, then it is back to work.
This article was written by Aurore of Timeshapers.com. Join the Decision Space discord to discuss the article and let me know if you’d like to see more Decision Space in written form.
