Where the numbers in our lessons come from

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From 60,000 games that our AI players played against each other, ten at a table, by the rules of sport mafia. A number in a lesson says how often something went together with a black card in those games. That makes it a good guide to how the AI players at our table behave — and at a table of people the same sign can be weaker.

• What: 60,000 games, ten seats each — three black cards (the don and two mafia) against seven red (the sheriff and six civilians).
• What a number means: “51 out of 100” — out of every 100 times we saw it, the player held a black card 51 times. For a player you know nothing about it is 36 out of 100.
• Last measured: the numbers in the lessons were measured on 25 September 2026 with the AI players of that date. They are being measured again on the table you actually sit at, and the date of the new numbers will stand here. Think a number is wrong? Tell us.

What we measured

Every game was played from the first night to the last vote by our AI players, with no person at the table. Each table had ten seats and followed the rules of sport mafia you can read on one page in the guide, with one difference named below under “How far to trust it”. Every game starts from a numbered deal, so running the count again on the same AI players gives exactly the same numbers.

At every vote we wrote down, for every player, what that player had done so far that anybody at the table could see — whom they pushed, whether they stayed silent, whether they claimed to be the sheriff. When the game ended, we wrote down which card each of them held. That is 1,180,815 readings in all, and every number in the lessons is counted from them.

What a number in a lesson means

Take silence. At a vote, a player who had let a whole circle pass without naming anybody came up 31,367 times, and in 15,866 of those cases that player held a black card — 51 out of 100. For a player you know nothing about it is 36 out of 100, so the gap between the two numbers is the whole lesson.

So read every number against 36. Above it, the sign points toward a black card; below it, the sign points away. Numbers are rounded to whole ones, because nobody at a table uses a decimal, and a lesson is only built when its sign happened at least 200 times.

Lessons built from the count

75 lessons are built straight from this count: one sign in one situation, only where the situation changes what the sign means. Their text is generated from the data rather than typed, which is why the words and the number cannot disagree.

Written lessons that quote our count

A few written lessons quote the same count at the bottom, under “where this comes from”. Their numbers are filled in from the same data file as this page, so a number that changes here changes there too. One of them also uses the games as a check on arithmetic: in the 35,740 games where the town voted out two of its own, one player a day, with a kill every night, the town won 0 of them.

Observations without a number

Some lessons say “our own observation”. That is a pattern we saw again and again in these games but did not count, so treat it as advice from watching many games, not as a measurement.

How far to trust it

• The count is played on a simpler copy of our table. It skips the opening night on which the mafia agree, and its AI players make more mistakes than the ones you play against, so the town wins less often here than at our own table. We are moving the count onto the exact table you play.
• These are AI players, not people. They keep to their habits, and a person can break a habit on purpose. A sign that is strong here can be weaker at your table.
• Real tables are not the same. In our games the town won 39 out of 100. At real club tables it won 46 out of 100 — 11,269 of 24,557 games published on Mafia Ratings (read 28 September 2026).
• Only words and votes are counted. Voices, faces and hands are not in these numbers, and at a real table people read them too.
• A number is an average over many games. It tells you which way a sign points, never what one player at one table is holding.

How often it is measured again

When our AI players change, the product's full test run plays the 60,000 games again and rebuilds the measured lessons from the new count. The numbers on this page and in the lessons were measured on 25 September 2026, on the AI players of version 24861459. The AI players have changed since then, and the next measurement, on the table you play at, will replace these numbers.