What is a Math Trade you ask?
A Math Trade is a trade between a whole bunch of people at once. BoardgameGeek has developed an algorithm that matches the likes and dislikes of a lot of people at the same time. This make many more trades become possible.
Say person A wants the game Queen’s Necklace, and person B has a copy of it for trade, but person B doesn’t want any of A’s games and would instead like a copy of Jambo. Person C has Jambo for trade, but doesn’t want any of B’s games. But C would like Razzia, which person A is interested in trading. Although there’s no good trade between two of A, B, and C, the three together can each trade a game away to get a game they really want. The math trade algorithm figures out these fortunate coincidences, and assigns trades so that everyone gets games they want in return for trading away games they don’t. In the above example you would have these trades:
A sends Razzia to C, and gets Queen’s Necklace from B
B sends Queen’s Necklace to A, and gets Jambo from C
C sends Jambo to B, and gets Razzia from A
A circle of trades takes place among the participants and everyone gets a favorable trade.
Like any kind of game trade, this depends mostly on differing tastes. As shown by the many debates here about the “best” games, each person has different preferences and it’s quite possible for everyone in a trade to be very happy with the outcome. Because of this, math trades are often a great way to get a hard-to-find game, since one person’s old, forgotten game could be your personal treasure.
If you like learning about games, math trades also give you a good reason to find out about a lot of games you might not otherwise have seen. If you just want to trade for games you already know about, though, you can still participate in a math trade without any difficulty — just ignore the games you’ve never heard of.
Because of the algorithm used, you can only get a game you prefer over what you started with. (Or at worst, you may just keep your original game; i.e. it doesn’t trade.)
This kind of trade was originally called a “mathematical no-risk trade list.” Today, it’s simply known as a math trade.
This is a no-ship math trade of physical games and game-related items. It is primarily intended for patrons of the Nuke-Con 2016 convention in Omaha, NE. Plan to hand your trade to the recipient in person at or before the convention.
Check out Board Game Geek’s Math Trades page for detailed information.
Key Dates and Times:
Game Submissions Open: Thursday, September 1st, 2016 at 5:00 pm CDT.
Game Submissions Deadline: Saturday, September 10th, 2016 at 5:00 pm CDT.
Online Want List Submissions Open: Saturday, September 10th, 2016 at 8:00 pm CDT.
Online Want List Submissions Deadline: Sunday, September 11th, 2016 at 8:00 pm CDT.
Scrum to Exchange Games: Saturday, October 1st in the [room name] room at Nuke-Con at 9:00 am.
Geeklists:
Submission Geeklist: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/213583/inaugural-nuke-con-2016-no-ship-math-trade-submiss
Request Geeklist: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/213582/inaugural-nuke-con-2016-no-ship-math-trade-request
Discussion Geeklist: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/213581/inaugural-nuke-con-2016-no-ship-math-trade-discuss
Register now with Board Game Geek and subscribe to the Math Trades Forum if you’d like regular Trade updates.
