Strategy · 2 min read
Safe vs. rare answers
Updated
Every Krillion round is a small bet. Type the obvious answer and you will almost certainly be right, but you’ll barely score. Go for something obscure and you might hit the jackpot, or you might be wrong and get nothing. Good players don’t avoid risk; they price it.
The simple maths
Imagine three candidates for one prompt:
| Answer | Chance it’s correct | Likely tier | Expected points |
|---|---|---|---|
| The obvious one | ~100% | Surface (10) | about 10 |
| A solid less-common one | ~95% | Twilight (60) | about 57 |
| A half-remembered obscure one | ~50% | Abyssal (100) | about 50 |
The middle option often wins. A confident, less-common answer is the backbone of a deep dive. Wild guesses only beat it when you are close to certain they are correct.
The confidence ladder
Before you type, ask yourself which rung you are on:
- I know it. I could explain why it fits. Type it.
- I’m fairly sure. I’ve seen it in this context before. Usually worth it.
- It sounds right. It fits the pattern, but I can’t place it. Risky; use only if your banked answer is very weak.
- I’m hoping. Don’t.
Rung 3 is where most lost points live. Answers that sound like they belong are often near-misses: a city that isn’t the capital, a film by a similar director, an element that is actually a mineral.
When to take more risk
- When your safe answer is the single most obvious one, it is worth very little.
- When the category is one you know deeply, your “fairly sure” is more reliable.
- In practice mode, where losing points costs nothing and teaches you where your knowledge is solid.
When to play it safer
- When the prompt has a tricky boundary, like “capital”, “past or present” or “starts with M”.
- When the answer is a name you’d have to spell from memory.
- When you’ve already had a blank round today and a solid score matters more than a perfect one.
Build confidence, not luck
The best way to make rare answers safe is to know more rare answers for sure. Every prompt page on this site lists answers from deep cuts to obvious picks, such as Name a chemical element. Read one or two after each practice dive and your rung-1 answers will grow quickly. For finding candidates in the first place, see the specificity ladder.