
Rules of the seat-acquisition game on the Overground - matant
http://www.brelson.com/2011/10/sit-down-on-overground-prepare-for-war/
======
h2s
Sounds like quite a different set of tactics from to the cross-country theatre
of war.

There is a whole other type of player on the x-country trains: the seat-
reserver. These people allocate themselves an assigned seat number for their
journey when they buy their tickets. This is a completely free-of-charge
option available to all users of the UK rail network, but only a select few
are ruthless enough to go through with it and wield those little cards against
their fellow man.

Some of the saddest, most unnecessary arguments I've ever witnessed on public
transport involved seat-reservers. On one journey, my girlfriend was sat next
to a stranger, and with me having failed to find a seat I was stood nearby. A
seat-reserver showed up and demanded the seat of the woman next to my
girlfriend. This woman was somewhat old and did not want to give up her seat.
An argument broke out (a polite British white middle-class argument, mind
you), and my girlfriend decided that she would give up her seat before shit
started getting real.

In the meantime, the conductor had been summoned. By the time he arrived,
these two women who had just been arguing were now sitting uncomfortably close
to one another and attempting to mend the fence. Things had begun to calm back
down, but the ensuing discussion with the conductor stirred everything right
back up. It transpired that the seat-reserver's ticket had entitled her to my
girlfriend's seat all along, and the older lady next to her needn't have
worried. The two people made an awkward show of offering to swap seats with
each other and declining.

The stakes on the cross-country battlefield are high. Fuck it up, and you're
jammed against the toilet doors nose-to-nose with three strangers for the next
several hours. It's no wonder some people feel tempted to reserve seats, but
I've always felt quite strongly that able-bodied people asking other able-
bodied people to move based on the authority of a small piece of card is a bit
pathetic. Don't reserve yourself a seat unless you have a legitimate need to
sit down.

~~~
thisone
maybe it's being up in the northeast, on trains that aren't standing room only
past the first stop, but I generally see people respect the seat reservations.
I've only seen a "that's my seat" discussion (not argument) maybe twice in the
past three years.

My only complaint is people who think their ticket reserves a second seat for
their jacket.

Oh, and the stag/hen dos in coming into Newcastle on Fridays, damn they can
stink up a train.

~~~
nicholassmith
Stag/hen do's coming into Newcastle and the school holidays are a _nightmare_
for rail commuting, invariably leading to stress and headaches all round.

------
3amOpsGuy
Saw a young guy get on the DLR at bank with a limp. There was a bit of
commotion as he excused himself past people and asked someone to shift out the
disabled seats.

All the time I'm thinking 'typical Londoners, they could have made that so
much easier for that poor guy if they just held back for 2 seconds'

He got off at Canary Wharf minus the limp! I laughed for about an hour.

------
cfq
This is why we can't have nice things.

Not only talking about his subpar game (he didn't even know he could check
windows), he introduced more players into the secret society of sit-down
artists.

Pathetic.

------
nicholassmith
The interesting thing is this can actually be reapplied to something even more
important than getting a seat on the tube, pub queues.

Pub queues have similar social dynamics, as the queue is a lie and it works
much the same way (unless the bar staff are very, very good at tracking
punters) as the seat-acquision game. You're looking for the specific
formations of people who've ordered or are just ordering, where the densest
clusters are and so on, but you are not alone. There's another thirsty,
strategy minded drinker taking the same tactics, game on.

------
cturner
I've seen people act like this, and kind of understand it, but it's a high
investment for a very low payoff. It reminds me of people who fight for
position by lane changing in cities with big commutes.

Or being determined to get off the plane a bit earlier of being aggressive at
baggage collection. The petty gains don't begin to compensate for the energy
loss, and the effect on your personality.

Over multiple rounds of play it's highly unstrategic. The only way to win is
to identify losing games, and avoid playing them. I have built a habit where I
always stand unless the carriage is practically empty, and then I never have
to interact with the situation.

Generally English commuters are a respectful bunch: reserved, quiet, they let
people off the train before trying to get on, there are still plenty of men
(who want seats) who ignore it if ladies are standing. Celebrate it. It's nice
not to live in Italy.

------
johnthealy3
In a way, I'm happy I'm not the only one who has thought about this situation.

I do this every time I'm on an outbound 7 train in New York. The train runs
first through a hipster/young area, then a number of distinct ethnic
neighborhoods, and finally ends in Flushing (the city's second Chinatown).
Needless to say, strategically standing next to certain people in seats is the
way to go.

------
StavrosK
That was a good read, but I don't think it's relevant to HN. Therefore, I must
not upvote.

~~~
matthewowen
<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

This post is all about analysing the dynamics of a situation and finding the
optimal behaviour within that situation. That seems highly relevant to this
community.

~~~
StavrosK
I guess you are correct. I much prefer it over endless discussions about
whether entrepreneurs are only the people who raise VC money or not. I'll
upvote it.

------
neonshot
Hard to describe how much i enjoyed this.

~~~
vytasgd
+1. Reminds me of Urinal Game Theory:

<http://people.scs.carleton.ca/~kranakis/Papers/urinal.pdf>

NB: Haven't actually read that paper, only the abstract, I've just discussed
the concept in a class...I think I might read it later today!

~~~
dhugiaskmak
I was asked a question on this topic when I was interviewing to be an intern
at Microsoft over a decade ago. To this day it is the only interesting
interview question I have ever been asked.

