Dmitry Sergeev shared his first post.

New Member � October 4 at 1:19 PM

How to win challenges

I want to share my tactics for winning quick 1-photo challenges with GuruShots
community. This tactics helped me win 100+ speed (single photo) challenges.

The result in challenge is based on 3 things:

1. Tactics
2. Trends
3. Quality of picture

Part 1. Tactics
Tactics in GuruShots means timing.
Time when you join a challenge, time you fill and time you swap in/out.

Joining time.
Most important rule of them all � if you want to win, you MUST join in the last day
of challenge. The only exception are challenges that end early morning.
Normally good time to have chances to win is ?6a.m.? (central European time).
Please adjust accordingly by your location.
Why this specific time? Because this is the time when the biggest concentration of
GS users wakes up and vote to fill their expometer ??

There�s second good time, I call it American time. It�s not so good as European,
but still is better then any other. It�s 2 p.m. CET.

Before joining you should consider how many photos are participating.
If there are many (open themed challenges), joining time moves later, up to about ?
7a.m. CET?, if there is little number of photos taking part (narrow themed
challenges), joining times moves earlier down to ?5-5:30 CET?.
How to evaluate this before joining a challenge:
There are 3 indicators:
1. Total number of votes - the higher this number is, the more people are
participating.
2. Number of votes of current photos in Top10. Higher this number is, less photos
are in challenge. (<2000 = many, ?2000-?3000= medium, >3000- not many people)
3. Number of views each photo has in the morning of the last day. <400 = many
photos are in, 400-600 = medium quantity, >600 = relatively few photos.

So, if you want to win, you must enter last day of the challenge. This means that
you are obliged to use key or swap.
Most of times you have only 1 try in each challenge. Choose your best pic, join
right time and wait until time when views stop coming.
Trying to use another photo when good time ends will almost never improve your
result.
If you swapped and new photo perform better that means that first joining time was
wrong or your first picture was much worse then second one.
If you are short at swap/keys, it�s good idea to plan your challenge in advance to
choose challenges you have best photos for, and save your swaps and keys for them.
Use swaps/keys only in last day.

Part 2
Tactics (continue)

So you chose best photo, joined good time and now votes stopped coming.
If your result is good (1-3 position in rankings at the moment when views stopped),
you have to consider to do or not to do double swap.
DOUBLE SWAP is tactical move that increases the result (score of swapped photo) in
the final part of challenge.
It consists of 2 swaps - with first one you change your photo with another one, and
second swap is used to return it back in the challenge.
Using this trick will give your photo about 50-150 score more in comparison with
competitor�s pictures without double swap.
In other words, you have much less chances to win if you don�t do this step.
What you need to consider when you are deciding to do or not to do double swap:
1. the gap between your photo and current leader. If it is not that big, you have
chances to win even your photo went only to position ?2-3 in the morning? (I had
one win when I jumped to 1st from 8th)
2. Players who did double swap too. If you were 4th and other 3 players swapped
either, your chances are not very high.
3. Quality of photo. How good is it compared to other photos in top10.

So, you joined with superb photo at good time and obviously went to top1 position
and swapped photo out.
What is right time to return?
The answer is as late as possible considering how many views your photo is about to
gain (but not later then 15 min till the end).
In challenge with medium and large number of photos 15-20 minutes are usually
enough to get all views needed, so time of back-swap is about 20-15 minutes before
challenge ends.

Part 3
Tactics (end)

The last thing I want to tell about tactics is expometer management.

It�s the most unproved and questioning part of tactics and it�s big field to
experiment with.
3 months ago I tried tactics with filling with several partial fills and this gave
good results.
After GS changed voting system on mobile devices this tactics no longer works.
At the moment when In writing this, the best way to fill is just after joining.
After you do it there is no sense to vote until final part of challenge comes.
One more time: DON�T vote during the day, this gives nothing.
About using fills. I recommend using fills. When you use it your photo gets maximum
of all views possible and goes to highest position in voting blocks. The longer it
stays there the better is score.

Part 4
Trends.

Like in stock trading the rule �don�t go against trend� can be applied to GS
challenges.
Trends mean that: what photos people vote better in according to their feeling how
on-topic photo looks like.
Many GS player underestimate value of influence of trends, but it�s bigger then
most of people think.
Usually, trendy photos has big, distinctive and very good readable main object
mentioned in challenge�s name.
If challenge is �doors�, so door has to be main object and to be photographed right
in front view; if challenge is �curves� - your curve has to be very curvy, �green�
- everything has to be green and so on, and so on.

I check top rankings every evening to plan my entrees for next day. I see what
photos are in trends and do I have appropriate picture.
The trendy but not so good picture will perform better then good but not so trendy.
The best option is to have good and in the same time trendy photo:)
What else can I add? Your photo has to be sharp, contrasted and well saturated (but
not toooo much). Strong and interesting shapes and lines make your chances higher
either.
Don�t use vertical or square format if possible, landscape oriented photos are
usually better choice.

And last word.

Playing according this tactics doesn�t make your photo win automatically, it will
just increase chances and make them equal with other players who plays with
tactics.
Sometimes tactics work better, sometime worse.
Every time your photo showed good results in the morning (or any other time) and
not so good in the end, means that some other have better tactics then you.
So keep playing, keep experimenting and good luck all of you!
Best regards,
Dmitriy.