Task E1 — Poker (10 min)
3 declared flights in 10 min
About this task
Rule: 3 flights to declared time. Pilot chooses target times. Unlimited flights in 10 minutes working time.
The Challenge: The standard Poker — what time to call? This is the most strategy-intensive task in F3K. Low calls (1:30–2:00) are nearly guaranteed but don't accumulate enough. High calls risk total failure. The optimal strategy shifts based on competition level — at World Championships, betting low rarely wins because good pilots max anyway.
Decision factors:
- Time declaration strategy: conservative (1:30) vs aggressive (3:00+)
- If first call was conservative and succeeded: do you escalate or stay safe?
- If first call failed: remaining time pressure forces even harder decisions
- At high-level competitions, conservative calls lose to pilots who max their declared times
- 3 flights means 3 sequential decisions, each informed by the previous outcome
What the data says: 38% failure rate with only 16% max rate. The near-flat distribution is unique — no other task has such even spread. This proves the task is fundamentally a strategy gamble where smart decisions, not just flying skill, determine outcomes. 1,503 entries — the standard Poker format.
Score distribution
Score probability vs flight time
Likelihood of achieving a given score based on total flown duration across all rounds of this task.