pog-mcp 0.9.2 → 0.9.3

package/package.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "pog-mcp",
-  "version": "0.9.2",
+  "version": "0.9.3",
   "type": "module",
   "description": "MCP server that lets an AI agent play Proof of Goal — wallet, sign-in, squad building, and matches as typed tools.",
   "license": "MIT",

package/skill/reference/measurements.md

@@ -1228,6 +1228,480 @@ N=2000 WIDE_N=1000 npx tsx …   # faster; the bar is fixed, the detectable EFFE
 
 ---
 
+## Is a per-player scene weight a decision? (`appr-role.mts`)
+
+The section above swept engine constants and found nothing that re-prices a
+squad choice — not because the effects were small, but structurally: every
+constant it can reach sits in front of BOTH `ofPoint` and `dfPoint`, so it moves
+the two squads together. Per-player selection weights are the one remaining
+candidate that creates a **difference between two squads** rather than moving
+both sides, and they are the axis the tactical-sheet track would ship.
+
+**The lever measured here does not exist in the engine.** `*_APPR` is a table
+per POSITION, so two forwards in the same squad are drawn with the same weight
+and a manager cannot tell them apart. The probe patches `getPlayer` to multiply
+each candidate's weight by a per-player, per-scene number carried on the player,
+defaulting to 1 — nothing else — and sweeps that number. So the answer is about
+the axis, not about one proposed interface.
+
+### The statistic, and the controls
+
+Rows are in **win-equivalent share**: a win is 1, a draw is 0.5, every match
+counts. Deltas are **paired** — every sheet replays one seed column, so the
+default cell and the swept cell are matched match for match — and the seed
+depends on the squads and the side and never on the sheet.
+
+**Bonferroni over m = 13,314 pre-registered comparisons, two-sided: |z| >= 4.62.**
+That m prices the SEARCHES as well as the tests. A ladder read against the
+FIXED shipped default costs only its rungs, because an argmax over the ladder
+could only ever have surfaced one of the contrasts already counted. A comparison
+whose BOTH sides are data-chosen — "is the optimum interior", which pits a
+selected rung against a selected neighbour, and "which sheet is the best
+response", which pits two selected sheets — is charged K(K−1)/2, the number of
+pairs the search could have surfaced.
+
+The noise floor is the whole run's, not one section's: **the largest standard
+error anywhere in this run is 0.59 points of share**, which puts the
+significance threshold at **2.74 points** and the 80%-power effect at **3.24**.
+A paired standard error depends on the outcome variance and on the covariance
+between the two conditions, so it is not constant across sections merely because
+`N` is — quoting the concentration ladders' own worst cell and extending it to
+every later null was a review finding on this section. So every effect called
+large below is an order of magnitude above the run's own floor, and every "no
+effect" is a claim about a band 2.74 points wide.
+
+| Control | Result |
+| --- | --- |
+| Mirror, both modes (one squad against itself; true z = 0) | z **+0.4** / **−0.5** |
+| POLICY mirror, both modes (same squad AND same sheet on both sides; true z = 0) | z **+1.0** / **+0.8** |
+| Patch identity — the patched engine with no sheet vs the stock engine | 1,000 matches identical, **whole `MatchResult`** |
+| Permutation null — the same ×32 on either of `role-433`'s two byte-identical midfielders | 1,000 matches identical, scoreline and winner |
+| Dead-scene null — ×1024 and ×0 on the offence table's ZP/PP1/FK1/FK2 columns | 1,000 matches identical, **whole `MatchResult`** |
+| Zero-weight null — ×1024 on the keeper, whose offence weight is 0 everywhere | 1,000 matches identical, **whole `MatchResult`** |
+| Paired alignment — the default column, replayed | 10,000 matches, largest per-match difference **0** |
+| Anti-focus calibration — funnelling `stars-433`'s 12-point defender must LOSE | **−11.6pp** (z −28.9) / **−14.0pp** (z −26.6) |
+
+<!-- not a payoff table -->
+
+**Every one of those aborts the run.** The comparison DEPTH in the right-hand
+column is part of the control rather than an implementation detail: where the
+claim is that nothing happened at all, the whole `MatchResult` is compared —
+every event in order, every player stat, every shootout round — because a
+rewrite that changed which player was drawn while landing on the same score
+would pass a scoreline check and leave every table below measuring the rewrite.
+The permutation null is the one exception and deliberately so: there the two
+players ARE interchanged, so the event names and per-player stats move by
+construction and only the outcome can be asserted.
+
+Three are worth naming for what they separate. The **permutation null**
+separates "the weight moved the ball to a better player" from "the weight
+perturbed the RNG": moving the same multiplier between two players who are
+identical to the byte must change nothing, and it does not. The **anti-focus
+calibration** is the directional negative control —
+a harness that reported a gain from concentrating on the squad's worst player
+would be measuring the act of concentrating rather than who is concentrated on,
+and every row below would be that artefact. The **dead-scene null** doubles as a
+re-derivation: the probe enumerates the offensive `getPlayer` call sites FROM
+THE SOURCE, finds `A0 A1 A2 CA1 CA2 PP2` and nothing else, and confirms that a
+multiplier on the four remaining offence columns is inert — the dead table the
+plan describes, checked rather than quoted.
+
+### The concentration curve
+
+`stars-433` is the focal squad because it is the only published archetype whose
+players differ inside a position group — three forwards at 28-29 points and four
+defenders at 12. `role-433` rides along as the other half of the question: its
+three forwards are identical to the byte, so any movement there is cross-GROUP
+reallocation with the within-group term pinned at exactly zero.
+
+| Focal slot (`stars-433`) | ×0 | ×1 | ×1024 | League | Knockout |
+| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
+| slot 8 — FW, 29 pts, pass 6 shoot 9 | 33.1 | 36.7 | **68.0** | **+31.3pp** | **+35.8pp** |
+| slot 10 — FW, 28 pts, pass 4 shoot 10 | 33.1 | 36.7 | 64.8 | +28.1pp | +32.3pp |
+| slot 7 — OMF, 26 pts, alone in his group | 37.5 | 36.7 | 29.2 | −7.5pp | −8.8pp |
+| slot 1 — DF, 12 pts (anti-focus control) | 38.0 | 36.7 | 25.1 | −11.6pp | −14.0pp |
+| `role-433` slot 8 — FW, identical to its two peers | 46.9 | 48.1 | 58.9 | +10.8pp | +13.2pp |
+
+> **Measured on** — `stars-433` (4-3-3, `STARS` slot weights, `ATTACKING` mix
+> from `squad-lib.mts`: keeper 19, four defenders at 12, midfield 17/16/26,
+> forwards 29/29/28) against `def-433` (4-3-3, `EVEN` weights, `DEFENSIVE` mix),
+> which plays the shipped weights in every cell. The two squads never change:
+> all 212 points, both formations, both sets of kicker flags and the whole
+> defensive table are byte-identical across every row. The only thing that moves
+> is one number in front of one player's offensive selection weight, in all six
+> reachable scenes at once. The last row swaps the focal squad for `role-433`
+> (`EVEN` weights, `ATTACKING` mix), whose forwards are identical to each other.
+> **Sample** — 10,000 matches per cell, home and away, SHA-256 seeds; 20,668,000
+> matches in the run, about four minutes.
+> **Mode** — both, one column each. League is draws-allowed (`gameFlg 0`),
+> Knockout is winner-guaranteed. The League and Knockout columns are the paired
+> delta from the ×1 cell; the ×0/×1/×1024 columns are League shares.
+> **Effect** — 31.3 percentage points of win-equivalent share in League and 35.8
+> in Knockout, between two squads that are the same eleven players. That is
+> nearly three times the largest thing the engine-constant sweep could move
+> (11.8pp) and larger than any squad-construction axis measured anywhere in this
+> file. Concentrating on the WRONG player is worth −11.6pp, so the axis is
+> double-edged rather than free. Even with the within-group term removed by
+> construction — `role-433`'s identical forwards — pure cross-group
+> reallocation is still worth 10.8pp.
+> **Source** — `appr-role.mts`, section (1).
+
+**The best focal player is not the best finisher.** Slot 8 beats slot 10 by
+3.2pp in League and 3.5pp in Knockout, and slot 10 is the one with `shoot` 10.
+That much is measured. **Why is not** — and it cannot be, on a fixed points
+budget. The two forwards differ in five things at once: `pass` 6 against 4,
+`dribble` 9 against 10, `shoot` 9 against 10, `defense` 5 against 4, and one
+point of total; slot 10 also carries the penalty-kicker flag. Moving a single
+attribute in isolation is impossible when every point spent has to come from
+another attribute of the same player, so no cell in this probe separates them.
+
+The candidate mechanism, offered as a hypothesis rather than a result, is the
+`style = attrs.pass` branch: `playArea2` and `playArea1` both decide
+pass-versus-dribble-versus-long-shot from `pass` alone, so a low-pass carrier
+ends possessions with long shots instead of advancing them. What supports it
+without a cross-player comparison is the scene table below — the same player's
+multiplier reverses sign between the midfield scene and the box scenes — and
+what would settle it is an engine change, not another squad.
+
+### Does the anti-concentration term bite?
+
+`atkAttrSum` is the selected player's POSITION GROUP total minus his own, so the
+better the player selected, the less team-aggregate support stands behind him —
+and `atkRate` varies by scene, so the size of that penalty does too. The
+question the plan asks is whether that produces a non-flat optimum.
+
+It is real, and it is not enough. One point of a selected player's total is
+worth **+1/3** on `ofPoint` directly and costs at most **rate × 0.1 ×
+teamPow/100** of group support. The largest `O_*_RATE` anywhere in the shipped
+tables is 1.00, so the loss coefficient never exceeds 0.100 against a gain
+coefficient of 0.333. The probe prints that arithmetic from the source tables
+and then measures it against a COUNTERFACTUAL engine with the subtraction
+deleted:
+
+| `stars-433` slot 8, all scenes | ×1 | ×8 | ×1024 |
+| --- | --- | --- | --- |
+| shipped, League | 36.7 | 49.2 | 68.0 |
+| subtraction deleted, League | 36.9 | 52.3 | 73.4 |
+| shipped, Knockout | 34.6 | 49.6 | 70.4 |
+| subtraction deleted, Knockout | 35.2 | 52.9 | 75.7 |
+
+> **Measured on** — the `stars-433` vs `def-433` fixture above, played twice:
+> once on the shipped engine and once on an engine identical except that all
+> five `atkAttrSum = <group> - <player>.total` sites — including the home-team
+> DMF path that reads the ball carrier rather than the selected player — are
+> replaced by `atkAttrSum = <group>`. Nothing else differs; the ×1 row is the
+> same squads with no sheet at all, so the gap between the two ×1 cells is what
+> the term is worth to a game nobody has concentrated.
+> **Sample** — 10,000 matches per cell, home and away, SHA-256 seeds.
+> **Mode** — both, two rows each.
+> **Effect** — 5.4 points of share in League (z 13.4) and 5.3 in Knockout
+> (z 11.2) is what the term is worth AT MAXIMUM CONCENTRATION; at the shipped ×1
+> it is worth 0.2 (z 0.5) and 0.7 (z 1.4), both inside the sample's own error.
+> So it takes 5.2 points off a concentration payoff that would otherwise reach
+> 36.5 — about a seventh — and changes nothing at all about who you should
+> concentrate on. **0 of the 50 ladders in the one-opponent sections have a
+> significant interior optimum: 48 put their argmax at a ladder END and the
+> other 2 peak on an interior rung the sample cannot separate from its
+> neighbours,** which is undecided rather than monotone and is counted
+> separately for that reason. Monotonicity is a different question from where
+> the argmax is — a ladder can dip significantly in the middle and still peak at
+> the top — so every adjacent rung is tested too: **134 of the 134 ladders swept
+> anywhere in this run have no significant step against their own direction.**
+> The curve is steeper without the term and the same shape.
+> **Source** — `appr-role.mts`, section (2).
+
+The place where the term is not small is the **lone player in his group**. A
+4-3-3's single OMF gets `omfAttr − his own total` = exactly zero support, while
+a forward in a three-man group carries 4.56 points of it into every A1
+selection. That is most of why slot 7 loses in the table above despite holding
+26 points: funnelling the attack through him costs the whole group term. It is
+also a fact about FORMATION rather than about roles — the same player in a 4-4-2
+would have a partner to be supported by.
+
+### Scene-dependence: the same player, opposite instructions
+
+| `stars-433` sheet on slot 7 (the 26-point OMF) | League | Knockout |
+| --- | --- | --- |
+| default — no sheet | 36.7 | 34.6 |
+| ×32 in A2 only | 39.0 (+2.3pp) | 37.5 (+2.9pp) |
+| ×0 in A0 and A1 only | 38.4 (+1.7pp) | 36.5 (+2.0pp) |
+| **both — ×32 in A2, ×0 in A0/A1** | **41.4 (+4.7pp)** | **40.1 (+5.5pp)** |
+| the same ×32 in EVERY scene | 30.7 (−6.0pp) | 27.6 (−7.0pp) |
+
+> **Measured on** — the `stars-433` vs `def-433` fixture above, with every sheet
+> applied to ONE slot: the 26-point attacking midfielder, pass 8 dribble 8 shoot
+> 7, the only OMF in the formation. Every other slot on both squads is
+> untouched, and the opponent plays the shipped weights throughout.
+> **Sample** — 10,000 matches per cell, home and away, SHA-256 seeds.
+> **Mode** — both, one column each; every row clears the corrected bar (|z| 5.8
+> to 14.4).
+> **Effect** — 10.7 percentage points of share in League and 12.5 in Knockout
+> separate the best and worst way of spending the SAME multiplier on the SAME
+> player: +4.7pp when its sign follows the scene and −6.0pp when it does not.
+> A per-player slider would have produced the losing row. The scene signs are
+> stable across modes: A2 positive, A0/A1/CA1/PP2 negative, CA2 inside the noise.
+> **Source** — `appr-role.mts`, section (3).
+
+This is the strongest evidence for the `style = attrs.pass` hypothesis above,
+and it is stronger for being WITHIN one player: the OMF is the squad's best
+passer, and his multiplier pays in midfield (A2) and costs in the box (A0/A1),
+where the forwards' `shoot` and their group support both beat him. No squad
+attribute changes between those rows — only which scene the weight applies to —
+so the confound that blocks the cross-player comparison is absent here. It is
+still not proof: A0/A1 differ from A2 in what they reward as well as in who
+carries, and separating those needs an engine change. **No scene of the
+forward's own ladder points the other way**, so
+scene-dependence is a property of the player rather than of the axis: slot 8
+gives one distinct argmax in both modes, six positive signs in League and five
+plus one below the bar in Knockout, and not a single negative one.
+
+### Opponent-dependence, and the round robin that decides it
+
+| Sheet, `stars-433` | vs `role` | vs `def-433` | vs `def-532` | vs `shootonly` | vs `passonly` | vs `flat` |
+| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
+| default | 37.2 | 36.7 | 34.5 | 42.5 | 36.1 | 47.4 |
+| **carrier** — slot 8 ×32, all scenes | **60.7** | **60.6** | **52.7** | **71.4** | **62.6** | **75.6** |
+| finisher — slot 10 ×32, all scenes | 58.6 | 58.4 | 52.3 | 68.1 | 59.1 | 72.3 |
+| playmaker — slot 7 ×32 A2, ×0 A0/A1 | 42.8 | 41.4 | 37.1 | 50.9 | 44.1 | 55.6 |
+| sheet — playmaker plus slot 10 ×32 in A0/A1 | 54.6 | 51.3 | 44.0 | 67.6 | 57.7 | 71.8 |
+| tier — slots 7-10 ×8, all scenes | 50.7 | 49.3 | 43.8 | 62.2 | 52.7 | 68.2 |
+| spread — the four 12-point defenders ×4 | 28.6 | 30.3 | 30.3 | 30.4 | 26.4 | 33.9 |
+
+> **Measured on** — `stars-433` against six published archetypes built by
+> `squad-lib.mts` — `role-433`, `def-433`, `def-532`, `shootonly-433`,
+> `passonly-433`, `flat-433` — every one of them playing the shipped weights.
+> The focal squad's 212 points never change across the whole grid; only its
+> sheet does. `tier` is the coordinated policy: four players lifted together at
+> a smaller multiplier rather than one player at a large one.
+> **Sample** — 10,000 matches per cell, home and away, SHA-256 seeds; 84 cells
+> across the two modes.
+> **Mode** — League shown; the Knockout grid is in the probe output, where
+> `carrier` runs 54.0 to 78.6 and every margin over `default` is wider. Its
+> ranking matches this one in five of its six rows — the sixth is the `def-532`
+> swap in Effect below.
+> **Effect** — 41.7 percentage points of share separate the best sheet from the
+> worst against the same opponent (`flat-433`: 75.6 vs 33.9), and the ordering
+> of the seven sheets is identical in eleven of the twelve opponent-by-mode
+> cells. The twelfth is `def-532` in Knockout, where `carrier` and `finisher`
+> swap by 0.1 points of share — inside the sample's own error, which is why the
+> band there names both. `carrier` sits in every cell's leader band; `def-532`,
+> the deepest defensive shape in the grid, is the only opponent that pulls
+> anything level with it. The distinct raw argmax count is **2**, and one of the
+> two is never beaten anywhere.
+> **Source** — `appr-role.mts`, section (4).
+
+That grid holds the opponent's sheet at the default. The next one lets the
+opponent choose too, on the SAME squad, so the sheet is the only difference:
+
+| Round robin, `stars-433` both sides | beats significantly (League / KO) | in the unbeaten band |
+| --- | --- | --- |
+| carrier | 5 of 6 / 5 of 6 | yes |
+| sheet | 4 of 6 / 3 of 6 | yes |
+| finisher | 3 of 6 / 3 of 6 | no |
+| tier | 3 of 6 / 3 of 6 | no |
+| playmaker | 2 of 6 / 2 of 6 | no |
+| default | 1 of 6 / 1 of 6 | no |
+| spread | 0 of 6 / 0 of 6 | no |
+
+> **Measured on** — `stars-433` against `stars-433`: the same eleven players,
+> the same 212 points and the same kicker flags on both sides of every fixture,
+> with the sheet as the only difference. Twenty-one fixtures per mode.
+> **Sample** — 10,000 matches per fixture, home and away, SHA-256 seeds.
+> **Mode** — both; the two modes agree row for row.
+> **Effect** — 76.0% of the share for `carrier` against `default` in League and
+> 78.3% in Knockout — a 52-to-57 point win-rate advantage from the weights
+> alone. **Significant 3-cycles: 0 in both modes.** The unbeaten set — the
+> sheets nothing significantly beats — holds `carrier` and `sheet`, 1.4 points
+> of share apart in League and 1.5 in Knockout, under the corrected bar. Read
+> that as a PARTIAL order and not a total one: 3 of the 21 pairs in League and 4
+> in Knockout are inside the bar, so "no cycles and a two-member unbeaten set"
+> leaves some pairs unresolved rather than ranking all seven. What it does
+> settle is the direction: nothing here beats `carrier`, and no sheet outside
+> the unbeaten pair is unbeaten.
+> **Source** — `appr-role.mts`, section (5).
+
+### Crossing the two — the grid the verdict actually rests on
+
+The two grids above are one-dimensional slices: one varies the opponent's SQUAD
+with its sheet pinned to the default, the other varies its SHEET with its squad
+pinned. A best response can be conditional on the product while both slices
+share a leader, so neither settles the roadmap question on its own. Multiplying
+them does:
+
+Each cell is my best-response BAND against that opponent squad playing that
+sheet, and — after the bar — the argmax rung of the full concentration ladder
+swept inside the same cell, so "more is better up to the corner" is checked
+where the best response is rather than only against one fixed opponent.
+
+| My best response \| ladder argmax | vs `default` | vs `carrier` | vs `finisher` | vs `playmaker` | vs `sheet` | vs `tier` | vs `spread` |
+| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
+| `role-433` | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 |
+| `def-433` | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C/F \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 |
+| **`def-532`** | **C/F** \| ×1024 | **C/F** \| ×1024 | **C/F** \| ×1024 | **C/F** \| ×1024 | **C/F** \| ×1024 | **C/F** \| ×1024 | **C/F** \| ×1024 |
+| `shootonly-433` | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 |
+| `passonly-433` | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 |
+| `flat-433` | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 | C \| ×1024 |
+
+> **Measured on** — `stars-433` against all six opponent squads, each of them
+> playing each of the seven sheets, with all seven of my own sheets AND the full
+> nine-rung concentration ladder tried against every combination. C is
+> `carrier`, F is `finisher`; a cell names every sheet the sample cannot
+> separate from that cell's leader. A second focal squad runs the same grid:
+> `role-433`, the hard case, since its three forwards are identical to the byte
+> and only cross-group reallocation is left — against the other five squads over
+> a reduced sheet set (`default`, `carrier`, `spread`), 30 further cells.
+> **Sample** — 10,000 matches per cell, home and away, SHA-256 seeds: 114
+> squad-by-sheet-by-mode cells, 14,700,000 matches in this section alone.
+> **Mode** — League shown. The Knockout grid differs in three `def-433` cells
+> and nowhere else: it ties `carrier` with `finisher` against `carrier`,
+> `finisher` and `tier`, where League resolves, and resolves against `sheet`,
+> where League ties. `def-532` is C/F in all fourteen of its cells in both modes.
+> **Effect** — 0 cells out of 114 exclude `carrier` from the best-response band,
+> and the ladder's argmax is the TOP rung in all 84 cells where it was swept: 84
+> ends, 0 interior optima, 0 unresolved, and 84 with no significant step
+> downward at any rung along the way. The distinct raw best-response count is
+> 2, and the three cells where `finisher` edges ahead on the raw number are all
+> `def-532` in Knockout, by 0.1 to 0.2 points of share against a 2.74-point
+> threshold. Every cell of the second focal squad's grid reads C/F, which is the
+> permutation control showing through rather than a conditional answer:
+> `role-433`'s slot 8 and slot 10 are the same player twice, differing only in
+> the penalty-kicker flag. So one sheet is a best response against every
+> squad-and-sheet combination measured, and concentrating harder is better in
+> every one of them.
+> **Source** — `appr-role.mts`, section (6).
+
+### The other half of the table — defensive selection weights
+
+`D_*_APPR` picks who contests each scene, and the same multiplier applies there.
+It is a comparably large lever and it points somewhere surprising.
+
+| Defensive focal slot | ×1 | ×1024 | League | Knockout |
+| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
+| `stars-433` slot 8 — FW, defense 5, **29 pts** | 37.2 | **52.0** | **+14.8pp** | **+18.7pp** |
+| `stars-433` slot 1 — DF, defense 5, 12 pts | 37.2 | 37.8 | +0.6pp | +0.9pp |
+| `def-433` slot 2 — DF, **defense 9**, 20 pts | 52.4 | 57.1 | +4.7pp | +5.3pp |
+| `def-433` slot 8 — FW, defense 2, 19 pts | 52.4 | 17.7 | −34.7pp | −35.5pp |
+
+> **Measured on** — `stars-433` and `def-433`, each against `role-433` playing
+> the shipped weights. The multiplier is applied to the DEFENSIVE table in every
+> scene; the keeper's A0 weight is the one entry left alone, and the offensive
+> table is untouched in all four rows. Both focal squads keep their 212 points
+> and their formations across every cell.
+> **Sample** — 10,000 matches per cell, home and away, SHA-256 seeds.
+> **Mode** — both, one column each. As in the concentration table, the ×1 and
+> ×1024 columns are League shares and the League/Knockout columns are the paired
+> delta from that mode's own ×1 cell.
+> **Effect** — 14.8 percentage points of share in League and 18.7 in Knockout
+> for funnelling defensive duty onto `stars-433`'s biggest FORWARD, against
+> +0.6pp for its nominal defender. Every defensive point is
+> `defense + cond/2 + total/3`, so a 29-point forward with defense 5 outscores a
+> 12-point defender with defense 5 by more than five points before any group
+> term. On `def-433`, whose totals are flat, the answer reverts to the defender
+> with the highest `defense` (+4.7pp) and the forward becomes catastrophic
+> (−34.7pp). **0 of the 8 defensive ladders have a significant interior
+> optimum; 7 peak at an end and 1 peaks inside without separating from a
+> neighbour.**
+> **Source** — `appr-role.mts`, section (7).
+
+### Degrees of freedom this probe LEFT free
+
+The keeper section below was wrong three times in one day and the cause was a
+different uncontrolled degree of freedom each time. So, explicitly, and knowing
+that the verdict under this list is a NEGATIVE one — the things left free are
+the ways it could be wrong:
+
+- **`cond`.** Fixed at 5 for all 22 players in every cell, as production does
+  today. **This is the load-bearing one.** Concentration here has no cost
+  because involvement has no cost; an involvement-driven form system is exactly
+  the change that would put a price on the ×1024 column, and it would invalidate
+  every row above rather than shift it.
+- **Growth buffs.** Every squad is tenure 0, so `teamPow` is exactly 100.
+  Production raises effective `total`, which scales BOTH the individual `total/3`
+  and the group term the anti-concentration section measures — so the 5.4pp that
+  section reports is a tenure-0 figure.
+- **Manager response.** The opponent grid is fixed and nobody re-solves a squad
+  against a sheet. A squad built KNOWING it will funnel one player is a
+  different 212-point problem, and it is not measured here: the co-optimisation
+  of points and weights would only make the effect larger, which is not the
+  direction that would rescue the axis.
+- **The sheet space.** Seven hand-built sheets and one nine-rung ladder per
+  slot. That is a sample of a space with eleven slots × six scenes of free
+  parameters, not an argmax over it. "No cycle among these seven" and "one best
+  response over the crossed grid" are both claims about these seven — a
+  conditional best response living outside them would read as an answer here.
+- **The focal squads.** Two, and only one of them (`stars-433`) has players who
+  differ inside a position group at all, so the within-group half of this axis
+  is measured on one roster. The crossed grid runs `role-433` as a second focal
+  squad, but over a reduced opponent-sheet set and with a formation and a set of
+  kicker flags it shares with the first. **Which** player to funnel is already
+  known to be squad-conditional — the defensive table above reverses its answer
+  between `stars-433` and `def-433` — and nothing here says the best focal SLOT
+  is the same on a roster neither squad resembles. What the grid does support is
+  narrower and is what the verdict uses: whether to concentrate at all does not
+  depend on the opponent.
+- **Set-piece slots.** `squad-lib` pins the FK taker to slot 9 and the penalty
+  taker to slot 10. Slot 10 appears above as a focal player, so its rows carry
+  kicker duty as well as its weight — slot 8, the headline row, carries neither.
+- **Formation.** Every focal squad is a 4-3-3. The lone-OMF result is a fact
+  about a group of one, and a 4-4-2 would not reproduce it.
+- **Interactions.** One sheet at a time against the default. Nothing here says
+  what a role sheet does while an engine constant is also moved.
+- **The defensive keeper slot.** Section (7) leaves the keeper's A0 weight at
+  100 in every cell. Whether a manager should be able to keep his keeper OUT of
+  the 1v1 is a question this probe does not ask.
+
+### The verdict, and what it means for tactical sheets
+
+**Detectable: overwhelmingly.** Up to 35.8 points of win-equivalent share on one
+squad whose 212 points never change, and 76.0% head to head against the same
+eleven players on the default sheet. Every other section of this file measures a
+lever by changing the players; this one changes nothing except which of them the
+ball reaches, and moves more than any of them. The engine-constant sweep — the
+only other section that holds a squad fixed — moved 11.8pp at its widest and
+re-priced nothing.
+
+**A decision: no.** Every diagnostic points the same way. 0 of 50 ladders in the
+one-opponent sections have a significant interior optimum — 48 peak at an end,
+the remaining 2 peak inside without separating from a neighbour — 84 of 84
+ladders swept INSIDE a crossed cell peak at the top rung with nothing
+unresolved, and all 134 ladders in the run are free of any significant step
+against their own direction. The anti-concentration term is real but worth about a seventh of the
+payoff, and it changes the slope without changing the answer. The round robin
+finds zero 3-cycles in either mode and an unbeaten set of two sheets 1.4 points
+of share apart. And the crossed grid — every opponent squad against every
+opponent sheet, on two focal squads, 114 cells — never once excludes `carrier`
+from the best-response band. **Concentration is monotone: more is better, up to
+the corner, against every squad and every sheet measured.**
+
+So the axis is not a decision *yet*, and the word doing the work is `cond`. The
+reason concentration is free is that involvement costs nothing — the eleventh
+selection of a player is exactly as good as his first, because `cond` is a
+constant. That is what a form system changes, and it is the one change that
+could put an interior optimum on these ladders. **Roles before form would ship
+the largest monotone answer in the game.**
+
+Two things in the tables above survive that verdict and are worth keeping:
+
+- **Scene shape is where the interesting half lives.** The same multiplier on
+  the same player is worth +4.7pp or −6.0pp depending only on which scenes it
+  applies to, and the best focal player is the best PASSER rather than the best
+  finisher. Whatever a sheet eventually exposes, a single "involvement" slider
+  would throw both away.
+- **The defensive table is a second lever of the same size and nobody has looked
+  at it.** On a squad with uneven totals the best defender to funnel duty to is
+  the biggest FORWARD, because `total/3` is in every defensive point. That is
+  either a feature to expose or a formula to reconsider, and it is decided by
+  the same track.
+
+Re-run after any engine change:
+
+```bash
+npx tsx packages/mcp/skill/reference/probes/appr-role.mts   # ~21M matches, ~4 min
+N=2000 npx tsx …   # ~50s; the bar is fixed, the detectable EFFECT moves
+```
+
+---
+
 ## Note for the maintainers
 
 > **2026-08-19: this note was rewritten twice in one day.** First it said the