Quote from: jtoomim on April 14, 2017, 09:01:11 AM

At this point, neither of the valid heads (D2 and E2) are block-stale, so neither one gets punished for that. Ultimately, the one that wins is the one with the most work. Not all shares have the same difficulty. If B1 was higher difficulty than C2, and D2 is equal to E2, then the total work behind D2 will be greater than E2, and E2 will get preferentially orphaned.

Shares are compared using the total work of their 5th parent, rather than their own work (data.py line 836). As a result of that, practically, forks are chosen between based on height with arrival time breaking ties. Difficulty doesn't come into it.

Can you correct that in your post? I think most of your arguments are unaffected.