Two extremely highly ranked players found cheating, but no way to report them

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Pistol Star
Posts: 99
Joined: 11 October 2016, 02:41

Two extremely highly ranked players found cheating, but no way to report them

Post by Pistol Star »

I won't call names and I tried to report these players but there was no valid option pre describing what they did. So I have no option but explaining their way of cheating the system and hopefully a moderator can tell me if BGA agrees with this playing behavior and this ELO-System cheat.

Both players use this cheat in the 2019 edition at the 2-player count with "random board without board 8" or "random board" settings. They only seem to agree starting a game vs players ranked below 300 ELO all the way down to 0 ELO.

The cheat works as follows:

When they get an disadvantageous start they ask the other player (repeatedly) to abandon the game and it seems to work at an extremely high rate.

Keep in mind this would not work against competent players who understand the intention of why the other player wants to abandon the game.
The lower ranked players do not fully understand how far ahead they are at this point in the game.
Therefore they will think the other player wants to abandon the game because of an emergency or other urgent events.
This leads to the lower ranked players most often politely agreeing to abandon the game.
These players also often do not care as much about their ranking points as opposed to their "win at all costs" opponent players.

The highly ranked players obviously do never ask to abandon a game in which they have a favorable start.

In which instances are they asking to abandon the game in their first 2 turns?

1. They draw a (way) worse board than their opponent (which makes it much less probable to win the game)
2. They rolled very badly in their first 1 or 2 turns while their opponent had a much stronger start (which makes it much less probable to win the game)
3. Their opponent got KT #6 in their first turn. (which makes it incredibly difficult to win the game even if they are much higher skilled than their opponent)

Keep in mind that KT #6, boats and mines are the by far most important tiles you want to get early on in the 2019 edition regardless pretty much of what the board is.

This way they are guaranteed to win like every single game. They are wasting other people's time, they cheat other players off their ELO and they also occupy top ranks in the All-Time Ranking List which other fair players would occupy if they hadn't cheated their way up there.

Anyone reading this do not agree vs extremely highly ranked players to abandon a game right at the start if any of these things I mentioned above happened except of course if you have an emergency yourself.

I find this behavior an absolute disgrace and very shameful.

I sincerely hope something will be done about this. Thank you for your time.
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sorryimlikethis
Posts: 220
Joined: 16 September 2021, 13:04

Re: Two extremely highly ranked players found cheating, but no way to report them

Post by sorryimlikethis »

This is a tough one.

What they are doing is immoral. I don't agree with that style of climbing the ladder and I'm sure 99% of BGA users don't agree with it either. No doubt they are strong players to be able to maintain a win rate that high against random opponents. But that said, only playing against people 400+ ELO below you is cowardly. To then take advantage of them when you have a bad start is even more cowardly.

I don't believe it should be punishable though.

At the end of the day, they are skewing their ELO higher by taking advantage of weaker players' ignorance. They cannot force these players to accept the matches and they cannot force the players to abandon them. Even though most polite people would agree to. In that sense it's not a "cheat".

I am not sure what the solution is, if there is one. It's understandable why you're upset, and in the same position I would be too.
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RicardoRix
Posts: 2107
Joined: 29 April 2012, 23:43

Re: Two extremely highly ranked players found cheating, but no way to report them

Post by RicardoRix »

High abandon rates probably means fishy behaviour whatever the reason.
You can only play training mode games.
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Jellby
Posts: 1353
Joined: 31 December 2013, 12:22

Re: Two extremely highly ranked players found cheating, but no way to report them

Post by Jellby »

If they have inflated ELO, that means they'll lose against lower-ranked players more often than they should, and lose a lot of ELO. Of course, they avoid that by abandoning, but you could create a new secondary account with the only purpose of playing against them (and not accepting an abandon request). Don't take my word for it, but as long as you don't use the secondary account to increase your own rating by playing against it, I think that would be allowed.
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Molbertino Aquarelli
Posts: 8
Joined: 16 December 2020, 13:52

Re: Two extremely highly ranked players found cheating, but no way to report them

Post by Molbertino Aquarelli »

sorryimlikethis wrote: 17 November 2022, 09:39 They cannot force these players to accept the matches and they cannot force the players to abandon them.
Unfortunately as I have mentioned in another post there is a way to force abandon by exploiting the technical bug.
I experienced it once myself playing with one of those players referred to by the topic creator.
If the opponent disagrees to abandon they get out of time but do not allow to expel them by moving tiles without move confirmation.
And the only way to finish the game is to abort it - their opponents finally accept the abandon request - as I did too since did not have hours to sit and wait to catch him.
Skinman
Posts: 1
Joined: 04 October 2022, 06:30

Re: Two extremely highly ranked players found cheating, but no way to report them

Post by Skinman »

Molbertino Aquarelli wrote: 20 November 2022, 00:12
sorryimlikethis wrote: 17 November 2022, 09:39 They cannot force these players to accept the matches and they cannot force the players to abandon them.
Unfortunately as I have mentioned in another post there is a way to force abandon by exploiting the technical bug.
I experienced it once myself playing with one of those players referred to by the topic creator.
If the opponent disagrees to abandon they get out of time but do not allow to expel them by moving tiles without move confirmation.
And the only way to finish the game is to abort it - their opponents finally accept the abandon request - as I did too since did not have hours to sit and wait to catch him.
It seems that bga fixed it. When you want to expel a player who donot end his turn. he will get 20 seconds to confirm his move the first time and 5 seconds the second time. And if he still did not end his turn, you can immediately expel him without waiting.
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Pistol Star
Posts: 99
Joined: 11 October 2016, 02:41

Re: Two extremely highly ranked players found cheating, but no way to report them

Post by Pistol Star »

Molbertino Aquarelli wrote: 20 November 2022, 00:12
sorryimlikethis wrote: 17 November 2022, 09:39 They cannot force these players to accept the matches and they cannot force the players to abandon them.
Unfortunately as I have mentioned in another post there is a way to force abandon by exploiting the technical bug.
I experienced it once myself playing with one of those players referred to by the topic creator.
If the opponent disagrees to abandon they get out of time but do not allow to expel them by moving tiles without move confirmation.
And the only way to finish the game is to abort it - their opponents finally accept the abandon request - as I did too since did not have hours to sit and wait to catch him.
But once any opponent is out of time you can switch to turn-based without their approval.
I really like this added option given by BGA against a player who is out of time. Normally if a player wants to switch to turn-based games both players must agree first.

Of course this isn't an option for everyone but I think the closer the end of the game is the more valid it becomes to do so if you can not or do not want to expel the opponent for whatever reason.
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Pistol Star
Posts: 99
Joined: 11 October 2016, 02:41

Re: Two extremely highly ranked players found cheating, but no way to report them

Post by Pistol Star »

Skinman wrote: 20 November 2022, 02:38
Molbertino Aquarelli wrote: 20 November 2022, 00:12
sorryimlikethis wrote: 17 November 2022, 09:39 They cannot force these players to accept the matches and they cannot force the players to abandon them.
Unfortunately as I have mentioned in another post there is a way to force abandon by exploiting the technical bug.
I experienced it once myself playing with one of those players referred to by the topic creator.
If the opponent disagrees to abandon they get out of time but do not allow to expel them by moving tiles without move confirmation.
And the only way to finish the game is to abort it - their opponents finally accept the abandon request - as I did too since did not have hours to sit and wait to catch him.
It seems that bga fixed it. When you want to expel a player who donot end his turn. he will get 20 seconds to confirm his move the first time and 5 seconds the second time. And if he still did not end his turn, you can immediately expel him without waiting.
Wow! Awesome new rules! Thanks for the info! Hopefully this has also fixed that bug. I didn't see this particular cheat for a long time now. Seems like it has indeed been fixed!
Great work, BGA (and dev's)!
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