Not to disparage Hishigata's original achievement, but I highly suspect he's resorted to cheating to reclaim and maintain first place. The very night that I surpassed him as #1 (and 3rd 'Master' of Haggis
), he played
eight straight games against
noiz, winning every time. I've done rematches, sure. But why would "noiz" go back again and again for 90 minutes of punishment, losing 3:1 virtually every game? Psychologially I couldn't understand it, but perhaps if noiz was just terrible at the game...but he's not. He's twice beaten clas (a previous 1st place holder and Master) and currently has 11 wins/8 losses to players
other than hishigata. Not sure what that comes to in hits, but around 80% with the 3-player wins. However, noiz has 100% losses when he plays against hishigata. And he plays hishigata
a lot—14 of his 33 Haggis games (which constitutes 17% of hishigata's 82 games). Games against others would be needed to recover ELO, but noiz quickly surrenders all his gains to hishigata in a none too subtle manner.
With my suspicions raised and interest piqued, I decided to wait for further evidence of something amiss. Later that day noiz scuttled a game he'd started after I joined the table (afraid of #2, but not #1? A little odd). The next day, hishigata suffered a -50 ELO loss to sally, bringing him within one game of losing 'Master' status and dipping to 2nd place. Sure enough, noiz signed on just as the game with sally concluded and hishigata enjoyed another victory. In order to grill noiz, I butted in on the rematch and joined before hishigata could (he was at the table). Suffice it to say, noiz is definitely not American as his profile states and as he claimed in chat. I grabbed
screenshots of our conversation, which was surprisingly comedic. After my imposition, I sat back to observe longer. noiz started a new Haggis table, which hishigata promptly joined. Then when EdwardLCote joined as 3rd player, noiz bowed out of
his own game to let hishigata and Edward go 2 player. Interesting. Then noiz waited until that game and another concluded before starting a new table, and hishigata won against him two more times. The following day noiz threw 3 more games to hishigata, despite no immediate risk to hishigata's ranking. Perhaps he's also trying to grab the trophy for most victories now, too...
I can't be certain of this, but things definitely don't seem right. Perhaps an admin would be able to view IP addresses or referral info that would lend support to or disprove my hunch. However, I didn't see same IP warnings at noiz's tables, so more likely that noiz is a cooperative friend of hishigata's in real life. Given the blatantly subservient nature of his play history, it might be that noiz is a sockpuppet account playing through an internet proxy. I don't see evidence of any other sockpuppets, but suspect Yogurt is a mutual friend of theirs, not under external control. However, now that I've tipped my hand with this allegation, I think the noiz/hishigata relationship will end (hopefully not just replaced by multiple, more discreet proxies...).
My sincere apologies if my suspicion turns out to be unfounded, as I hope they will be. I'm not habitually afflicted by competitive paranoia, I swear!
I wouldn't have raised the issue if it was a one off anomaly, but this seems like persistent, unsportsmanlike behavior which is harmful to the atmosphere of BGA and particularly unscrupulous with the Haggis contest currently running. Please look into it further.
