VERY impressive 3p games from our current #1

[Goat floating]

The last 4 3p games the current #1 have played have all included 1 friend of theirs who is a strong player. He has spread his games out enough to where he gets the full elo amount for beating his friend.

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Very rarely collided with the person who placed 2nd, which was after 3rd place was out of contention. The strong player who placed 2nd decided to give red velvet to the person who only had 1 point late into the game. Pretty impressive that they could be so far ahead that their friend decided they wanted to go for 2nd place. The first collide between them and their friend happened when the 3rd player had no options anyway (if they chose eclair they would get chocolate from discard) and 2nd time happened when no other options scored any points (unless predicted collide)

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Same player discarded 2 jelly filled when they were the only one with 1 and they needed another. Managed to go all the way until there were only 6 cards left and 3rd place was down over 10 points before him and 2nd place collided. They win a 50/50 at the end to secure the win. Extremely impressive.

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There is a collision early between them this time, when it puts the 3rd place person in a spot where they can't go for their best card. No other collisions for the rest of the game. Pretty impressive

***

NO collisions all game! A true masterclass of how to become an expert in this game

Then there are 5 games with a new player. Same pattern: He wins, they get second, and a random gets third. This time the player is not on their friend's list so they just so happened to run into each other on 3 separate days.

Back to the games with their friend:
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1 collision very late into the game when 3rd place was way gone.

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Only 1 collide and it was at the bery beginning. Strange point towards the end of the game where his friend decided to bid boston cream over jelly despite the fact him and his friend both needed 1 and his friend already had 2 Boston creams.

***

Zero collisions between them yet again! And they won a 50/50 for an insane comeback where his friend was so scared of colliding they quite literally refused to take cards that were worth the most near the end in order to give him a chance. Very impressive comeback

In general, it seems their friend doesn't try to block them until the game is decided. They NEVER collide when there are duplicate cards on the board and they both bid on one of them. I recommend you go watch their games for all the tips and tricks on how to master this game!

edited: as a reminder, naming others is not permitted (even indirectly). If you think a player is cheating somehow please use the proper channel.

[Goat floating]

The option for kingmaking only suggests red thumbing them, but that doesn't stop the issue of them beating other unfairly. How can I actually do something about it?

[Bridget]

Sounds suspicious to not clash once with their friend. I’d file a report to BGA with the info you listed. If there is cheating going on in this game it should be taken serious. An elo above 1700 requires a lot of skill as I’m sure you know. This game can have some inherent randomness but I’m of the belief the better player wins out around 90% of the time in a 1v1. When you do three player the odds of better player winning I feel around lower, like 50-60%. There shouldn’t be instances where the same players match and are never clashing for the same card.

[Goat floating]

The Code of Conduct clearly states that players can't engage in kingmaking or talk to other players privately during a game. Both of these rules are clearly being violated in games that are played. It is very difficult to get any real information from the mods. Even when I got moderated simply for speaking up, all it basically said was "don't do it again". It makes it hard to tell whether they actually cared about the context or not. People used to lose their elo for playing the same people, but maybe they stopped for whatever reason. Even if it isn't being done for purposeful harm, they clearly have an unfair advantage from knowing each other's habits. I urge BGA to at least look into the claims or maybe ask him to sometimes play with other people? (Would be even better to watch him play some 3p games with randoms)

[Goat floating]

The risk assessment is also something to consider: Is it worth the 0.001% chance that he just always avoids his friend somehow worth taking away the right to speak on it?