someone is cheating - what now?

[Mars4ever]

Taking notes is not cheating. There is an embedded notes section provided by the BGA website itself, presumably to be used for ... taking notes.

So if you take notes in a memory game like trio, orwhen you simply can't look at the discarded cards like Heat, are you afferming that it's not cheating? So what's the purpose of the game then?

And for the record, everybody cheats on Trio, it's not normal that any game ends in 3-4 round with no mistakes as in live game where people often turn cards that have already been seen. When I played it here, after 20 lost games I decided to try the experiment to cheat myself and take notes of the cards, and guess what happens... I won! Then I never played Trio again because it makes no sense online if it works in this way.

For the record #2: another Heat race. The 250 won and that's ok, but a 0 elo got 2nd. Me last again. And you kee saying that nothing's off here.
Nex time I'll take notes of everybody's cards, if you say it's allowed.

[ChiefPointThief]

Taking notes is not cheating. There is an embedded notes section provided by the BGA website itself, presumably to be used for ... taking notes.

So if you take notes in a memory game like trio, orwhen you simply can't look at the discarded cards like Heat, are you afferming that it's not cheating? So what's the purpose of the game then?

And for the record, everybody cheats on Trio, it's not normal that any game ends in 3-4 round with no mistakes as in live game where people often turn cards that have already been seen. When I played it here, after 20 lost games I decided to try the experiment to cheat myself and take notes of the cards, and guess what happens... I won! Then I never played Trio again because it makes no sense online if it works in this way.

For the record #2: another Heat race. The 250 won and that's ok, but a 0 elo got 2nd. Me last again. And you kee saying that nothing's off here.
Nex time I'll take notes of everybody's cards, if you say it's allowed.

You don’t play games irl in turn based mode either so that already separates it. Playing live and having some notepad out in front of you would be unethical. I think Frank is just saying that there’s no rules against it online. The argument of these games being played online changes how they are intended to be played irl is a separate argument than cheating or not cheating.

I have no idea how ppl enjoy playing trick taking games like spades in turn based but if playing a game in which you need to count cards there is no way around either taking notes or looking at the game log to play successfully.

As for trio it really isn’t that difficult to count cards. And most times based on your opponents actions they can give tells to which cards (or which cards they don’t) hold. There are also certain methods you can use to help you remember community cards. I know having a discussion one day with for sale players different players have different methods.

[FrankJones]

Taking notes is not cheating. There is an embedded notes section provided by the BGA website itself, presumably to be used for ... taking notes.

So if you take notes in a memory game like trio, orwhen you simply can't look at the discarded cards like Heat, are you afferming that it's not cheating? So what's the purpose of the game then?

And for the record, everybody cheats on Trio, it's not normal that any game ends in 3-4 round with no mistakes as in live game where people often turn cards that have already been seen. When I played it here, after 20 lost games I decided to try the experiment to cheat myself and take notes of the cards, and guess what happens... I won! Then I never played Trio again because it makes no sense online if it works in this way.

For the record #2: another Heat race. The 250 won and that's ok, but a 0 elo got 2nd. Me last again. And you kee saying that nothing's off here.
Nex time I'll take notes of everybody's cards, if you say it's allowed.

ChiefPointThief pretty much covered it.

Playing a memory game online seems a bit silly to me.

As for other games - the design of a game should give a general idea whether memory is supposed to be a major component of the game. For most thematic strategy games, I would guess memorization is not supposed to be a factor, nor would I assume game designers expect players to remember things happening in a turn-based game played over days or possibly even weeks when the game would typically be played in a single session with the physical game.

I see little logic in expecting players to remember opponents' reserved cards in Splendor in a turn-based game that takes several days.

To answer your question "what's the purpose of the game", the answer is, "to make the best strategic plays based on the visible information and the cards that have been played."

[BarnardsStar]

For the record #2: another Heat race. The 250 won and that's ok, but a 0 elo got 2nd. Me last again. And you kee saying that nothing's off here.
Nex time I'll take notes of everybody's cards, if you say it's allowed.

0 Elo means they have never played the game before on BGA. It says nothing about their prior experience or, frankly, luck.

I think everybody has to judge for themselves whether taking notes on a given game is something they personally are ok with. I wouldn't take notes in poker, for instance, but might in 7 Wonders, for example.

[Ceaseless]

For the record #2: another Heat race. The 250 won and that's ok, but a 0 elo got 2nd. Me last again. And you kee saying that nothing's off here.

If we're only looking at the numbers, your rating was 171. Someone at 0 rating is 171 points below you, which gives them a 27% chance of beating you. That's slightly better than 1/4, so not that wild. Sure, you're expected win more often than not, but it's not a mind-boggling upset for them to take a game, the gaps between you are not that large.

That said, their 0 rating isn't real, BGA just has no clue how good they actually are because they have no information on them in this game yet. Even a complete beginner might actually be better than 0 rating, let alone someone who has played the game before, just not on BGA rated. For all we know they could be at your level, or even higher. Even players who haven't played a game at all have made it to the 200s before beginning their actual climb as they get the feel for the game beyond just learning the rules and initial takes. For someone who is familiar with the game from IRL or other areas of play it is even more plausible.

[tbhp]

95% of players who come to the forums to say this are wrong. It is very very rare someone makes an accusation of this sort and is right (which is why calling players out by name is punished).

I'm pretty sure that's not particularly the reason. It should be forbidden regardless of the occurrence of people being right about it.

Plus, we have no way to know that occurrence anyway, since being in incapacity to prove that a cheating happened doesn't tell us if it happened or not. The 95% figure is more a result of how hard it is to prove that someone did cheat, than an indication of what the actual percentage is. And until proven guilty, the person must be considered innocent. An analysis that leads to "so there is a 50% chance this person cheated" would not be considered enough.

This means that you can imagine a situation where each one of the numerous reports on this site is calculated to have a 50% chance of being right, and in that case, this means that 100% of those reports would be labelled invalid, even though we know that statistically 50% of the people being reported are cheaters. The problem is that we can't know which one is a cheater and which one is innocent. Just as in real life, we know there are criminals walking free, because the system is often not able to conclusively prove who is a criminal.

[ChiefPointThief]

95% of players who come to the forums to say this are wrong. It is very very rare someone makes an accusation of this sort and is right (which is why calling players out by name is punished).

I'm pretty sure that's not particularly the reason. It should be forbidden regardless of the occurrence of people being right about it.

Plus, we have no way to know that occurrence anyway, since being in incapacity to prove that a cheating happened doesn't tell us if it happened or not. The 95% figure is more a result of how hard it is to prove that someone did cheat, than an indication of what the actual percentage is. And until proven guilty, the person must be considered innocent. An analysis that leads to "so there is a 50% chance this person cheated" would not be considered enough.

This means that you can imagine a situation where each one of the numerous reports on this site is calculated to have a 50% chance of being right, and in that case, this means that 100% of those reports would be labelled invalid, even though we know that statistically 50% of the people being reported are cheaters. The problem is that we can't know which one is a cheater and which one is innocent. Just as in real life, we know there are criminals walking free, because the system is often not able to conclusively prove who is a criminal.

Robert likes to throw out random high percentages and claim it as fact. I see valid cheating accusations basically every arena season. The “this account used this account to boost their aes” are more than not legit cases. The threads that claim someone is a cheater because player a can’t believe player b could possibly be that good or player b must be using a bot because they need half the thinking time of player a have higher chance of illegitimacy.

And his reply was to the quote “I know someone is cheating in a specific game”

[FrankJones]

Cheating accusations fall into various categories:

1) "This player or this site or game is using rigged dice or RNG". (Likely false 100% of the time.)
2) "This player hacked the game somehow to prevent me from playing and then expelled me." (Almost certainly nonsense.)
3) "This beginner with 0 Elo beat me, it must have been because of cheating". (Nonsense, for the reasons already given.)
4) "These two players are colluding and engaging in kingmaking and/or playing as a team." (Likely happens a lot more than we realize.)
5) "This player is multi-accounting to gain an advantage [in various ways]." (Happens, sometimes it is obvious, sometimes not.)

6) Some players delete an account and start a new one, for reasons unclear to me, and then play as a "beginner" while actually being an expert or master. Annoying when it happens, but difficult to detect or enforce.

[cigma]

I went to the designated tool which is basically the "Report bad behavior". When I went to report the specific player and selected that the player helps another player to win, then I got the message "The best way to combat Kingmaking is to give the Kingmaker player a red thumb (public red thumbs). There is no use filling in a report here: please give a red thumb to the one who made the kingmaking moves.". The thing is that this happens only in arena mode helping one particular player accumulate a huge amount of elo points, even though his overall presence in the game does not suggest that he is that strong. If you want you can contact me to share more info on my suspicions, but giving another red thumb does not solve the issue in my opinion.

You can report this as using multiple accounts for elo boosting.