1st ranked player in Kabaleo

[souly4]

Hi,

my breaks from BGA are increasing in duration as well as frequency lately, but as long as my account exists I still have the aim to maintain decent scores in various games. So I came for a little session yesterday and viewed the Kabaleo rankings after some time - noticing that there is a rather new player at the top, Ftarantino. An ELO of 300 is remarkable in Kabaleo, one of over 350 is astonishing. While browsing the history, it was obvious that he collected most of his points against the same player, with 12/12 wins... Even if we assume that someone with 300 ELO against 100 would win 80 % (which is a bit bold with such a short, light and random game), the probability of this occurance would be under 6 %. With 70 % winning chance it would drop to under 1 % already. Now comes the actual twist though: The opponent, JoeyD, has an overall winning ratio of 54 % and held an ELO of 235 before these encounters. See this link:

https://boardgamearena.com/gamestats?pl ... game_id=68

From here we can conclude an ELO difference from around 100 (only presupposed it was no cheating), which would translate to a winning ratio of 60 % or so. The according probabality of winning all 12 first games would drop to under 0.2 %. You can recognize from my exclusion in the Kabaleo ranking that I value entertainment higher than achievements meanwhile; and even for my taste this game has not enough depth / long term appeal. But no matter who is affected by it, I find this streak a bit suspicious... With this in mind maybe you admins feel the urge to investigate this.

[Jest Phulin]

If you feel kingmaking is going on, the correct place to report it is through the links in the players' profiles. Discussing it in the forums without proof (yes, you have strong evidence, but no actual proof) does little good, and has the potential for a lot of harm.

[RicardoRix]

Nothing particularly out of the ordinary.

I've played against Ftarantino recently at Ruhr, where he is now #1 ranked by quite a long way, (I am #3) I can vouch that he is a player that knows what he's doing.

[Caffe Latte]

Jest, curious - how would you imagine someone here having "actual proof" for another player? As far as I have seen, people are argumenting like this: "However, the fact that X beat Y on 645 out of 655 games doesn't prove that these are multiple accounts of the same user. ". Which is technically correct, same as any other simple mortal's statement would be.

[N_Faker]

Jest, curious - how would you imagine someone here having "actual proof" for another player?

Replays are public.

As far as I have seen, people are argumenting like this: "However, the fact that X beat Y on 645 out of 655 games doesn't prove that these are multiple accounts of the same user. ". Which is technically correct, same as any other simple mortal's statement would be.

That isn't merely correct on a technicality, it is absolutely correct that you cannot derive proof of guilt on a high win ratio.

[Caffe Latte]

N_Faker, if something tastes like chocolate, looks like chocolate and smells like chocolate, is there a probability we might assume with some probability this actually is a chocolate?

[N_Faker]

N_Faker, if something tastes like chocolate, looks like chocolate and smells like chocolate, is there a probability we might assume with some probability this actually is a chocolate?

Yes, yes. And humans are featherless bipeds.

[eoc]

N_Faker, if something tastes like chocolate, looks like chocolate and smells like chocolate, is there a probability we might assume with some probability this actually is a chocolate?

As a player, I would hate to be banned for kingmaking (or any other rule violation) because somewhere, somebody thought that there was a chance I actually committed that (or any other) violation. You're free to hold a personal belief about certain players' perceived unfair actions, but until you can demonstrate where they actually broke rules, that's all it should be: personal belief.
And as for the digression into probabilities: it's not at all the same whether you mistakenly punish someone or accidentally let bad behavior slide, even if the chance that your belief is correct ends up being 50%. Check "false positive" vs. "false negative" for details on that if you're interested – certainly what you want to avoid in this case is naming and shaming someone for being good at a game, moreso than you want to avoid someone looking at your private report and incorrectly finding the person innocent!

[souly4]

I didn't want to be offensive with this claim; the reason is that everyone who knows Kabaleo can probably agree how insecure one would feel to win even a single game - unregarded of the opponent's level. That's because it is a game very scarce of choices and mostly based on guessing/bluffing. One youtube review perhaps accurately described it with the line 'it's okay, but let's play a real game now' in the conclusion.

Also one has to consider the process of getting to know the other's style. With an ELO of over 200 someone should notice a pattern of the other's approach after two finished games at latest and adjust his tactics. The game actually is somewhat self-regulating; when one color is way ahead too early, it will likely get eliminated quickly, so one has to be cautious, which results in very close games largely. This would reinforce my assumption that it's really odd statiscally that JoeyD wins none.

Moreover, I actually was very generous towards Ftarantino with my calculation. Because I included the 12 matches with JoeyD in his ELO, but if they were arranged, this is void. So I assessed it again and his total score against the remaining players is 6/10 with an approximated ELO of 150. With 150 vs. 235 you would probably have expected wins of around 40 % (and N=12 is high enough that it should be rather telling) which in turn can be converted to under 0.0017 % that you win all 12 games...

Just to clarify more in detail why my intuition told me it looks weird and irregular.

[RicardoRix]

if you give him the benefit of the doubt, then it's currently a 77% chance of him winning, which would give a 4.3% chance of winning 12 games in a row.
(0.77 ^ 12)

where are you getting 40% from? Ftarantino has a higher ELO on their first meeting.

Looking at it a bit more closely it does seem a bit odd because JoeyD seems to be a player with some skill at other games too, but I will stand by my original statement to say I think Ftarantino is a cut above the regular player.