Board Game Arena

Ze Monstah wrote: ↑22 March 2021, 02:181. I noticed in Backgammon, I only have 2 periods: when i lose a lot (more often, lately), or when i win a lot; no balance.

Ok here is your number of series of 1/2/3 - 4/5/6 - 7/8/9 victories/defeat in a row since the last season (84 series) in Backgammon, the number of theorical number, and 9 others random generated series (of 84 too):

Yours: 33/26/10 - 5/6/1 - 2/0/1
Theo: 42/21/10 - 5/3/1 - 1/0/0
Alea1: 45/19/9 - 6/1/3 - 1/0/0
Alea2: 39/27/9 - 6/2/1 - 0/0/0
Alea3: 44/23/6 - 7/4/0 - 0/0/0
Alea4: 42/18/13 - 6/3/0 - 1/1/0
Alea5: 44/18/12 - 4/1/3 - 2/0/0
Alea6: 35/21/6 - 11/7/1 - 0/3/0
Alea7: 39/23/13 - 4/4/0 - 1/0/0
Alea8: 37/24/9 - 7/4/2 - 1/0/0
Alea9: 49/23/6 - 2/0/1 - 2/1/0

Never forget your stats seems biaised because it something you asked at posteriori.
So yeah, we can kinda see something weird, but it's really not obvious imo. That seems pretty close.
Alea6 seems really more weird than your. And I only added 9 alea, which is pretty low.


And I refer mainly to that other subject because there is lots of explanations, and at the end, a more particuliar case of someone where we gave him really a lot of explanations.

Ze Monstah wrote: ↑22 March 2021, 03:00the players might get aware of them by playing, and express their feelings with/without bringing the proof needed, for the reasons mentioned earlier. <- I see this opinion of mine, as possible as the "you are incapable of seeing the randomness because you are paranoid" one.

Problem is, I don't believe you can have a good grab of those slight difference of randomness from 84 series, so from ~200 games.
I could be false on those two things, but I'm convinced I'm not.

Oh I forgot something really important.
All my alea() got 50% winrate.
You got 54.6% winrate (since you are in bga), which will increase 'a lot' your number of long winning streaks (and increase 'a little' your number of long streaks).

I dunno if you still got that winrate recently, but if so, that's another great argument for us.

Also, I have an interesting tidbit in regards to backgammon and luck.

Extensive backgammon cheaters that try to maintain a veneer of legitimacy by avoiding clearly blunderous plays, will ultimately end up in positions in which their ELO boosted account will end up in a losing position. Solely because of the extensive luck factor of one-point match backgammon.

To Romain: My last 10 games: 1 win (the last one, I was playing only to see how long it will take to make a lousy win, after almost all games, close to winning, but... things changing last moment - enemy getting 6-6s and so on).
From 2 days ago, my arena dropped from 20th. to 600th.-ish and ELO dropped from 400 to below 200, just like that.
So I guess it is one of those "unlucky" periods, where almost every game comes with extra-lucky opponents (whoever they are).

To Romain, again: Anyway, regarding the info you provided, I do not comprehend it 100%. Exactly like Faker above, I consider some of the wordings people use here, to be a bit... hard to get, mostly because of language barrier, but not only.
It is like a medical doctor talking to patients with specific medical terms, without explaining the words, forgetting that not everyone has the same level of scientific knowledge as he/she does.
The situations are not the same, but both seem rather snobbish to me.
Still, a solution for me would be (unless you use easier words or elaborate the heavier ones you use), to improve my English, a thing I am actually going to start doing.

Regarding Faker's comment above, from what I managed to understand (and I think it is what he wanted me to understand, regardless of what he might say next - like "you overinterpret things", etc.), I got into an arena game with his alternate account, i think... 2 days ago.
When i saw that... being in a row of bad luck losses and in a sad mood, I asked him if he would want to abandon, 'cause i considered (and i still do) "I would be losing by default in any 100% luck-based game, with him". He said OK... :s
In case he didn't want to, I think I would have rage quit (though i doubt it) or simply played and probably lost (more likely).
"Extensive backgammon cheaters that try to maintain a veneer of legitimacy by avoiding clearly blunderous plays, will ultimately end up in positions in which their ELO boosted account will end up in a losing position. Solely because of the extensive luck factor of one-point match backgammon."
Anyway, if what he says is that an (ARENA) ABANDON might trigger the drop of one's account ELOs... I certainly do not consider that to be OK... Since in the way i see it, it is NOT RANDOM. I mean come on...
And the "cheater" and "ELO boosted account" terms used... I cannot say anything, because I don't consider myself related to any of those; if anyone does, feel free to bring arguments.
But of course... perhaps I misunderstood what he said.

Anyway, just play whatever games you like (I recommend Chess) and have a disease-free week.

Ze Monstah wrote: ↑22 March 2021, 15:35 And the "cheater" and "ELO boosted account" terms used... I cannot say anything, because I don't consider myself related to any of those; if anyone does, feel free to bring arguments.
But of course... perhaps I misunderstood what he said.

I'm not talking about you.

Cheating on BGA largely consists of multiaccounters playing full games against themselves, some have gone the extra step of avoiding explicitly losing plays and other plainly obvious indicators. Which in the case of backgammon has caused them to end up in losing positions with the account they intended to boost due to the unpredictability of the dice.

I was in purpose (trying?) not to take part on my post, to let everyone assume what he want form this information.

I gave you data which... Doesn't seems to argue for any camp, except the last two lines where I fully take part.
Nothing more.

And the data only talk about the streaks of win/loss, what you talked at the beggining of the post.

You can per example, compare 'your' line with any of the 'alea', and take the conclusion you want. Does your seems more strange than one/all other? If yes, you will think something isn't right. If not, you will think the generation is normal.

Btw, you can take any player profile, check his 84 last series of win/loss, and compare it with the value here.

(and ty Magnus just below me )

Ze Monstah wrote: ↑22 March 2021, 15:35 To Romain, again: Anyway, regarding the info you provided, I do not comprehend it 100%. Exactly like Faker above, I consider some of the wordings people use here, to be a bit... hard to get, mostly because of language barrier, but not only.
It is like a medical doctor talking to patients with specific medical terms, without explaining the words, forgetting that not everyone has the same level of scientific knowledge as he/she does.
The situations are not the same, but both seem rather snobbish to me.
Still, a solution for me would be (unless you use easier words or elaborate the heavier ones you use), to improve my English, a thing I am actually going to start doing.

What Roman is saying is that if winning/losing was pure randomness (flipping a coin), then during 84 games you should have in average:
+ 1 sequence of 7 successive wins (or successive losses)
+ 1 sequence of 6 successive wins (or successive losses)
+ 3 sequences of 5 successive wins (or successive losses)
+ 5 sequences of 4 successive wins (or successive losses)

Your games have more sequences than that, but
(1) 10% of players have similar sequences as you do. It is not weird.
(2) Games are not coin flips. You win more often than you lose. And some days you are better at playing than others.

In conclusion, you have the feeling that you are having long periods where you lose and long periods where you win. But that is normal, that's how true randomness works, sometimes. And other times you will quickly alternate wins and losses, because that's also how true randomness works.

Romain672 wrote: ↑22 March 2021, 15:55 I was in purpose (trying?) not to take part on my post, to let everyone assume what he want form this information.

I gave you data which... Doesn't seems to argue for any camp, except the last two lines where I fully take part.
Nothing more.

And the data only talk about the streaks of win/loss, what you talked at the beggining of the post.

I did not say you took part!
I just said that the way in which you wrote, and some of the words you used, made me UNABLE TO FULLY UNDERSTAND what you were trying to say.
I think I understood a small part (the general idea), but not enough (the details - alea, theorical, all the numbers and what they exactly represent - your explanation at the beginning was shallow, for me).
And even the general idea... for some reason i thought you were kind of taking my part at the beginning ("So yeah, we can kinda see something weird, but it's really not obvious imo.")
And then the "I dunno if you still got that winrate recently, but if so, that's another great argument for us."... Who exactly is "us"?
Anyway, thanks for the explanation.

'Us' as the ones who argue the games aren't biaised.
Yeah, was just explaining what I did and why I didn't (tried?) to explain much.

Romain672 wrote: ↑22 March 2021, 16:10 'Us' as the ones who argue the games aren't biaised.
Yeah, was just explaining what I did and why I didn't (tried?) to explain much.

Groovy...
By "us" i thought maybe you referred to me and you, in the case i imagined - that you were actually taking my part a bit at the beginning.

This is why in my opinion, people need to speak to the others' level of understanding in a specific area of interest, and to elaborate the words they use, and how they use them in phrases.
It can reduce misunderstandings.