A lot of people here have taken the accusations as facts and agree with OP, so I wanted to voice out, that I do not, and give reason as to why not. It is important to me to state, that I believe it possible that collusion occured in one or more games analysed by OP. I just question that the games displayed suffice for this accusation in some of the cases. There surely are colluders on BGA, and I do agree that maybe a bunch listed here are actually colluding. That said, I believe that OP is generating a lot of false positives.
I was contacted by OP (thread opener) with the info that I played against apparent cheaters. A link had been added to this forum thread, and so I checked the analysis for the players in question (* and *). *
OP himself states:
As I said, I looked at the analysis of the sequence * played by * and *, and I must say, that while they often pass favorable cards, most of the time the passed cards are completely plausible from one hand perspective. The one pass I would otherwise believe to be collusion is most likely not collusion, because they could have easiely passed much better, and won a tichu, had they passed differently.
What I am saying is this: In tichu, 4 players share 4 colors + 4 extra cards (14 cards each). If you choose a completely random card from your hand to pass to your teammate (not the best or the worst or anything rational) then you are pretty likely to hit a value that is already there (1-10, J, Q, K, A) just because it is very likely, that the cards are spread out a lot. Only because we pass knowing that certain cards are better than others, we generate a higher probability for passed solo cards (2, 3, 4 and 5 mostly, but sometimes higher), because we passed away those low cards already. If we didn't it would have been a pair or trip or whatever.
The point is: Many times passing seems odd, if you leave out the context. * and * often pass highest or second highest solo cards (sometimes low ones, if they suspect utility). This is perfectly natural. I play in the same way, only without a fix teammate. If I had a fix teammate, and we'd play a lot of hands together, it would probably look like collusion too, because we would learn each others passing strategy. Overall * and * leave out too many really strong opportunities for tichu or strong combinations, to actually look suspicious to me. In the first match analysed, they pass two bombs overall, which might seem like collusion, but they passed the second highest solo card both times, which makes perfect sense. They never tear straights to pass a quad bomb, which I could accept as strong indicator. They sometimes tear pairs (when a straight remains) and they sometimes pass medium solo instead of highest solo (which I so a lot, because of the higher change to fill in straights or pair up solor.
As said to begin with: I might be wrong. I just felt like it was important to point out, that this 'evidence' does not look as strong to me as it might to others, specifically less experienced players (I played offline a lot in the days).
I look at these games think: It is possible that * and * do collude, but the proof offered is way too thin for my taste.
*Moderation Edit: please do not use the Forums to call players out by name, this is what the Moderation Reports are for. The Forums should remain a general discussion.
I was contacted by OP (thread opener) with the info that I played against apparent cheaters. A link had been added to this forum thread, and so I checked the analysis for the players in question (* and *). *
OP himself states:
I (privately) asked OP about what his basis expectation was about how two players pass each other bombs/combos/etc. but got no sensible answer other than that any single game cannot be taken as indicator. I agree, that any single game is not an indicator, but even over multiple games, you would require an average rate of success or other measurable quantifier to isolate overproportional success in passing cards. In other words, without knowing what is proportional, how would something qualify as overproportional.The most obvious indicator is the cards partners pass to each other. Players who are cheating pass (and play) in way that reveals they have knowledge of what's in their partner's hand, passing cards that complete bombs and other combinations. These passes—often low or breaking their own combos—wouldn't make sense if their partner's hand was unknown to them.
As I said, I looked at the analysis of the sequence * played by * and *, and I must say, that while they often pass favorable cards, most of the time the passed cards are completely plausible from one hand perspective. The one pass I would otherwise believe to be collusion is most likely not collusion, because they could have easiely passed much better, and won a tichu, had they passed differently.
What I am saying is this: In tichu, 4 players share 4 colors + 4 extra cards (14 cards each). If you choose a completely random card from your hand to pass to your teammate (not the best or the worst or anything rational) then you are pretty likely to hit a value that is already there (1-10, J, Q, K, A) just because it is very likely, that the cards are spread out a lot. Only because we pass knowing that certain cards are better than others, we generate a higher probability for passed solo cards (2, 3, 4 and 5 mostly, but sometimes higher), because we passed away those low cards already. If we didn't it would have been a pair or trip or whatever.
The point is: Many times passing seems odd, if you leave out the context. * and * often pass highest or second highest solo cards (sometimes low ones, if they suspect utility). This is perfectly natural. I play in the same way, only without a fix teammate. If I had a fix teammate, and we'd play a lot of hands together, it would probably look like collusion too, because we would learn each others passing strategy. Overall * and * leave out too many really strong opportunities for tichu or strong combinations, to actually look suspicious to me. In the first match analysed, they pass two bombs overall, which might seem like collusion, but they passed the second highest solo card both times, which makes perfect sense. They never tear straights to pass a quad bomb, which I could accept as strong indicator. They sometimes tear pairs (when a straight remains) and they sometimes pass medium solo instead of highest solo (which I so a lot, because of the higher change to fill in straights or pair up solor.
As said to begin with: I might be wrong. I just felt like it was important to point out, that this 'evidence' does not look as strong to me as it might to others, specifically less experienced players (I played offline a lot in the days).
I look at these games think: It is possible that * and * do collude, but the proof offered is way too thin for my taste.
*Moderation Edit: please do not use the Forums to call players out by name, this is what the Moderation Reports are for. The Forums should remain a general discussion.
