Alternatives on Playing with Friends without suspected of Cheating

[SkylineStudio9876]

The post below are the one I have posted earlier, which has been deleted for not clearly explaining the entire case:

I have heard several incidents where a player plays ranked game with friends frequently, and ended up being moderated with ELO reset. We all know that playing ranked game with the same friend(s) an abnormal number of times are considered to be cheating. Here are some questions regarding this scenario:
(1) How to play ranked games with the same friend(s) without being suspected for cheating? (P.S. Play it under training mode is one of the alternative)

(2) Referring to (1), can cancellation of the label "XXX's friend" evade suspect on cheating?

(3) How do the moderators start the investigation of one suspected to be cheating with his/her friend?

Feel free to reply here! Useful advises are appreciated!

[Jest Phulin]

The recommended course of action is to play in Training Mode if you are normally playing against a small group of opponents.

If you are only worried about your small group (friends), then ELO really doesn't matter.
If you are worried about your ELO, you need to play the community as a whole to find your appropriate rank; playing against friends only will give a skewed result.

As far as the (2) question, moderators don't look at the friend status of the players -- only player ID.

[Jellby]

Is it really a problem if you play repeatedly but honestly against the same opponent(s)? I can see it might look like cheating if one player wins 95% of the games, but if victories a bit more even, I don't see the issue (except that ELO cannot really be compared with the "outside" world).

Even if one player always wins, if the other player(s) don't play outside the group, or still lose most game outside the group, it would only cause a very slow ELO increase for the winning player. For an effective ELO cheating you need to fish for ELO outside the group.

[SkylineStudio9876]

The recommended course of action is to play in Training Mode if you are normally playing against a small group of opponents.

I have already stated that action is one way to avoid being suspected of cheating. There should be another way to prevent cheating, say like removing the friends label on all ranked tables or playing fewer ranked games against the same friend(s).

If you are only worried about your small group (friends), then ELO really doesn't matter.
If you are worried about your ELO, you need to play the community as a whole to find your appropriate rank; playing against friends only will give a skewed result.

I have done a couple of games with players outside my comfort zone (I mean my friend zone), only doing it less frequently for handling academic schoolwork.

As far as the (2) question, moderators don't look at the friend status of the players -- only player ID.

It is possible for moderators to sue one guilty for cheating even when he/she played constant ranked games (those without the "XXX's friends" label) with his/her friends?

[SkylineStudio9876]

Is it really a problem if you play repeatedly but honestly against the same opponent(s)? I can see it might look like cheating if one player wins 95% of the games, but if victories a bit more even, I don't see the issue (except that ELO cannot really be compared with the "outside" world).

Is there any standard on cheating via playing ranked games against the friends? Should I send an e-mail asking for this concern? (Keep in mind I just want to ask about that, there are no bad intention)

Even if one player always wins, if the other player(s) don't play outside the group, or still lose most game outside the group, it would only cause a very slow ELO increase for the winning player. For an effective ELO cheating you need to fish for ELO outside the group.

What do you mean by "For an effective ELO cheating you need to fish for ELO outside the group."? I mean if one might win every time either because of good strategy or luck, would it considered as cheating in the eyes of the moderators?

[Jellby]

I mean that if someone wants to cheat to gain ELO by creating a dummy account against which they can win all games, they'd still need the dummy account to play and win against others. Otherwise, the dummy will be stuck at 100 ELO at most, and at some point the "real" account will gain very little ELO with each win.

If you play very often against the same friend(s) and win most of the time, it may be suspicious of cheating (i.e. it may look like the other player(s) are letting you win for your own benefit). If your win rate against your friend(s) is much higher than against others, and if the win rate of your friend(s) is much lower than against others... it will reasonably increase suspicions.

[SkylineStudio9876]

I mean that if someone wants to cheat to gain ELO by creating a dummy account against which they can win all games, they'd still need the dummy account to play and win against others. Otherwise, the dummy will be stuck at 100 ELO at most, and at some point the "real" account will gain very little ELO with each win.

I have no idea how one create a dummy account. Is dummy account the one that is registered but idled for a period of time?

If you play very often against the same friend(s) and win most of the time, it may be suspicious of cheating (i.e. it may look like the other player(s) are letting you win for your own benefit). If your win rate against your friend(s) is much higher than against others, and if the win rate of your friend(s) is much lower than against others... it will reasonably increase suspicions.

If that was the case, how can I restore the win rate balance between me and my friends?

[RobertBr]

The recommended course of action is to play in Training Mode if you are normally playing against a small group of opponents.

I have already stated that action is one way to avoid being suspected of cheating. There should be another way to prevent cheating, say like removing the friends label on all ranked tables or playing fewer ranked games against the same friend(s).

It doesn't matter how many times you ask the question it is still the answer to your question. If you play in a closed community Elo doesn't really matter and playing in a closed community is a well known method for manipulating Elo (vastly predating sites like BGA, its why you have to get 'norms' to earn a title in Chess and cannot do it just on Elo). As a result anyone who plays with Elo and plays primarily in a closed group opens themselves to the suspicion they are trying to manipulate the Elo system. If you don't want the suspicion the only way to avoid it is to turn the Elo off.

[SkylineStudio9876]

The recommended course of action is to play in Training Mode if you are normally playing against a small group of opponents.

I have already stated that action is one way to avoid being suspected of cheating. There should be another way to prevent cheating, say like removing the friends label on all ranked tables or playing fewer ranked games against the same friend(s).

It doesn't matter how many times you ask the question it is still the answer to your question. If you play in a closed community Elo doesn't really matter and playing in a closed community is a well known method for manipulating Elo (vastly predating sites like BGA, its why you have to get 'norms' to earn a title in Chess and cannot do it just on Elo). As a result anyone who plays with Elo and plays primarily in a closed group opens themselves to the suspicion they are trying to manipulate the Elo system. If you don't want the suspicion the only way to avoid it is to turn the Elo off.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you. Playing ranked games with friends without the label "XXX's friends" on the game table or reduce the number of ranked game with friends are two possible ways to make it less suspicious for cheating. If making friends on this website become a tool to cheat, the "Friends" section would become pointless.

[Jellby]

Let me paraphrase:

1) Do not cheat.

2) If despite not cheating, it may look like you're cheating, play in training mode.