Regarding the ELO-reset-issue

[primrose1234]

FYI: /forum/viewtopic.php?p=228494#p228494

The goal of this topic is to get a rule clarification on ELO resets and tichu partnering.

[NeanderthalMan]

You're referencing your post on the general discussion board:

The gaming moderation - probably an automatism - detects ELO cheating if you play too often with the same person. Over the years several accounts got moderated for possible ELO cheating for having the same partner too often. While this might be actually a case in most competitive games, in Tichu having a fixed partner is a common thing. Since there is no ELO-exchange with your partner, you cant give him free ELO for just playing with him. The ELO-exchange always happens with the opponents who are those who join the game first, never the same.

The largest tournaments in real-life for tichu are with fixed partners. Here at BGA playing with a fixed tichu partner will lead into account termination. That leads tichu players to these questions:

• How many different fixed partners are needed not to get moderated?

• Is it possible to make an exception rules for games like Tichu regarding playing with the same person?

• Should ELO at Tichu be hidden because of the cooperative aspect with your partner?

This topic intends to clarify unresolved issues, not challenge moderations. The moderations happened and are accepted. What we try is to prevent further moderations - we want to comply with the rules and therefore want to know the ruling in this special case.

I've expanded my reply there for this Tichu specific forum.

The moderation and ELO reset of established Tichu players was likely a manual process, not automated. It's also improbable that mods came across the Tichu leader board unprompted and independently concluded many at the top were cheating by using multiple accounts.

The challenge is that moderators are not necessarily familiar with Tichu and, even if they know they game, are certainly not assessing the outcomes of a given exchange, round, or game in terms of the probabilities of those outcomes occurring between non-cheaters versus cheaters.

You could automate the identification of collusion as identified by highly irregular and improbable rate of passing success, which I define as making the best possible combo/outcome with the card exchange between partners. However, the eye test alone is sufficient to confidently identify cheating by reviewing what cards were passed.

Cheating almost always means the partner passing the sole card that could complete a quad or flush bomb, often passing low/lowest to partner, and/or breaking their own combo, such as a straight or trips to do so despite having reasonable alternatives. In other words, experienced non-cheating partners don't make these types of exchanges which, more often than not, would hurt both hands if done blindly. This phenomena of sabotaging one's own hand is all but absent among {presumably) non-colluding, experienced players, who often exchange the exact same card (swapping Ks, As, etc), or pass high with a poor hand and low with a possible tichu bet worthy hand. Colluding partners don't show these patterns consistently, unless the deal presents no optimal options. When choosing among several singles for the pass, they'll pass the one most ideal, even if it's lower than what's given to an opponent.

Moderators are simply guessing on the likelihood of boosting ELO with multiple accounts on the basis of a steady partnership, high ELO, and reports from other players who are either being vindictive because of a loss, wrongly suspect cheating because of success, or have other motives like wanting to get those players off the top of the leader board.