T_O_C_H — What do you think? General forum

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T_O_C_H — What do you think?
  • bloke at 2015-04-28

    Who is T_O_C_H and what do you think about the idea that many players use the same nickname?

  • klaashaas at 2015-04-28

    Team of Champions, but I think they should consider a name change (they could keep the same abbreviation, though).

    I've played http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/info/player.jsp?plid=37291, and it felt very 'unhuman'.

  • bloke at 2015-04-29

    Who is “they” and how many players joined forces to cheat under one nickname? Cheating is relative, to a certain extent, as there are many forms of it, but these guys should make it transparent what kinds of bots they use and for what purpose.

  • Christian K at 2015-04-29

    On little golem it seems that nothing is considered cheating.

  • Chaosu ★ at 2015-05-05

    just noticed it's perfect record in lines of action (so far). i'm also wondering who makes up for this “team”. it could be group of bored genius students, or a program user.

  • terrance806 at 2015-05-05

    @Christian K I think many of us consider things as cheating on LG but the reality is there is very little that can be done about it. Play with honor and ignore those who choose otherwise.

  • _syLph_ at 2015-05-06

    “[…]the reality is there is very little that can be done about it.”

    As someone who had been cheating for quite a while I believe this to be a misconception. I mean sure, you can't force someone to stop doing it, but that's not always necessary to fight it.

    The thing is that there's more than just one kind of cheater, the motivation behind it can vary very strongly. Some cheaters just want to win as much as possible, they don't even care if people know about it or whatever game it is… others just like to play the villain, because trolling is fun. I guess those two types are kind of hard to deal with.

    But there's different types: this may sound really obscure, paradox, stupid, whatever you wanna call it, but there's cheating with “pride”. Many cheaters don't want others to know about what they do and have good excuses for themselves in order to be able to keep doing it. For example mine was that in Dots and Boxes I'm still stronger than almost everybody else and that programs were only useful to save time while I could still win as much had I been giving it enough effort which I simply considered a waste of time. Doesn't justify anything of course, but it's a different mentality from let's say T_O_C_H's who doesn't even understand the games he cheats in.

    Well anyways, the point is that if people had approached me saying I might be a cheater it might have freaked me out. Many cheaters who are caught get intimidated/ashamed and quit cheating or playing in general. Threads like these are kinda useless though. We all know what cheating is (contrary to “On little golem it seems that nothing is considered cheating”), that it's not a rare problem and also that it's not a morally good thing, but expressing it in a thread like this doesn't do anything aside from raising awareness — one needs to reveal identitys of cheaters and approach them directly if you want them to stop. I kind of consider myself past this drama by now so I can kind of talk about it, but a year ago or so I may have just quit the site completely had anybody found out about it and I know other cheaters would do exactly that. However, people are trying to be nice and don't want to bother with problems like these so instead of distrusting others and being realistic they prefer to keep being naive and pretend the world is a super good place, while it's pretty obvious that at least half of the top players in games like Reversi or Gomoku, where computers are a lot superior to human players, are actually not playing fair at all.

    T_O_C_H is just some kind of sponge drawing in all attention while floating in a sea of dirt.

  • Christian K at 2015-05-07

    Ok I hereby accuse all players of cheating. I hope it will freak some players out and make them stop :)

  • santi at 2015-05-08

    In my opinion, the most important part here is not about cheaters, is about what do you really want by playing.

    i mean, most of us play to fight against ourselfs, trying to move forward, improving our skills and having fun.

    If that is also your case, no matter about “pseudo-group-multi-accounts-cheaters-players” do. because they are playing another game, they want to se on their screen a group of organized pixels indicating a number as higher as possible. Im not able to say this is not a great challenge, i mean, we all are different and everyone can have different objetives in life. (keep going guys you are doing it very well!!  xDD)

    So, if they are looking for that “super challenge” and you are looking for something like respect, well feeling and fun, all you have to do is to find people alligned with you, and smile.

    What your challenge is?

  • bloke at 2015-05-08

    I assume that you would also like to find out the motivation of this T_O_C_H entity.

    Does anyone know how to invite him/her/them to this discussion thread to give some explanation? I can imagine that there is a sensible argument somewhere, but T_O_C_H should be transparent about it. Although I have to admit that I do not see any challenge in uniting those realtime players who are best at using advanced programs.

  • pedropajarito at 2015-05-11

    Team Of Cheaters

  • santi at 2015-05-12

    I dont really need to know their objetives, It's hard enough to find my owns, so I will not spent energy on that.

    In case I would be the webmaster, for sure i would change some rules just because that would help to increase the community and the fair play. We all know how the amount of players is decreasing dramatically at littlegolem, so almost nobody want to play tournaments agains multi-accounts, cheaters or whatelse.

    But not the case. So… Does they need to get 2500 points at every game here doing whatever needed? Cool! Go ahead!, then what? once to get 2500 points what? will you feel better? yes? good for you!, enjoy, you can now stop playing because you are now a better person and you earned a huge amount of cash from littlegolem.

    As fast as they get their objetives, as fast they will stop “playing”.

    It would be fun if players could donate their points to others, I would donate 1000 points to them to help in their mission. heheh.

    ;)

  • bandicoot__91 at 2015-05-12

    Honestly I think this player is well known from everyone… gr_ami_ak, or Ja_mai_ca…

    I don't know his level in the other games, but in connect4, his rating is boosted, and his level is approximately the same, I recognize some style on the board. To grow his rating, he uses a very similar tactic: in the past he didn't play anyone, only his own nicknames when he was beginning to be high; and now he doesn't play the yellow games to be almost sure that he makes going up his rating. I think that there were some other nicknames like Banana_joe, Ju_no_ra, that he left. But I think he is still here with a few other nicknames. Maybe I am wrong and I hope I am wrong… But I think it's true.

    To answer the question of the topic, I think that the ''team'' is to make a diversion. He wants a new personality, a new image, because everyone was mad after Ja_mai_ca and his nicknames. So he likes to have many personalities, and his idea is to say that he is a champion's team, to recognize his talent, that he wins really his games, that he merits it, not like Ja_mai_ca in the past where he played himself. I don't know if he really shares his nickname with other people now, but I think it can be good for his objectives. It looks like he wants to be at the top list of every games. I have no problem about it, but I'm not sure to understand where is the merit to win if you engage the best people of every game. It's a bit like if you buy the talent of people for yourself, for your own image.

    Anyway I think that it is a tactic to show that he is the best and unbeatable because he gets the best players in his team, but I think he is alone.

  • santi at 2015-05-13

    Uhm… I dont know bandicoot, what I really know is that when someone wants to prove something to others (being smarter, faster, stronger…etc) what he´s really doing is trying to feel respected by a community (your friends, a website or whatever) Respect in biology could be translated into serotonin, helping organs to move forward (we all need it at different levels) So, in case he/they is/are looking for respect he is not finding it out at all. For example, I will not respect someone who only want to probe is fast if he is running downhill while you are running uphill. He can even be faster that you, but their rules become obscure his talent (talent im sure he/they has/have)

    In case he/they is/are NOT looking for respect, and the main goal is to spend as much time as possible just to troll at littlegolem (as purgency says)…. I would really recomend to try to go and have as much fun as possible meeting the real world, doing real friends and having real sex.   :D  there is huge amount of challenges outside, go for them!

    In case none of those goals are right, or his self-defense mechanism help him to feel he is looking for a very nice goal as legal - kind person/player. I only can say: Enjoy your seach and good luck finding your path.

    thants my opinion

  • bloke at 2015-05-13

    You see, I am willing to give the benefit of doubt: there might be some noble (scientific, experimental, social, cultural, whatever) motivation behind this grouping of software aided grouping of anonymous players… Perhaps he/she/them want to share some lessons or experience with us at the end of the day.

    If there is no other motivation besides an empty display of egotistic trolling, then T_O_C_H is not worthy of gaining our respect in any form.

  • Wolfpack at 2015-05-13

    T_O_C_H lost playing black at reversi

    game=f5d6c4d3c3f4c5b3c2e3d2c6b4a3 (all drawing book)

    then black plays g4 (maybe 31-33 loss)

    drawing book is g3 but not a very human type of move, so suspect it is a team not aided by computers (or less than 50% aided)

    maybe white was using a well trained Zebra!

  • bandicoot__91 at 2015-05-13

    I agree with you santi. Some people have great talent but a few don't use it in a good way. They can be loved by the community and be great competitors if they respect theirself and the others. I hope this player will turn in the good way and understand it, because he is a good player if we forget this. I know that he doesn't use any kind of software at four in a row, and TheBurglar says that he should not be aided by a computer at reversi, or partly. What about gomoku? And Chess?

  • Adam Szlachta at 2015-09-09

    This game shows that T_O_C_H has no idea about go endgame: http://littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=1688098I asked him to refer to this thread, so far no response.

  • Richard Moxham at 2015-09-10

    If T_O_C_H really is a collective of people and/or computers then my instinctive reaction is to say that's regrettable, but what I consider utterly outrageous is their apparently deeming Morelli beneath their notice.

    The only previous occasion on which I've felt this way was when my anger at burglars who among other things took some 300 of my CDs, was eclipsed by indignation at the number of those which they discarded on their way down the garden.

  • ypercube at 2015-09-10

    And no counting abilities either. Black was winning by 0.5 at move 44, yet they played 45.i9 instead of Scoring.

  • Florian Jamain at 2015-09-10

    My idea is… he can be a collective of people or computers, my goal won't be changed, just doing my best and beat him.If you are good at something, maybe you are just better than a collective of people or computers?

    Of course, it is more easy to say when your best games are ones where no strong computers exist.Nevertheless, computers can be beaten, especially in 30days/player games.

  • Wolfpack at 2015-09-10

    Maybe time for “Collectives” or “Vote Clubs” @ littlegolem to combat T_O_C_H

    a collective group can be made up of any number of players, also anonymous collectives can exist (eg you could be 7 of 9)collectives that share the same player can not play against each other

    1st phase is submitting movesafter a submit check if most submitted move can not be matched by another move if not make a collective submit

    if more than 50% of players have submitted a move then start2nd phase is resubmitting movesthis allows a change of move but also seeing what other moves have been submitted

    3rd phase if time is up then submit move made the mostif equal mosts then use one with lowest numbered submit (eg 2 of 9 if no 1 did not vote)

  • Richard Moxham at 2015-09-10

    Hey people, I made a joke back there - and spent several minutes carefully polishing the wording to maximise the humorous effect.

    Do I have to add a smiley these days, to ensure that my wry self-deprecating reflections on human nature get noticed?

  • MisterCat ★ at 2015-09-10

    gee Rich,I had MY VALUABLE AND IRREPLACEABLE CASSETTE COLLECTION STOLEN from me, back in 1975.  I found out that the thief erased my cassettes and sold them as blanks.  I'm afraid I took your comment seriously, then, and not as a joke.  Silly me.(meow)

  • Richard Moxham at 2015-09-11

    Hey, MisterCat, it *was* serious, basically, but with half a teaspoon of humour for seasoning.  No worries.  And btw your cassette story had me shedding tears of simultaneous grief and hilarity.

    I must confess, though, to finding the forums here a bit po-faced.  Probably just me.

  • Marius Halsor at 2015-09-11

    Bloke: I disagree with you that those motives would be “noble”. If you search the forum for GO9, you'll find that some time ago there was an account doing exactly this, going for several years. Me, and others with me, considered this utterly unacceptable. I won't repeat the arguments here, you really should find the thread.

    As for  T O C H, I haven't played against this account yet. However, if this really IS “jamaica” returning, it's truly sad for LG. The “jamaica” account was one of the worst things to happen to LG.

    Fortunately for me, there are few (if any) cheaters in my favourite game Hex, which still is my main reason for playing here :-)

  • Marius Halsor at 2015-09-11

    I didn't find the forum posts I talked about, but the guy even went on to publish an article about his experiment: http://dcook.org/compgo/human_computer_team.pdf

    Some of the complaints was along the lines that experimenting on people without their consent is not OK. Another thing is that this is still cheating. The account was not even labelled as being a computer (or worse yet, a computer-human team).

  • Marius Halsor at 2015-09-11

    I found the post just now - in the Chess forum, for some reason. I've revived it so it's more accessible (not THAT accessible, though - it sure is a long thread!).

  • Kerry Handscomb at 2015-09-13

    Curious, I started looking at some games of T_O_C_H, and I noticed a number of people resigning on their first move. If we are sure T_O_C_H is cheating, refusing to play seems to be the best response.

  • beppi at 2015-11-12

    I've been playing with T_O_C_H and I always lost. I think that from now on I won't answer anymore at his moves.

  • Florian Jamain at 2015-11-12

    He is not really good. Of course don't play against him at chess, reversi… games where computers are stronger than humans.

    I played vs him 2 times at Amazons and 1 at Connect6, i always won.And these 2 games are not my main games, so I think it is not hard to beat him except at 3-4 games where computers are just too good.

  • terrance806 at 2015-11-12

    I agree with Florian, there are games that TOCH is not that good at a number of games. Recently I beat him/her at LOA by going back over their previous games. Their strategy was similar in every game and there did not seem to have a plan B. I suggest looking over previous games.

  • Ray Garrison at 2016-11-17

    T_O_C_H

    Trump Over Clinton, Hah!

  • mmKALLL ★ at 2016-11-18

    I wasn't going to reply to this since it was so old, but seeing it resurfaced…

    In addition to T_O_C_H being quite beatable by going over their previous games, there are usually things to be learned from doing so. I personally would give this person or group of people, along with any number of “cheaters”, the benefit of doubt and just enjoy the game in whatever way I want. For me, that enjoyment comes in the form of having interesting matches, and so far T_O_C_H has not disappointed on that front - sometimes I've even received insightful answers to questions about the situation in a game.

    No matter who the operator(s) of the account are, I don't have much against them. As Purgency pointed out, there are a wide array of motivations, and the distinction between OTB and turn based play makes this a topic that's difficult for everyone to agree on.

    How about playing the games instead of arguing?

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