Krákàtûk, flaneur & RJS

I analized game #691513 between flaneur and RJS, using 28 emptys , and it is a perfect endgame line, no errors.

It looks like both RJS and Flaneur are cyborgs, or if humans their playing level is above 2000 world champion Takeshi Murakami, perhaps they should try playing Logistello?

You can add lokomotiv to that list. He seems to be playing with Wzebra until 40 moves from the end approximately (largely enough to be confortably ahead against any human player who does not play book) and then makes lame but winning moves in the end to ensure a tight score. On computer analysis, his imperfect performance gives the illusion he is not cheating but the poor moves he makes are so obviously lousy that no human player at that level would make them.

I recommend playing 10x10. No cheaters there :-)

Yeah, I do play 10x10 but I find it slightly less exciting. First of all because the games have a tendency to tip to one side or the other and its much harder to bounce back after having made a mistake. Second of all because edge resolution requires more precision in 8x8 and that's an area in my game where I really need to improve.

I believe “bishop” played in the same manner.

I used to like 10x10 quite a lot (I've played it with my other nick “Tasmanian Devil”) but one weakness I have discovered compared to 8x8 is that diagonal control is not as much of an issue in the endgame which makes the endgame a bit dull.

That explains why he is playing very well following the sequence of c4c3d3c5b4b3b5d2. I thought it was someone who knew me and this opening I frequently play being white. Most players do not find the winning moves after that sequence if they do not know it, even when rated FFO 2200 and above.

For those who are wondering, I guess Roel is referring to this game:

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=663022

That is indeed a vicious little opening you got there Roel ;)

That's what Ben Seeley tried to pull on Tamenori at Woc 2006. Didn't work too well for him then but it is definetly tricky for black if white knows it well.

Thanks for sharing!

As you can see in the Thor database, I have already played this sequence 23 times being white already from 2003 up to 2007 and my records are not bad with it, especially when black plays c6 which is the only winning move for black I believe.

I confirm Lokomotiv with this game: http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=727867

The first game ever in which I cheated, just to see where would Lokomotiv arrive. Either he's stronger then Tamenori, or he's a cheater.

Both flaneur and RJS are now signed up for the next mc tournament, if someone wants to try their luck against them :-)

uh… let's watch their match! :-)

I just entered a rated tournament with RJS, flaneur and Lokomotiv. Do I have any chance?

Startratings me: 2026, RJS: 2156, flaneur: 2208, Lokomotiv: 2232

You have dug your own grave.

At least I do not need to think in 1 game. I am playing a frequently played well-known standard book-opening and two players are playing exactly the same moves. It is not the drawing line because I do not remember that well, so I am already at -2. Just wondering how long both games tend to be equal to each other.

You can ask Gunnar Andersson for how the random function is implemented in WZebra :-)

There is no need for that. The degree of randomness can be manually adjusted.

Look at the game between my two current opponents in championship 15. It is a draw with correct opening moves and perfect endgame. There is some variability in the midgame, but that may depend on the number of moves looking ahead.

The two games I was black have both ended and kept being exactly the same.

Someone's got a new tactic. Ending as close as possible to a draw, but still winning.

33-31?

:)

That the names mentioned above are cheaters is old news I guess..

I've stopped playing 8x8 on LG here, except a non-rated game with friends occasionly, but instead I play 10x10 tournaments only to avoid cheating.

10x10 isn't so bad, the games just take much longer and there is a lot more mobility during midgame, which I like :)

I find the 8x8 games against all but players mentioned above very valuable with regard to my own skills. So I don't expect myself to give up playing 8x8 in the near future.

I agree that 10x10 is a good addition, although I don't quite like the duration of games already decided after say 20-30 moves. It is interesting though to see games where you have almost run out of mobility still turning out in your favour.

As you know, is Andre Nascimento a real player or just a cheater?

I'm in final of a cup with him and flaneur… what should I do…? :-/

A good solution to cheating would be use different start positions…

How would that help? You can enter postitions in WZebra.

maybe it can help if the cheater starts with an x-square opening :)

Anyway, does anyone know Andre Nascimento?

Yeah, you can enter positions in Zebra, but that would be a much longer work, maybe they'd be bored…

One of these players has three draws already. If that isn't suspicious!

May I suggest to connect 8x8 to 10x10? That every time an 8x8 tournament starts, the same players are automatically entered into an 10x10 tournament.

What an odd suggestion. Better to just remove 8x8 then?

i can't see how Roel's suggestion can be good at all…

They must know that we know. So why shouldn't they just loose their 10x10 by resigning?

I suggest to get rid of them :) Anyone with connections to the maffia?

Beppi: I don't.

I was just joking! In fact I do not want to play the same opponents in both tournaments, but as many different opponents as possible.

I do not like all the decent players completely switching to 10x10. I still like 8x8 more than 10x10 and like to keep playing good opponents in 8x8, so do not all leave simultaneously.

Is not possible to blacklist some players in the way they can't join my same tournament? in this way the problem will be limited to championship and final phase of monthly cups where u can resign at first move games you don't like.

In this way if no-one want to play against cheaters, maybe cheaters will change game.

As alternative if every good player cheat against clear cheaters there is however a possibility they get tired of drawing.

Other solution is abandon 8x8, but play only 10x10 is not a good training for otb tournaments (and kurnik is blocked by a firewall here where i work :(

What about reverse-reversi 8x8?

My question is… shall I cheat and get a draw against both of them, or should I not, because this would just be falling low at their same level?

cheating to win is a little less ethical than cheating to draw :P

@ Dom: Blacklisting may have disadvantages as well. Imagine someone blacklisting a fair non-cheating opponent, just because he doesn't like being beaten up all the time. Isn't that unfair and wouldn't that destroy tournament pairings? P.S. Do you play at your work???

If you are convinced some opponents are cheating (MitM, tournament stuffing, using WZebra, etc.) and you present evidence for all to see, and you're open about it here on the forums, then I don't think anyone would criticise you for “cheating”. It's not “stooping to their level” at all, IMHO.

The site needs police, really.

@Roel yes, probably blacklisting must have some limitations, or i'd have the temptation to block Tasmanian Devil :) i play during work pauses ;)

Blacklisting does not prevent you from playing against the blacklisted player, it just blocks messages from that player.

FatPhil: The site definitely needs police. But even more, it needs a law! How can anyone say that another player is cheating when it doesn't say anywhere what is allowed and what is not?

Marius - completely agree. However, tournament stuffing with multiple identities (Mahmoud/Saad etc.) is already explicitly not allowed. So part of the law is already in place.

There's no defense from cheating. The only thing would be to play variations, instead of standard games.

BTW. I'm conducting a very nice draw against flaneur :-) Now Andre Nascimento will see me try a unusual draw line, just to see if he knows it by heart or he/it uses Zebra every time. Let's see… :-) If you have any suggestions about draw lines that are not well known, help me, thanks :-))

This is the last time I cheat. I don't like it and it's also very boring.

ask Jan, he knows many difficult draw lines!

When I asked flaneur what program was he using, here's his answer, and my answer to him. I think it can be useful for all to open a small debate? What do you think?

flaneur: As I have said in previous message exchanges with several other players on this website, neither I nor my students use a “program”. Each semester, the graduate students in my advanced applied mathematics and game theory class are required to develop a method to determine the best move in a number of games on this and other websites. The work is done in class, without computers,. The final move is selected by the majority of each working group, which sometimes results in a less than optimal move when playing against opponents, such as yourself, which use either wzebra or nboard. We have two othello/reversi “players†on this website, “rjs” and “flaneur”, which are occasionally required to play against each other. Initially, one resigned. Since players using the same IP address do not alter the overall ranking, regardless of whether they win or lose, we decided to play the game to a draw using an archived set of moves. We do the same thing when it becomes obvious that an opponent, such as yourself, is playing a game which has been played several times previously.

me: of course I do, it's the only way to not alter the result of the tournament, that I played with my own brain. I never did it before, as you can see from the many lost games I own: I only did once, here, with you, for the first time of my life. If I'm playing a well known line, it's just because I'm not used to do it, I didn't even know it was well known. I feel hard to believe that a class of students can play perfect othello, a game that can be solved perfectly in millions of years with the current technology. Programs like WZebra or SAIO took years to analyze the partial tree of known openings, how can some students solve a perfect game and play better then the world champion, that I personally know, and that makes much more errors then what you do? Sorry, but I don't believe you.

If they're a class, making moves by democratic vote, then they only need 1 identity. Why do they have 2 identities on this site?

I also find it hard to believe that a class of students can, without using any program, play perfect othello.

I'd ask him to identity his institution.

I would love to join his class :)

i don't buy this line either. how come they only play reversi and not go or hex or breakthrough?

Me neither. Reminds me of a cheater on a different site that would have people believe that his other accounts were his “daughters” who had “memorized” WZebra's book. Oh and it also reminds me of the time when Jose Grau Ribas let his “students” play Hex but actually just mirror-played against another player here (yper?).

And the explanation is not clear anyway… the class “develops a method” every semester, without the use of a computer? So what does the class: plays or writes the algorhythm? And how does it fit with playing one move each day, if it is on a 6 months base?

Shall we ask him some more explanation?

LOL! On kurnik I found a very strong Italian player (unknown to everyone) that stated he was so strong because he “learned 15 systems by heart” (what is a system?), and that he also uses some trick, like the “C moves”. He disconnected before explaining me what is a C move… :-)

The bastard! Those of us who know about /those/ moves are sworn to secrecy, never to mention them. That's why I don't play here, as I know about /those/ moves, and would beat you all very easily every game. ;-)

I agree with Tom, where we can join this school? lol :D and also this new italian player is really curious, maybe a graduate student of prof. flaneur? :D lol

Seriously, as you know in the last championship i made draw with rjs and sepczuk and i won 33-31 with flaneur. If you see this last game with flaneur in zebra (move by move) you can see there is a point where zebra seems giving a +2 move for flaneur. Few moves later zebra change idea and say that the same sequence bring to a +2 for me. This is the reason why i won and the demonstration of which software is used by the “class” ;)

By discussing moves with a few good players, it is likely to make less mistakes than a single player. Pen and paper may even diminish that, but even then it would be very hard to beat a strong computer program. However, it is more surprising to find a classroom with more than one interested player.

IMHO discussing moves leades to less mistakes only if players are strong enough. Otherwise, a single good player would play much better then a classroom of weak players, and even a single weak player would play better then the same classroom.

Quality is not quantity…

Cheating can never be proven. During 8 years of Dutch real/live tournaments over 40 perfect games have been played by at least 10 different human players. Did they all cheat having pocket-computers orso?

Best is if everyone decides for him/herself if an opponent is probably/likely a cheater and then simply resign every single game OR consider it as good practice. They'll get bored soon enough and vanish.

Most important of all; don't give them attention!

In chess, cheating is using computers or advice from other players. But using books is not cheating (in correspondence games). I would assume the same holds for Reversi. using Zebra or any other software to analyze would be cheating, but using the Zebra opening book is perfectly acceptable. What do others think about this?

Dots and Boxes is a game which computers can't play particularly well until about 16 lines have been played, when they can play perfectly. I have a database of several hundred dots and boxes games played between players that I have deemed to be “strong” (i.e. top 5 here or top 5 at jijbent.nl). There is essentially no opening theory in dots and boxes—well, nothing written down and no databases—just “word of mouth”. Yesterday it occurred to me that I could play an opening in the following way: consider the games in the database that started the same way as the game I'm playing, and then play the move for which the win/loss percentage in the database was highest. Would this be cheating?? I've never done it yet but the thought sounds rather appealing! What if I write down some of the common lines? Where is the boundary?

Ray I don't agree, an othello game has only 60 moves and many Zebra opening lines arrive very close to the endgame with a perfect result. If a weak player would use an opening book for the first 7,8 or 10 moves it's not a problem: all strong players know those lines by memory and after there is all the time to win the game, but if someone play half game with an opening book in my opinion is cheating because it's very difficult for a human do the same and probably the opponent will have an advantage hard to recover. However now i'll try to play chess using an opening book: i'm sure my victories will increase but not for my skills. In a live match i think it's forbidden use opening books, while this kind of doping can be used here ?

I think there's nothing wrong with studying openings… but, I think for an actual game your moves should only come from your own memory / reasoning, IMHO – even in correspondence games… although perhaps that's unreasonable.

It seems to me that much of the opening is about steering the game into an opening you feel is advantageous for you. Maybe it's a more obscure opening that you happen to know well. If you're opponent can just look up the correct response in a book… well, that just seems like cheating.

Yes, mainly the problem is that computer othello is too advanced. It is something like playing correspondence chess with the help of deep blue. not much fun!!

I am thinking in terms of search depth (webra= 20 ply in othello = 20 ply in chess = deep blue)

The line is very clear, IMHO. You cannot use any aid for the SPECIFIC game that you're playing. For example, you cannot use Zebra to analyze even a simple book line for a game that you're playing. Indeed, you can use Zebra to study that line, after the game, and use your knowledge whenever it will happen again to meet that opening. In other words, Zebra should increase your knowledge, but not give you any help on specific games.

Long time ago on itsyourturn we were talking about something even more subtle.

We were playing Reversi 6x6 and I was using a *real* board to study the positions. R6x6 is very tactic and a real board could help me to see sequences that I could not see simply by mind. Was that cheating?

Here you can see the result of your move before committing to it. At Vying Games, reviewing the game allows you to play out any moves from either player from any position… so you can play out an entire line before submitting your move. This is similar to what you were doing with a real board, and I don't think of it as cheating. But, then it's available to both players when it's built into the site, so it'd be hard to think of it as an advantage.

It would probably be detrimental to training for an OTB tourney, though.

Hello, you can add dominik000 to the cheaters list. See game #943914, where he played a perfect game against Zebra, search depth 20 (yes, I was also cheating, I must confess !).

Well, dominik000 doesn't seem to be the most talkative of chappies. I asked him whether he'd read the forums etc. and he repeatedly just didn't reply. I presume that as an Austrian he understood every word of my questions. I got blunter and more direct with each one. Still not one peep out of him. The obvious conclusion is that he was cowering out of shame or embarassment.

and also his graphic progression seems very suspicious

He never loose a game, even against strong players.

not loosing games is not strange,,, as long as he loses games.

Has anyone noticed anything suspicious with vayamos?

Someone has just sent me a private message saying that he's sure he was playing against wzebra in one of his games. Quite why he messaged me, I don't know, but I thought I'd pass it on.

His reversi graph certainly does look a touch suspicious (only up), and his list of opponents in both reversi and LOA has got an almost mahmoud-like tournament-stuffing feel to it. Lots of repeated groups of oponents (bigmac #17633, spelme #17631, and jimmmy #17632), none of whom join him in MCs (where the IP block is in force), only RTs.

Olivier - you're playing him at reversi at the moment - nothice anything odd?

(Hmmm, now I know why he messaged me - he knew I'd sniff around…)

I received the same private message… I haven't run my game against vayamos through wzebra, but I am getting crushed. Not that it's particularly unusual for me to get crushed. : ))

I'd think his undefeated record with 90-something wins is fairly suspicious. Even really good players will lose sometimes…

Well, he seems to be doing rather well in Reversi10 too, which is an indication he might actually BE that good. However, it seems he has only met mediocre players at 10x10 so far, so maybe he's good, but not THAT good?

he cheats also in 10x10,this is my opinion…

Hi FatPhil, I'm sure he is cheating (I analysed with WZebra his games against me).

But I think there are more and more cheaters (dominik000, george and gxaxmxe are also cheaters).

It is nice to play with players that you know are fair.

For Marius, I received a message from Miguel Pereira da Silva who tells me that there exists a program to play in 10x10 reversi (Daisy Reversi), and seems to be quite good. Till that, I thought that 10x10 players were fair, but know I think that even in 10x10 there are cheaters.

I beat the trial version of Daisy Reversi easily on the highest level:

Daisy Reversi 3.1.

Game board: 10x10

Human moves first

1. g6 2. g7

3. f7 4. g5

5. f4 6. d6

7. d5 8. e8

9. c6 10. e4

11. g4 12. f3

13. g3 14. e3

15. d4 16. d3

17. f8 18. c4

19. h4 20. h6

21. h5 22. h7

23. f2 24. e7

25. d7 26. f1

27. g8 28. h8

29. d8 30. c7

31. e9 32. c5

33. c8 34. e10

35. f9 36. f10

37. g9 38. h3

39. g10 40. h10

41. h9 42. c9

43. d10 44. c10

45. d9 46. i10

47. i8 48. j8

49. i6 50. j5

51. i5 52. j4

53. j6 54. i4

55. j3 56. i7

57. h2 58. h1

59. b6 60. i3

61. b5 62. a5

63. j7 64. j2

65. b3 66. a6

67. b7 68. a7

69. a8 70. a9

71. b8 72. a2

73. c3 74. b4

75. d2 76. d1

77. c2 78. e2

79. a3 80. a4

81. b9 82. b2

83. a1 84. a10

85. b10 86. b1

87. j10 88. Pass

89. j9 90. i9

91. j1 92. Pass

93. i2 94. Pass

95. i1 96. g2

97. g1 98. e1

99. c1

Human won (69:31)

i think you can also add Markus Schoretits to the list

I think not! He participated in the World Othello Championships last month!

I was planning to ask the same thing because I was surprized with move 32, and I didn't get any answer to my comments, but this explains it as well.

referenced game

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=970283

Move 32 in that game is a very logical move, giving white every control over the game. You don't have to participate in any WC for that ;)

Don't think you could have really avoid your own loss of control here, however i must say that i think that your moves 17 and 19 were not your best choices.

Just my modest thoughts.

By the way, I'm also gonna lose some games against Markus ;-)

I have already referred my feeling that Markus Schoretits is not honest. However I was confronted with a lot of resistance… comments, like e.g. he was at WOC, bla, bla, bla. Somehow, I've tried to believe he is indeed an honest player. However, when I see his results at the WOCs they were relatively wick… but here, on this Site almost all his openings are perfect till (at least up to move 15, many times more).

By the way… everybody knows that Gramiak, Dr. Flaneur, RJS and Daniel cheat. If that wouldn't be the case, they had to be Universe Champions and give lessons to God. I really don't understand what they aim with that sort of attitude. I still believe they are programmers; therefore they look for other solutions.

Olivier! You are damn right that dominik000, george and gxaxmxe are also cheating. We have on this Site more cheaters then honest players. I know about other players who cheat “half way”, what has dissapointed me a lot, since I thought they were friends….

You have no idea what you talk about. Since when is 6/13 points in the WOC a weak result? It is the same as Tom Schotte (2 times Belgian champion) and Karsten Feldborg (multiple Nordic Champion and former WOC finalist), ahead of Iain Barrass (UK Grand Prix winner 2008) and only one point behind top players like Jan de Graaf and Donato Barnaba, just to mention a few in that part of the result list. All these players have to know lots of openings to 15 moves and more to perform at the level they do.

Markus Schoretits seems to be honest… Place 32 at WOC is very good.

I am sorry. I made a false conclusion. He is indeed a great player.

If Dominik000 is Dominik Nowak, then he is also not a cheater, but simply a magnificent player.

I am impressed about how “cheating” became a serious subject on this site. I thought I was getting paranoid. lol By the way, the story of Dr. Flaneur doesn't make any sense at all (at least not for me). I think it is not even worth discussing about it.

Hi Miguel, I don't think dominik000 is a good Othello player. He is simply a poor player that plays under the orders of a program. I played one game against him, cheating with Zebra and he beated me 33-31, where no human player could have played like that.

So I conclude he is a cheater and certainly not an Othello player.

Are there any 10x10 programs? Although, sometimes my 10x10 openings are really weak, in most of the games there are always one or more points of recovery (and declining again), but against a certain player I do not have any chance at all and I am being knocked down really early each game without anything that might even look like a slight mistake.

Yes, there is one described in this very thread.

Yes, there's at least one 10 X 10 reversi program. I was the one who first found it an mentioned to you some weeks ago (Daisy Reversi). Daisy Reversi seems to be in development, since it has very bad quality at 10 x 10. I suppose people like, Gramiak, RJS, etc are behind its development. You got it?

By the way… Olivier, thank you for your hint. Now I know also about dominik000.

Roel, do you mean M?

There's one easy way to win against wZebra no matter if it plays black or white…

Think…

you got it?

set the level to search depth 1 and then you win

No, Roel…

Play it at chess or dvonn, rather than reversi!

Just play it against itself.

Play misère Othello.

misere

Is misere othello a sensible game at all?

You simply let dominik000, vayamos or any other stupid cheater play against WZebra ?

It is indeed! I am undefeated so far on iggamecenter (nick: zamunda).

Roel: Marius Halsor gave the right answer!

Gasolinas (Miguel Pereira da Silva // Portugal) 22.12.2008

My nickname at Kunrik is Miguel68. This site has been assaulted by a huge number of cheaters. Me and a great number of other players use to analyse games upon everybody who seems to be cheating.

Michael (Israel) 23.12.2008

Great! There are cheaters here too (of course..). I think I can give you one name.

Gasolinas (Miguel Pereira da Silva // Portugal) 23.12.2008

Just one name? he-he-he… you're funny… RJS, Gramiak… among many, many others.

Please read Reversi Forum and join the good community (Roel, Jeroen, Olivier, Sarok, Anja, Diamante, Dom, Stefano, SuperChicken, FatPhil, NoPanic,funtobewith, Sanskifritz, ErFranco, Peppi, Patrick Mikkonen, Olivier, Pere Toldano, among many other honest players). For me the best are Roel (8 x8), peppi (8x8) and Nano 75 (10 x 10); Roel is extraordinarily good.

Thank you Miguel! But do not flatter me. In our games you were just unlucky a few times. I just had the opportunity in the end game where it looked quite even during the midgame. There are quite a number of players here against whom winning is just as likely as losing.

gxaxmxe has played 59 games up now and have won all. Whether he is a great player and his moves macht 80 Prozent to those of wZebra… or he is another guy looking for recognition.

Thank you for your kind words. I have decided to take reversi more seriously. I am going to learn how to win against wzebra as next step.

Miguel, don't get upset, we know they are cheaters and they know also. So the best thing is to resign first move or to use Wzebra in those games against them.

I tnink is not pointless here aknowledge, that is possible resign before first move, against these kind of players whithout losing by or giving score them.

What do you mean Massimo? How does it work?

If you resign on move 1 (as black) or 2 (as white), the game is unrated. That goes for all games on LG, except those where the first move is automatic (gomoku/connect6?).

and handicapped go (your first move is the set up of handicap, weirdly enough)

Is that true? Does the result count towards championship results?

In the tournament as such, it counts as a regular match (loss for you and win for your opponent in you resign).

Next 10x10 championship will probably be spoilt as well. So, let's enjoy while it still exciting. It is not yet decided.

I was not sure whether Mr. M cheats. Now I am sure.

His a bloody cheater. Hate those guys like pest!

All guys who cheat, won't have a chance from now on… unless they start… then I quit. lol

Gramiak has changed his nick… to movieloverxxxl (three x:s) - I assume this is an attempt to make people believe they are playing against movieloverxxl (two x:s), so that they will play on and not resign on the first move.

Seems rather rude, especially against the real movieloverxxl, to do something like this… but I guess somebody who cheats in the first place doesn't care about politeness and morals.

You should post his player id here, if you want to keep track of him; that can't be changed.

These 10x10 cheaters - I guess they are using Herakles and not Daisy Reversi? I haven't tested Herakles yet but they write that it uses algorithms similar to that of the old computer Othello champion Logistello.

I got beaten in my first attempt, but I was playing very quick and dirty.

I find very interesting what Ola Mikael Hansson posted at last. It is indeed completely inacceptable that someone uses the Nickname of other well known players. In this case we're not just talking about a cheater, but about someone who's also acting in a criminal way. Maybe we should get his IP and find out where he lives… and report it to the police. Daisy is a very bad program. I installed Herakles yesterday. I was never able to go beyond 1870 at 10 x 10, but if I would cheat (only) against the cheaters, or let me better say, defend myself, than I would have certainly achieved 2000-2200 long time ago.

calm down :)

i don't think using the same display name as somebody else is considered criminal acting in any country.

what i don't understand is why he didn't change it to match *exactly* :)

Hmmm, interresting. I think imposing as another person would be illegal under certain circumstances. Yet, however unethical I think this behaviour is here on LG, I doubt it is serious enough to cross that criminal line. And even if I'm wrong, and it actually IS formally illegal, I am very certain it is nowhere near serious enough for any police to be willing to investigate it.

So, Miguel, after we “find out where he lives” - maybe there are other alternatives? ;-)

Nah, tempting, but I think not. Expelling the cheaters from LG, however, now THERE'S a good idea!

I know a few friends that for a couple of bucks would,,, mmmm, no, forget it :P

I've spent now like 3 to 4 hours in a row reviewing all the threads on cheating players, and I have to state I find it still amusing.

First of all it honors me having fallen even remotely under any suspicion of cheating. But what really made me happy, were the reactions in my defense of some fellow enthusiasts (Jan Kristian and some others). That's the Othellistic Spirit I have experienced at so many (Spanish, cause I live in Spain) national and international tournaments. I will love meeting you again.

Although I consider the ethical discussion and the simple fact of accusing cheaters to the public very important, I personally try not to get too disturbed by them. The principal goal of my signing up to LG was improving my strenght. Over a long time it had been Kurnik, where I could achieve that, but it became continuosly more difficult. In order to be able to study every single move with detail you need time. And my usual 5min games on Kurnik, are actually all but usual on Kurnik per se. Most players look for 1min or max 2min games, and many of them precisely due to bad experiences with cheaters.

So LG (I learned about it from an article in the Spanish magazine REVERSIES) was perfect for me. I cannot state having analized each single game out of the over 6000 I played on Kurnik (my nick there is maxx17, just in case anybody wanna view my stats), but surely most of them. I can however assure you, that I have indeed analyzed each and every single game I played here. After it was finished I make a complete review with WZebra on 24 moves and with one of Jan's most recent opening books (which he gave me at the 2008 WOC). What for? - well for learning and improving - what else?

I can also assure, that I have analized every single move and ALL of the possible alternatives at avery turn, unless I was in a clearly winning position. I have to admit however, I am using a separa

separate board to play out possible sequences, like beppi mentioned before. So if you consider this cheating, then I have to admit “I am a cheater”. I have, however, no plans of changing this behaviour. I have always been playing Othello for fun; and the most fun I take out of it is by learning and improving. And for the time being this is the way for me to go.

All of these, combined with the fact, that the lion share of my games here was against weaker players, some equally strong players putting less effort, and just a handful of really strong world class players, it is quite possible, that I am slightly overrated. But it takes just a couple of games against Tom or Roel to kick my ass and send me beck below 2000 where I belong.

But, and I have to add this in order to close the circle of my argument, I still have to explain why I am so amused.

Observe the sequence d3c5f6f5e6e3d6f7g6c3 (Just one out of many possible examples). The most obvious responses are -4 to -8. But after loosing a couple of times without having made any (obvious) mistake, one should become curious and consult our good ol' friend the Zebra and memorize the correct response once and for ever. But there are still players able of playing the same crap like ten times in a row and still wondering why they lose. And then they go looking for cheaters about whome to complain instead of trying to learn from their mistakes.

Sometimes i feel like crying about so many people out there living their lives based on this type of attitude, but just sometimes. In dispair I've just decided to me … amused ;-)

Two quick remarks:

1) I think that analysing possible lines on a board isn't cheating and I suspect that the majority of people here would agree with you. My father used to play correspondence chess, sending his moves on a postcard to some other guy and then waiting a few days for a reply—it's what people used to do before the internet :-) and it was regarded as absolutely standard that you would try out lines on a chessboard.

2) I should think that if you analyse your games with a computer after they've finished then you would be in a very good position yourself to say who you think is cheating. For me, the difference between a good player and a cheater is: a good player plays the endgame as well as you do, but a cheater plays it much much much better and never slips up even when human analysis is impossible. I get the impression from your post that you're happy to keep your mouth shut about this though :-)

Reading your words, Markus Schoretits, makes me wish I was as serious about the games here as you are :) I really could do with brushing up my opening knowledge… but find I just can't be bothered nowadays, so I tend to play the same lines over and over - and some of them probably not all that good.

I definitely wouldn't view playing lines out on a separate board as cheating for correspondence style play (i.e. turn-based, e.g. LG). I don't do it - but that's just laziness.

Personally I disagree and think playing out lines on a board as you go along is 100% cheating. I always thought the skill of the game was in being able to see ahead and try and understand how the board will look after a line. Mistakes are made when you visualise the situation wrongly. Playing them out so you see exactly how it looks gives you a massive unfair advantage in my opinion. If a good player played all the good lines out on a board and had essentially unlimited time as you do here, he could played perfect endgames virtually every single game and would never make any big mistakes. If I plan some amazing swindle against you that you don't see, but then you play all the lines out and realise what i'm planning you're not gonna fall into the trap. In my view this is just as bad as any other cheating but thats just my opinion and anyone can feel free to disagree with me. If we're in a game together and you are planning to do this please let me know and i'll jsut resign cos i don't want to play like that.

Oh wow, then we have a discussion on our hands!

I mostly play dots and boxes here, and, when it's my move in a complicated middlegame, I might draw the position out on a piece of paper and try some lines. Is that cheating? If it's _really_ complicated, I might print the board out a few times (note that Little Golem offers this as a feature!) and try lines on these. Do you also think that this is cheating?

My father, playing correspondence chess in the 1980s, had the following dilemma: could he look at his opening books? He was a bit of a monster opening theorist, my Dad, so probably didn't really need to look at them, and as far as I know I don't think he ever did. But I think it was regarded as standard that in correspondence games you could play out lines on a chessboard—that was what separated it from over the board chess. My behaviour on this site (as it is in several areas of my life!) is just an extrapolation of my father's. I have a database of dots and boxes openings but I would never look at it in the opening phase of a game here. On the other hand I wouldn't think twice about playing lines out with pencil and paper.

My perception, from reading the Wikipedia article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondence_chess

is, to my surprise, that the debate appears to be not whether you can play out lines over the board, or even whether you can use books (the answers both being “yes of course”), but whether you can use computers to do the analysis for you!

Evidently answers vary depending on the organisation who is running the game/tournament.

I rarely play many other board games so I can't really comment on anything except othello. But my basic view is that anything that gives one person a huge advantage over another should not really be encouraged.

Othello is already a game that can be played near to perfect in many situations and using techniques like this to take it even closer to perfection seems silly. The whole strategy of the game is about trying to work out how lines will turn out and planning traps or situations that you hope will work out to your advantage in the endgame. If you're in a situation with say 20 empty square (not realistic to count just yet) and you ahve two reasonable choices i feel it should be about looking at the possible benefits and disadvantages of each one and then making an educated guess on which one to play. Not playing both lines out on a board and then (assuming a simple enough endgame) counting which one is best. This is exactly the same as loading up zebra and clicking on a move to analyse if you're ahead with it.

As far as openings go obviously studying openings and learning many different ones is very important and perhaps essential to really do well. But if someones dedicated loads of time to memorising this big long line, then his openint just reads the moves of zebras opening book and they're in a draw after 30 moves this seems unfair to me. If you don't know the opening someones playing break them out of it, or just analyse it after the game and learn form your mistakes. surely better to learn from mistakes then to never make any at all.

i'm not saying it's illegal or anything, just that i'm strongly against it and think it completely ruins the whole point of the game

ps othello isn't chess. stop using chess analogies

Othello isn't chess, but the question as to whether one should analyse games here on a physical board is one that makes sense for most if not all of the games here. Is your point of view really that “it's OK for chess but not for Othello”?

I said i didn't know enough about chess to comment, so i didn't. But all board games are different and the way in which programs work along with the complexity of the games vary greatly. All i'm saying is don't assume that one rule for one game should have to apply to every other game.

Magic_jim, i'm still unconvinced as to why I should not analyze a correspodence game (e.g. a golem game) of reversi on a board.

Personally, I rarely analyze any game I play here on a board (and never for Othello) but this is mainly due to lack of time. I ave no objections if others do.

Computer analysis should be used though.

Computer analysis should not be used though.

well i'm not gonna stop you. I would just appreciate it if the person could tell me so I don't have to play them. If it is common practice on here I guess i'll just stop here altogether. Anyway i'm off on holiday now so don't expect me to defend my view for a while

Sorry wccanard, my English is not as good as it might appear, and I completely failed to catch the second of your “two quick remarks”; especially the comment “I get the impression from your post that you're happy to keep your mouth shut about this though :-)”

Are you trying to imply anything? If so, I'd like to ask you to be explicit with your statements, if not, would you please just gimme a hand with this twitched expression.

But independently of this question I can give you a response. Sure I am happy to keep my mouth shut, as doing otherwise would just divert my attention to polemic details not worth it. You are right in one point. Sure, I am capable of detecting a possible cheater just by analyzing MY games. And occasionally I do. But to be certain about that, in order to being able of seriously accusing somebody, I'd have to invert a lot of time and effort in analyzing THEIR games. And that's just not what I want. I make enough mistakes on my own that are bugging me and that i need to learn from, as to loose my time by being bugged (and giving it in) by the absence of opponent's mistakes and persuing these suspicions.

So yes, I am happy to keep my mouth shut, as the articulation of a mere suspicion lacking any solid grounds would just create unnecessary polimic, and the necessity of inverting (rather loosing) even more time in defendig these suspicions and polemic. Not my style, not my thing.

Talking about polemic I also have to address magic_jim:

you remind me a little of my family (my parents, sisters and my wife). We'd play different board-, card- and other games quite frequently. They are very competitive, create their own strategies and tactics and they do it mainly in a non-scientific way based on quite crappy methodologies, guided principally by their guts. So in this sense they are perfectly normal, average human beings. They have their (emotional) ups and downs as the results of their strategies do.

Not me. And that's why I win 5-7 out of 10 games of Settlers of Catan. That's Why I win 6-8 out of 10 games of Cluedo. If you need more examples, just ask.

I love micro economics and I apply them (especially the chapter on opportunity price) to Settlers of Catan. And that gives me an (over all) edge. I reduce my losses caused by envy and other stupid signals from the guts, the others clearly suffer from. I warship rational decisionmaking. And I love consistancy. I am convinced that, hadn't I landed in high tech industries consulting and marketin, but rather had stuck to my carrear in investment banking, I would have made a top notch Turtle Trader. (Just read the book and you'll understand)

The science of taking advantage of a strategy with an edge, at least where probabilities are involved (backgammon for exemple), is not to try to predict the future. (The principally guts driven people use to have a tendency towards “predicting the future”) It is rather learning from the past and reading relevant signs in the present. And thats what I do at Settlers of Catan, Backgammon, Dice, Black Jack, Poker and so on. I'd never play Lottery, Roulette or something similar, as I know they are games lacking of an edge on my side, but burying rather a disadvantage for me.

Othello is not so much about probabilities but rather effic

(seems I just have no luck with my messages)

Othello is not so much about probabilities but rather efficiencis of your methods. But as botth of them are mesured in %-age, they still have something in common … tbc

My 2nd remark just meant: “You probably know very well who is cheating, but you have decided not to say who the cheaters are” :-)

and my first meant “I think that most people are very happy for you to analyse games in progress using a board”.

Am I clear to you now? My posts were supposed to be completely 100 percent positive towards you.

Hello Markus, I find it very good that you say you use a separate board. That explains a conviction I had about you. After having played for over 31 years, I do not just play OThello, but I also feel it.

… the aspects of Othello about which I disagree with magic_jim are rather different ones, the type of polemic argueing, is however similar to the ones I have been observing from my family. People usually stick to principles as soo as they suffer a lack of reasons.

- You assure using a board is 100% Cheating. 100%? 100% of what? Obviously it is not 100% of the folks here who share your opinion, but rather the opposite. Shouldn't we trace the Cheating/FairPlay border arround the question if your own mind has produced the result of a process of reasoning (with a little more or a little less help by different means in order to achieve this goal) rather than according to these means per se. If it was somebody/something else producing the result of this “reasoning” for you I'd also be inclined to consider it cheating. There are people capable of playing a complete Othello (Chess and other games as well of course) game by heart, without the need of viewing any type of physical nor virtual board at any moment. Would you consider people with photographic memories cheaters? You clearly would have to, because they indeed use some exclusive means of mindhelp, not available to you. Using an extra board is however a means available to you, you just don't take advantage from it (bad luck for you).

- As far as the stage of the game is concerned, we seem to have a misunderstanding or at least a different approach to improving our Othello Skills. You refer with your exemples exclusively to the endgame, and compare using a board just to find a “brute force result”. That's not my case. Expecially in the endgame I will usually not need am extra board to visualize and anticipate. I do that in my mind, and of coarse I screw up from time to time. Ask Roel about this or even observe some of our comments we made in several of our games. My focus and speciality is rather the openings and midgames . MOBIIL

… MOBIILITI/TEMPO. And it's there where I use the extra board, just to confirm the decision I have made previously between two or more mobility/tempo-critical alternatives. I have to see how things will work out to be able to make the right decision. And at a real life tournament or at Kurnik I will have to make these decisions without the help of an additional board, according to the rules of the tournament or just the circumstances of a blitz game.

- “Playing them out so you see exactly how it looks gives you a massive unfair advantage …” - why unfair? Just because you do not have the patience to do so, that doesn't meen nobody should. You have to seperate the question if anybody should be able to do so (which obviousely has many good arguments on it's side, and many people agreeing on them) from the question if benefit's you personally (which it obviously doesn't). So if this is your main problem you should probably be playing on Kurnik or any other life game site rather than on LG. I'll be happy to confront you there, just look for maxx17.

- “… it completely ruins the whole point of the game.” - Well, YOUR point, not mine. Mine is, as I already explained, having fun with learning and improving.

- “othello isn't chess. stop using chess analogies.” - This is not the relevant matter. It is not about Chess and Othello but about different types of tournaments. And in absence of clear rules on this behalf at LG it is just logical an correct to stick to a historical approach. And well the history of turn based tournaments is basically determined by Chess.

- “… all board games are different … one rule for one game should have to apply to every other game” - once again it's not about types of games, but about types of tournaments.

All in all I have the feeling you don't give much about argueing in a proper and fair way, or even listening

…

All in all I have the feeling you don't give much about argueing in a proper and fair way, or even listening or trying to understand other people's arguments, but you'd rather impose your own (single correct) view to the others by polemical statements and imperatives, just because you don't like the outcome of a valid argument. Isn't that also a kind of (rhetoric) Cheating?

It seems to me, the point of playing on a turn-based is that analysis using boards, including electronic ones (but absolutely not programs that do your thinking for you) is not cheating here. The slow time control is designed to let you try out variations over a board without the other person sitting there bored at the board. It's the essential difference between real-time play and turn-based play.

I am not accusing you of cheating… but if you insist… I'll take it for granted.

I specifically stated what I was saying was my opinion and that people would disagree with me. How you somehow intepreted this as me enforcing my views on to people I have no idea. Anyway, personal views aside I find the way you replied much more interesting. You somehow managed to make it into some arrogant rant about how great you seem to think you are mixed with some random personal attack on me. What has beating your family at cluedo got to do with anything? Isn't cluedo meant as a 'fun' game, you seem to have missed this point. I mean i'm always beating my elderly arthritic mother at armwrestling but I don't think it's really relevent. Anyway, if you're really spending this much time on every game you should probably be good by now, and no, I don't wanna challenge a person with your moral values on kurnik. I don't see how beating you helps either side of the argument, however easy and pleasing i'm sure it would be.

I am perfectly aware of what you stated, but I don't have the impression your posterior actuation was according to the previous statement. It's a little bit like putting a gun to somebodied head and manace to blow his brains out if he wount believe you wouldn't do him any harm. Stating one thing, but then doing another is just a big load of BS.

Beating my famil at any of the games I mentioned does indeed not have anytihing to do with how great I might think I am. Sorry, I may have failed to mention before, that, what really bothers me about the whole situation, is, how they repetedly try to convince or even force me to abandon my (well working) strategies and play in a innocent/stupid way like they do … all for fun's sake. And that's what I was criticizing: Like them you seem not to be able (or willing) to do better, so you try to make the others do worse.

The rest of your observations on fairness, relevance, morals and values and argumentation do not deserve any comment at all, as they disqualify themselves.

So for peace's sake let's just stop accusing each other of not getting the point, stick to your principal suggestion and leave it at: “It's all about different opinions, period.” I just don't wana loose any more time on this.

majic-jim is right! I agree with his opinion. Playing with a board parallely is indeed a massive advantage.

Of course it's an advantage. Or rather, where it's the built-in design, not doing so is a disadvantage. I think you've put forth some evidence in the past that people are doing more than that and are really cheating. But if all you've been going on about is people using a turn-based server as it's supposed to be used, then it's good that you're removing yourself to find a venue you like better.

Different people have different opinions as to what is acceptable. I feel like I would be happy to take some kind of “pledge of LG”, saying something like “I may decide to analyse my games in progress with pencil and paper or a physical board. I accept that my opponents will do the same. But I will not use a computer to help me in my search for a good move. Amen” (or however the Pledge of Allegiance ends). Then, when this debate comes up, I can say “look, I took the LG pledge (or “the 3rd LG pledge” if it's decided that there is more than one reasonable way of doing things) and I hope that this makes my position on the matter clear”.

@wccanard: The Pledge of Allegiance ends “…justice for all.”

I suggest LG add analysis boards for more of its games. I suggest this because I would like to use an analysis board and I'm invariably too lazy to get out a physical board or too cheap to buy one or I'm not home and don't have a physical board with me. The analysis board for chess works fine. I haven't looked at its code, but I can hardly imagine there'd be a challenge in adapting it to LOA, EWN or Breakthrough and possibly Gomoku, Connect 6 and Amazons. I admit Reversi's side effects might be a challenge.

The relevance to this discussion is that with an analysis board built in to the site, people would not have to run WZebra (or whatever) to get its analysis board capabilities (assuming it has any), with the concomitant temptation to use its move-selection capabilities.

I think one should accept the fact there are historically based differences between otb, realtime and turnbased games.

Speaking for myself, I have no problems if people are using the time given to deep-analyse a game using a board or applet. The usage of a program like wzebra or herakles to analyse future moves is not so nice, of course. I think I could even admire people who can approach a game so seriously. I think this is the essence of a correspondence game, which in my belief is the origin of these kind of games.

I do not particularly like Markus saying not playing this way (but playing for fun) is a stupid way. you'd better left the stupid part.. I can accept his point though, that he gets irritated by people who don't want him to play so seriously.

Sometimes the goal of accusing and debating going on here seems not to be about how to stand up against those who repeatedly and continuously use computerprograms to make their moves, but about how the appearing of new talent on the block seems to make other people look bad in othello, so it must be a cheater. Together with not showing some respect to other people's opinions, it makes me wonder what we are actually trying to achieve..

By the way, arguing about what's acceptable and what's not it a good thing of course. As is stating one's opinion or feeling about tactics and techniques to play a game.

Jijbent.nl offers analysis applets for all its games, but only for members.

When I wrote about my family requiring me to play in an “… innocent/stupid …” way, I was not referring to the question of applying or not one particular method or tool for finding the best move in a turnbased game, but in their cricizing me for knowing and applying successfull strategies and tactics in a c o m p e t i t i v e situation. Knowing but not applying them, that's what I was referring to when I wrote “… innocent/stupid …”

Although, sometimes even I do it; for example, when I am teaching a beginner i might play a constant maximizing strategy or grab early edges, stoner myself deliberately and so on. Of course that's not stupid, of course, that's fun as well. You just have to destinguish types of fun in different situations. The fun of making somebody progress when teaching, the fun of giving your best in search for success when competing, and the fun of learning and improving when practicing.

I admit, different people may evaluate the same situation (eg Kurnik, LG, EGP, FFO Summercamp, WOC etc) with different proportions of those types of fun, and that's where missunderstandigs may derive from and result in a discussion. Well, that's life; we wouldn't be happy eighter, if we were all the same - just too boring … ;-)

My point wasn't meant to be about how seriously people take games, I was more curious really about how other people viewed different methods of improving your game. A similar example would be the way in which technically the best way to learn a big opening book would be to use zebra in all your games while you're learning for the first 25 moves or so. This way you'll be learning all the best openings as you play and after doing this for a few months you would develop an amazing book in a way that would be much more difficult to get by simply analysing your games after they're finished. Most people would say this would be clearly wrong and i agree but I kinda wish I had done it anyway as I would now have a really great book and have much less bad habits in the opening phase.

I guess its kind of like if you want to be a bodybuilder and you use steroids while your trying to get all the initial mass, but then once you start competing you go completely clean and do everything fairly. I'm not really sure myself how using effective strategies that work great in the long term but in some respects seem unfair in the short term should be viewed.

I agree that using a physical or virtual board to try some moves is well-accepted, but without any computer judgment about move estimates. I also use a virtual board at another site where it is available as a Java-applet. At sites without one, like LG I am too lazy to set up a real board; I believe I did it only one or two times in thousands of games, but I hated cleaning the whole board without having played an entire game on it.

Lately I played some games againsy a cheater who makes mistakes, either deliberately or the cheating was just occasional. Some of these games had really cool end games. I did not win, but could manage to find some nice access and parity tricks in these games. Although the cheating was obvious, I still enjoyed the games and did not mind that my opponent was using these tricks.

@Roel and others: I guess it's fine to play anyone who gives you a good challenge and learning ability, computeranalysis-based moves or not. As long as you can use the situation to find the fun and challenge you search for in a game, it doesn't really matter whether you win or lose, whether you play against an innocent player or a stupid player.

@Magic Jim: Nice point you make, using short term unfair investment to gain long term knowledge. I wonder if importing openings of yr games in zebra and creating yr own book isn't almost as efficient as playing openings with zebra. I think one will manage to learn faster if one's forced to use memorized openings only. In the end you will have to learn the openings by heart anyway. But I also imagine this to be different from person to person.

By the way, since you are making all these comparisons: Would it be okay if you stole 100k (Euro/dollar, whatever necessary) to start a business and pay it back after your business gets going? I think not, and the same goes for using zebra here. But may be other people think it is okay (and have less problems to use zebra in their games, too ;-))

jamaica=vayamos=guahong=dragonplayer=Chxxxba=aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

player ids 17304=17583=17396=17305=17592

I'm not doubting you, but can you make your evidence public, please?

He already posted this:

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/tournament/tournament.jsp?trnid=loa.mc.2008.oct.2.1

in one of the forums recently, which isn't a complete proof, but it's a start.

Add this one

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/tournament/tournament.jsp?trnid=rev10.mc.2008.oct.2.1

this

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/tournament/tournament.jsp?trnid=rev.mc.2009.may.1.7

and one more

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=913409

Why would you start a game and resign on the first move?

Why would I look in the LOA forum to see evidence supporting a claim of cheating in reversi?

To be honest, if he's cheating in multiple games (a predicate with an unimaginably small probability of being false), then it makes sense to just post all the evidence to the central forum rather than posting lots of disconnected claims in the separate game fora.

is Jamaica cheating on R10x10 also, or am I wrong? :-(

You are right, and several months behind the rest of us in realizing this. :-) A strong program at 10x10 that he could be using is Herakles.

Yeah, now you can see the same cheaters in 10x10 than in 8x8 (gxaxmxe, RJS, …)

The will always be cheaters, at many different levels.

Click a square and undo because it looks wrong. (cheating?) Yes I do that!

Play half a dozen moves on a board. (cheating?) Never done it yet!

Use a program (Zerba,NBoard) is cheating. I save that for finished games.

Blackhole version of game. (no good for otb unlikely to be adopted by purists)

(unless you want to reduce draws)

Have not seen a program that can play it.

Would need more programs e.g. WZerbaXA1,WZerbaXB1,WZerbaXC1,WZerbaXD1, etc

How to spot a cheat, have a look at their “Ratings chart”

Humans sometimes play non perfect moves, or random from the best few

Computers win (or draw if playing computer)

The resulting charts are

Human - up and down due to the learning process

Computer - up & up

Black hole sounds interesting.

Of course, it would simple spawn a dozen or so perfect cheat strategies for each of the places for the black hole. But as long as the main programs (zebra) don't carry it, I think it's a great idea.

I could probably present a few drawing lines where they would think to win the game untill they solve the position. Unfortunately these surprise draws are not too hard to find for the other color (for most good computer programs that is)

The past few years my process of expanding and solidifying the draw tree hardly has disproven any known draw lines. The last drawline that got refuted is tanida but most of the good players already know that.

My personal conclusion is that cheating can be suspected but never proven. Therefore it is best to give cheaters as little attention as possible. That will inrease their boredom and probably make them quit sooner. A rating system that hides inactive players would also help to forget all about them:)

I have been ignoring this for a long time, but now it is getting a little bit annoying. I am playing multiple games against the same player who uses different player id's and now he has started to chat in a very arrogant way. That's why I know these id's are the same player.

I'm convinced jamaica, guahong, ab_cd, and mk5 are the same person, but i wonder how many more nicks he uses. Maybe we should start a database.

jamaica/Fairplay, vayamos, gxaxmxe, lakers, Chxxxba

and not just reversi

I am thinking about stopping playing here. Being beaten up is so demotivating that I even stopped paying attention to my games against fair and honest players, so I ruin these games as well.

Have you considered resigning in move 1 against known cheaters? That way those games wouldn't bother you again and again. But then this might spoil the fun for the cheater and we surely wouldn't want to risk that.

Thankfully I am blessed with my mediocrity. There is simply no game in which I'm strong enough for having to mingle with cheaters regularly.

They change nick names, so I do not always recognize them.

write down their player ids :)

Maybe RoRoRo could maintain a list that tracks all their names…

Here we have the cheaters current names and IDS:

17304 = No1_Othello_fourinarow_linesof

17583 = fAiRpLaY

17396 = UsEr_DaTa

17305 = a__________________rad

17592 = aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa (not 100% sure he is cheating, but highly probable)

18239 = Po_W_eR (not 100% sure he is cheating, but highly probable)

10222 = RJS (not 100% sure he is cheating, but highly probable)

12129 = Dr. Flaneur (not 100% sure he is cheating, but highly probable)

a_____rad, No1_othello.. chess_game, Po_W_eR, Ye_L_o, UsEr_DaTa and fAiRpLaY are all definitely the same person, as they all play their moves at exactly the same time and identical moves. Although I dont' udnerstand why someone would feel the urge to cheat with so many different names at once

Feel free to add igor (#15339) to that list. I was told by other players that he's also a cheater and I just confirmed that with the Japanese program I have. I'm virtually certain he's just another alias for UsEr_DaTa.

As far as RJS and Dr. Flaneur go, I could be wrong but I think they are the same person and different from UsEr_DaTa/fAiRpLaY/ab_cd_mk5/etc./etc. In fact I think RJS/Dr. Flaneur has pretty much disappeared when he started getting outcheated by UsEr_DaTa. Wouldn't that be ironic?

There seems to be a pattern…

17304 = No1_Othello_fourinarow_linesof

17305 = a__________________rad

17306 = Ye_L_o

17578 = v_a_y_a_m_o_s

17582 = va_yam_os

17583 = fAiRpLaY (used to be vayamos)

Can anyone provide evidence for ab_cd and/or mk5, and igor being part of a sock-puppetry gang?

RoRoRo is indeed now storing a list of known gangs, their known members ids, and those ids' known nyms. For traceability, every time I add a member to a gang, I include a url which can support that claim.

As far as igor is concerned check out this tournament: http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/tournament/tournament.jsp?trnid=rev.mc.2009.may.2.1

And for ab_cd and mk5, this is the tournament where I realized they were part of the “gang”. They would invariably appear at the same time as guahong (this alias was changed into something else) and jamaica's games and if I asked a question to guahong, ab_cd would answer, and so on. Both have a perfect record and a draw when they played “each other.”

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/tournament/tournament.jsp?trnid=rev.ch.21.3.3

I just remembered, guahong is UsEr_DaTa now. Jamaica now is … ?

Actually, the mk5 = no1_cheater/chess_gay/mrjackass evidence is as clear as the nose on my face, if you just look at all the 3-move ratings-pumping resignations at LOA. A few swift messages sent to RoRoRo, and it's all recorded for posterity.

I find it hard to imagine that people have that little life.

In fact that last is what bothers me most… Why on earth would someone do this? There is no reward in winning the games as they don't but their programm.

There is no reward in doing it on this site as it is easily done. What they do it for? Why? As a fellow human being, I fully don't understand.

Well, it's not even their program they're using, it's just one they downloaded.

Tore and I always enjoyed playing each other at GWG, which, at its core, is mostly my program vs. his program. Running someone else's program is pointless.

Oh - can you try to get the predictions sent to you again - there was a bug in RoRoRo's handling of multiple publishing requests, and someone else had got there first. It's now (hopefully) fixed. Even if it fails again (if so, message me) then they're always published on RoRoRo's predictions web page

Have you seen how many gomoku leagues he just “won”?

What do you think about this type of cheating:

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=1022294&nmove=50 ,

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=1022300&nmove=50

That is mirroring. That is definite proof and enough reason for the administrator to ban this player.

Why do I feel that the current clones of Vayamos/Jamaica/No1player are Polish? Isn't there a way for Polish players at this site to try to check it out and perhaps identify this guy?

Yes, WHY do you feel they are Polish????

Because I had a similar experience at Kurnik 4-5 years ago: unknown Polish kids intentionally made playing board games unenjoyable with their annoying ways of using multiple nicks for rate-boosting. Nothing similar since then.

I think you are far too optimistic if you think stupidity is restricted to one country only.

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity” (c) Albert Einstein

AI RANKA level 10 IS a robot player

New cheater

20824 = 5Five

What is your evidence on 5five?

5five was indicated as a cheater in the lines of action forum not too long ago.

No hard evidence (yet) but his general performance seems to remind me of Jamaican & CO

Very difficult to get proof and if you had proof it is not like this site has rules. The player seemingly responds very quickly how quickly would need access to server logs, but that means I don't think 5five can claim this play is the result of being good enough to spend enough time on each move to eliminate errors.

Flat out asked 5five if he/she is using a computer and they didn't confirm or deny.

My hypothesis is that you will find errors/moves a computer wouldn't play in the games of human player. If this player could be said to be legit then it would suggest that the games are too simple too be played here as a human can play to such a level as to be indistinguishable from the top computer program publicly available.

The best evidence would be a confession or video and since no confession is likely and video or other hard proof would be illegal to obtain that leaves little option. The best evidence we will likely ever have is comparing a suspect user to the top computers and seeing how similar they are. Then it depends how likely you think a human could play in this way. I stopped after checking 3 LOA games at random that weren't resigned on move 1 and found play and found that the play was identical to computer play, fatphil found some moves to be 2nd choice which doesn't surprise me as variation in hardware and the fact that if 2 moves are evaluated similarly the program will not always play the same move.

Would be interesting to know how 5five compare with reversi programs, I just did LOA which was enough to convince me that it was very likely a machine playing.

Shortly after I resigned a (non-reversi) game on move one against 5Five, JaMaIcAnChEaTeR sent me a message (on move 1, before he knew I'd resign) “well played.” I don't know whether he was referring to the game I had just resigned, or what. But they may be the same person.

Their moves often do take place within a few seconds of each other.

5five has used another alias Yaschny (see well known cheaters thread) to sabotage my rating, resigning against everyone in order to have a low rating then have that account play computer-like.

Anyone who has spoken out on the forum regarding this guy should not assume that a 1100-1200 rating is a guarantee that the person isn't going to turn around and

start using a computer. Particularly if the overwhelming record of losses is obtained by resigning every game virtually as soon as rating kicks in.

@Arty Sandler

I believe the Albert Einstein quote ends with “and im not sure about the former”

5Five and Yaschny are newly created aliases of our resident cheater. 5Five has already signed up for the Tour of Little Golem (reversi 10x10) so all his games won't count, I hope.

A new cheater: Ayssia http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/info/player.jsp?plid=21542

evidence, please?

What you've presented so far seems to amount to little more than “beat me after I resigned after 5 moves, therefore a cheater”. That's not evidence, that's a whine.

Clearly the resignation was base on more than just that game Mr. Berg seems to be an experienced player. Yes it would have been wise to have said why he believes ayssia “cheats” but on move 5 that is surely still part his theory, so it is unlikely sour grapes. Fatphil as one who value claims to value his time I'd have stopped at “evidence please?”

I'll leave in to the reversi experts to determine if ayssia's play is credible!

If the resignation was because of something that happened in another game, then a link to that other game would have been the sensible one to include, no?

Maybe he meant to copy a link to a game and linked to the player page by mistake. It does stand to reason that something beyond 5moves caused a resignation, as 5 perfect moves do not tell me anything, it is possible that someone picking random moves could plausibly do that.

An addendum to my last post Mr. Berg posted on the Reversi 5five thread and posted his believe based on player history that 5five “cheats” therefore it would seem even more logical that he has followed the same methodology with ayssia.

See 8x8 championchip #24. Did they all stop or are they removed by force?

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/forum/topic2.jsp?forum=1&topic=2222