playBunny: In such cases, I hate the pretense and the unnecessary effort, pB.  Why should I have to go to the trouble of logging in, managing vacation days, and my remaining time, if my opponent is actually gnubg...which I could play at any time without those added steps?  And to think I may even have exchanged pleasantries with opponents who did little more than relay moves that were chosen by their program--well, I can't say it makes me furious, but I'm clearly not pleased by such actions.

I must say, however, that I haven't seen very much of that here.  I was mistaken when my earlier message said "...coming here to BK".  I ought to have corrected that.  Sure, there are problems here, but I've seen worse elsewhere--and that's what was on my mind when I wrote.

wetware: If I wanted to play against gnubg, I could do that without coming here to BK.

I've heard a number of people say something like this and, of course, I know what it literally means, but what is your point?

spirit_66: Its allright. The word you thrown at me made me laugh anyway, I think the laugh was on both sides. And about the cheats going on, I don't have the time for it. But what you observe might reinforce your oppinion on a suspected cheater but isn't enough for a proof IMO. In fact, players who like to concentrate on a move ge often run off in reallife playing, make forward boy backgammon is a fast game. Online playing allowes such a player to take his time, of course GNU comes after the game is finished. It happens that grandmasters exploit the idea to play with Gnu or fritz, it doesn't belong to bk IMO.

aaru: At some point, although absolute proof may still be out of reach, it is more reasonable to conclude that cheating has taken place.  On another site, I analyzed several players' matches.  In one case, I found at least 3 lengthy (21-point) matches where the player had 0 moves marked very bad, 0 moves marked bad, and just 1 marked doubtful--at gnubg's default settings.

If I wanted to play against gnubg, I could do that without coming here to BK.

gogul:

Ooohhh! Now comes the man from Switzerland with the big potatoes!!!

You can believe me that I'm only frustrated about .. let's say .. opponents with sound games.

Hard for me not to believe that there's something going wrong when I can watch them at the already opened game and it takes a long time till they make their moves. What do you think they are doing? My proof is if the GNU analyse at the end of the match show me no fault. The top of all is if they have very luck dices too.

But I never complained about any unfair play of you!!!

spirit_66: Your frustration because of cheaters, I don't buy it. Your offences toward me aimed on luck.

aaru:

OK!

spirit_66: OK, now is everything ok.
;)

aaru:

Ok!!

What should I do now? Shoot myself to give you satisfaction?

spirit_66: Are you sure? Next time pls think about this rule before you say something offensive.

aaru:

I know the rule "in case of doubt not guilty".

spirit_66: Apologize - OK.
But remeber - you need to prove guilt, not innocence.

aaru:
I can!!! But if you're not, well then I apologize. How will I know that you're innocent???

spirit_66: "Analysing a game with GNU and if it shows me that the opponent didn't make any fault, that makes me alerted and suspicious."
Maybe, but that does not give you the power to name the second person CHEATER!!!!

playBunny:

Well, interesting to read all the notes.

I'm talking about both, games and matches. I agree that it's always uncertain to judge on a small amount of events. Would be beneficial to have many games/matches for the analysis.

I also agree that I'm not free of prejudices when I'm alerted of a possible fraud.

I guess one can say that there are cheater on BrainKing and I also guess that we can't get rid of them.

So I'm asking myself if it's worthwhile to go on playing here and being somebodies fool or better to stop any activity on BrainKing? I still don't know but there's a big frustration.

Thanks
Spirit

PS: If I sentenced aru wrong than I'll apologise but he didn't give me any good explanation to make me change my mind.

grenv: I'd be more interested in if the player's moves were identical to an easily utilized program...

Erm, more interested than in what? We're already talking about play that matches a bot's.

since even computers make minor mistakes, the odds of the player making exactly the same mistakes over an extended time is... ?

Well the odds of the same position coming up again is pretty low so that's not the best thing to look for and such a search would involve looking at the moves made. However, the odds of playing a zero error rate in match after match is nil and at or below a "World Class" error rate is very low, whereas the ease of detection is high. All you need are the error totals for the matches. When nabla and I investigated we found a zero error rate and no other possible conclusion than that a bot was being used for the moves.

playBunny: I'd be more interested in if the player's moves were identical to an easily utilized program... since even computers make minor mistakes, the odds of the player making exactly the same mistakes over an extended time is... ?

spirit_66: Some games don't include any difficult decisions to make and so could easily show up no fault.  But I agree if it happens on more complex games, then it's either suspicious or you're dealing with a very good player.  I would expect most games against nabla to show no fault on his part, but only occasionally for lesser players like myself.

Can you post a link to a game or two you're suspicious of so we can take a closer look. 

I don't think you should be suspicious of aaru - I really don't believe he's the cheating sort (based on my experience, I enjoy playing him) and anyway, he has far too many games on the go, to have time for it!

spirit_66: Do you mean game or match?

I play many games flawlessly or with a couple of minor mistakes but very rarely do I play a flawless or near perfect multi-point match. The reason is that some games consist solely of positions and moves that occur so often that they become standard. Such a game will be played perfectly. Most matches take a player into unfamiliar territory and that requires thinking and judgment. Such games generate mistakes.

When checking out someone that you suspect of cheating it's best to look at enough matches that you are feel both convinced and that you could convince others if required to do so.

spirit_66: Analyzing your played games with GNU is indeed an efficient way to catch the cheaters, but since it is not that rare even for casual players to play one BG game close to perfection you need to be a little more quantitative :

>BG games are analysed by GNU

How many games ?

>and one can see that ones opponent didn't make any mistake

Didn't make any mistake greater than what threshold ? GNU doesn't color mistakes lower than a certain threshold.

> and what if this happens again and again???

How many times ?

E.g. I would certainly take an aggregate error rate below 1 (Snowie) or 2 (GNU) based on two or three consecutive seven-pointers as an evidence for bot cheating.

aaru:
Analysing a game with GNU and if it shows me that the opponent didn't make any fault, that makes me alerted and suspicious.

aaru: I can't help the dice machine likes me!

spirit_66: Loss game - it's your argument to the fact that the other person (me) cheating.

playBunny:
But isn't this a shame?? What's the purpose to do this? Is it a big lack of self-confidence? We don't play for money here. It's only to do a fair competition.

spirit_66: What would anybody think if BG games are analysed by GNU and one can see that ones opponent didn't make any mistake and what if this happens again and again???

If it happens again and again then the player rises to the top of the ratings, round about where sergey82 is.

Not that I'm saying that sergey82 is a cheat, of course.

aaru:
You're not the only suspected player. Don't be proud about your misbehavior.

Spirit think that I'm grandmaster

What would anybody think if BG games are analysed by GNU and one can see that ones opponent didn't make any mistake and what if this happens again and again???
Did I play against a grandmaster of BG?
What is your experience?
Spirit

alanback:   LOL...didn't realize you'd vanished, too, Alan!  But I know you're legit--that's a different matter.

(I've been winding down here as well.)

wetware: In my case, it's a matter of winding down my presence here and letting my membership lapse. I'll be back on the list briefly before too long :-)

I've just noticed some absences from the upper tier of the ratings list.  I'm not sure when it happened, but I'm glad it finally did.  (It was long overdue.)

fakar10: Thanks for the link, that was interesting to view!

Watch it live here:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/world-backgammon-championship-final

Duh! I feel stupid, I was looking at my dice, she did indeed roll a 5-2

when using it, you know when your opponent has a legal move or it would be your turn again, but when you look at the game the dice for that turn are not shown, even though they had to be already rolled?

Vikings: I think this game is shown from the other player's point of view, so 5-2 was the roll... 5-1 is the current roll about to be played... no?

grenv: I've thought of that so I did a hard refresh a couple of different times and am still showing 5-1

Vikings: Looks like maybe 5-2 was the roll? Then it would make sense.

Bwild: I don't think that is it because she could have moved from 5 to 6 with her second move

Vikings: they must not have swapped dice?

Maybe I am getting old and senile but it looks like white only had to move one checker on her last move
Anti Backgammon (TheAlchemist vs. Vikings) when it was possible to move both

rod03801: Lol. It was a good thought. Granted, not a correct one, but good nonetheless.

playBunny: Ok. It was just a thought

Granted, not a good one. LOL

rod03801: I doubt that it's that kind of isue. The problem with the images occurs after the missing move. Up until then everything's fine. That suggests that something on the server is getting confused. They have tooltips on the points to show how many pieces there are. A point with "b2" would have two black pieces. The tooltips for these of the dodgy images are things like "612", ie. no colour and way too many pieces. Also, the dodgy images are on points which don't have pieces, for instance the bearoff tray when the game is far from the bearoff stage.

playBunny: I think it has something to do with their recent changes to the look of the site. I wish I could remember where I read somehow that you might "fix" it. Maybe changing the size of the board/pieces in preferences? I might be just dreaming though. I swear I read something on one of their discussion boards about it though. I have a vivid imagination though.

playBunny: Weird indeed. It was OK the last time I checked though, back in 2007.

Pedro Martínez: That game goes wierd at this point, unless it's just for me.

http://goldtoken.com/games/play?g=306620;v=1762

Clicking on the > arrow gives a page with bar and bearoff images that don't show. This happens just after a missing move in the game record at 882. After that there are more and more missing images. Do you see the game properly?

aaru: http://goldtoken.com/games/play?g=306620

aaru:This is why I don't play this game...

Almost 500 moves & still playing -> AntyTryktrak (Varazslo vs. DeaD man WalkiN)