This is the complete truth:
1) They are 2 people, a couple, man and his current girlfriend (alan & hana)
2) They are both pretty good players, especially at not gomoku-specialized server like this, at vinagames they are about the better average, with jokings opening analysis and many games played they really made nice progress
3) They are rating addicted, selective when using opponents depending not upon quality but more upon rating, I know what I mean because at vinagames often 1700-1800 are very good players, pretty all gomoku openings have sure wins so if someone wants to hold his high rating this is really tough task and only exceptional players with lots of games played and hard work invested can reach this
4) On lots of servers they used some cheating method with multiple accounts to gain rating, sometimes letting other players playing with some account, and gaining this way rating and "fame" with much less work.
(well the last point used alan alone mostly, because at that times he had different girlfriend, but it was not me :) )

So the things I would expect from them would be:
If using more than 2 accounts, at least not playing one against another and giving free points and not using other people as rating sources for further transfer.
And not logging into other ones account for thansferring purposes, nor letting other people playing the other one (this is mostly about online playing sites).
Everyone should have a fair chance, because if all good players would respond with the same approach, this would lead to disaster.
And if they all entered one tournament, that was pretty unfair and they should really think about it a bit, because they are not bad people in fact and they probably could understand they are not the only people here, so they should try to imagine how they would feel in other people's place.

Hope this was the closing word and we will see only fair play everywhere (yes, I can dream :o) )

yeah, at least the cheaters became more cautious
some points:
- there are not only 2 accounts, but at least 4, not counting the others 2 suspicious ones.
- you dont work at night, so games what were lately used to transfer, though then the resuls vere bidirectional, perhaps to stabilize both ratings a bit you didnt play from work

At least the accounts dont log in grouped together like before, but fencer perhaps has some logs of login times and even can look up ip addresses so he can identify cheaters easily this way hopefully, hope its not in the same shape like it was with backups :P

I dont have logs, just the latest for illustration:

joking 23. December 2003, 14:53:43 logging out
renjuplayer 23. December 2003, 14:53:22 logging out
blade2004 23. December 2003, 14:52:03 logging out
niicegiirll 23. December 2003, 14:50:20 logging out

niicegiirll 24. December 2003, 13:09:28 viewing on-line players
blade2004 24. December 2003, 13:08:33 logging out
renjuplayer 24. December 2003, 13:08:13 logging out

so at least dont pretend u dont cheat!

<hehe, I was partially wrong, blade2004 is just another source account, just now 2 games blade2004->joking appeared :)

noholds: in your case, dont bother about such things then, you are the best kind of a player, like everyone should be, the third one
(or whether he just loves the game and doesnt bother about ratings so he plays the weakest in the chain and is happy) + in addition he bothers about the quality of the game and is happy when he plays a good game

Just a side note to those who want to understand how I started to be pissed. Joking stated in some interview during renju WC, he is a "famous free renju player". So he didt behave very modestly how a real champ should. And he forgot to add he is a very good player, but in addition a famous cheater :)

ughaibu: there is another bad effect, imagine someone is playing with the weakest (regarding to rating) account in that chain, then its rather unfair, because he can be playing a 2400 instead of 1500.
joking is an interesting exception, because usually weak players use this and he is quite good, he would gain top 10 rank using his normal play, just it would take a bit longer time.
But people should learn to be patient rather than cheat :) If a good player who would also belong to top 10 would constantly play against "the weakest in the chain", he would get there much harder. If he would see that player as marked a cheater, he can choose whether he want to challenge the main account of the cheater, whether he doesnt want to play cheaters at all, or whether he just loves the game and doesnt bother about ratings so he plays the weakest in the chain and is happy

hehe, looks like I like to use the word just (or like :) ) and sorry about this little messages package, didnt want to spam the board, but this is really an important point in brainking features IMHO.

now it sounds really cool :) just imagine this feature:
Such players would be just marked as cheaters in database.
Then there would be just as a default filter
Show Cheaters: off

If someone or themselves desperately needs to see them, (s)he can turn it on :)

NoHold: nice point :) But what if someone gets a bad feeling in result instead. For example, P257 used to see nice #1 in his profile/main page, played lots of games, put lots of effort there, and suddenly there is a #3 instead, with #1 joking and #2 blade2004 :)) Thats why at least invisibility is requested :)))

Therefore an human observer is needed who can judge such cases whether its cheating or not.
And public can observe, and when someone is suspicious, the case is just forwarded to the responsible person in staff.

Like I said, as soon as they dont play toghether frequently and clearly letting the other one win, this is no danger. Perhaps they can play at home
together as well :)

About the IP changing I wrote before, like I said, they will never get the feeling they are really great players if they will need to be cautious and always ensure themselves this way how poor they in fact are :-)

Perhaps someone from the staff should be watching such abuses. Plain multiples arent that bad thing, but if someone uses them to spam boards (sorry Dano) or creating artificial ratings (Joking or someone in chess mentioned earlier), they should be coped with.

As their opponent I would probably resign games with them and add them to my noplay (enemies?) list, perhaps an invisible list would be even better, for such bloody cheaters dont distract me in rating lists :-).

And I am sorry I brought it up so close to Christmas. Merry Christmas to everybody!

<What do you think about players like joking, who are artificially creating high ratings using multiple accounts? This one is a special case though, because he is also a pretty good player (five in line).
But what he does really [edited] more and more. Just look at it: there were created accounts like renjuplayer, niicegiirll; perhaps others used to collect rating points from various opponents, and transferring rating renjuplayer -> niicegiirll occassionally. Then there were created target accounts like joking and blade2004.
Those pick mostly weaker opponents or opponents tested before and again transfer rating renjuplayer, niicegiirll -> joking, blade2004.
I think their rating should be reset and they should be allowed to gain it by fair play rather.
Of course, this is perhaps thought for a start, perhaps he plans to play strong opponents further and this he only uses to get good starting position.

If you dont believe, just watch their game times when they "played together".
And watch their login times by adding them to friends or looking to database.
As most of the accounts log in pretty close together, its pretty clear to see.
Measures to prevent such cheating behaviour are hard to create...
Perhaps players with same IP address shouldnt be allowed to play together.
Of course IP can be framed, but at least they will see they need to put more effort
into it, and they will never forget they are really cheating.
Or people should report such abuses when they spot it, and warn opponents of such
players they are only helping someone to create rating base.

Such behaviour might cause some players to lose appetite of playing.

Excuse, if I cause some bad atmosphere but I cannot keep it for myself any longer.