playing dirty

playing dirty is popular on FFA, I've blocked so many but there is always more and more (and you get them on anon). aren't you guys strong enough to win playing with ethics? some just find it entertaining to play dirty.

you find reasons to justify dirty game, some I can understand, but the result of the dirty game turns away strong non-dirty players, and brings on a bad reputation for this game that we love so much.

If you are a winner, as any gamer should be, you only play your best to get the win, changing the elo made stuff worse, some play not to lose or even to make their opposite loss. and some even find it funny. you see so many "jajaja" people are enjoying seeing you hopeless... 

When high rated plays with lower-rated in a non-anon mode, it ends-up often as 3 v 1, this is dirty and it turns away strong players. play them on anon and you get to play with those you blocked (you don't want to play with them because they are dirty that is why you block them from the first place)

Playing only to effect the winner, not to try to get the 1st (usually by attacking the one you dislike or helping your friend) is dirty, playing passive while the sides kill your opposite is dirty, "forcing" your opposite to give mate and then taking his q and go on to winning the game is dirty, I can go on and on guys, I dont think that if you were actually coming to my living room as friends that meet and play, you would play dirty like that, otherwise, I would never invite you again to my home right? well if we are playing together you are inside my life, and I still dont want to play with unfair dirty players. 

I'm a team player, a year ago I tried playing FFA for a while, it ended up me writing a subject like this one here and going back to team mode, now I tried to play again some FFA (got in top 10 both in solo and ffa) and again I have to say goodbye, like me, strong players will not play this mode and that's a shame. 

I will check back in a year to see if ffa, which is a new game that is being shaped like a baby now, is more of a pleasant community of chess players.  

All the best to all

i agree

To play for second place is really bad, I completely agree here.
It’s more difficult to save your opp in the FFA than in Team, your pieces can accidentally finish off your opp. I often don’t know just how to help my opp, when he has big problems, I can donate pieces, but this will only delay his death and reduce my chances at the 3-player stage, in my opinion it’s not wise to save him.
I do not take the queen after the assisted mate. But not because I consider this a dirty, but because I do not like this strategic decision.
FFA is not variant Team with two more stages. Here everyone free for all. There are no decencies between opp like in Team. And the concept of a dirty game applies only to those who play with their accounts and by prior agreement, but does not apply to a game against the opp.

I agree with every word — an important post.
But, I have one point where I check the ratings: if I have to decide whether to attack/weaken someone with high rating or someone with low rating, and their situations are roughly equal (e.g. the material and position of both are similar, and I can take a rook from one or from the other), then I'll weaken the high-rating player. Why? Because it is probably more dangerous. Besides, there is also little consideration that losing to someone with a lower rating will cost me more points (and winning someone with a higher rating will give me more points). While this is not a common case (because there is usually not much choice, and I just do what looks most promising), it does happen sometimes. And I don't think it's dirty.

I agree with MOST of what you wrote, but not all.

Clearly, yes, to play for 2nd, or just do everything you can in order to help someone to win or to make someone lose is dirty. And also when you win, decide on the order between the 2nd, 3rd and 4th is dirty (and I must confess it happened to me some times because of past personal relationships and the way people play; it's difficult not to retaliate sometimes. but I still agree that it's dirty, even if terribly human).

But as for ""forcing" your opposite to give mate and then taking his q and go on to winning the game is dirty, ", I clearly do not agree. It happens to me sometimes. All depends on the ratings and levels involved and on points accumulated so far. Typically, if the opposite is a very strong player (at least from my perspective, i.e. 2100+) and the remaining flank is weak and I do not have a lot of points, to avoid eating the queen usually means to have no chances of being 1st later, so you just play for being 2nd (and even maybe 3rd, if the opposite for some reason makes the 3rd guy progress). And you CAN'T say that the opposite was "forced into". You see that because you are used to Teams format; but no one should say that in FFA. The opposite is able to play whatever he wants; numerous times I played like that and... he didn't follow either because he didn't see or on purpose, who cares. Especially people under 1900, who will not feel they are "obliged".

Arseny, as for "I often don’t know just how to help my opp, when he has big problems, I can donate pieces, but this will only delay his death and reduce my chances at the 3-player stage, in my opinion it’s not wise to save him.".

You will agree I think that it depends completely on the situation. If the game is still in the beginning and the opposite is being eliminated and you have both under 5 pts, not to do just ANYTHING simply means 3rd place anyway. So yes, sometimes it happened to me even to sacrifice my queen, if not a bishop or a knight. (And with strong players even sometimes it doesn't work, they will still finish their dirty work).

Basically if your opposite is a strong player, usually he is simply 1 move behind, and if you give him 1 or better 2 moves of rest, he will reorganise and save the situation.

You say that it annihilates your chances as for 3p stage, but the problem is that these chances are anyway low; and who cares after all, with the new FFA rating calculations the difference between 2nd and 3rd is not huge (and it made it very close to Solo in fact).

I agree with most. However, I have no problem with people who play dirty as long as they play for first. Some players just play to make sure you get last and ruin the game for both themselves and that player. That I don't understand. And yes, it mostly happens in anon mode. 

A major motivation in sports and competitions is to show who is the best, there is also the joy of pushing yourself to your limits during the game, the dirty players are not concerned with proving who is best as much as getting the "win" by any means possible.

Although winning is more fun, you can even have satisfaction in losing if you did your best and put up a good fight against a superior foe.

But for the dirty player, the “glory” of the victory can overshadow simply doing your best and proving who is better. This is when some play dirty in order to win by any means possible. But also, some competitors have such a desire to win, even if by default, that they do unethical acts to help their ego.

Sometimes a competitor is losing badly, so he will do something to try to hurt the opponent in an act of desperation.

I guess you need to ask yourself what is more important to you, let the best man win, or let me win at any cost. I believe that the answer is depending on the contest; if it is a war, I will do whatever it takes to win, if it's just a game with friends, I want to do my best to win while respecting my opponents, if they played better, I will take a loss like a man, but if they play dirty then I can do 1 of 3: play dirty too (the more players will play dirty the dirtier this pure game will be), still play ethically (and lose to players who didn’t play better, they just played dirty) or not play at all with those “friends”

Well, it's about sport (and competition) philosophy here, and about the human motivation more generally.

It is slightly more complicated. We cannot just say "A major motivation in sports and competitions is to show who is the best", it is simplistic.

For example: fair-play is (in many cultures) considered as more important than winning. For example there are plenty cases where in a high-level sport competition someone who was winning helps someone else, who had been wounded for example. If we follow the principle above, it is contrary to the spirit of the competition.

Very often human motivation is not simple nor even utterly conscientious. And yes it's unfair for example when your opposite in 4p chess screws the game badly because simply he wants to win less than to "punish" a flank player for example (or even you...), but it's totally human and not forbidden by rules... It is part of the general unpredictability of the game, with its blunders, psychological aspects, bluff, risk-taking, etc.

What I also call "playing dirty", it's when some guy is 1st with no more risk, and on purpose offers pieces to another in order to make him 2nd (either because he begged for points, or just on his own, because he likes someone, or more commonly dislikes another guy who is by spirit of the game really 2nd, but is deprived of his deserved 2nd place and loses points). Hate that.

after teaming with your opposite to kill 1 side, you both attack the other side so you can easily finish him and fight for 1st. 

you make a mate in 1 move on the other side and putting your opposite in a choice of:

1. giving mate, you take his q, you are stronger and will win the game (thats your way bro)

2. giving mate, you don't take his q, you are even and let the stronger win (thats my way bro)

3. not giving mate, betraying the trust your opposite gave you, and obtaining a significant advantage to go on and win the game (thats you again bro) 

another example:

after finishing 1 side you are much stronger, you attack the other side while letting your opposite to promote a q, with the intention of finishing the other side and fight with your opposite for 1st. 

in the first opportunity, with the help of the side, your opposite attacks you to fight with the side for 1st.

If you take advantage of the trust that you build with your opposite and his intentions to have a fair play with you, to betray him, that is dirty. 

look man the game mode is called free for all. Trust should've NEVER became a factor.

If we go by examples we can be here all day but I'll give one too.

Say me and the player on the left have exchanged queens. Next I give my opposite a mate on the player on the right, he takes it. Now he is up a queen and has a huge point advantage. I personally find it foolish to not take the opposite's queen in that case, and for the sake of argument any other case even if I haven't traded queens. 

I more or less had the same playstyle as you before, but with this new update and rating system this is how it should played IMO. When third places basically doesn't lose anything, in the 3 player stage the game turns into Winner Takes All. It becomes a SOLO game, and in solo as I'm sure you know, it is advised that the 2 weaker players make a temporary allience to attack the stronger guy. (in FFA that is usually the person who just got the mate (+20points) and can very well be up a queen/ some material) This sure isn't dirty playing.

your first example is not what Im talking about, if you and your opposite team and successful in mating 1 side, (instead of the sides taking down one of you) now you can play to finish the 2nd and aim to be more or less even, that's fair play, so if you take his q you dont fall to the 1st option I mentioned which is 

1. giving mate, you take his q, you are stronger and will win the game 

what is the difference between ffa and solo? you will not hear me complain about dirty game on solo when fighting for 1st. (but you can still play dirty on solo too, one example, you lost hope of winning, instead of resigning you just sec the rest of your pieces against 1 side to effect the winner)

on ffa:

best strategy when play to win: team with your opposite to eliminate 2 sides and then fight him for 1st.

best strategy when play not to lose: play defensive and passive, let sides kill your opposite (now you dont finish 4th) hope that your 2 sides will play the way you recommend and you might steal the win.

I strongly disagree with this. The goal of the game is to be 1st. So, if you get the chance to get a better, winning position, that's obviously the best strategy to achieve this goal. Helping your opposite "out of loyalty" and going into an equal game reduces your chances of getting 1st place and is just stupid. It's not dirty to "betray" your opposite if it gets you the win. That's just good strategy.

Vrdtmr didn't write it was dirty to betray, it was much more subtle!

I think this topic is wrong in the main premise. The main problem is not a dirty game, the main problem is an incompetent game (or often just a stupid game), which is obvious to good Team and Solo players. Many players have poor team skills and hence the emergence of a passive team strategy (also opp reaction), many players have poor solo skills so players play for second place. Many unite both shortcomings, but some of them have very good ratings. This is some kind of mysterious (for me) FFA skill.
Also, with the new rating system, players can much more easily earn a rating on games with low ratings.
With the old rating system, all opp had a more or less satisfactory skill in team play, even if they did not have experience in playing Team. Now I often just don’t understand what is going on at the stage of 4 players. I won’t even talk about the stage of 3 players, everything is worse there. In my opinion, the ability to navigate the situation is now the most important. It seems to me in this case it makes no sense to talk about a dirty game.

Basically what VRDTMR calls "dirty", is the lack of fair play and the lack of sportsmanship.

To that extent, I also call "dirty play" when one abandons if his/her situation is desperate, whereas there are still 4 players. Why? Because in some cases it influences totally the outcome and it's not fair to the opposite (nor to a flank player who is in some cases deprived of his deserved 20 points: in some cases there is an obvious checkmate; but once the king becomes zombie, he can cross the grey figures, and escape this checkmate and someone else gets the 20 points, and it's clearly contrary to chess spirit).

Example: https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess?g=2758554. From a guy with 4591 games played so far, and connecting from the US and not from Africa like me very often (where the connection is poor), I cannot believe 1 second that it was really a technical issue. Furthermore, the guy leaves still having 1 min. (enough usually for getting back to game if it where a connection problem after all), and just when his queen is eaten (such a coincidence!). BUT: abandoning here means that he doesn't eat the rook (what would be natural). And taking into account the points and the position, it influences totally the final outcome: his opposite (me) still had some chances of getting second or even winning, but this rook made clearly the difference, it's quite obvious. In his position, to lose his queen prevented him MAYBE from winning, but his short-term survival was not threatened at all. So: disconnecting meant clearly offering to the flanks 7-8 precious moves (that I could've used for making a 2nd queen typically, as I was not far and several pawns were positions well).

That's also playing dirty, according to me. Whenever you do something that modifies the "natural" way of things (making the "normal" 3rd - 2nd, the "normal" 2nd - 4th, preventing someone ON PURPOSE from obtaining his normal place, or jeopardising his chances of winning WITH NO PERSONAL ADVANTAGE), it's playing dirty (NB: I didn't say that it's never happened to me personally, in past, nobody's perfect).

I may be a bit dim here but I cannot see what is being called "dirty" play. Playing to win is all that matters - it's a game folks - and poor decisions like attacking your opposite early or resigning and leaving your opposite in a hopeless situation is all just part of the game. Taking your opposite's queen that just mated a flank is a decision that should simply be guided by whether it helps you win or not. 

Being judgmental and calling poor decisions that are not guided by wanting to win "dirty" or "unethical" is simply shaming. It isn't unethical to not play to win, but it is simply a loser's game and being happy with losing is the real shame.

Play for win is a basic of FFA and Solo. Teaming depend on situation.

That's it.