Discussion: What is allowed and not allowed

This is a new development that I think is a real pain in the neck. There have been discussions of illicit teaming, where people use the chat to agree to team up, which is understandably against the rules. But recently, if player A sees that player B has done something that benefits player C, because player B had to make a choice between inconveniencing A or C, player A accuses B and C of teaming. 

It has to be up to the player him/herself to choose who they want to attack. Many factors can be involved. Maybe player A has more points, and is more of a threat. Maybe player A has been annoying in chat. Whatever, as long as there is no agreement to team, then in my opinion it is not teaming. This whining about teaming when there is in fact no cheating taking place is provocative and distracting. Can we agree to stop it?

Of course

@sillygambits, I agree with you, and there is a solution:

We need to write a law/code/rules with a clear and detailed explanation:

1. What is allowed.

2. What is cheating.

This topic "touches" you. And, I guess, English is your first language. So, it is time to contribute to the 4PC community and help us write the detailed rules.

Agree?

i see the teaming more of being like players A and B both attacking C at the same time to checkmate

in other words i agree with you

A quote from https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/rules-7 :

In free for all, the game should be played as free for all. You may not "team up" with another player to gain an unfair advantage. Neither prearranged teaming or teaming up through chat during the game is allowed. If you want to play as a team, then you should play the teams variant. All this said, you don't need to be afraid of taking advantage of a player checking another player or similar things. That is not teaming and just part of the game.

Players "A" and "B" can attack "C" at the same time to checkmate. It is natural in 4PC FFA.

I suggest a draft of the 4PC FFA code:

1. "A" and "B" should not attack "C" together just because they ("A" and "B") are friends.

2. "A" and "B" should not use a chat (or other means of communication like phone, Skype, etc.) to discuss (coordinate) their attack. Everybody should think using their own brain only.

3. If "A" and "B" attack "C" together, both of them must care only about their own profit (points, position). For example, if A can take B's queen (9 points) or C's knight (3 points), A should take the queen. He can decide to take the knight also, but there should be a good reason for that.

Bad reasons: "B is my friend", "C won me yesterday", "B asked me in chat to help him finish C".

Good reasons: "That knight doesn't allow my pawn to promote", "If I'll eat B's queen then D will checkmate B, get +20 and I'll be on the 4th place".

4. "A" and "B" may play as allies only temporary, not from the very start of the game till its end.

5. If "A" and "B" play as allies in many games, it is a sign that this is highly likely preteaming.

6. It is more natural when opposite players play as temporary allies (Red helps Yellow, Blue helps Green) while there are 4 players on the board.

Please join this discussion, guys.

@The_Dragon_Whisperer  That's not exactly cheating either. Once in a game me and another player checkmated a third player together because they had more points but a weaker position. That is just called taking the opportunities.

We need to write a law/code/rules with a clear and detailed explanation...

no kibitzing in chat. 

Im a cheater, thats since I caught my husband with a cougar

Bah. Is chess not WAR? Stop whining and take the loss like a man. That's WAR.

Completely agree! I have been accused of teaming for the above scenario (to my surprise even from very high rated players, 1550+). On the other hand, I have also been bluntly teamed by complete nubs (1100-1200s) because they agreed to do so in the chat.

I disagree with these rules, among other reasons because I think they are unenforceable.

1) It is exceedingly obvious that when A attacks B that is a great time for C (and D) to also attack B... because B will have a hard time defending against their attacks! Indeed it is not a bad time to attack A, because A might very well be a liiiiiiitle bit distracted with their attack against B.

2) It is kind of a standard thing that you 'team' with the players across from you, because every idiot knows that if he does poorly, you will probably do poorly too.

3) Standard balance of power theory suggests that it might often be wise to take the knight (of a player that seems more powerful or threatening) than a queen (of a player that is weaker, or a player that might be using that queen to attack another player which is threatening you!). Indeed there will even be times when one can legitimately say 'I am not going to checkmate 'B' because that would leave me alone against 'A'. I need B to keep attacking/threatening A because A is too powerful for me to take on alone.'

But for every time that someone might be doing this for a 'good' reason (ie strategy) someone can accuse them of doing it for a 'bad' reason (ie friendship or revenge).

If we really want to get rid of 'illegal' (as opposed to situational) teaming, then the rules would need to be:

1) Only public chat, until after the game and
2) Black out the players names and vague out their ratings (ie put '1600-1650'), again until after the game.

If one cannot communicate privately then one cannot team, and if one does not know who one is playing then one cannot operate on 'revenge' or similar motives.

@VAOhlman, thank you for joining the discussion. Please clarify 1 thing: I numbered my thoughts from 1 to 6. You numbered yours from 1 to 3. Is there any connection between my numbers and yours? (Is your suggestion number 1 an answer to my 1, a development of my idea 1, or its rebuttal?) Or there is no connection at all and you just wrote 3 new thoughts?

I can answer to this right now:

> 1) Only public chat, until after the game and

There is only public chat in FFA now. A team chat is only in Teams.

> 2) Black out the players names and vague out their ratings (ie put '1600-1650'), again until after the game.
>
> If one cannot communicate privately then one cannot team, and if one does not know who one is playing then one cannot operate on 'revenge' or similar motives.

Cheaters can use Skype, Discord, and lots of other ways to communicate. They can communicate privately. Hiding names and/or ratings won't help.

>>They can communicate privately. Hiding names and/or ratings won't help.

Color me confused. Obviously players can communicate privately, and there is no way to stop that. However if you do not know who you are playing, then how can you know who to communicate with?

If they go to all the trouble of... "Hey, let's call each other on the phone, and both sign onto FFA at the exact same time so we will get paired together, and then we can cheat by teaming..." then it seems to me that the evidence for that could be put into the archives, as it:
VAOhlman logged onto FFA at 13:40:50 and requested a game
TJOhlman logged onto FFA at 13:40:46 and requested a game

... and this happens several times running, and the archive of the games shows teaming,.... etc.

I should have clarified, 'Make a rule that only public chat is allowed" ie no private communication during FFA. Then an accusation of cheating would be easier to bring.

No, my numbers had nothing to do with yours, just some things I thought of

> I should have clarified, 'Make a rule that only public chat is allowed"
> ie no private communication during FFA. Then an accusation of cheating would be easier to bring.

Ok, understood. Yes, we can add this to the list of rules. Thanks.

@BabYagun

Thanks for your replies. Yes I would like to help.

I feel that points 1 and 2 are covered by a rule such as "it is illegal to ***agree to*** cooperate with another player in FFA".  It's difficult to legislate against people who actually know each other, but surely most people don't. If no agreement is in place, it's probably not teaming.

Point 3 may be problematic. Ultimately it needs to be up to the player to make their decision. If they regularly make bad decisions, like taking a knight instead of a queen, then they will lose (and have a low rating). I would say that it is wrong if, for example, player C has a trivially won position and makes "stupid" moves to artificially inflate how many points player A has, at the expense of player B. That is evidence for preferring player A, which is not allowed. However as a rule I support the way you describe point 3, and think it may be a question of wording.

4. "A" and "B" may play as allies only temporarily, not from the very start of the game until the end. I'm not sure about this. Sometimes I have been in a situation where my interests coincide with another player's interests, and we attack a third player together. But I can never RELY ON this other player, and would only assume their cooperation if it is also in their interests. I would never expect them to act against their interests to help me. This would be evidence of teaming.

5. I agree

6. I suppose so but I am not sure if it needs to be stated in a rule.

I am interested in what others may have to say about this.

I largely agree, with the caveats I expressed above:

1) It is exceedingly obvious that when A attacks B that is a great time for C (and D) to also attack B... because B will have a hard time defending against their attacks! Indeed it is not a bad time to attack A, because A might very well be a liiiiiiitle bit distracted with their attack against B.

2) It is kind of a standard thing that you 'team' with the players across from you, because every idiot knows that if he does poorly, you will probably do poorly too.

3) Standard balance of power theory suggests that it might often be wise to take the knight (of a player that seems more powerful or threatening) than a queen (of a player that is weaker, or a player that might be using that queen to attack another player which is threatening you!). Indeed there will even be times when one can legitimately say 'I am not going to checkmate 'B' because that would leave me alone against 'A'. I need B to keep attacking/threatening A because A is too powerful for me to take on alone.'

@VAOhlman

I think your suggestions are interesting. In a way it could be a solution that the name is not visible until after the game. I especially agree with your points 1&3. 

Kibitzing in chat should definitely not be allowed. But commenting on things that already happened I don't see as a problem.

I'd also like to point out that if someone is determined to help me, at their own expense, for whatever twisted reasons they may have, I can't stop them doing it, except by failing to show them gratitude. But since one is paired randomly I think that any extraneous agreement would be difficult to implement, for reasons someone else stated earlier. If people want to cheat SO badly that they make agreements with their friend to log in together and win at FFA together, then to be quite honest I think they need to get out more.