Discussion: What is allowed and not allowed

@BroncoB, I have a vision (desire, wish) like: "Players from any country of our beautiful World come play 4 Player Chess. They enjoy the game, enjoy the chat, enjoy the club. They play with fair players. If they chat, they communicate with polite persons. They joke, they banter, they smile and laugh. They enjoy and wish to come play again tomorrow."

The reality is: Some strange guys do not share this vision. They cheat, harass, troll and abuse in all possible ways. So, we need to extend the rules, review the reports, etc.

The task is: Minimize the harm caused by pests. And, at the same, do not poison humans.

P.S.

Another way to deal with chat may be: The chat in FFA is turned off by default. There is a button "Vote to turn the chat ON" ("Vote to enable the chat"). If 3 (or 4) players click that button, the chat becomes enabled. So, if a majority in a particular game decides to use the chat, the chat will be working. (The question is: Should we still allow anyone to turn the chat OFF?) But if they enable the chat, they are responsible for what they say in that chat. If they use it to suggest moves, for example, chess.com admins will consider it as cheating.

1. exclusion list

The only problem I see with this is the possible increase in the amount of time it takes to get into a game for people that have large lists. That will impact the community slightly and the player a little more. 

2. chat bans (escalating in severity for multiple offenses) for players that can't chat within the rules

The online poker sites strictly enforce their chat rules. They have to since it is (often) played for real money. If chat rules are strictly enforced then then chat-cheaters will learn - if they want to play and chat they will have to learn the rules and obey them. Or they can play and not chat

@BabYagun 

I guess if I were in your position I would find out how many games people have even chatted in during the FFA game.  How many games has the chat been disabled before or during a FFA game.  If the former were low and the latter high for instance then the chat feature during the game may not be needed.  This would seem to free up valuable time for Admins to focus in other areas instead of policing all this bad behavior and acts of reported cheating.  But maybe I'm an idealist. 

> How many games has the chat been disabled before or during a FFA game.

In 10.5% of FFA games, it is a total of before+during. And, honestly, I don't know how to find before or during separately. The database query should consider different cases and is going to be cumbersome.

Anyway, the chat stays enabled in 90% of FFA games.

Also many players stop chat at the very beginning of the game, no matter what. They don't do that at some critical moment when any advice can change the game outcome. They just start a game by typing /stop-chat.

@Skeftomilos haha nice one.

i don't find it so sad really. define "teamers"?

@BagYagun 

Thanks for the info!

I'll just try to remember to stop-chat before a game.  Keep up the good work, my wishes are the same as yours.

Teamers are the players who practice teaming. What constitutes teaming is for the teamed players to coordinate their pieces, and form a combined army. They support their teammate's pieces, and never capture them. They proceed by quickly killing their opponents one by one.

@skeftmilos i don't see where you want to draw the line.

i would define "pre-teaming" as "Two players that go out of their way to get into games together and consistently act in a way that benefits one or both of them."

but for "teaming" in a single game, it's hard. impossible imo, i don't see a way. especially if you accept that teaming with your opposite is a good strat to get at least 2nd, see my other post.

is this teaming:?
https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess?g=305379-23  i play Ne10 which seems to cause big trouble for blue. cost him his q.
https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess?g=305379-59 i use red's rook to attack blue. red can give blue my q if he likes.  he decides to play the check on blue.
https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess?g=305379-71 blue has suffered a lot. i do not hesitate to take red's free Q.  later he wrecked me but still gave me 2nd over green, cause, well i don't know why.

me and evgeny were reported for cheating/preaaranged teaming. we certainly did not prearrange anything, so i ask, did we cheat?

do you think not taking a free Q is against the rules? it's been seen that a player who gives mate to another player "for free" will have his queen spared as a an honorary thing. but they dont stay friends for the rest of the game because of that.

About the game 305379, it is clear to me that you (yellow) and red ganged up on blue, on two occasions during the early phase of the game. It is also clear to me that you didn't team up. You didn't support each others pieces, except for move 16 when red moved his rook on a square controlled by multiple players, which is fine. You didn't form a combined army with your pieces. The accusation for cheating/prearranged teaming is totally ungrounded. Whoever reported you is clearly unaware about the difference between ganging up (which is allowed) and teaming up (which is not).

That said, the person who reported you should have the right to block both of you, either individually or as a couple, for a limited amount of time or forever, and exercise his right freely under his own will.

About not taking free queens, we enter a gray area. The more times you do it during a game, the more suspicions you generate that you practice teaming with the other guy. If it's a distinctive "honor" thing, regarded as an ethical behavior by a significant part of the 4PC community, it should have a free pass IMHO (although risking silent blocks by annoyed opponents would certainly be a consideration).

The 1st message in game chat is always: "Game {number here} started!"
When someone stops chat, it is shown as: "A player has disabled chat communication."

In 4.9% of FFA games (I consider not aborted games only) "A player has disabled chat communication." is the 2nd chat message. It doesn't mean the chat was stopped during the 1st move, however. But it was definitely stopped before anyone was checkmated, resigned, disconnected or wrote anything in chat.

i think the overwhelming majority of reports for 'cheating / pre-arranged' teaming are for games like this one. and there are countless reports, as i posted somewhere, i find it counter-productive cause it prevents the mods from finding the real cases of abuse among the masses of reports filed out of frustration. if people block as frequently as they report, frodo won't even have the option of playing with teamers (cause they're blocked by most, including many of themselves) and so he will wait 3 days for the 3 other saints that never ganged up on anyone to show up and play with him. :/

Currently I see only 1 way to respect block lists in FFA: Make it a tendency (preference), not a law. Matchmaking algorithm will process the queue and try to find 4 players for a game, respecting their rating range selector settings. And then it will look at the block lists. At this step we have multiple options.

One of them is: We respect the block list and don't place a player in a game with a blocked player. But if this player waits too long (5 minutes?) , we ignore his block list.

Another option: If more than 1 combination of 4 players exist, we select a combination where players don't block one another. If there is 1 combination only, we ignore block lists. But currently the queue is short, so it can select 4 players from 4 , or 4 from 5.

@_-__-__-___- I am not surprised that people submit lots of reports for teaming, since an official definition of teaming is missing, with the result of people holding wildly differing ideas about what is teaming and what is not.

@BabYagun I like none of these options, but I think this is the wrong topic to discuss pairing algorithms for blocked players. This one seems more suitable: I dont want to play with players whom I blocked!

Very good point. Extremely good point. Good point.

and I hate the idea of an exclusion list that really isn't excluding the players my list - as has been said before, I'll wait a little while longer if that investment of time results in a game against people I haven't excluded.

I do have to lol @ peoples' impatience in waiting for a game - you are committing to possibly play a game for the next 30 minutes+ and whine about waiting 3 minutes instead of 2 to get into that game?

@_-_-_-_-  Sorry just a bit off topic:

Regarding game # 305379 why did you write what you did in the comments? 

Just curious, since he could've let your Queen get eaten and thereby have the only Queen left.  And although in your mind you say you gave him Blue's Queen earlier, it was really Blue's unawareness that caused him to lose his Queen (a big reason I lose many pieces in this game too).  So it would seem Red did pay you back.  But later he loses his Queen and Rook within 4 played moves.  Unaware perhaps that Q to i6 may have saved it.  I just don't see the "backstab" that you saw.  

@broncoB i said "backstabbing" because angie had referred to it meaning not being friendly to your opposite after eliminating one player in a combined effort. in the minutes after a game many of us, including me, don't have the distance to comment objectively about the battle that just ended..

truth is i find it good for the game (especially in the times of teaming accusations) when ppl remain unpredictable. even if i might not be so happy about it right after a particular game.

@_-_-_-_-   Ok.

In the many games I have played with AngelinaKali (if that's the angie you mean) I appreciate her style in that she can turnoff "team mode" like a light switch and cause mayhem in an instant.  So perhaps your games have been different with her.

Here's an example of non-cheating:

https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess?g=315744-180

What would you play as red on move 46? I decided since my king was so exposed and I was down material my best chances was to attack yellow and hope blue follows along  Thankfully due to clumsy play by green (and blue) it ended up quite good for me  All without using chat, as you can see

It's hard to think of a way to properly define what should constitute illegal teaming.A very lose defnition would be:   people must always play moves that serve their self-interests.   But players have different levels of understanding of what constitutes their interests. 

I think spacebar's '' I would define "pre-teaming" as "Two players that go out of their way to get into games together and consistently act in a way that benefits one or both of them. '' makes a lot of sens.

But I would add:  '' with no consideration of their relative position''  (opposites or not?)  and  ''no consideration for the point situation'' .  ie:   one player is clearly winning but the player who helped him beat the other  doesnt attempt to win.

Another thing to consider  when trying to define what 'actual' teaming is:

When 2 players are weak and another is strong,   all is allowed.   It is normal for the 2 weak players to team up as if the game was in team mode, up until the moment when the player who was strong is either mated  or weakened to a point where he isnt the main threath anymore.  It is in their mutual interest.   But when 2 players are very strong and they leave pieces hanging to attack a 3rd player who is weak...  Well in the best case scenario it is horrible sportsmanship.