Escaping by Timeout

No, I will not stop comparing them to real life tournaments, because that is exactly the issue: People play tournaments and ranked correspondence games because players tend to take ranked games more seriously, so everyone profits from the mutually agreed commitment. Timing out is already reneging on that commitment unless - which I think is certainly often the case - one mistakenly thinks that timing out a lost game is a form of resigning.

This rule essentially voids time settings for correspondence games.

Why would they encounter such opponents when they can choose their opponents? One of the example players I gave timed out against four players who were two stones within their rank and then proceeded to win 10 games against players 5 stones weaker. Sure, they cannot rank up indefinitely, but they can easily keep their ranks 3 stones higher than their skill. The argument “that they have to crash” just ignores that they can continue their behaviour.

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You really think that the person who takes the weekend trip will treat a totally open game with 10 moves against a player of the same rank, a game with 200 moves against a stronger opponent that they are winning and a game with 200 moves against a weaker opponent that they are losing the same way when it comes to the question whether to enable vacation mode to be on the safe side?

And more importantly, it is not a mixed string on my side. Essentially, you are expecting me to not resign on clear losses if it seems that they will be annulled by time-outs.

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I do really think like this. Because i do precisely this xD

The problem with vacation time is, that it tends to drain out pretty quickly. Especially for the player who has a bit too many ongoing correspondence games and something else to do in life than just play go. Even if you pay to get twice the vacation time, it still isn’t enough :<

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Sometimes there simply isn’t enough vacation time to allow even a one day slip-ups :c

eh… you don’t choose your opponent in a tournament - am I barking up the right tree?

actually, this is a bit offtopic, but i do hate the vacation time in ongoing tournaments. It’s the reason why tournaments are so long drawn out.

Why should they play tournaments?

Players can choose the rank of their opponents in challenges.

Are we not talking about correspondence games?

Aren’t tournaments also correspondence?

Do timeouts occur in correspondence tournaments? I think they do…

…edit… perhaps I missed the specific point that I’m refering to above but nonetheless someone with a deflated rank playing in correspondence tournament will negatively affect other players ranks

smurph wrote that people who cheated their way out of losing would rank up and then lose 70% of the time.

I replied that they do not have to choose opponents of the same rank.

Your reply that a subset of correspondence games are correspondence tournament games has nothing whatsover to do with my reply that they do not have to choose opponents of the same rank.

About the Cheaters: Let’s really think about it.

Let’s say the player is 7k, he plays even games with a winrate 50/50.
If this 7k player plays as 7k even games with weaker people he gets far less ELO. So, he would need much more games to “level up”
This player levels up with timeouts – meaning: he has to timeout a bulk of games with even players, or a bigger bulk of games with weaker players than him.
Now the player did it: he is 5k. He could, as you said, play many many 10kyus as 5kyu, but he won’t really lvl up anymore. The gap is too big. So he has to play at least 7kyu. If he loses only 1 game his rank will drop significantly. So he would have to timeout many many many more games to simply keep his ranking.

If a player really does this, i am certain you can see it in his history. Not just some timeouts, but the real deal: many many many timeouts in large bulks, again and again.
You have to plan this, you have to play many many games in the same time. You have to time it exactly, which may be hard work. Too much work. Who the hell wants to do this?
All you get is maybe 1-2 ranks more, and then you aren’t allowed to play anymore. Only 1 loss against a weaker player and you’ll just are back where you started.
Also: you can’t play Ladders this way - you drop out. You can’t play tournaments this way - you drop out.

There are way way simpler ways to cheat and get a better rank than you have.
And there are way simpler ways to troll people.
So i really don’t get why people are crying “timeout escape”

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Still waiting for data. I’m sorry this is a short comment, it’s not aimed at anyone, its just pointing out that last time this whole debate (which has been had before) fizzled out in the face of lack of data that there’s a problem. We can argue till we are blue in the face, but nothing is likely to change unless someone establishes that there is an actual problem.

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I think I have already answered this question, at least on behalf of myself:

The vast majority of consecutive time-outs are not related to cheating. However; @Wulfenia made an EXCELLENT observation that a degree of time-out cheating may occur unintentionally simply because players tend to spend more time thinking about a game that they think they might be able to turn around and such games are therefor more likely to end up in the batch of time-outs. In such cases it is impossible to convince a mod that cheating has occured because you still have a mix of won and lost games.

If I may be so bold, I think the mistake that is being made on this issue, is that total consideration is being given to the mathematics and no consideration is being given to the psychology of the situation.

The current ‘annul consecutive correspondence time-outs rule’ condones poor behaviour and even encourages those who wish to use the site as if it were a bot-slave. ‘No Problem. Start some more games and quit playing them whenever you like.’

I offer the following example of a player who was gratuitously joining new tournaments while endlessly timing-out of them. Effectively using the site to set up a series of ‘whole board problems’ for their own idle amusement while having absolutely no regard for any of their numerous opponents. Nb. To the best of my knowledge, now banned.

It’s an interesting example because on the one hand, it shows how large the amount of ‘garbage’ data could be without the current rule but on the other hand it was the current rule that allowed this player to continue to display a tenable rank. If the system had been allowed to mark his rank as garbage and provisional then at least future opponents would have been warned not to take such games seriously.

In conclusion, I have enough faith in the mods that have posted here and the dev team, that I accept that simply scrapping the rule is not an option.

But

We should continue to explore the various proposals that have been put forward to improve the situation. These include but are not limited to:

  1. Allowing the winner of such games to determine how it is counted.
  2. Automatically triggering Vacation for people who start a string of TO’s.
  3. Removing the ‘Recently Timed-out’ flag from accounts as soon as they log back in.
  4. Applying the ‘Provisional Rank’ tag to anyone with high uncertainty. Perhaps annulled time-outs should still add to uncertainty.
  5. Other ideas that I have forgotten. Remind me and I will add them to this list.

I for one would feel happier about accepting the current regime if there was an automated system to identify users whose level of correspondence time-outs constitutes abuse of the site, instead of relying on dissatisfied opponents to make a complaint. Then the player could be warned or banned as the mods see fit.

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WOW. That is a great point!

I totally agree!!

I don’t see how that point is new. I also don’t think the rule condones bad behavior. It is in fact impartial. Considering what we’ve seen is a lot of false or at best dubious accusations of intent, I must also doubt that the system caters any more to the “mathematics” than accusers wish to fulfill their desire to punish people who timed out against them.

Jesus. It’s one game. If you don’t want to play with people because you suspect they’re cheating you out of a win, put them on your blocklist and don’t play them again. If you want to be extra salty, put that blocklist on your profile and build a chain of distrust.

But seriously, in dubio pro reo.

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I didn’t say it was new, I only acknowledged it as good, which I surely had not done before (unless I forgot :slight_smile: )

And it wasn’t a point about the rule per se, but about the psychology of it.

It’s bit like “hard on drugs”. These rules exist to send a message… we currently have an “easy on timeout” rule. That sends a message.

Don’t get me started on that bullshit policy, but suffice it to say that the only message you would send is “Look, we punish people”.

I prefer free environments to the needlessly restrictive. Just because I think it’s nonsense to play 400 games at the same time, risking timeouts in all of them, doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be able to.

The current rule allows maximum freedom in exchange for the small risk that a tiny group of people (those who don’t care about their reputation among fellow correspondence players) might be able to take advantage of automatically annulled games by investing a lot of time in setting up the circumstances.

I’m not buying it.

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So this is interesting. The normal argument for not removing the rule is that it would mess up the rank pool.

That is an argument that I find hard to counter - I have to take it on face value.

It’s like “we know this rule sucks a bit, but we have to have it for ranking reasons”.

But now we have a new concept which appears to be “this rule is good because it gives people the freedom they want to play lots of games and time them out without consequence - freedom is good”.

Is that a correct paraphrase?

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No, it is STILL not a punishment if I lead by 20 points at move 200 and expect the time-out to count as a win. You can repeat it as often as you like to ignore the obvious argument that I want the mutually agreed rules of the game to be respected and that I want wins being counted as wins. It is not an issue with losses because I can simply resign.

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Nothing stops you from playing unranked games with no time restriction on the moves. But you do not do that.

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You know it isn’t, as evidenced by your sarcasm.

But I’m not impressed by Trump-style “you’re soft on x” arguments.

@Wulfenia Incorrect.

While I do like the idea of avoiding rules that condone timing out, I think this is not the principal reason why I have been passionate to get rid of this rule.

For me the singular reason why I object to the rule is that it deprives me of a hard-earned win, and commensurate rank increase.

It is that sheer feeling of quiet pleasure, earned with hard investment over a period of time (a correspondence game), turning to astonishment and despair that I really object to, when some person higher ranked than me that I am beating suddenly escapes,

I think our site should not offer this possibility.

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