If me and a friend want to play a game of rengo/tandem Go, we could set up a custom game. But it is more convenient (and a lot faster) to simply start a game and alternate taking turns. Is this allowed, if one makes a dedicated account? Or does this count as cheating?
I have looked at the ToS, and was not sure. I personally would have no problem if my opponent was being played by two players taking turns.
The game might be weird if itâs a 9d and a 25k taking turns. But I guess no one will complain if you play unranked and warn your opponent at the beginning of the game.
As @jlt says I think if you play it in unranked games itâs less of an issue, nobodyâs rating is being affected by the games. It also wouldnât make sense to report for sandbagging if the account isnât ranked and the games are unranked, even if the two players levels were different.
Also letting the opponent know can be a courtesy as they can opt out of it at least before it begins, if itâs not known from say the game title etc.
Playing one game under two different accounts is explicitly prohibited, and what you describe is comparable to that, so I would say it is prohibited. It is also fundamentally dishonest, which I think is an even better reason not to do it. Moreover, some of us balance the teams based on the playersâ ranks, and what you are proposing subverts that balance.
Thank you all for your input. Playing an unrated game and telling the opponent that he is facing two player playing tandem seems fair. Under such conditions, nearly everything should be allowed.
To clarify my question: Assume player A and player B create an account âABâ, with which they play tandem. They could use standard matchmaking to find games, and quickly get placed at their appropriate âmixedâ strength. At that point, they are playing balanced games in terms of winning probability, while quickly finding games.
I think this differs from sandbagging and cheating. A sandbagger or cheater decides when he wins his games, creating unbalanced games, and bad experiences for the opponent. Tandem players only mix their strengths, and then play balanced games.
This is actually what we used to do before the rengo was introduced as a real feature ^^
Tho we always arranged on the matches with the opponents instead using open challenges
What you are proposing is even worse now, since you are talking about regular games rather than only rengo. It is fundamentally dishonest and a form of sandbagging, albeit one I have never heard of.
The account would have one rank, even though one player might be much stronger than that rank. If you are assuming that the playersâ ranks would average out, the problem is that bad moves are not made with neat regularity, consequently this arrangement unavoidably adds considerable, invisible uncertainty to the alleged rank. Moreover, your proposal violates the TOS rule prohibiting outside assistance by other people.
Name your account something like âAlice5k and Bob11k rengo teamâ, play unranked, and nobody can complain, right?
It would be nice if you posted a message in the chat at the beginning, explaining the situation and who is playing even and who is playing odd moves.
Why is that? Are there not enough people queueing for rengo games?
Thatâs what he was proposing from the start. If he wouldâve talked about ârengoâ games then there wouldnât have been an issue to begin with?
I think youâre wording this a little strongly. The fact the he chose to ask if itâs ok or not on the forum shows that he is honest and trying to do the right thing.
Would be interesting to evaluate how big that additional uncertainty would actually be.
I think thatâs kind of debatable. The account is a symbiotic account representing a fusion of two human minds. This mind fusion is not getting assistance from outside of the fusion members.
I didnât say he was dishonest. He was honest to ask opinions about the legitimacy of the proposal. I regard the proposal as a dishonest construct, as it perpetrates a fraud on opponents IF it in enacted.
I disagree. It is crystal clear. If someone is feeding moves to you to help you win, that is prohibited by the TOS. A piece of word magic, calling the outside help a tandem player, partner, teammate playing the same account, does not change that one iota. It is still prohibited outside help. If done, it is a fraud perpetrated on the opponent.
There is no help. Both play their own moves and are not supposed to communicate. One play better, one worse. Itâs a balance you canât just focus on the stronger player. The weaker is far from being helping him.
My own concern is about the annoyance for an opponent if he doesnât know about this rather unusual setting so I think it requires to be mentioned in the proposal.
And I think unrated seems necessary not because of an unknown level, which is commonly evaluated in the middle of the two players but because of the difficulty to integrate the result in the rating system.
Anyway I donât see the interest in this, why not using our rengo system, is it too complex? Or are you asking for a automatch system for rengo games? I donât think itâs a good idea to include rengo games (or to bypass it with doing what is suggested here) in the regular automatch because in real a rengo game differs a lot from other games.
Whatâs ultimately desired is to play a variant of Go, where one side is a team made up of two players alternating (like in Rengo). It seems that the OP does not care if their opponent is also a team, or just one player.
I think that ultimately the issue is one of how convenient it may be to find opponents to set up such a game. Of course, OGS already supports Rengo games, so one way to do this is to simply set up, or join a Rengo game. However, it appears that OP is asking to do this in a more convenient manner by just sharing an account at the same computer. I believe that OP is hoping to have the convenience of simply creating/joining normal games as a team, rather than having to create custom Rengo games, where it may take more time to set up.
In general, people are allowed to use OGS to play various Go variants (weâve done this a lot with games set up via the forums), provided the following conditions are observed:
With regards to the second point, I think itâs important to obtain consent before just joining an existing game. For example, it would be discourteous to join some existing open challenge and expect your opponent to consent to facing a team, rather than just a single human opponent that they likely expected and desired when they created the game.
Note that your opponent might not feel the same way. Then at best, they could cancel the game, and are inconvenienced by having to reopen another challenge to find the sort of game that they were looking for.
I would recommend trying to recruit an opponent via the chat or forums, if you are looking to play a specific variant of team vs single player.
From my perspective, late to the party, you are not allowed to âplay yourselfâ with different accounts at OGS, and that (IMO) extends to âyou are not allowed to âplay yourselfâ either on the same team or opposing team in Rengoâ.
The only exception would be agreed in advance. (Since Rengo is not ranked, that condition for âexceptionsâ is already met).
Fortunately Rengo has an unusually good way of agreeing in advance: the Rengo challenge chat channel. But note that you need the agreement of the other players before the game commences. It would not be OK to pop in a the last moment and say âby the way Iâm joining with two accounts OKâ . For this reason, itâd be best if the multi-account person is the challenge creator, then they can advise their intent to anyone who joins.
I think youâve misunderstood. Itâs one account with 2 people taking turns.
Then please explain how having someone whisper a good move in my ear differs from having the same person making the same move himself. This is nothing but word magic to get around the prohibition on outside help. Moreover, the discussion has moved beyond rengo to regular games per the OPâs most recent post. I know for a fact that mods have warned people more than once not to let other people play on their account. This has typically occurred when a reported player used the âlittle brotherâ excuse.
Even in rengo alone, this arrangement not only subverts the balancing of teams as already mentioned, but it conveys a playing advantage as the identities of the stronger player and the weaker player are concealed. This is important, because one can often use that knowledge to time particular moves. Also, one player can drop out surreptitiously, suddenly changing the strength of the account. Finally, no rationale was offered for doing this in rengo, where the friends can simply participate in the same game in separate accounts.
As long as the game is unranked, and the opponent agrees to the conditions, I donât see the problem. The best would be to create an unranked challenge with an explicit title/message in the chat.
The ranks of the players is irrelevant anyway, like a player whose rank is 10k but whose real strength is 5k and only plays unrated games is not considered as a sandbagger by OGS.
How inconvenient is it to play with as many accounts as there are players? (I donât play rengo, so I genuinely donât know)
At face value you can just do this exactly as you said.
Start a 3 player rengo game with 2 players on one side and one on the other.
Why isnât that âthe solutionâ, if this is the whole ultimate desire?
Perhaps this is the reason?
Your scenario
Player A on account A is a 20k
Player B on account B is a 5k
Player A is playing on account A and is getting advice from B. This advice helps player A to win the game on his account A which is ranked 20k (according to his current level). This is obvious cheating.
OPâs scenario
Player A on account A is a 20k
Player B on account B is a 5k
Player AB on account C is a 12k
Now player AB always has a similar perfomance because the setup of player AB is always the same. Player AB is ranked according to the strength of account C which was correctly adjusted to the performance. Player AB is not getting any outside help and should not suddenly be able to play much better than the rank of account C.