[zibuyu]

In a kibitzers disallowed tourney, 70% is enough to be the winner. even 66% or so... However, in a tourney allowing kibitzers, at least 72% needed to win it. Normally 75% to be the winner.

What happened in a kibitzers allowed tourney?

[McBruce]

How many tournaments did you examine to come to this conclusion?

The obvious conclusion (assuming your data set is significant) is that there are kibitzers that are helping players to cheat and do well in the kibs-allowed tourneys. But there are other factors. Shorter tournaments will have a higher chance of having a high winning score. I suspect individuals will be lower scoring than pairs, and survivor or swiss formats may affect the average winning score too.

We've been through this before. Most directors allow kibitzers because they feel that barring kibitzers punishes most of those who like to kibitz for the actions of a few. These people argue that the cheaters will simply find another method if you bar kibitzers. But if the winning scores are consistently lower in kibitzers-barred tournaments this is evidence that barring them at least accomplishes something.

I bar them for the first two-thirds of my unclocked tourneys and then allow them in for the end (most kibitzers are fast players who are already finished), because I feel that we have to cater to the players first. It's not fun to play the best game of your life and finish second to someone who never took a losing finesse all night.

One thing BBO could do is offer an option that restricts kibitzers to a single random table, and move both N-S and E-W pairs so that kibitzers would not be able to choose who they watch. The pro-kibitzing crowd would protest though: many of them want to watch a certain player, which is understandable. There probably isn't a solution to this problem.

[hrothgar]

From my perspective, this is an incredibly interesting post.

I would consider a statistically significant difference between the scoes necessary to win the two classes of tournament's to be an important indicator that something was going on. One possible explanation is differences in the calibre of players. However, it is possible that some individuals might have a wire.

With this said and done, McBruce is very correct when he says that it is important to compensate for the # of boards played in the different tournaments.

Equally significant, if you are going to do this type of analysis, you really want to provide confidence intervals.

[Free]

also it's important to know how many hands were dealt. It's a known fact that swings in percentages are quite common on <8 board matches, even with 8-12 boards it's quite common. If you'd base your statistical info on 16+ board matches you'll probably have a pretty good perspective.

Level of players is also important, and their opponents level as well. If you have an expert pair going through a field with only beginners, the scores will also be different ofcourse.

Perhaps some other indication might be the MINIMUM score! If that is also significant higher, there might be some backtalking and cheating...

[mink]

McBruce, on Jun 8 2004, 09:12 AM, said:

.... One thing BBO could do is offer an option that restricts kibitzers to a single random table, and move both N-S and E-W pairs so that kibitzers would not be able to choose who they watch. ....

This would not help against cheaters. For them, it is sufficient to kibitz at any table, because each board is played at all tables simultaneously.

The method of kibitzing using another computer is only possible if you have 2 computers that are located in a way that you can see both, and that both machines have an internet connection. I doubt that this is the case at only few homes, and that only few players desire to cheat in the first place. The set intersection should be rather small.

In order to chase cheaters, there is no other way than to look at many boards of a suspected pair or individual. Thereby, you could get them all, no matter what method they use. I do this from time to time even if I do not suspect them, just because of a good score in a tourney. But I was not successful so far.

There is an argument against disallowing kibitzers in a tourney which has not been mentioned yet I think: If I consider to sub, I like to know how many boads are left to be played. So far I have found no other way than kibitz a table for a second in order to see the current board number. For this reason, I shall not sub in tourneys with kibitzers disallowed.

Karl

[zibuyu]

A far as I know, some players in my tourney were complained as cheaters by tds of other tourney or other players. I once also notified a yellow about a pair's cheating...

Sometims I opened the tourney to kibitzers... sometimes disalowed them..... Really hard to make sure who must be the cheaters.... but there are cheaters in tourney......

Just a intresting comparing result.... Really have no time to check their hands..... just look them as experts.......

[xx1943]

zibuyu, on Jun 8 2004, 12:46 AM, said:

In a kibitzers disallowed tourney, 70% is enough to be the winner. even 66% or so... However,  in a tourney allowing kibitzers,
at least 72% needed to win it. Normally 75% to be the winner.

How many tournaments did you observe to come to this conclusion?

The statistic should be include 50 items at least to be significant (better 200).

My experience in the last 5 tourneys (4x3 boards) I directed (kib ever allowed) was that the winner needed 66,3%, 68,3%, 71,0%, 65,4%, 66,2%.

By the way is there a simple method to get the tour-results to a file in my PC. Copy screen to clipboard and paste to Word is very boring.


Al