Wordfeud League of Honour

If you´re only getting 3 hours sleep, by all means, don´t waste time arguing meaningless topics here, get some sleep my dear. Vel

I just tried to come in the this whole thing that I call a discussion with a different point of view. Thats it. My point was not trying to argument against you (if that is what you felt). My point was and is... Try to enjoy this league for what it is. It will never be 100 % clean.. the same as for all other sports or games are where people can cheat somebody will.

Opinions run rampant. No one really cares what the next guy thinks. Cheers my friend!

My point is. If you think your opponent is cheating my suggestion is that you do one of the following:

1. Complain to lobotommy

2. Just dont care about it, you will get crazy if you bother too much about something that you can not prove anyway. There is nothing to win worrying about cheaters. For all you know you could be playin the world champ.

I am waiting for opponent to play as I have set up the words XI and Xi on a triple. As soon as opponent plays his 7 letter bingo, I click play as my tiles were already in place. Now before I can look up from my phone, opponent plays another bingo to end the game leaving me holding 5 tiles. No one can possibly come up with a bingo in less than 2 seconds time and place all tiles as well.

Tell me? Can you come up with an argument for this? Oh I´m fairly sure you will find a way to have yourself the last word and I´m going to give it to you as I feel my point has been made.

There are good wordfeuders in here (at least in the norwegian league) that play speed games (as well as wf) and they are both very quick and solid players.

:-)

When a player puts down a bingo faster than I can look up from my phone after having placed my word, I have a good idea that player is cheating.

If you research the human reaction time, you will see that that sort of speed is impossible for placing 7 letter word. Only a computer can react that quickly.

It doesnt matter how long you are sitting there itching to make your move, you still have to place each tile on the board and hit play.

The speed of a players moves, his/her ability, or inability to chat, without their grammar appearing as if a grade-schooler wrote it, and a player who possesses a very broad vocabulary, yet is a poor strategist, all very indicative of a cheater.

It should take more than a cheat app to beat a truly great Scrabble player, because its not only about big words, its about word placement.

If hes a cheater hes not a very good one. Just sayin´....

I think many Wordfeuders have sticky brains. When I play and lose to a Scrabble expert who puts exotic words to good use, the words tend to stick in my memory and become integrated in my available arsenal for future matches.

One of my opponents (don´t know his credentials) beat me twice using the following words to good effect: BIMAH, VODUN, LINGY, JOCKO, DOUX, SPIV, DAUR, ELVER, PIETA, and TATU. I like to think that I have a fairly half-decent English vocabulary for a non-native English speaker, but I´ve never seen these words before. I´m a keen Wordfeuder, but admittedly, I´m no Scrabble buff, and these words may well be familiar to expert Scrabblers and/or to native English speakers like many of you appear to be.

My point is that now I know them and I will use them when I get the chance. Then the question becomes, if a happy amateur 3rd-division-regular Scandinavian Wordfeuder like myself play exotic words acquired (or bitterly earned? :) in former games with established Scrabble brainiacs (let´s say I put down UREDINIA which I´ve also been hit with), possibly accompanied by a game play that experts might consider slightly (or downright?) clumsy, should I expect much frowning and ominous reaching for pitchforks?

I´m sure that every now end then also cheating opponents may be the source of unlikely words assimilated in the Hippocampus, but remembering these words and playing them later surely must be OK.

Having said this, I acknowledge Novice1446´s point that other play characteristics may be indicative of foul play, and I´m all for identifying and excluding gangrenous elements. I just wanted to voice my agreement with those who advocate caution before concluding that a non-merited player is cheating solely based on the play of some highly obscure words.

Oh, and I have never played Johnlaa, so this is intended as a general comment.

As I said earlier, this conversation has wore out its welcome, at least for me.

There is a fine line between voicing an opinion and coming across as a champion for cheaters.

I´m truly not wasting another moment on this subject.

I actually have important things to accomplish in life. I´ve wasted too much time on this aggravating topic alreay.

Time to move on people.

to someone using a word generator. In Mr Laa,s case this stands out a mile.

I am here because of the fun. And it is free fun, we dont bet money against each other. I gladly deposit the 100 noks to lobotommy once a year so I can get access to extra statistics. He defenitely deserve every penny for doing the job of upholding this league.

I used to play poker(online poker) a lot between 2005-2009. It is a lot worse.. when cheating actualy cost you money. Not that you really can cheat in poker.. but you can use statistical programs that helps you mapping the opponents playing patterns. After playing a x amounts of hands the programs helps you to map how the other person plays. How he acts in different situations, what his worst opening hand is, does he play passive agressive etc.

The largest pokerroom say that this is strictly forbidden. But I say a good chunk of the players use these programs. Maybe 20-25 % of all players. In addition you cant trust the randomness of the pokersites. I got penalized the last year on about all hands I played, the strong hands did not perform as good as one should expect from normal statistical logics. AA should win about 80 % of all all-in situations pre flop for example, if you have played AA 1200 times and you win only 65 % there is a problem somewhere. I had to stop playin online poker because I thougt I was not playin on a fair arena. (this was the short story)

I think the problem if someone cheats in here is really a marginal problem if you look at it from another perspective. There is not much things to lose here other than time spent(ok this could be annoying). I am pretty sure that most people in here does not cheat, but I am pretty sure that cheating exists. But that does not stop me enjoying this league! :-)

And I´m not arguing for separate leagues because I´m an elitist who can´t be bothered to play online-only players. One of the things that drew me to the league in the first place was the opportunity to make some headway in building an English Scrabble culture in a region of the world where all this is quite new. Of course I´d like everyone to play live tourneys eventually :). On the contrary, I feel really awkward about the fact that I can play these words with impunity and for other players they constitute evidence of cheating.

Last month my daughter started to count in english (She is norwegian, living in norway)... and I wonder who taught her english, the kindergarden? After a couple of weeks I found out that she taught herself.. using the I pad listening to english alphabet and counting songs for kids! Now she sings itsy bitsy spider, the english version :-)).

HAPPY HOLIDAYS YA´LL!! You know, jingle bells and stuff? Lol

I think live tournament play is the best way to quietly validate yourself as legitimate.

However, there are players such as myself who, although I am working towards that sort of play, life has not afforded me such spare time.

No one here would say that lobotommy has done anything improper, yet as history proves this; no system is a perfect system. To work as a team per say, we can all learn from each other.

Rather than assume others are being critical, it should be viewed as others are trying to contribute.

ARE these the words of a casual social player. I think not.

I asked all his opponents from the last two seasons.

I think were on the same side in this battle, although this discussion may have become a bit more heated than it had to.

When it is overwhelmingly obvious that a player is not ethical, ie: 18 years old with a broader vocabulary than that of a Lawyer? Yet the player remains after a 15 player vote, it does feel like just that, deaf ears.

The player you mentioned in which you say you sent 15 emails out as a result of a complaint I made: how did you decide on your 15 person sample size? How do you choose whether to pick the majority from players who have won to the player in question or who have lost to this person?

I know for a fact that the player had played 100+ games.

Unless you are to ask all who have played against a player, it is pointless to ask any without a logical way of choosing who to ask and who not to ask.

It does no good to ask a larger number of players who won to the said player, and vice versa.

Taking the defensive stature of "maybe our league is not up to your standards", is unfair and patronizing.

I hadn´t fully made a decision on whether to stick it out a while longer, but I´m sure given my opinions here, I will receive the boot.

I stick up for what´s fair, regardless of who likes it or doesn´t. I wont apologize for that.

May I just say to everyone; GROW UP!

But I do value your concern for keeping the league clean. Don´t stop, just pick your channels.

I will suggest one thing though. Whilst you can´t say for sure who cheats, you are very much aware of the English Scrabble world, having been to, and participated in a few international tournaments yourself.

I think it should be made public knowledge, perhaps with an icon and/or sentence in the ´profile/statistics´ that certain people are KNOWN to be genuine. It would save some flaming in the long run.

So that is why we say, tell it to the judge instead. You may have a case. And the judge capacity in english league has just doubled.

What I have thought of is creating a parallell first division for live players, for those who in addition to play well in the league also have a decent rating in live scrabble. It´s a solution for people like saintmonday, xoviat, spherulitic, novice1446, etc, but it will not help the majority of genuinly good non-cheating wordfeud-players.

So he survived, but the last two weeks we´ve had seven cases which has led to exclusion, and only on high division levels, but none in english international.

If sending fifteen mails when you send me one is what you call deaf ears, this league can´t possible live up to your standards.

People may be more apt to complain, if when they did, their complaints did not fall on deaf ears.

Maybe if players thought they would likely be called out in the public light, they would be less likely to cheat, for the sake of their ego.

It seems as if the cheaters get special regard for their, "feelings", or whatever else we want to call it, but dare a player with integrity make mention of any questionable ethics; the world comes raining down on them hard core.

I´m seriously considering, dropping out of wloh. Its beyond frustrating on so many levels.

That almost sounds like an excuse to me´ in fact. I mean, the Bible says every man is a liar, so who cares, might as well cheat? Is that intended point in bringing up that Bible verse? I hope not.

I´ve now withdrawn from the league for the time being and I´m holding myself to players who are known quantities out in the real world. I´m currently writing a long forum post that´ll turn up shortly, and no, I won´t name names.

I do however understand Novice´s frustration as we´ve been venting those frustrations privately during in-game chats for quite a while. Was only a matter of time before one of us finally snapped. :)

The rules are there for a reason: Open allegations against specific players create a negative atmosphere, and can be very uncomfortable for the player in question - consider the possibility that s/he is actually innocent. What´s more, making such allegations in public doesn´t make the problem go away. If you want action to be taken against a player, the only way is to let the referee know.

Have a nice day, and happy feuding :)

I see no harm in voicing an opinion. I have strong suspicions about several players, I´ll have to back novice1446 in his belief of Johnlaa´s ethics. If I am wrong, I do apologize.

I have learned to hold novice1446 in extremely high regard for his ethics, skill, word knowledge, etc.. he has an exemplary track record and anyone who would suggest this to be a "pot and kettle", situation, is completely off base. Novice1446 is 100 % straight up in all aspects with regards to the game.

Two openingmplays by John Laa against a friend of mine. Monaural through the R followed by laneways through the L.

I will let people make there own minds up.