Top scores in the BBO Challenges

[onoway]

I was asked a question about these today and had no idea what the answer was so bringing it here. Quote: "talking of cheat.. have u seen news of bbo challenges? they have list of best achievements and someone at top has 184 imps. how possible that is in 8 board game unless 7NT xx every board?" and later in conversation quote " i'd never know of it, except friend of mine was in first 3 places last month, but when he saw this score, he wouldnt play anymore coz how ridiculous that is."

 

I've never played in these and know nothing whatever about them or how they are scored, but thought it might be something that BBO might want to look into it if such things are being said.

[diana_eva]

The leaderboards posted in newsfeed are for Arena Challenges. You get matched to a random opp in those (you don't know and can't choose who your opp will be)

[Oceanss]

I am sure onoway did not ask about challenge definition, but of one specific score.

Many players in June's IMP table had awesome achievements of +95 IMPs or so. That's real WTG in a 8 board game.

She asked of how possibly one gets +180?

[barmar]

That 184 IMPs game looks like an anomaly. His opponent went down in a makable slam on the first board, then he bid 7NTXX on the remaining boards and conceded all the tricks.

 

Maybe the problem is that there's no Withdraw option in a challenge. But you can just stop playing, and it will expire in a few days.

[johnu]

Even 95+ IMPs in an 8 board match sounds like the opponents deliberately fouled the results with ridiculous contracts and play. Or since you are giving awards for high finishes, maybe it was a friend or even the same person using a 2nd ID.

 

I wouldn't be happy if I played in a challenge and the opponent produced a bunch of random numbers, which means I completely wasted my time playing the challenge. I suppose the thing to do would be to complain to BBO abuse. Delinquents should be given a final warning after the first complaint, and prevented from participating in challenge match if they repeat their behavior.

[Oceanss]

.. maybe it was a friend or even the same person using a 2nd ID.

The very same though crosses mind of many that look at the arena scores. Yet, I guess we can not expect of BBO staff, with all that they already have to do, to in addition manually check scores that are posted,. But once such a clear anomaly is detected, it should be removed from the list; specially because prizes are awarded, and many players out there are trying their best to win some.

 

As for big wins of 95+ , they are possible and a result of lobby lottary luck to get a significantly weaker opp; and sure enough they happened to almost all of first 10 listed, but only once!

Still, if instead of awarding 3 best scores, or their sum, players could be sorted by medium gain with some required minimum number of finished challenges, it would reduce luck involved and increase fairness of this particular listing.

 

All that said, remains a HUGE thanks for great fun feature that BBO gave us :)

[barmar]

At the moment we're not taking arena challenges too seriously, since they're free and they only use basic robots. But if and when we decide to upgrade them, we'll try to deal with some of these issues.

 

One thing to note: if there were enough people participating in arenas, it would be harder to arrange collusion between opponents. When I saw this thread I tried to play a challenge with myself, but someone else got in there before me.