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In a two-player situation I could see how this might be acceptable, but with more players I'd be very cautious. For instance, it may appear to you that player three is the foregone winner, but perhaps player two has a victory Development Card, along with a Road Building that could catapult him to longest road, if he can just get another brick to make one ...

I know you don't want answers that say, "Talk to them, and tell them that you think cheating is wrong", but, honestly, it's players distaste for direct confrontation that allows cheating to happen. Cheaters prosper only because we let them get away with it. If you see it happening and you can prove it, don't tolerate it. No one wants a cheater in their ...

I once, in a serious tournament, in the very last round won a game when I was down a whole queen (at one point in the game - by the time I won I had recovered the queen and much more). I had also before I eventually turned the position around to be clearly winning offered my opponent a draw, a draw which would have advanced him to a statewide individual ...

I would say that resignation is perfectly acceptable as long as 1) It was preceded by a good-faith effort to play optimally. 2) All parties who are affected by the resignation agree on its timeliness. The only times I feel a resignation is discourteous is when it negatively impacts people who were depending on your continued presence; for example, if ...

The idea behind playing in the upper right first is so that White doesn't have to reach far to play his first move. The corner immediately in front of him on his right is left open. So the third stone goes in the lower right corner, from Black's viewpoint. [Edit as per the comments: Move order for 9 stones] $$ --------------------------------------- $$| ...

3:1 trades are not unfair; they're bank rate. At which point the trading partner should simply trade with the bank, as that is a winning strategy. Anything better than 2:1 is better than dedicated port trades, and is only useful when you will gain more than your trade partner. My recommendations for curing both at once are straightforward, but brutal. And ...

Andrew raised some very good point on which I'd like to elaborate. I don't like the idea of declaring yourself the winner. In most games it is unlikely that you can do this with reasonable certainty. Thus it is presumptuous and - like Andrew explained - potentially unfair. I do however see some use in conceding a game under certain circumstances. ...

I would rather a player concede than that they make plays that are not in their best interest and thus play "kingmaker". I haven't played Catan lately so this may or may not be applicable there, but I personally would rather someone: Keep striving to improve their own score OR Stop playing entirely and let the rest of us finish the game Rather than see ...

As I see it, you have three options that aren't "stop playing with them". In all situations, you're going to have to accept that cheating might happen in the game. Add incentives not to cheat (such as the answer from Kevin about automatically losing the game, or a game appropriate penalty, such as stealing a card from the offending player) Change the ...

Victor Mollo addressed this problem in one of his books (I forget which). His suggestion, if you wished to stop and think at your turn of play, was to place the card you plan to play face down on the table, announcing that you were playing that card, and then do your thinking. Provided your thinks don't take inordinately long, no-one will complain.

The games you are talking about are ones that possess a positive feedback loop for players who are in the lead, causing them to continue to be in the lead in an exponential way. This is generally considered bad game design for the exact reason you are implying. As such, you have two simple options: Stop playing these games, due to their flaw. Create ...

When playing games that are supposed to eliminate some of the players and then speed up, you can always play as teams. In my group games with that kind of mechanic do not work, we are simply either too competitive or too strategic to come to an entertaining experience for everyone. This lead us to play in teams so that if one 'player' loses there are ...

How about adding a new rule to the game you're playing. Let the cheater play a cheating position, either openly or hidden, with the agreed limitation that he or she can't possibly win; or else they must keep track of every cheat they do and get scored on how well they cheated with the possibility of wining that way. Most times it's not about defeating your ...

In general, king making is contentious. In my mind, it's best reserved for when it will allow ending a game "Now-ish" in order to either facilitate a different, more generally enjoyable game, or to allow players to leave. There are a few other conditions where I find it less than unacceptable. These basically boil down to "not letting A have a runaway ...

I believe that a player should be allowed to concede, if it doesn't affect the game, or if it affects the game in a POSITIVE way. In a two-player game, that's easy. Conceding shortens the game without changing the result, and is an act of good sportsmanship. In a multiplayer game, it gets trickier. That's because the conceding player may have assets that ...

When I used to play a lot of Euchre the side that didn't call trump would often toss in their cards after taking one trick conceding the rest of the tricks to the caller. Sometimes all it would take is to show the left bower after the right had been played on the first trick. Each group has to decide what they are comfortable with, but I think the more you ...

It really depends on the circumstances. Are you in a tournament? Who is your opponent? How much time do you have? What will you learn from it? I would usually keep fighting if I lost a minor piece just to learn something from fighting a losing position, unless I was in an intense tournament and needed some rest. If I was down a Queen, I probably ...

I'm not sure that in a home game, the situations you describe are similar. When you review the previous trick, you're seeing all four cards at once, with no indication as to who played what (although of course you know who won the trick because they're about to lead to the next). When you ask about a specific card on the current trick, I think you are ...

Every tournament has its own specific rules, but I've never seen one that hasn't required the use of the latest/greatest rules sets available, both for the game itself and the army. There are often additional restrictions, e.g. banned items or characters, troop limits etc, as well as model requirements (minimal painting requirements, no use of non-GW models, ...

Incorporate the cheating into the game. I don't know how well this ports to all games, but when I was in the Army, we use to play with a house rule in Spades that if you got caught reneging, the hand was immediately over, the reneging team lost their bid and the other team automatically made theirs. Before that, there was constant fighting between the two ...

Tom Sloper, an apparently very experienced American player, writes about etiquette. It turns out that "One person's bad etiquette is another person's official rule" - so you have to adapt. There is a huge difference between tournament play and casual games with friends. Also, you need to consider house rules. In the end, there is a definite answer to your ...

In games I play where 2 of the players are very experienced and 1-2 players are less experienced/cutthroat, then much advice is freely given/taken and that pretty much solves it. For example, let's say my 6 year old son really needs a brick to build a settlement and he has an unneeded sheep and 2 ores. I may offer him the brick for 2 ores and a sheep but ...

Here are a few ideas, although overall I disagree with the premise of the question, as you'll see toward the end. "Unfair" trades are the benefit of getting a resource other people want. I don't see how it's a problem. Just turn down the trade. As far as trading eating up time, one option would be to just put a 30-second limit on trading on each player's ...

Do you value strategic decision-making and technically-precise play? If so, my advice is that it's not worth it to play with cheaters, because their "game within the game" gets in the way of actually experiencing the game. It's possible to play serious and deep games against cheaters within a tournament structure, but that involves tights rules for managing ...

One thing to keep in mind is resigning isn't a means to avoid losing, but a recognition that you have lost - you just haven't finished going through the motions. In a two-player game, this should be fairly simple - you resign, opponent wins, you start another game. In a team scenario (like Axis & Allies), the entire team should resign as a group - if a ...

It depends on the type of game: In a game between two players, I would encourage resigning. In a game between more players, it depends on the game: If the game has rules for resigning, or players can agree on a set of rules, resigning should be allowed. However, if resigning would spoil the game for any of the other players, all players should be ...

Many people I've played with have a "See it through to the bitter end" mentality. Especially for some of the longer games, like Advanced Civilization, Pax Britannica, and Supremacy. Then again, in those, the game is multi-player, and one player dropping out will drastically alter the flow of play; further, all three have victory conditions that can change ...

As the answers to another of your questions said, it is unethical to hesitate over a play when you actually have no choice, since there can be no good reason for your hesitation. The same principle applies in the situations you mention here; if, when it is your turn to play, you have a choice of cards and your decision will affect the hand, you can take as ...

I think winning an excessive number of times get you thrown out of a casino. And the casino will then try to find "good" reasons like card counting or whatever dodgy moves you made. If splitting tens is one of them, and you placed a high bet and you won a lot, then certainly the casino will use that to support their claim. If you just split tens and then ...

Casinos are much like any other business; if they want, they can tell you that you are no longer welcome for any reason, or no reason at all. There are some exceptions, primarily the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prevents "places of public accomodation" (basically any property that welcomes the average Joe coming in off the street) from refusing service ...