While it might have contributed to his decision to retire, MarineKing towards the end of his career was completely washed and couldn't even manage to qualify for GSL anymore, I think that has more to do with it. I agree with your general sentiment though, don't throw accusations lightly, and even if a game looks suspicious, innocent until proven guilty.
So like, MarineKing was already doing quite poorly but after the matchfixing accusations he got even worse, became an absolute mess. I can understand why. Nearly everybody in the world thought he was a matchfixer when he wasn't. Like imagine playing a game of SC2 that was so bad you literally can't get people to believe you didn't throw it deliberately. That would crush you mentally I think.
All we know is he didn't get caught. I for one will never believe he wasn't paid to throw that game. He missed SCV production at the start of the game when there's nothing else to do, doesn't look at his minimap for 2 straight minutes, and decides to go 3CC against what was a 1 base baneling bust(if we pretend he doesn't see the hatchery and doesn't realize there's a proxy hatch somewhere). Not a single professional player could come up with a thought process behind that other than ''He had a stroke''. Voided bets due to suspicious betting patterns are the cherry on top.
MKP did go 3CC in 99% of the games he played no? This was such a long time ago i cant remember.
The problem is not that he was greedy, the problem is he did mistakes a dude with 100 games wouldn't make like not looking at the minimap for 2 straight minutes, it's not only the pros who can call it suspicious, any starcraft players can understand it.
MKP scv scouted Byul and saw a gaz/pool and no B2. He brought back his vcs to his B1 without searching any proxy hatch which already doesn't make any sense. (or at the very at least, he could have wait to see which units came, or come back to see if there is a b2, that's super basic stuffs, no need to be gm to understand it) Then he decided to make 2 reapers, kept them at home and then did a 3cc while he could see for 2 minutes not only the creep but a spine crawler in the making. I know, innocent until proved guilty but still, this is super obvious. It's not on fuck up, it's a combinaison of massive ones about very basic stuff.
Mental health can do weird things to a player. Starcraft is a super demanding game too. MKP was always a heart on the sleeve kind of guy too.
Back in the day I just quit playing, was starting to push into Masters and I did the same macro builds basically every game.
In one ladder session I forgot warpgate multiple times, did my vT build because I forgot I was playing a Zerg and eventually culminating in me forgetting my 9 pylon.
The will and the passion for the game was there, my brain simply refused to function normally.
I’m not suggesting this as the explanation for that MKP game, merely a possible one. While I feel society is more understanding in people having issues with stress and depression, I’m not sure people quite understand the level it can impair your basic ability to do tasks. It doesn’t just sap motivation (which people do understand) it saps capacity too.
Mental health surely must be a problem with some people in eSports, I haven’t heard too many talk about it outside of some foreign pros who have control over their own practice and life regimes.
I’m unsure how that would have worked in Korea, especially under the team regimes. If a player was having issues would they be able to come forward and get taken out of the firing line or not?
It’s still entirely possible MKP threw a game and left the scene after the scrutiny on him, I don’t think it’s unlikely either that he threw himself out/got thrown out while in really bad mental shape, played a game so bad that people couldn’t fathom any other possibility other than him throwing it and having already been struggling, having people think that of him caused him to quit.
Add to that the mystery of ByuN disappearing and not playing in Proleague, I think it’s a plausible if not proven angle.
On July 19 2020 00:09 rotta wrote: That MKP game is hard to forget, would still be nice to see his replay.
Yea, that game was really really suspicious. On the silver lining, MKP's play was so strange that I bet no one would ever ask him to fix games after that (not saying that he was necessarily doing something nefarious that game), because he would make it too obvious lol
Suspicious activity refers to bets being placed not to player activity. Since sc2 is a relatively small betting attraction its relatively easy to go beyond the tolerance allowed by the system. However indeed the bets should be voided before the games are played.
3rd party betting companies are the cancer, reason, and mainstay of the problem, along with the SC2 following guys who place bets.
Blizzard should take control over betting (and maybe make some profit from it).
If every player are mandated to bet... hmmm.... 75%-95% of their potential winnings (in every scenarios) to themselves, betting environment controlled by Blizzard... Hoccuspoccus, match fixing scenarios cease to exist.
But, that scenario won't ever happen because Blizzard is all about the money, profit.
A good player Mulchany wants fix a game. He knows that Blizzard Betting Co. provides an incentive for him to play for his money (he actually benefits from playing good, honest, winning game/match), because his income is directly related to bets placed on him (within Blizzard Betting Co.)
Now, if he/she is a rotten case, bubble, he/she of course can still accept 3rd party money for playing foul, but his/hers trail of misconduct is fuck-load of easier to track when the 1st party controls a most of traditional 3rd party environs.
Where he/she got all that money with that shitty losing play?
Background assumption of my is that the most of bet placers would go with the most established and legit broker with best data available, presumably the Blizzard corp. Now, if the corporation forces players always bet themselves in all games they play...
Disclaimer: Imaginary player 'Mulchany' could be 'McRotten', Xhammer', 'Stenchgerm', 'LaViot9' or 'Murmara'. If there are such named player in the ladder, the name is purely coincidental in this comment.
If your best idea for betting is for the same company to control the development of the game and the odds on players then I really don't know what to say. Except that accusing a company that does not do it of having no integrity is ironic.
Not to mention that it wouldn't solve shit. Betting is completely illegal in South Korea and, what a shocker really, matchfixers just sell games to illegal underground bettors .
If your 2nd best idea is to force players to bet on themselves, effectively turning Starcraft into a money game like poker which I suspect would not be fucking legal for anyone below 18 and could be subject to very rigorous gambling laws in many countries, making it dodgy to play at all then maybe stick to the first one where betting is just invisible and odds potentially crooked!
On July 19 2020 06:53 Ej_ wrote: If your best idea for betting is for the same company to control the development of the game and the odds on players then I really don't know what to say. Except that accusing a company that does not do it of having no integrity is ironic.
Not to mention that it wouldn't solve shit. Betting is completely illegal in South Korea and, what a shocker really, matchfixers just sell games to illegal underground bettors .
If your 2nd best idea is to force players to bet on themselves, effectively turning Starcraft into a money game like poker which I suspect would not be fucking legal for anyone below 18 and could be subject to very rigorous gambling laws in many countries, making it dodgy to play at all then maybe stick to the first one where betting is just invisible and odds potentially crooked!
You're right in every point you say, however, what would be lesser problem here?
This whole thread is still about speculation, hypothetics, and about alleged misconduct in a match. Until otherwise proven.
The problem in this general context is coming from the 3rd party operators. How complex and difficult it would ever be to simplify things by elimination of those parasites, it would immediately make SC2 Division of Blizzard corp. more lucrative business. In ideal world of us, Blizzard's internal subdivision would handle with betting, collecting profits from that sector for the benefits of the game's development, future, balance, and continuity.
I honestly think that would be much lesser evil for these aims, than current situation were all kinds of parasitic business entities drain millions out from the future of the game. Why it would be exactly bad if the game developer could get some profits from betting money, particularly when they can provide intrinsically the best data available for such enterprises (i.e. minimize the risk to them while still giving best odds - on average)?
Why limiting "freedom" of professional players to minimize changes of foul play would be bad thing, if same time same players would be rewarded for playing as good and honest game as possible with generous share of all that betting money (drained by parasites) that has now null-impact to every SC2 player, follower, fan, and organisator all alike?
Of course it's problematic, but when the question is about who benefits, I personally prefer 1st and 2nd parties, and if 3rd party-influenced bloodsucking can be largely removed from the calculations by rearrangements and mutual agreements of 1st and 2nd parties, I can't see there any unsurmountable problems to overcome. If its legal to establish betting company by anyone, it is certainly legal to establish it by company who controls the game of object of betting. Just remove non-essentials from the scenario, offer the fans a legit platform to place bets, and put 5% of betting income to your company's own product. Reward the players for playing good and sincere.
eSports betting is still (relatively) a fringe part of the activity. Sure it’s sizeable but it’s avoidable.
If Blizz or any other company take direct control of betting relating to their games, if they’re managing the bets and taking the odds surely that seeps into the game UI and the associated broadcasts.
I’ve read enough testimony from gambling addicts that struggle to enjoy regular sport as they used to because there’s so much gambling advertising in and around the sport.
Now this wouldn’t necessarily have to happen, but what’s the incentive of taking charge to such a degree if you don’t push the gambling along with it?
It’s using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. We have had some match fixing problems, but in a decade of competition all over the world it hasn’t been too huge. At least not to clamp down in such a manner imo
Actually a blast from the past to hear moonglade again. This game is funny because its such blatant matchfixing, he scouted and saw there was a proxy hatch so he knew. Also really find the situation when he pretends to notice hilarious, its so obvious his main focus at that point is "look surprised". Sure you see pros actually appear shocked at times but the expressions are muted because they are focused on actually trying to win.
The Mcsed game is even worse though, when he pulled away the probes when he almost killed them is the one moment when you know he doesn't want to win. There simply is no explanation in the world for playing like that besides trying to lose.
In regards to Zest his gameplay is not suspicious, the betting line makes it look bad for him but thats it
Also want to give a shoutout to the San game, I remember watching that game being a fan of San and then he lost his MSC to a queen in the first couple of minutes of the game when literally not controlling anything else...
Doesn't stuff like this happen when betting with a bookie? Like you go to your local guy who handles your bet, but you want to make a 50,000 dollar bet and he normally only handles bets up to 500. He tries to give that bet over to a larger bookie, but nobody bites on the bet because they can't cover the bet for whatever reason. Like maybe even the odds are go just not enough people interested or whatever. Now with online this might not be in an instant. One company trying to hold the bet, but keep a balance of betters so they don't lose their ass. It might not just be due to being a suspicious bet, maybe people actually thought the underdog could win, but there was too much action on the long shot that the bet itself is a risky endeavor. Yes it could be a fixed match, but even if it wasn't and the underdog wins and you don't have enough bets to cover it that money comes out of your pocket. So, instead the safer move is to cancel that bet rather that you yourself becoming the gambler. Not sure if I'm right on this, just my thought.
On July 17 2020 23:53 Charoisaur wrote: Analyzing the game is pointless unless there really is a HUGE mistake "a pro player would never make" like the MKP vs Byul game or that one MacSed game. When analyzing games with confirmation bias you could say that every other pro game looks "fishy". I see pro players do enormous mistakes all the time
Don't you see that thats the thing here. You don't want anyone to know you didn't want to win, so you make lots and lots of small mistakes. And when those small mistakes gather up it makes a huge pile.
And if you want to have a conversation about the things I brought here, please lets have one.
And what's different about a fixed game where the player made lots and lots of small mistakes compared to the thousands of legit games where the player made lots and lots of small mistakes?
It's pretty easy to spot the difference when player fucks up and when he is trying to make mistakes on purpose that would look normal for normies, if you spend time to find them. As I did here. I mean some of these are (ex. Stalker focusing medivac) equal to football player forgeting how to pass the ball.
So you believe that its "pretty easy" to tell that Zest was match fixing here? This is a very strong implication. It truly sucks as a pro to have an awful game and then have people claiming you match fixed. By definition in 5,000+ games across the pro scene in a year there are going to be monumentally poor performances that only occur once every 5,000 games. I see that after Scarlett called you out you backtracked to "mistakes happen" and "maybe he was drunk or had hangover", which seems like a much more reasonable position to take.
On July 19 2020 08:02 Shuffleblade wrote: Also want to give a shoutout to the San game, I remember watching that game being a fan of San and then he lost his MSC to a queen in the first couple of minutes of the game when literally not controlling anything else...
I still don't think it makes sense to just donate your msc on purpose if you're matchfixing. That's like, matchfixing as terran and losing your reaper on purpose. Like, ok? You'd rather not do that, but you're not going to lose the game off of that. This is one of those things that sounds like a good idea, because you want to simulate a bad game so you make a lot of small mistakes, but it's really not a small mistake at all so it achieves neither the simulation of slightly substandard play, nor the actual purpose of losing the game.
Generally speaking the betting lines are the suspicious stuff, and talking about the games is silly. Reminder that PartinG lost a game because he forgot warpgate in the semifinals of GSL...
I've been tracking Zest for the last 2 years, and of course i have my own opinion about this matchfixing drama...
Anyway its really sad that someone who has won a lot in prizes is doing this... he doesnt give a shit, for example i've seen him losing a GSL match on pvz recently, where he made Dark Shrine, he saw the zerg got no detection, no lair, no spores, and instead of warp DT's, what you are suposed to do when you go for dt's ( :D ) he warped Adepts, and you could say, ok ok, he is nervous, he missed the first warp and warped adepts because he was nervous and the timing about his Dark Shrine and the Warping was so close, but when you see that his second round of warping is Adepts again, when he is SEEING everything with his adept's shadow, knowing he has no lair no spores... even the casters were shocked, but i feel like nobody of the scene wana talk about this because they are afraid about another big Matchfixing drama that could end finishing their careers...
(Forgot to say that Zest plays in 90% of his games (pvz) Adept pressure into DT's and he is one of the best players in the starcraft 2 history, how would you miss a dt warping when you are a player like zest, he is superclean doing this, still remember when he only played archon drop, and he was that clean doing this that players like lambo lose against him in 4-5 minutes once and once again just vs 2 archons... so imagine, how would a player with that good mechacnics confuse warping adpets 2 times? )
I dont know, i'm a big fan of starcraft 2 (also starcraft bw) i'm here watching Starcraft 2 every single day, every random tournament, and i can say that i would even understand that an amateur player fix, because when you are investing 10 hours per day in a game and you recive 0€ or almost 0€ you need something to see that your time training is worth... Even when you need to win 10 proplayers like Soul,Bly,Mana (examples) to catch a 50$ Prize... its understandable that you think, i can just lose in first round and make 400-500€ and nobody will notice about that... but when i see players like Zest with that earnings matchfixing (its just my opinion, i cant be sure 100% about that, because that its imposible for me) ... well, what can i say...
Also, as someone said here, we need to remember when Macsed "matchfixed", nobody said nothing in his favour, and it was just 1 time, and in my opinion im not even close to be sure about his matchfixing, but the thing is that players like Zest got tons of games with suspiccious loses, and also a lot of void bets due to suspiccious activity in many bookies...
I dont know, i feel like the pro scene, the casters, the scene itself wants to ignore it because another big matchfixing case would finally destroy sc2 and their jobs...
On July 19 2020 20:07 AlaStOrSC wrote: I've been tracking Zest for the last 2 years, and of course i have my own opinion about this matchfixing drama...
Anyway its really sad that someone who has won a lot in prizes is doing this... he doesnt give a shit, for example i've seen him losing a GSL match on pvz recently, where he made Dark Shrine, he saw the zerg got no detection, no lair, no spores, and instead of warp DT's, what you are suposed to do when you go for dt's ( :D ) he warped Adepts, and you could say, ok ok, he is nervous, he missed the first warp and warped adepts because he was nervous and the timing about his Dark Shrine and the Warping was so close, but when you see that his second round of warping is Adepts again, when he is SEEING everything with his adept's shadow, knowing he has no lair no spores... even the casters were shocked, but i feel like nobody of the scene wana talk about this because they are afraid about another big Matchfixing drama that could end finishing their careers...
(Forgot to say that Zest plays in 90% of his games (pvz) Adept pressure into DT's and he is one of the best players in the starcraft 2 history, how would you miss a dt warping when you are a player like zest, he is superclean doing this, still remember when he only played archon drop, and he was that clean doing this that players like lambo lose against him in 4-5 minutes once and once again just vs 2 archons... so imagine, how would a player with that good mechacnics confuse warping adpets 2 times? )
I dont know, i'm a big fan of starcraft 2 (also starcraft bw) i'm here watching Starcraft 2 every single day, every random tournament, and i can say that i would even understand that an amateur player fix, because when you are investing 10 hours per day in a game and you recive 0€ or almost 0€ you need something to see that your time training is worth... Even when you need to win 10 proplayers like Soul,Bly,Mana (examples) to catch a 50$ Prize... its understandable that you think, i can just lose in first round and make 400-500€ and nobody will notice about that... but when i see players like Zest with that earnings matchfixing (its just my opinion, i cant be sure 100% about that, because that its imposible for me) ... well, what can i say...
Also, as someone said here, we need to remember when Macsed "matchfixed", nobody said nothing in his favour, and it was just 1 time, and in my opinion im not even close to be sure about his matchfixing, but the thing is that players like Zest got tons of games with suspiccious loses, and also a lot of void bets due to suspiccious activity in many bookies...
I dont know, i feel like the pro scene, the casters, the scene itself wants to ignore it because another big matchfixing case would finally destroy sc2 and their jobs...
Even Artosis is making fun about Zest not making DT's and warping first adepts and then stalkers
I dont know, as i said its imposible for me to be sure about this at 100% but... In Spain we say something like " Cuando el rio suena, agua lleva " i think its similar to this in English " if there is a rumor there must be something to it express "
On July 17 2020 20:32 llllllllllIIIIIlllll wrote: didn't read the whole thread but want to say that alastor posted about zest's matchfixing many many times, you should definitely take a look
Can you give a link/ tell us who "alastor" is please?
Spanish zerg. I went through his twitter feed (kind of cringe) and he complains about lines moving from time to time. Last he complained about apparently the match went against his "prediction" so he just went "Seems like this one was legit". Unless he does something more sophisticated outside of Twitter, seems like a dude angry about life ^.^
I think you need to read better, i said that i was succesfull on my prediction, and still complain about that, so thats not about wining or losing money with that, im not angry about life and less about wining money, but im angry about wining money in that way, when i make a prediction im gratefull when i see my player wining legitly not wining because his opponent is trolling/matchfixing
So what i wanted to let clear on that tweet was that even when im winning money with this "shit" that i think its matchfixing (just my opinion) im still complaining, because i really love Starcraft 2 and its really sad for me to see that kind of shit, anyway for my profit its good, as i've said, years tracking that kind of players and i know what to do and when to do it.
On July 17 2020 20:32 llllllllllIIIIIlllll wrote: didn't read the whole thread but want to say that alastor posted about zest's matchfixing many many times, you should definitely take a look
Can you give a link/ tell us who "alastor" is please?
Spanish zerg. I went through his twitter feed (kind of cringe) and he complains about lines moving from time to time. Last he complained about apparently the match went against his "prediction" so he just went "Seems like this one was legit". Unless he does something more sophisticated outside of Twitter, seems like a dude angry about life ^.^
Nevermind i was confused about the tweet you refer, i have thousand of proofs, and the one that you refer was just one that didint ended like it should according to odds dropping hard, but thats not happening 100% of the times, it was just a really huge odds drop on a match that suposed to be 50/50 at least, maybe they realised or something i dont know, anyway as i said, you can think whatever you want, i know its a lost fight, its imposible for me or for anyone here to catch them unless they get involved in something with mafia like Life did for example...
EPT
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