I used to play card games online, such as Spades. People come to a virtual table and play. It's a partner game so you rely on each other. Of course, many are good sports. Yet it amazed me that when some play anonymously, how they do things they would never do in person. Some leave as soon as something goes against them. Others have an insulting verbal exchange with their partner if they make a mistake.
I then was pointed to a site where you could play various Solitaire games online. There is a leader board and many top games had some impossibly high score rates. Anyway, I thought no more of it and chose two less popular ones and soon had done well. It took hard work and application to get there, it takes months to get to the minimum required wins to even be on the list.
Anyway, I was having a real competition with two two others for the top spot of one game. They both lost a game which gave me the only 100% record. They would have to log in under new pseudonyms to start all over. But within a few days one was back with the same pseudonym, score and no losses. Impossible in the time it took.
I wrote to the creator of the site to explain what happened. He said there were two ways of cheating that way, and he could only stop it by redoing the setup and losing all the scores. Seeing as that was not an option, the cheat's scores remain.
Now that is what anonymity does. No one can identify them but they are happy to see their name at the top, knowing they got there unfairly. What kind of a hollow victory is that? I don't go to any of these card sites anymore because of how some act when they are not known. My motto is be honest at all times, even if you won't get caught cheating. It's called genuine satisfaction.
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