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Forget Cheaters - Enjoy Chess

This is a great article with the right thoughts. Thank you @NoelStuder for the useful instructions for all chess players!

This is a great article with the right thoughts. Thank you @NoelStuder for the useful instructions for all chess players!

There are several things that I have noticed over the many years of playing chess online about chess cheating that people seem to be unaware of.

  1. chess servers are way better at detecting cheating than most people realize. Cheating for a prolonged period of time without getting caught is actually really, really hard.
  2. as a result, there are fewer active cheaters than people think. And those that do cheat usually don't hang around for very long. Chess doesn't interest them as much, they just go for rating and tournament results.
  3. people totally overestimate their own ability to recognize cheaters. There are some really obvious ones, but a large number of them are quite hard to recognize by even strong players. (Kramnik is a sad extreme example of this.) Many get caught without anyone ever suspecting them, and in many cases where a player suspects another player of cheating they're just wrong about it. High accuracy certainly is a poor indicator.

That said: cheating in online chess just is not worth worrying about. There are too few and they're too hard to spot. Trust Lichess (or whatever server you play on) monitors this well, and just enjoy the game.

There are several things that I have noticed over the many years of playing chess online about chess cheating that people seem to be unaware of. 1) chess servers are way better at detecting cheating than most people realize. Cheating for a prolonged period of time without getting caught is actually really, really hard. 2) as a result, there are fewer active cheaters than people think. And those that do cheat usually don't hang around for very long. Chess doesn't interest them as much, they just go for rating and tournament results. 3) people totally overestimate their own ability to recognize cheaters. There are some really obvious ones, but a large number of them are quite hard to recognize by even strong players. (Kramnik is a sad extreme example of this.) Many get caught without anyone ever suspecting them, and in many cases where a player suspects another player of cheating they're just wrong about it. High accuracy certainly is a poor indicator. That said: cheating in online chess just is not worth worrying about. There are too few and they're too hard to spot. Trust Lichess (or whatever server you play on) monitors this well, and just enjoy the game.

Cheating at beginner/intermediate levels online is just mostly a nuisance. Or not even that. I've played quite a bit of games here & on the other site and never even notice if someone appears to cheat. And the rating refund notifications are rare enough that either cheaters at these levels are not that common or are not being caught quickly. The really serious aspect of cheating is titled/serious players using engine eval for unfair advantage in prize money events or FIDE rated games. Guys at that level also know how to evade detection by using engines very sparingly. And their cheating actually impacts chess. That's where the focus should be. Not some random 800 rated guy who opened his a/c 4 days back, uses all Stockfish moves just to insult his opponent and gets banned within days.

Cheating at beginner/intermediate levels online is just mostly a nuisance. Or not even that. I've played quite a bit of games here & on the other site and never even notice if someone appears to cheat. And the rating refund notifications are rare enough that either cheaters at these levels are not that common or are not being caught quickly. The really serious aspect of cheating is titled/serious players using engine eval for unfair advantage in prize money events or FIDE rated games. Guys at that level also know how to evade detection by using engines very sparingly. And their cheating actually impacts chess. That's where the focus should be. Not some random 800 rated guy who opened his a/c 4 days back, uses all Stockfish moves just to insult his opponent and gets banned within days.

@SantoshWildlifeArt said in #4:

The really serious aspect of cheating is titled/serious players using engine eval for unfair advantage in prize money events or FIDE rated games. Guys at that level also know how to evade detection by using engines very sparingly.

First of all: this method of evading cheat detection just doesn't work, it's a myth. Secondly: especially for titled players, getting caught cheating online is a sure fire way of destroying your own reputation. See what happened to Niemann, to Petrosian and to countless others. Not only did they completely fail at evading cheat detection, they destroyed their own reputations in the process.

@SantoshWildlifeArt said in #4: > The really serious aspect of cheating is titled/serious players using engine eval for unfair advantage in prize money events or FIDE rated games. Guys at that level also know how to evade detection by using engines very sparingly. First of all: this method of evading cheat detection just doesn't work, it's a myth. Secondly: especially for titled players, getting caught cheating online is a sure fire way of destroying your own reputation. See what happened to Niemann, to Petrosian and to countless others. Not only did they completely fail at evading cheat detection, they destroyed their own reputations in the process.

@Molurus said in #6:

a list of titled players who had their accounts closed due to violations
Not sure how it works on chess-com but on lichess, "ToS violation" does not automatically mean cheating. It may just as well be rating manipulation (e.g. sandbagging in order to pose as a low rated player or to prepare a "speed run"). I would also suspect that among titled streaming players a behaviour that is technically cheating (e.g. looking into opening database or discussing next move with the audience) may not be motivated by getting an unfair advantage but rather result of lack of respect to the game and their opponent. I mean they focus on their streaming content and forget that there is an actual human being on the other side who can be taking the game more seriously than they do. While this is still wrong and should be discouraged or punished, it's IMHO obvious that it's something different than what people imagine under "cheater".

On the other hand, chess-com seems to actually support many of these forms of questionable behaviour so that the percentage of "actual cheaters" amoung accounts closed for ToS violation may be higher there than on lichess.

@Molurus said in #6: > a list of titled players who had their accounts closed due to violations Not sure how it works on chess-com but on lichess, "ToS violation" does not automatically mean cheating. It may just as well be rating manipulation (e.g. sandbagging in order to pose as a low rated player or to prepare a "speed run"). I would also suspect that among titled streaming players a behaviour that is technically cheating (e.g. looking into opening database or discussing next move with the audience) may not be motivated by getting an unfair advantage but rather result of lack of respect to the game and their opponent. I mean they focus on their streaming content and forget that there is an actual human being on the other side who can be taking the game more seriously than they do. While this is still wrong and should be discouraged or punished, it's IMHO obvious that it's something different than what people imagine under "cheater". On the other hand, chess-com seems to actually support many of these forms of questionable behaviour so that the percentage of "actual cheaters" amoung accounts closed for ToS violation may be higher there than on lichess.

@mkubecek said in #7:

Not sure how it works on chess-com but on lichess, "ToS violation" does not automatically mean cheating. It may just as well be rating manipulation (e.g. sandbagging in order to pose as a low rated player or to prepare a "speed run"). I would also suspect that among titled streaming players a behaviour that is technically cheating (e.g. looking into opening database or discussing next move with the audience) may not be motivated by getting an unfair advantage but rather result of lack of respect to the game and their opponent. I mean they focus on their streaming content and forget that there is an actual human being on the other side who can be taking the game more seriously than they do. While this is still wrong and should be discouraged or punished, it's IMHO obvious that it's something different than what people imagine under "cheater".

On the other hand, chess-com seems to actually support many of these forms of questionable behaviour so that the percentage of "actual cheaters" amoung accounts closed for ToS violation may be higher there than on lichess.

Don't think streaming a game is necessarily wrong. If they discuss it with their audience that's okay as long as they don't see or accept move suggestions from the chat. So basically a monologue without looking at chat. And the streamers I've watched don't look at openings databases when they're in the middle of the game. Not saying much since the only speedrun streamer I watch is Naroditsky and he generally behaves respectfully towards his opponent with the exception of often taking a long time to make basic opening moves since he's explaining to his audience.

@mkubecek said in #7: > Not sure how it works on chess-com but on lichess, "ToS violation" does not automatically mean cheating. It may just as well be rating manipulation (e.g. sandbagging in order to pose as a low rated player or to prepare a "speed run"). I would also suspect that among titled streaming players a behaviour that is technically cheating (e.g. looking into opening database or discussing next move with the audience) may not be motivated by getting an unfair advantage but rather result of lack of respect to the game and their opponent. I mean they focus on their streaming content and forget that there is an actual human being on the other side who can be taking the game more seriously than they do. While this is still wrong and should be discouraged or punished, it's IMHO obvious that it's something different than what people imagine under "cheater". > > On the other hand, chess-com seems to actually support many of these forms of questionable behaviour so that the percentage of "actual cheaters" amoung accounts closed for ToS violation may be higher there than on lichess. Don't think streaming a game is necessarily wrong. If they discuss it with their audience that's okay as long as they don't see or accept move suggestions from the chat. So basically a monologue without looking at chat. And the streamers I've watched don't look at openings databases when they're in the middle of the game. Not saying much since the only speedrun streamer I watch is Naroditsky and he generally behaves respectfully towards his opponent with the exception of often taking a long time to make basic opening moves since he's explaining to his audience.

@mkubecek said in #7:

Not sure how it works on chess-com but on lichess, "ToS violation" does not automatically mean cheating. It may just as well be rating manipulation (e.g. sandbagging in order to pose as a low rated player or to prepare a "speed run"). I would also suspect that among titled streaming players a behaviour that is technically cheating (e.g. looking into opening database or discussing next move with the audience) may not be motivated by getting an unfair advantage but rather result of lack of respect to the game and their opponent. I mean they focus on their streaming content and forget that there is an actual human being on the other side who can be taking the game more seriously than they do. While this is still wrong and should be discouraged or punished, it's IMHO obvious that it's something different than what people imagine under "cheater".

On the other hand, chess-com seems to actually support many of these forms of questionable behaviour so that the percentage of "actual cheaters" amoung accounts closed for ToS violation may be higher there than on lichess.

Chess com actually allows speed runs, and gives opponent refunds afterwards. Only condition is that you communicate openly about it with chess com. Lichess does no such thing to my knowledge.

And the label 'closed:fair_play_violations' seems rather unambiguous. Those are all cheats.

@mkubecek said in #7: > Not sure how it works on chess-com but on lichess, "ToS violation" does not automatically mean cheating. It may just as well be rating manipulation (e.g. sandbagging in order to pose as a low rated player or to prepare a "speed run"). I would also suspect that among titled streaming players a behaviour that is technically cheating (e.g. looking into opening database or discussing next move with the audience) may not be motivated by getting an unfair advantage but rather result of lack of respect to the game and their opponent. I mean they focus on their streaming content and forget that there is an actual human being on the other side who can be taking the game more seriously than they do. While this is still wrong and should be discouraged or punished, it's IMHO obvious that it's something different than what people imagine under "cheater". > > On the other hand, chess-com seems to actually support many of these forms of questionable behaviour so that the percentage of "actual cheaters" amoung accounts closed for ToS violation may be higher there than on lichess. Chess com actually allows speed runs, and gives opponent refunds afterwards. Only condition is that you communicate openly about it with chess com. Lichess does no such thing to my knowledge. And the label 'closed:fair_play_violations' seems rather unambiguous. Those are all cheats.

If a lower rated player plays an entire game as if he has 1000 points more I largely don't mind and I agree with the article's "who cares".

Although, if that happens in a tournament, it's also tilting.

If I play a nice game, get a winning advantage and get denied the win because my opponent then starts to defend with "computer-like" precision, I find that largely detracts from the fun of playing chess. There is no learning experience since I will never reach the level where I can compete with engines.

In my paranoid brain, I feel this happens way too often.

If a lower rated player plays an entire game as if he has 1000 points more I largely don't mind and I agree with the article's "who cares". Although, if that happens in a tournament, it's also tilting. If I play a nice game, get a winning advantage and get denied the win because my opponent then starts to defend with "computer-like" precision, I find that largely detracts from the fun of playing chess. There is no learning experience since I will never reach the level where I can compete with engines. In my paranoid brain, I feel this happens way too often.