Can you tell if a player is using a db / chess program?

No. That is very, very wrong. You can  have HUGE disparities between blitz and standard ratings. When I played OTB chess in the 80's there were people who were 1800 ELO at standard times and they couldn't get about 1100 ELO at blitz to save their skin. Blitz just drives some strong players up the wall; they hate it. Other players use blitz to try out all their dodgy opening experimenments and accept as a fait accompli that their blitz rating will never increase. Other players have certain aspects of clock management that are desirable in standard chess - pausing for a few minutes in a winning position  is an example - but in blitz such an approach is sure to lose.

Yes, most players I know (including myself!) are about 300-500 points apart in their Blitz/Online ratings.  Blitz & Bullet are entirely different games compared to Online Chess, which is essentially correspondence style.  However, I don't know anyone whose Blitz rating is higher than their Online rating.

Click on "help" on the program top bar.

This is more a morals argument, near as I can tell. I have a friend who says he can tell.

I played my little brother and realized he was making moves some four and five steps ahead of anything he has ever done over the board, so I asked him what his computer was "rating" me at. (a bluff)

He came back and said 2900.

Horse feathers. He was using a really wimp software, because I am NOT that good...

d=^))

but then, now that I know?

No more games by e-mail.

I say it like a dozen different ways.

It's like after the plane takes off, the pilot invites you up to see the cockpit, and he shows you how to do a few things.

Then he asks if you want to fly the plane for a while.

Those who use chess programs easily will say "SURE!" and fly the plane into a mountain.

Those who memorize books will never actually appreciate the game for what it is.

It's probably a case of learning how to lose gracefully and then how to study so one doesn't get caught snoozing, again. Capablanca wrote something like this:

"Never leave a move unplayed for fear of losing. When you think a move is good, it's best to play it no matter what the outcome."

Personally, I think that sounds like "have fun and enjoy the game"

I use it on impossible computer with my other account and didn't get banned

I use Online chess to practice for OTB chess.  Since I cannot use opening books, databases and computers in OTB play, using them during practice only hurts me for OTB when I do not have the "crutch."

I only started playing Online a few weeks ago and have not yet stabilized on a rating, but in perhaps 12 games so far I have yet to find anyone I believe is cheating with an engine.  In addition, most openings have rapidly deviated from what I remember as "main lines".  Ratings here mean little except to (hopefully) match players of comparable strength in order to make up a good game for both.

There are two ways to look at the game.  A great football coach in the U.S. once said "...winning isn't the main thing, it's the only thing!"  In that case, cheat and enjoy your worthless rating.  The other way is how most of us were taught as kids: "It's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game."  I learn more from a loss than from a win.

Of course through intuition a very good player can feel the opponent's mind right through the squares and pieces it's constant you're aware of him or her and he or she is aware of you in an OTB or live game online.

A computer has a unique presence a dark force raw mechanical unhuman it's not the same at all it's distinguishable.

Actually using a database can help improve your OTB game.  Instant feedback when you make a mistake is an efficient way to learn from the mistake.  You should not go to the database until you have made an independent  analysis of the position.  Once you have chosen what you consider your best candidate, then go to the data base and see how your move fares.  If it does not do well in practise look at some of the games played by top players against your move and see if you can spot why it is weak.  I would look at the main line and study games by strong players and see if you can figure out why that move is stronger than yours.    If you can't convince your self that the main line is better than your move, then go ahead and play your move.  Two things will happen, either you will get a playable game or you will learn something.   This type of work and research can only increase your knowledge of the position and chess in general, therefore improving your OTB game.  

That is cheating if you use an engine or database during active online play.  Once you make an online move, then engage a chess engine during an ongoing game, you have the advantage of seeing alternate strong (if not the best according to your engine) lines and the resulting variations ahead of time.  It also suggests the next move which may still be viable in the position after your chosen "waiting" move.  I can't find the rules here at chess.com (since I'm logged in) but I recall that use of such crutches is not legal for online play and results in being banned from the site.

There is no question that you learn something from that process.  The question is: is it fair to your opponent who is not using an engine.  Instant feedback is little different from playing off-line against your own computer.

Perhaps I misread @blake78613's reply to mean that it is a valuable way to study completed games.  There is no question there, and virtually every coach will say that post-play study of your own games is the single best way to learn to avoid your biggest weaknesses.

It is hard to find the rules.  Here is the link:http://support.chess.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/13/3/what-are-the-rules-for-playing

Thanks, @blake78613.  My rules are self-imposed then I guess.  I use online chess for practice and training in OTB tournament conditions, so for me it's no outside help that would not be available in a tournament.  Just part of my own self-discipline and study track.  The best part of that is that my online rating will arguably be more realistic than those against who I play, if somewhat lower.

I do pick an opening or two to follow, but I don't memorize lines.  I'm still too busy working through the basics, strategy, tactics, endgames, etc. to invest time in trying to remember 10 moves into some obscure branch of the Sicilian.  I may crack my MCO15 to start a game one of these days.  However during post game analysis (I use Fritz 13), the opening lines are usually abandoned very early by either me or my opponent (which verifies to me that (s)he isn't cheating).

while it is allowed by the rules (mostly because its difficult to police) i still find it a lame way to play.

Often people will just follow mainline moves, which in some of my lines im 100% sure no one would have memorised.

I want to see what type of moves people will play using their own knowledge of the game, as these are the moves people will play OTB, not 20 moves of mainline.

Since the ratings on chess.com are relatively meaningless in relation to USCF or FIDE ratings, and since I need the practice of not being able to use MCO at a tournament, I'll continue to muddle through using my own resources and not those of other players.  Thanks, @Fear_Itself.  I thought I was alone out here.

Personal preference, @Moses2792796.  It forces me to noodle my way through the openings in OTB play where I don't have access to a database.  If I become dependent upon opening book lines and don't begin playing until the middlegame, I don't feel I'm being pushed enough on openings.

I learn the same things after the game when I run the game through Fritz, look at the ECO code and then try to learn from the book lines.  Same thing, really, except that I'm adding the challenge of the opening from the first move rather than eliminating it.  I do use opening books, but not to eliminate bad lines before I play.  I'm not losing anything, but I feel I am gaining something by eliminating the crutch.

I guess one mans crutch is another man's useful learning tool. Using a database won't make you dependant on it, if you don't turn to it until you have done an independent analysis.  

By the way you do have access to free on line data bases.  The data base at chesslab.com is very good: http://www.chesslab.com/PositionSearch.html

Somewhat useful is the opening data base on Shredder.com:

http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/opening-database.html

Analysing with Fritz is not the same as following how a Grandmaster plays a position, because Fritz has a very crude concept of positional play and no game plan at all.

Your Fritz 13 has a database which you can keep up to date by adding games from the week in chess: 

http://www.theweekinchess.com/

However using Fritz during games is tricky.  It is just too easy to accidental having the engine running which forces you to resign the game (been there done that)

And perhaps that's a reason that the chess.com "ratings" are relatively meaningless.  I agree that using an engine (which uses databases) or using a database online during after-game analysis is a learning tool.  But I do not agree that use of a database to actively plan and select moves during an active game is exactly "fair."  It may be "legal" but what good does that do if you find a position and have immediate knowledge of GM moves going from that position, even if you have waited until after you move to consult the database.  Some moves are "forced" in a given position, so you make the move, consult a positional database and learn the winning endgame sequence before you have to "study" your next move.

Sorry, that's not my idea of a fair game, and if that's how people are playing online games here, I'll move on.  Thanks for enlightening me.

If I must use databases and computer assistance to be competitive at my playing level (pathethic as it is), I don't think that's what I need to improve.  I haven't been here on chess.com all that long and had considered a membership.  I'm glad I waited a while.  To say I'm disappointed is an understatement.  But rules are rules and I suspect the allowance is, as someone said elsewhere, made because it is virtually impossible to monitor and enforce unaided correspondence play.  It just isn't what I'm looking for.  Thanks for the head's up.

Following the db in on-line openings has made it easier for me to get out of the opening alive otb.

The ability to consult databases and books has always been a part of Correspondence play.  The reason is not so much because of monitoring problems, but because otherwise you couldn't study chess while you had a pending Correspondence game.

its not really unthinkable. When I played the sveshnikov I got many games that went very far into theory and reached 24 moves once. But moves in the sveshnikov arnt that hard to find for both sides, as theyre kinda forcing.