FYI - we don't make it publicly known, but each day we close accounts for cheating. we don't disclose exact methods, but we are getting better and better at detecting.
that said, i agree with most the posts here that less than 0.5% of people are cheating and that most people are basically good people and are here to play a good game. i have only felt like 1 person cheated while playing me and i looked into it and they had, so i closed their account. but overall, it's minimal and we do a quiet job of closing accounts of those who cheat to help keep chess.com a great place to enjoy chess.
lol, somebody was actually stupid enough to cheat against you erik?
yes - and what is more funny is that he then went to the forums and bragged about it. total idiot.
Ok...thanks for the reply.
LoL.. I cant even imagine what Erik would be thinking then :D..
I have to say that it is a very bad rule: you cannot prove BEYOND ANY DOUBT that someone used a program during the game.
Mandelshtam
I would like to point out that this place is not a democracy. If Eric et. al. decide that a person will be banned for suspected engine use they can. It is their site. It does not have to be beyond any doubt or beyond reasonable doubt.
Eric and crew have a great place here for us to play the game that we love. Pick someone with a similar rating to you and you should be fine. Sure there are going to be "cheaters" but lets let the Chess.com team deal with that with minimal criticism.
(please note that I have only read the first page of this thread)
I hope mandelshtam does not leave the site. I learned what may amount to a refutation of the Budapest Gambit from him, and I'd be interested in his further insights on other openings - such as the Albin Counter Gambit (d4 d5 c4 e5).
I would like to add that when I played two games against mandelshtam in the final round of a tournament, that he was most definitely not using a program, and was quite a strong player. The game I had as black should have been a draw, but he missed the single drawing line in a king and pawn ending.
... come to think of it, maybe that key position should be added to the Tactics Trainer ...
you probably dont get what I mean but I am NOT cheating.
What are you talking about? I cant even find a program that could make a move for me!
Anyway,
I do want that mandelshtam gets banned, or else he is already banned.
One thing: Why use computer moves? Just train on another program which DOES NOT give you moves for another game. I do that. I have got half a million(a quarter of a million) chess programs that train your chess mind.
By Kayton and I hope you agree with me!
Leave mandelshtam alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think a suspended sentence should do! :D
As an aside here (staff... a suggestion) I think that it would be wonderful to offer Rybka, Shredder, Fritz, Crafty, and all the other top-level programs available on this site, to analyze games, or to study. It was GM Shabalov who in Chess Life described the lab of a serious professional player (such as himself). It looks like this.
Have a dedicated high performance computer (no access for the kids) on which you have loaded all the top programs. When a position comes up (for example during opening preparation), have the computers play a round robin tournament overnight, and review the analysis in the morning. Over breakfast, with good black coffee, and an egg with some toast and bacon. Maybe a glass of OJ as well. If this was offered as an a la carte premium service, along with a vastly expanded opening DB, I for one would pay a subscription fee.
I take offense to that. Are you implying that using a computer would make me dumber?
What makes sense, and is fair, is to disqualify mandelshtam from any tournaments in which he unfairly profited from using a computer. I'm sure that chess.com staff has thought through the sanction problem and is a fair and unbiased bunch of admins.
i also belive that his acc should be erased, but that doesn't stop him to make a new one and start again i mean what really matter its to play good chess games and i also think it would be a waste to lose a player like him since even with out a chess enginee he's a strong player
atomicchicken: good luck being such a hard liner when you create your own website.
gumpty: right. :-)
Actually if I ever show up on the candidate cheater list, I'm 100% sure that any investigations will completely exonerate me, on account of my numerous inaccuracies and sometimes outright blunders in turn-based, in live chess quick and blitz.
But I am proud of my 1000th Quick victory. Thing is, in order to be good at quick, you've got to be capable of winning on the board and on the clock. It's a difficult task.
I think the simplest way to find whether a person is cheating is to observe the playing style, not his score. I think the playing style of a human and that of a computer will be vastly different. A computer will decide on moves based on material and positional evaluation - thus basically it cannot think of traps, strategy, sacrifices (unless it gives immediate tangible gain) etc. A computer cannot scheme traps like Lasker, Morphy. Human players give sometimes weak psychological moves so that if the opponent gives the obvious response, he/she loses. I can bet no computer will come up with the Lasker Trap! The computer will never suggest weak moves with the hope the opponent will fall into a trap!
My view is that in the world of cheaters the number that know exactly what they are doing vastly outnumber the ignorant types, such as mandelshtam in this case.
If it were up to me, I'd find a way to automate the process, having less direct human involvement. I wonder if there's an interesting way of publicing the audit process. I'm thinking out loud here:
Let's say that if you go 20 moves without making any inaccuracies or blunders that you are "up for audit". Then, some member of the staff talks to you a bit about why you did this move, or that move, or whatever. If you pass, you get a gold star. If these gold stars were public, it would be like a badge of honor, to have gone through what amounts almost to a pseudo-lesson.