I remember one of my first games on chess.com. The member was lowly rated 1300 something.  Although my rating then was also still fairly unaccurate this member played with fast and calculated moves that made me comment in a complimentary way on her aggresive style of playing. 

After enjoying this site for the past two weeks, putting in some hours every evening and perhaps bite off more games than I could chew, I reflected a little over my progress. My rating has from the initial large variances now stabilise although lower than I would have loved to think I am worth. I lost and win about 50% games against under 1200 and above 1600 players. for the 34 odd games played.

That first game then came to mind as one I particularly remember. Perhaps time to challenge the player? I feel more confident certainly. The member is on vacation, permanent vacation it seems. I had a little look at her(?) stats.

In the 8 days on this site the member has played 21 straight winning games that took the ratings up to over 1990. There is 5 or so current games all on hold (vacation). The member deleted all the archived games (getting rid off the evidence?)

One will never be able to say that you were cheated on a site. The only way perhaps is to look at a player's profile and stats and come to the conclusion this is too good to be true.

In hindsight I realise I was to quick to jump to a conclusion and a re visited to the game exposed some embarrassing play on my side. Although it needed some comments to my post to point this out to me.

My first goal when starting out was to obtain an as accurate rating as possible to help me understand my strenght and using that as a base line for measuring my future planned gradual improvements. In this regard cheats does not bother me.

Lesson learnt: To play with a negative mind would take away all the enjoyment in playing on this site.

 

Sorry to burst your bubble fellah, but I found the game you refer to, and it looks unlikely that any cheating took place. You played poorly leaving obvious replies for your opponent.

I think you're probably joining dots that aren't really there. Point is, this person was probably just good.

The only way perhaps is to look at a player's profile and stats and come to the conclusion this is too good to be true.

 

I think that method is unreliable, because I know several intermediate and strong players here with very few losses. I think undetected cheating here is not a big problem because the chess.com team is good at expelling bad apples, and even on other sites I encounter cheaters in less than 1 out of 100 games.

Thanks for the above comments.

Being new to on line chess I quickly realise that to chase possible cheaters would take away from the enjoyment of the on line game.

I have change my post to this effect rather than to excuse my bad play for cheating.

"In hindsight I realise I was to quick to jump to a conclusion and a re visited to the game exposed some embarrassing play on my side. Although it needed some comments to my post to point this out to me."

Remember that you have a goal to improve yourself. If they use cheating software, then it is to your advantage, because you will improve and they won't. I realize i sound a little cliche, but they are cliches for a reason.

I would not just look at the total wins and come to a conclusion that one is a cheat. Some of the best, like billwall, probably could win quite a few against starters to mid-level players without losing. The other person has an opponent rating in only 1500s. He could be a really good player.

From my brief experience of playing here, about 30-50% of the wins could come from opponents timing out. So that could also be a factor.

Play as many rated games as possible and the true rating will be calculated.  And play when you're relaxed because presence of mind is important. 

Just play against them! I think they'll get bored of cheating and play once for real. When that time comes beat the hell out of them... 

Most likely you were a victim of a noob shooter. That's the kind of player that sits on the invites page waiting for a player with 1200 on his first game. 9 times out of 10, you lose your first game here unless you are a trained player. Bad sportsmaship it is, but cheating it is not.

I have played for awhile on Chess.com and like the site and the players. Does cheating occur ? Yes it does , but I think the number of people who do it is a small percentage. One person whom I played admitted to me that a computer had been making his moves. He then left the site. I prefer to make my own moves and mistakes...