You could gain all the benfits from using your engine if you studied the game you played AFTER it was over. That way you could examine where you went wrong, find stronger moves, check out side line variations all without screwing over your opponent who logged on the play a human being.
The only problem is all that might take a bit of WORK, and you might just learn something in the process! Heaven forbid!
Said that to him already, but he took no heed.
What are the effects for someone playing against the cheater? They lose the game. If they don’t know the person is using an engine is it any different then losing any other game? If they analyze the game they would learn just as much as any game.
Everyone here has chess engines on their home computer, if they don't they can quickly have them with many strong open source engines, and several even stronger commercial engines.
If i'm paying for a site that is largely to improve my chess via a good playing environment, then if I end up just playing games against computers, it's worthless. I can do that at home, and get the same benefit. That's the harm.
Sure, chess.com offers more than just turn based and live chess, but turn based chess is still a big part of its core competence. Cheating hurts this.
Fuze22, unless I badly miss my guess you are NOT a "real" chessplayer by the definition I gave. Please inform us of your "chess credentials" if you have any and do you consider yourself as a real and/or serious chessplayer ? To suggest that people should play "advanced chess" as a way to improve makes no sense, because the weaker players dont have enough chess understanding to get anything out of using a computer ( it cannot explain to them why their suggested move is good or bad only give a numerical evaluation) and the stronger players understand that the program is much stronger and even though they may have enough understanding to suggest a reasonable alternative and then watch the comp's numerical evaluation ( again with no explanation ) the comps top pick ( candidate move) is gonna be the better than their suggestion 99% of the time so they are simply likely to just go with that move. The result ? In both cases you are simply going to have a game between player A's computer vs player B's computer. In the end neither human is really playing chess, their computer is ! Perhaps you also believe in math students are allowed to use calculators during important exams they will learn something more about math ?
I dont believe in "real anything". I am a chess player. I dont cheat. I am always trying to improve. What suggested that I did not fit your definition? I dont have any credentials that I think you would find worth anything. I started to take chess seriously in high school. I joined the chess club and became the president of it. Since then I have only played on-line and at chess clubs in various cities. I would love to take part in USCF tournaments but I dont have the time nor can I travel to the different tournaments. My chess career is probably nothing compared to yours. Compared to you then I guess I am not a real chess player. All of my friends consider me a serious chess player. The difference between me and them is similar to me and you. If I asked them If I was a real chess player they would probably ask what is a real chess player. Even my friends who do play chess and even though I am considerably better then them I dont think they are any less of a chess player. When you use the word serious then that actually has meaning to me. Anyways I have surrendered my credentials. I am not sure of the point of my credentials. even If I was a GM that should not suddenly make people think differently of what I have said.
You have made some good points about "advanced chess". I honestly don't know how much one can improve from it. I have never tried it, but obviously want to. From what you have said and until I can actually try it I will have to agree that you will only learn as much as studying any position. Thus this questions the point of even playing when you could learn in equal or better ways. But I still stand by my point that the negative sides effects of cheating on this site are not as bad as many seam to think. The fact that you can learn from "advanced chess" means that people who cheat can learn just as well. and so on and so on with what I have already said regarding the side-effects.
Even If I am right about the side effects being not as great as is suggested it ultimately does not matter. I am tiered of reiterating my point and being insulted and accused of cheating. I guess I have said all I can say about the side-effects.
I have not said you are a cheater, indeed I do not know. I have said that IF you are I wouldnt be surprised and the reason I feel this way is mainly due to the opinions you hold concerning computer assisted play. I use a computer after otb tournies I play in to examine my losses. What I find is that I very often overlook better moves than what I chose in the game, especially in complicated tactical positions. This often turns a win into a draw or even a loss. What do I learn from the computer though ? Only that I am far weaker than it in tactical positions in particular and chess in general. It never explains anything to me so I dont "understand more" than I did before. I do understand to help lessen the problem I have to work on tactics and solve tactical problems more.... the comp does help me to see that I overlook better moves quite often and so do my opponents! However, to actually improve I still must do serious work so that I dont continue making the same type of typical oversights. The computer cannot do this work for me and it cant even assign me some homework/problems that will help eliminate the weakness. This is where books ( even better a trainer/coach) comes in . If computers helped as much as some people seem to think they do/can then there would be many more GMs than there are I believe. Why not ?
Reb, suggesting that somebody is probably a cheater is still quite offensive. If I said "oh reb, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if he was hiding behind a computer" would you not be upset? IMO, those kind of beliefs should be kept to yourself.
Outside of that reb, I would like to commend you on the quality of your posts. You give good, solid, well thought out reasons of WHY NOT to cheat. You may have misinterprited my first post though, what I was complimenting fuze was for his inquisitive mind.
Rainbow rising:
"Fuze ive been nice, but your an idiot."
"Apparently, fuse disagrees. Glad that most people are like you and have some sense."
"My guess is Fuze cheats."
"Fuse you are actually an idiot. I can't believe the crap you are coming out with lol."
"MORALS. Some of us have them."
So basically what you've done is ignored my first posts, and then cut and pasted some lines, which are out of context, in an attempt to prove your point. What a joke.
In what context are any of those quotes appropriate?
The context they were written in. Did you bother to read the 4 pages?
Please keep the forum thread friendly and without the insults :)
You have made some good points about "advanced chess". I honestly don't know how much one can improve from it. I have never tried it, but obviously want to. From what you have said and until I can actually try it I will have to agree that you will only learn as much as studying any position.
It is very odd how strongly people are attacking the original poster for posing a controversial question. In the chess arena there has long been that saying that you play a board not a player. I wonder that so many fail to extrapolate from that and attack the question if you think it must be attacked and not attack the questioner? There is a huge paranoia here about cheating that is blinding people to the fact that the person who started this thread has only posited an interesting proposition and asked who agreed or did not and why and why not.
I do not happen to agree that computer assistance or so-called 'cheating' can be harmless, but that does not lead me to attack the questioner as a cheater himself just because he says he cannot see the same harm.
I will address this via the issue of Advanced Chess which so many seem to misunderstand here. The whole idea was first broached by Garry Kasparov whom I for one would be loathe to call an idiot or a cheat or lacking in morals because it is a form of chess that has a human using a computer while playing chess.
The reason I think that the first poster is off base is that I think that for something like Advanced Chess to work and improve a player or lead to a good game or as Kasparov wants it to improve the level of chess as a game itself, is that it takes a truly advanced and experienced player to benefit from it in a way that a lesser player or beginner could not. What I mean is that from what I understand of Advanced Chess - the human and the computer are partners, a dynamic pair playing another similar dynamic pair. It is the combination of computer and advanced human mind that work together.
To answer the original poster's question then - that just cannot happen with a lesser player. Lesser players will only be led by a computer. Their playing will be formed by it and they will become the creature or slave of the computer not its partner. That is why I think it is dangerous for development of a young or new or inexperienced player to resort to computers for advice or assessments of their play before they have learned how to 'think' chess properly. That is the harm I can see if you use computers to 'cheat' or help you if you are playing chess online outside the arena of true Advanced Chess.
I dont know why you would be loathe to call Kasparov a cheat since he was actually video taped cheating against Polgar ? He took a move back, its clear to see on the tape.
We have to stop the cheat
I just find it curious that someone here can have a rating 800 points higher than their otb and yet I cant
Reb, from a NM, I was expecting more insight than this...
You should know very well that getting points on this site is WAY easier than in any FIDE/USCF tournament. I am mostly talking about the fact that here on chess.com, you can beat a player who is way lower than you in ELO and still get a good amount of points (which doesn't make any sense to me!).
If you steadily play (and win) against players rated way lower than you, you will steadily increase your ELO. Note: I am not suggesting this is fun - actually, I am here to learn, so I'd rather challenge and lose against a higher rated opponent than win against a lower rated one - I just noticed this because I have several friends who are lower rated than me, and I never refuse their challenges.
My 2 cents, against the "your OTB rating is much lower than your chess.com rating, so you must be cheating" mantra...
Feel free to play advanced chess, just make sure it's unrated and both sides know what type of game they're playing.
I don't see what the argument is... those are the rules, if you don't like them then don't play.
Said that to him already! He doesn't agree.
You say using an engine doesn't ruin the other players fun but unfortunately for you that isn't for you to say. Fun is opinion based. And I for one do not enjoy playing computers. Part of what makes playing people at your skill level fun is finding the opponents mistakes and exploiting them. Someone around my rating make mistakes I can find. Someone using an engine doesn't.
By definition, cheating is lying.
Justified lying is only allowable under a utilitarian ethics system (which is what the OP has paraphrased for us). However, the lie told must benefit the greater good if it is to be justified. This means the teller of the lie (the cheater) must accurately estimate the benefit and detriment.
Since the cheater cannot accurately estimate the effect his cheating will have on an opponent, he is unable to justify his lie even under the utilitarian school of ethics.
And lets stop confusing the issue by using computer assistance and cheating interchangably. If two people agree to computer assistance in their game, it is not cheating because no rules are being broken. Cheating occurs when ONE person uses computer assistance without informing the other.
Clouding the topic by entertwining the two situations seems disingenuous.
By definition cheating is violating the rules. If the rules allow for lying, it is not cheating.
Other than that newspooky, John Stuart Mill would be proud of you.
Psst, this just in: Internet chess rating is just like play money at internet poker.
Fuse:
So it seems most people agree with me that computer-assisted human v. unassisted human is cheating unless both sides agree to that arrangement.
As to your question about two people agreeing to use computers against each other, that seems perfectly fine, although a bit strange. I think there is more educational value (and enjoyment value) in simply playing human v. human and then doing a post-game computer analysis then there is in two hacks pitting their computers against each other (regardless of whether they play their own moves now and then).
I agree with JD_Hall they should be banned, but for life.
cheating is cheating how small does not matter. chess sets standards its a game of respect.