I have been following cheater_1's postings and have been entertained.  During a conversation with my brother, he came up with the crazy idea, "suppose cheater_1 and erik are the same person."  Thus, I had to post this statement to see everyone response.

I think someone has thought of this before. I doubt it, and Erik has denied it.

Yeah this theory has been posted before.  Although I cannot prove it I can say I'm pretty sure erik and cheater_1 are not the same person.  Reason being that I've seen them make forum posts within one or two seconds of eachother. 

Maybe he has 2 computers...

I agree with Feldmm1, but it did get me thinking.

A lot of people look out for posts from C1 and he certainly draws a lot of attention to himself.  In many ways it could be argues that this is exactly the sort of behaviour that the creators of this site would like to encourage.  He is non offensive, sometimes interesting and sometimes witty, but always infuriating, at least to a certain group of people, who take the bait every time.

It's a bit like WWF, you need a bad guy for people to hate, it keeps them interested! 

So although I don't think it is Erik, I think he would be delighted to have C1 around as his contributions help keep the punters coming back.  He is, almost as valuable a contributor as Batgirl, Rael and others who make this more than just a chess website, but an interesting place to come and wile away some time either learning or even just flicking around the forums to see all the little gems that are always popping up.