Cheaters

 I think that the biggest downside to playing chess online is that people can cheat!

[The site's policy is to limit discussion about cheating to the Cheating Forum.  http://www.chess.com/groups/view/cheating-forum. More information in the FAQ  http://support.chess.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/124/0/cheaters--cheating-what-you-need-to-know. If you think someone cheated, click on "Help & Support" at the bottom of the page, then on "Contact Support" and select the "Report Suspected Cheating" category. Moderator]

Yes. It is a very bad feeling to have when you suspect someone else is cheating online. But as the people before me have posted it is better just to move on and even to analyze the game to see the mistakes that you made against a player who may have used Chessmaster to play against you. Its still possible that someone could play the exact same moves that your opponent did when he cheated because they are very good and legitimate moves. But if you want to get better you will want to analyze every game you play one move at a time asking yourself the questions:

1. What was my reasoning behind this move?

2. What was my opponents reasoning behind his move?

3. Were there better moves that I could have tried instead of the one I actually did?

We are all going to suffer many defeats and its absolutely neccessary to analyze our games if we hope to become any better.

 actually, tic tac toe is my forte..once i master that then i'll try my hand at the other two.

 nine times out of ten cheaters will ask for my advice on what their next move should be. the rest of the time cheaters will mimic their opp. moves in a game against chess software which is basically just the same as asking moi.

Hi all,

     I agree 100% with what ayjarak said.  The only difference I would add is that it is unfortunate for the honest players who learn through mistakes but have their ratings affected by those who take "the easy way out".  Play unrated, remove competitive instinct, and lobby for a way to play nonrated tourneys to encourage non-competitive competition (oxymoron?).

     That's my 2 cents.

     Grim
 

Wow, finally a thread about cheating which brings something new and interesting to the table that the other 239852343 didn't!  Hooray

sarcasm

Sharukin, 

If you know ahead of time that someone WANTS to lose a game...it doesn't necessarily mean they WILL lose...you could make a few blunders anticipating him making blunders and overcompensate or something...

Of course, there's the "that was easy" mentality.  People who play other people knowing that they want to lose get used to having "easy" games...

 And then there's the issue of rated games.  If someone is deliberately losing rated games, it makes your rating go up...perhaps if (like me) you were a mediocre player just under tournament eligibility, the people deliberately losing would put me unfairly into tourney eligibility.

So no, I don't think people should play to lose.  I don't see the point.  And no, you shouldn't play them...unless it's unrated and you are laughing the whole time.

Grim 

 Why would you or anyone want to ? 

One way to avoid cheaters is to look at the number of games lost if it is very low, then be suspicious about  him/her, except the person is a FM or GM.