It seems like every day that someone I am facing in a tournament or team match on chess.com has their account deleted for cheating. They are players of all different ratings, but are usually at their peak rating at the time of their account closing. Sometimes they have tons of games, sometimes almost none, maybe only ten or twenty.
I am currently at my peak rating, and going up. I often go on vacation because of things like going back to school, and needing a break from chess because of that. What if one day, I come online, and see that I have been banned for cheating--mistakenly, of course--what do I do? Is the method for finding cheaters really so good that they don't make mistakes? How does chess.com confirm a cheater? Is it possible to un-ban an account? I am curious, does anyone know how banning and cheating detection really works?

-V

[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 - Moderator]

They won't tell you what methods are used --- and rightfully so.  If they tell how they do it, then the cheats will find a way to avoid detection.

I used to share your concern VV.  When I joined I was getting quite good results initially, even hitting an amazing rating of 2300ish, due to a lot of good luck with tough opponents losing on time and me performing well with others.  I had the same concern as well because I analyse every game I play (after completion of course) and found that I hit a lot of "computer best move"'s and "computer second best move"'s...(and every now and then I pull a total game-losing clanger... I'm not trying to brag here) which made me worry about the cheat-detection methods.

After several years, I am now convinced that the cheat-detection methods MUST be accurate enough to have very few false positives.

What does a cheat look like?

Very low loss percentage, reasonably new player hitting the 2500+ rating mark... beyond that, I have no idea how they do it, but I am confident they do a damned good job!

I'm glad to hear your feedback, it's good to know that the system probably works. They must have it down to a science :)