A tough decision to make...
As most of who follow or sub to my twitch, and have followed my announcements here in my club know, Cheating has been an epidemic of sorts on chess.com. 100,000 accounts are banned on chess.com monthly. As well as another 100,000 accounts are banned per month for abuse. I love chess.com and I love the app. Love the lessons, the puzzles, the master class videos, insights, absolutely all of it. The cheating however is a constant battle, I do the best I can in the live arena's I run 5 times a week to give followers & subs of my twitch, members of this club, and chess.com players that play in my arena's solid fun content in livestream, hosted with sports commentary arena's.
I do face flak for it, since I do report players that are suspect that play in my arena's 5 nights a week. I want to provide a fun environment with a fair play field, that everyone will enjoy. So I try to do the best I can, while growing my twitch account, and hopefully providing a service to those who follow and sub to my channel that they enjoy. As well as chess.com players that actually play in my arena's. That is why I make the arena's, send out the notifications, put the effort into twitch, as well as youtube to promote chess, the community and fairplay.
As most of you know, there has been over 25 accounts that have come in over 2000 elo that have been banned on chess.com since June 2024 that have played in my livestream arena's. The accounts that are normal elo players range in about 5 or 6 a week that get banned. We have seen 10 accounts banned for cheating in this club as well. 6 of which played in our inhouse club tournaments, 4 gaining medals in those events preventing legit players the opportunity, to do well in those fun commradery building inhouse club events. Granted I would assume roughly half of those banned for cheating were not reported by myself or fellow twitch followers, or even club members. Since I didn't even realize that they were cheating. One of which was banned during my prize events, and he won three 1 month diamond memberships to chess.com that I paid for.
It is daunting and it does cause undue stress on myself, as well as messages from players that were reported or banned, giving me flak for even reporting them to chess.com. Some of those interactions last weeks or more. Some of those players will come into my twitch livestream, all though most but not all are respectful, as they continue to play in my arena's. Some make new accounts and just show up constantly in the arena's since they have yet to be banned and dominate the arena's because they can. Pretty much I have to grin and bare it.
Recently this type of situation took a slightly different outcome. As you know I let every one know that suspect player accounts will be reported, as well as ask players that play in my areana's to report players if they truely believe that their opponent is not playing fair. I place it in the chat tab of each arena that I run. I don't know how many check the chat tab of those arena's but I do put it there for every arena.
With New character accounts, having a provision bonus, there has been a mass amount of players abusing and exploiting this generous bonus to make 2000 to 2400 elo in a matter a minutes, hours, days. Higher level players play in these rated arena's giving those exploiting and abusing the provisional rating system, to jump up to expert or master level in a matter of a few hours or days. Infact the video I put up on youtube shows that it takes only one game to achieve. That is a problem, that is a huge issue.
https://studio.youtube.com/video/F_eAoiQC1cY/edit
It gives those that cheat, exploit and abuse it a free pass since they can do this tactic in every time control and just dominate other unsuspecting legit players in rated arena's and swiss tournaments, as well as then come in to unrated arena's and swiss tournaments and dominate them nightly. most titled players do not see this, since they do not play in normal rated and unrated tournaments with the normal player base which includes 95% of all chess.com players that play in these tournaments.
Chessbrah on youtube a couple of weeks ago experienced it first hand when he played in a follower subscriber of his channel tournament that they asked him to play in. I suggest to everyone to check that video out. He is a Canadian GM and was completely surprised by what he encountered during that tournament, that he ran for his followers. Also, the last minute of that video is EPIC! The titled players do not see this stuff on a normal basis, but the normal playerbase does.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDKWXSUjrYU
So why am I writing this...
A couple of months ago a new account played in my arena, already over master level and I reported him. He took offense, since I reported him on live stream. Now granted, I have had multiple players who have been reported for suspect play in my arena's and have taken offense. Even though it is in the chat tab of my arena's and I talk about it before every arena starts. He was offended, and upset, and this discussion in private messages lasted about a week. Of course he stated he was a titled player, he came into help our arena's to get reps against really good players, and he lost his passwords for chess.com and has been playing on lichess for years. I was very respectful and let him know my history in chess, and I even asked him to check with chess.com to get his titles back if that was indeed the case. Also if a titled player wanted to help in what I am trying to provide, why would they come in on a brand new account or an alt account. If a titled player wanted to really help by playing in my livestream arena's wouldn't they come in with there titled account, and mass amounts of people would come in to play them. They would.
So this lasted about a week, and I had three others that were basically repeating the same thing. All three of those players were eventually banned for cheating. But this account was not. I was done with responding and he was as well and it looked to be done respectively. Then I got a one sentence message from alan that runs the Tigard Oregon Chess Club. Who is 100percentdirty, he is making absurd claims about you? So I wrote the guy the following message and here is his reply:
I know chess asylum personally, in real life, he runs a really strong chess club and we played them in July. He is a Uscf TD, I sent him this whole correspondence between you and myself. Since he let me know that you are making absurd accusations out of the blue. Please stop. Thank You!
U are a liar…and fake shallow person..who only cares about himself…u accused me of cheating disparaged me….and for a full week talked trash… u know nothing about chess…so stop pretending u do…and u wonder why no one joins your club.
I blocked him and reported him for harrassment. Which the chess.com team got back to me and said they had made a decision on it and it was handled.
So now the twist...
I played Nick Raptis on the 2 Sundays before I got sick with covid on Sept 4th. Just met him. I got smoked. Did a little better on the second Sunday. He made a comment when the 1800 drew him, that Sunday. You beat him and I said yea. He was shocked. I got sick and was out in real life 9 and a half weeks. I missed the $1000.00 open on September 29th where Nick and Steven Breckinridge both FIDE Masters drew for the prize money. I wanted to play, and I wanted to stream it like I did with Alan's club in July. You can find clips on my twitch of the July speed chess tournament.
After I recovered from Covid/Pneumonia which was actually Covid/Bronchitis 9 and a half weeks later, I suffered a second setback, with extreme pain in my right knee and right hip. It is still in my right hip and I have had to use a cane, and can barely get out of the house for groceries and such once a week. So I haven't been at club but rarely since. Complicate that with Justin who has helped me immensely with twitch and the club prior to that, then coming into my chat one night and telling me to fucking chill in front of everyone. I confronted him in a dm message on messenger, with no response. When I saw him in person, he doesn't care what I think. Never apologized or acknowledged that maybe that wasn't really cool. He did state that he would not help me with my twitch and not come in. I am okay with that. I still respect him as a person, and i took him off my twitch as a moderator and I appreciate all the effort of everything he has done for me in the past. Very grateful for that.
When I did talk to him about this situation with 100percentdirty, he told me he doesn't care and is not going to deal with it. I was okay with that. But at the time that was not preventing me from attending the club. My injury to my hip, my weight loss and the pain of that was preventing me from going to club. Although I was, and still upset to his reaction of telling me out of the blue in my twitch stream to fuckiing chill. I have never done that to him and would never even think to do that to anyone. It didn't prevent me from going to club.
So last night in my 30second hyper-bullet arena, 100percentdirty came in and he has a FM title. I knew immediately who it was. I made a few comments on it in my vod, it is up on my twitch. I also knew immediately that both Alan and Justin knew who it was. Justin being the tournament Director for Pioneer Joe Chess Club in Lincoln City & Alan the USCF Tournament Director for the Midtown Chess Club in Tigard Oregon. Nick Raptis is 100percentdirty. It was obvious, I didn't have time to look at his profile since it was a hyper-bullet, but it was Obvious.
I went through a week of shit, also dealing with 3 other players that were not legit and Justin knew and Nick of course knew, I am not sure if Alan knew when he sent that one sentence reply. I am even more upset about it now. I think that behavior is horse crap.
But I do take full responsibility and apologize for reporting Nick Raptis in my livestream on twitch. As well as Apologize for it. I was wrong, he was right, he is a titled legit FIDE Master with an FM Title. I take full responsibility for it. But I was extremely respectful in my responses to him. Those two sundays before covid, I did get to play him, I told him my history, and his last response to me in messaging during this ordeal was again:
I know chess asylum personally, in real life, he runs a really strong chess club and we played them in July. He is a Uscf TD, I sent him this whole correspondence between you and myself. Since he let me know that you are making absurd accusations out of the blue. Please stop. Thank You!
U are a liar…and fake shallow person..who only cares about himself…u accused me of cheating disparaged me….and for a full week talked trash… u know nothing about chess…so stop pretending u do…and u wonder why no one joins your club
Again that is what a FIDE Master thinks of me, so I am quitting the Pioneer Joe Chess Club. People knew about it, before all this happened, and left me out of the loop. I am not sure why, or if it was for underhanded reasons. But, obviously I am not wanted there and that is their opinion of me. Fair enough. But I will not tolerate that kind of underhanded behavior and I will walk away.
Obviously if he plays in my arean's I run from now on I will be respectful, but I am no suckup. Very dissapointed in people that did know about the situation, and then let me take the brunt of it. But I'll survive. I will deal with it.
