Fair Play and Computer Assistance

Unfortunately, I must report that a member of this group has been banned from chess.com for violating the website’s Fair Play Policy. For those unfamiliar with the policy, please read it by clicking the link.

To briefly summarise, members must NOT use any sort of outside assistance when playing games on the site, including from other people, opening books or chess computers/engines.

It became clear on the conclusion of the first BDCA Lockdown tournament that this member’s moves highly correlated with that of the website’s chess engine, with anywhere between 97-99% of their moves matching the top choice of the engine. We reported this user to chess.com and their investigations led to this member being banned.

All the opponents of this member have been notified by chess.com that they played a game against somebody who was violating the Fair Play Policy and have had their lost ratings points returned to them.

It is highly disappointing that such an incident as this could tarnish what was otherwise a successful tournament played with great spirit and camaraderie among those in the Bradford Chess community.

There are a significant number of members of this group who have never played online chess before. To these people, I would like to assure you that this kind of incident is uncommon and there is no reason to suspect that any other members of this group are unfairly trying to gain an advantage.

I am confident that this will be an isolated incident and all future tournaments organised in this group will be played fairly and in a competitive yet friendly spirit.

Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns about this post.