How common is cheating at lower levels? The answer might lie with Master speedruns…
I love watching chess speedruns. An IM or GM will start an account at a lowly elo, and work their way back up to the top, usually playing with an opening repertoire as a theme. They’re a great way to learn new openings, watch how master level players plan in the middlegame, spot tactics, and execute endgames.
It’s also a great place to see what a chess cheater looks like., mainly because:
- Chess masters can spot a cheater better than any technology. Plus, when a 1,300 player is outplaying a 3,000 rated GM, it’s obvious something fishy is going on.
- There is probably a much higher detection rate within these speedruns too. Moderators from Chess.com are likely to be watching, plus followers of the player will report the suspected cheater en masse.
- Finally, because the speedrun is ‘secret’, cheaters won’t necessarily know who they’re playing against, so are just as likely to cheat against this hidden master versus a normal player. This can catch out those selective cheaters a little better too.
With all this in mind, I thought a good place to find out the percentage of cheating on Chess.com might lie in looking at speedruns, and what percentage of accounts are closed due to fair play.
So, that’s what I’ve done…
One rule
- I have not counted speedruns that just play against subscribers as I want to look at the general Chess.com population.
GM Daniel Naroditsky
FrankfurtAiport | Nov 22 – Oct 23
Games played: 93
Closed Accounts (Fair Play): 8
Cheating rate: 8.6%
Time controls: 10 & 15/10 Rapid Games
SenseiDanya | Oct 20 - Oct 22
Games played: 412
Closed Accounts (Fair Play): 19
Cheating rate: 4.6%
Time controls: 3-minute Blitz, mainly 10 & 15/10 Rapid Games
OhMyLands |Mar 21 - Oct 21
Games played: 177
Closed Accounts (Fair Play): 8
Cheating rate: 4.5%
Time controls: 10 & 15/10 Rapid Games
GM Hikaru
TheFiveTime | Nov 22 - Apr 23
Games played: 410
Closed Accounts (Fair Play): 16
Cheating rate: 4%
Time Control: 3-minute Blitz
AndtheOscargoesto | Mar 23 – Jun 23
Games played: 349
Closed Accounts (Fair Play): 12
Cheating rate: 3.4%
Time Control: 3-minute blitz
OhNo_MyBotezGambit |Dec 21 - July 22
Games played: 384
Closed Accounts (Fair Play): 10
Cheating rate: 2.6%
Time Control: 3-minute blitz
Clownpusher | Jun 19 - Jan 21
Games played: 660*
Closed Accounts (Fair Play): 21
Cheating rate: 3.2%*
Time Control: 3-minute blitz
*Many opponents played more than once in this speedrun, so cheating rate is higher than shown
GM Aman Hambleton
Slowbrah | May 23 – Oct 23
Games played: 256
Closed Accounts (Fair Play): 7
Cheating rate: 2.7%
Time controls: 15/10 Rapid Games
VBKN | Jan 21 - Apr 23
Games played: 458
Closed Accounts (Fair Play): 23
Cheating rate: 5%
Time controls: Mix of 5- and 3-minute Blitz
Wonestall | Mar 23 - Apr 23
Games played: 301
Closed Accounts (Fair Play): 1
Cheating rate: 0.3%
Time controls: Mix of 5- and 3-minute Blitz
Speedonly | July 20 - May 22
Games played: 236
Closed Accounts (Fair Play): 8
Cheating rate: 3.3%
Time controls: Mix of 5- and 3-minute Blitz
GM Eric Hanson
PoojaFan69 | May 23 - Jul 23
Games played: 318
Closed Accounts (Fair Play): 4
Cheating rate: 1.25%
Time controls: 3-minute blitz only, no increment
Hippopotamus | Jun 22 - July 22
Games played: 281
Closed Accounts (Fair Play): 11
Cheating rate: 4%
Time controls: 3-minute blitz only, no increment
Thedadbodshuffle | Apr 19 – Sep 19
Games played: 382
Closed Accounts (Fair Play): 15
Cheating rate: 4%
Time controls: 3-minute blitz only, no increment
NM Nelson Lopez
Peter-Patzer| June 23 - Oct 23
Games played: 328
Closed Accounts (Fair Play): 6
Cheating rate: 1.8%
Time controls: 3-minute blitz only, no increment
IM Levy Rozman
BestBuyTest | Aug 20 – Aug 20 (3/5 Blitz)
Games played: 181
Closed Accounts (Fair Play): 12
Cheating rate: 6.6%
Time controls: 3-minute blitz, 5 second increment
WFM Anna Cramling
Imthewatermelon | June 2023
Games played: 112
Closed Accounts (Fair Play): 6
Cheating rate: 5.3%
Time Control: 3-minute blitz only, no increment
Combined Results
Games played: 5,338
Closed Accounts (Fair Play): 187
Average Cheating rate: 3.5%
Time Control: Mix of Blitz and Rapid
Conclusions
Based on this sample, the percentage of confirmed cheating on Chess.com seems to lie somewhere in the region of 3.5%.
The big caveat of course is that the above statistics only consider cheaters who have been caught.
We might reasonably assume some have gotten away with it for now or closed their accounts (you find many inactive accounts too as you trawl through the games) because they think they might soon be caught, and selective cheaters may not have used an engine in these games. But, even with this reasoning, I don’t think it’d be fair to add more than 0.5%, or 26 more accounts, to the total.
Whichever way we cut it, there is a lot of confirmed cheating on Chess.com, and I'm sure on other sites, and I've talked before how we might reduce that.
For now I’m going to keep watching those speedruns and use them to improve my own chess. I may not be able to win every game, but I’ll enjoy it when I do – and do it cleanly.
