Chess.com FAQs and Discussion on Cheating

Embarrassed may be the wrong word, but they certainly try to avoid getting caught, and do not like it at all when they do.

Sorry if I didn't use the right words...I already anticipated that my English is not that good to express what I really want to say.;)

For the software you can download I will send you a private message as I don't want to promote it here...(it's clear that you can use for right things but also for bad so I see no reason to make it accessible here)

Ok, no problem.

Good point.

Kokino: Two of the most populars ICC interfaces have a built-in analysis engine (Crafty). Whether you use the engine to cheat it's up to you.

No, cheaters do not feel embarassed. They will try to cheat again. There is a well-known example of a cheater here (MirceaH), who managed to convince many people that he is a great chess player. In fact, he is a pitiful paranoic...

As for this topic giving "ideas" to other members: much more people get such ideas when they see for instance that X plays here as a super-gm and he does not even have an ELO rating! There is a concrete example of an X in this topic somewhere.

I do think cheating is the most important issue a chess site has to deal with. Cheating destroys trust, friendship, and simply ruins the whole playing experience. It's not about rating points, losing or others, it's about the time one wastes playing against an engine from which he can learn nothing!

costelus, don't you think that's a bit over-the-top? I would have said that the most important issues would be "never lose a move", "get the clocks right", "display the board correctly", etc. Perhaps cheating is more important than making sure that "most recent posts" is always 100% up-to-date and less important than ensuring uptime of the site. Really, there are so many things that every website does that are more important than dealing with abusers.

OK, you're right. For me, once you have a functional chess website, the way to deal with cheating is the most important issue. It might not be the most profitable choice for the site owners, yahoo chess for instance gets more visitors than ICC+ chess.com together and does not care about cheating (from what I heard, I've never played there).

Yahoo is terrible. They don't even get the basics right. I mean, for years if you ran out of time you lost, regardless if the opponent had no mating material. I guess Yahoo does so many things they don't have to get the exact specifics right for chess. They have a TON of games, so it's easy to see why they made the choices they made, it's just that it's a terrible product. It's fun to go practice your trash talk though :-).

Well, the only I can add is that I enjoy Chess.com for so many different reasons that I could simply sign it, don't make a single move in any game and still would be funny.

It's clear that cheaters bother me...but what is reconforting that someone from chess.com is working everyday on that and still with the confidence that 90% of my games are truly fair because I know the players (not personally but since I joined the site)

And finally, what I was saying makes sense...if nobody talks about cheating, less people will worry about that and even less people will be tempted to find tools to cheat.

Costelus, I have learnt about your own case (reading your profile) and I am sorry for what happened to you, but even after that, I hope that you still can enjoy chess.com and don't think all your opponents are cheaters.

Lest we forget, having multiple accounts, not just using chess engines, is also  a cause for accounts being closed. It's just that chess.com doesn't specify whether the closure is for engine zoom or account boom. I suppose that explains closing of accounts lower down the rating ladder.

Wow! Matt & the chess.com cheating detection team do a great job! On saturday I reported Assault2k2 and 24 hours later his account was found cheating (premium member!). 2 days ago I reported rbrownusmc, today I enter the site in the morning and see his account closed for cheating, another premium member. I suppose in many cases it will not be so obvious and take weeks if not  months, to be sure of that. And not to forget to mention that if chess.com fires premium members, they lose revenues.

But you can see from that that there is really happening something on this site concerning the cheater problem. And by the way: I have played all other cc sites before joining here (the best chess site on the planet!) and I am sure that here are not more cheaters than on the other sites, it happens really not often that I meet somebody I suspect.

To get the obvious "cheaters" is easy. They only use first or second rybka or else engine suggestions. You see it at the first glance, if researching their games-

But there are others,- and I have seen  some  I am personally absolutely convinced, that they are using engines,- where it is not so easy to prove it without any remaining doubts.-

I've played over 300 games and I don't think that I have ever played a game where the other person was cheating

It is, - as said before, - more a problem under higher rated players.

Kokino: I don't think that all my opponents cheat. In online chess, I am convinced that only 4 of my opponents used an engine (MirceaH, another person who admitted engine usage and apologized, and other two for which chess.com does not have enough evidence). Given that, I will never play anyone without first looking at their games and profile.

Well, what to do, I enjoy playing here. On ICC it is extremely hard and time consuming to find opponents for "standard" time control (over 15 mins), so there is no other choice if you want a longer game.

Robik: those two were obvious, insignificant cheaters. Probably they had 100% agreement with Rybka. Well, this is what I think it's not fair: 100% matching with Rybka and you are banned, 90% matching and you are reverred as a top player at chess.com.

mauerblume: I personally have no doubts that 90% agreement with the first 3 choices of any reasonable engine, after the opening, not counting forced moves, is cheating. Why no doubts? Because no player in the history has achieved that!

I remember once seeing here a tactical position , a member posted had posted and asked for advice.-

 When I came to it I saw, that a top rated player had tried his luck, and missed an obvious tactical ressource. I gave it in .-

10 minutes later the top-rated player posted a long variation with several branches according to that ressource. Really phantastic. I presumely never would have got that-

Some minutes later the member, who had posted that position, "congratulated" the the top-rated player to his wonderful analysis.. It would have exactly the same what rybka would have shown him now.-

To mention is that the top-rated player either before nor afterwards indicated, whether he had used engine help or not. - O.k, there was no duty for it, but a short comment could have been expected. I think

This is what one of the other convicted cheaters did (I think darkmagegurl or something very similar) in the only vote chess game I played. Some VERY long variations, in the late middlegame, which weren't even the best moves for both sides. I mean, one thing you learn as a student, is that it is nearly pointless to continue analyzing a very deep line unless it is a nearly forced variation.

I have 2 questions:

1. does chess.com consider that reporting suspected cheaters (or anonymous super-gm players) is useful? 

2. If the answer to the previous question is yes, about what percentage of matchings is considered suspicious enough to be reported?

Thanks!

1. Yes, we want you to report all suspected cheaters.

2. If you think someone is cheating, please report them. Sorry, I can't really be more detailed than that.

If it's so bad, then how about a suggestion for a better alternative to go along with your indictment of the current system?

The question I was responding to there was at what threshold do we suggest people report other cheaters on. I don't believe I said we "rely" on others to report cheaters. Yes, we take all cheating reports seriously, and we investigate every one, but we do also run random cheat reports on players espically our top players, without them being reported.