Chess.com FAQs and Discussion on Cheating

 What's more alarming, a stupid criminal, or a smart one? ... moral and ethical side.

 If you only build hotels on the light blue, you'd win and not have to cheat. =)

Excellent bang for the buck.

 Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do...

@Karl_ Yes I agree, and I'm sure that not only this site but every site does too.

So, a 1:1 ratio is a terrible record for the cheat detection algorithm. But what if it were 1:100? Personally I'd say that's ok.

But if Erik is reading this then don't restrict my account. (-:

Don't bother with houses unless you can buy at least 3.

In fact, the Oranges with 2 houses are equal in investment to the light blues with 4 houses and the light blues blow the oranges out of the water.

In reality, the answer here depends on the game situation. Because if everyone has a lot of money, then the Greens will win.

Ozzie, it has been mathematically proven Oranges are best.  There is a published PhD thesis in this and it might even be found on the web.

What has been proven is a specific case, not the general case. The expected value per opponent roll summed for the group is highest for the green group, at $96. The oranges, at $80 are not even second. Second, at $87, is the reds followed by the yellows at $86.

So, not to pop your bubble or anything, the advice that you gave is specific to a certain part of the game depending on cash flow, mixed in with the "2 or 3 houses" which is just bad advice.

In other words, if you give me the greens, you take the oranges, and we'll split the other stuff in some notion of a fair way, and we each get $10,000, you'll lose a lot more often than you'll win.

EDIT: Unless you cheat at Monopoly ;-)

What an interesting discussion :))

Eastendboy: ICC has a clear separation between humans and cyborgs. If you are registered as a cyborg, nobody can complain that you cheated. After all, those who play with you knew before starting the game that you use computer assistance. Of course, you cannot be registered as a cyborg and claim that you also play without computer assistance. That would lead to a mess. Instead, you can have two different accounts (pay for both): one for human chess, one for engine usage. 

But again ... people love to use engines against humans, not against other engine users. I am really surprised that the advanced chess group here has only 24 members. And I don't think that PerfectGent does not accept players in his group.

The only thing which makes me say that there is significant engine assistance at the high level here is the quality of the moves. Nothing else matters, be it an OTB rating, membership to a certain group, a cheating history on other sites or other such minor things.

PerfectGent: I made a mistake, I generalized. Of course, I don't think that ALL the advanced chess players are cheaters, but my opinion is that many top players here do play advanced chess against humans. As you can see from the number of members of your group, surprisingly few people do like to play honest advanced chess.

I also agree that advanced chess is not just "machine thinks, human pushes the wood". It is a different form of chess, in which you must learn to steer the huge calculation power of an engine. I have nothing against it as long as it is played honestly.

In post 899 I posted a reply to PerfectGent stating the possible reasons why the Advanced Chess group hasn't had much attention.  There's been so many posts since then it's possible you missed it but since I mentioned you in the post, I've taken the liberty of pasting it below:

With all due respect, I don't think you can know how much interest there is for sure.  The fact that Advanced Chess has been associated with cheating means that people aren't likely to let their interest in it be known for fear that they'll be branded as cheaters. 

If, for example, one of the top players here was active in the Advanced Chess group you created, do you honestly think it would go unnoticed by Costelus the vigiliant watchdog?  Hell no it wouldn't.  He'd view it as one more piece of evidence and would hound that person until he was run out of town.

Until you de-stigmatize it by allowing rated Advanced Chess games, we'll never know how much interest there is.  I fall back to the point that I made earlier:  What harm would come from implementing it?  Giving it a trial run?  At worst, nothing much changes.  At best, it helps to solve multiple problems and generates some extra cash for chess.com.

I would also like to add that there hasn't been any serious reasons given for not implementing what I've suggested.

To Costelus I would also like to add that we're essentially in agreement on this issue.  I have no doubt that most top players are cheating.  What I'm not willing to concede is that it's done mostly to beat the hell out of human players.  Based on the research that I've done in analyzing games I think there are a number of top players that mix it up - they play advanced chess against players of a certain rating probably on the assumption that they're engine users.  Against human players, they play what looks like very human chess with results that are appropriate (i.e. they actually lose games in human fashion with tactical missteps). 

I also take issue with your characterization of the severity of the problem.  It's fairly easy to avoid players you suspect of cheating.  It's also extremely easy to find games against players who are obviously not cheating.  I think your bark on this issue is much louder than it needs to be so in that regard I agree with TheGrobe that you blow it out of proportion.  Yes people cheat but it's really not the end of the world and in truth it has very little impact on you other than the fact that it irritates the hell out of you!

I will admit that I'm biased in favor of Advanced Chess.  I love the bells and whistles here at chess.com and I very much wish I could play my style of chess here but at the moment I can't.  Really, what's the point of playing unrated games?  Ratings matter and anyone who says otherwise is either a liar or a freak of nature.  Right now, the best chess site on the internet doesn't serve my needs and I'm hoping to change that. 

Of course that I got tired. As I told before, I finish my games and stop playing here. Maybe I will reconsider the decision once the site becomes more clean. Until then, it is not worth wasting my time with all the cheaters.

As for people who say "cheating has very little impact on you", it really makes me laugh. Adding live+online cheaters, I played at least 20 of those who were actually banned. And I am ussually careful when chosing an opponent. Don't you think this number is quite big? Of course, many others were not yet banned.

The 3000 rating given to Rybka means nothing when talking about Advanced Chess since centaurs play at a level that is much higher than the engine they're using.  Rybka by herself is no match for a skilled centaur.  I can say with confidence that I would never lose an advanced chess game vs an engine-only stooge - ever.  I'd win most of my games with the white pieces and I'd probably draw about half the games with the black pieces.  And that's assuming she's using a good opening book.  If you take away the opening book and give me a day or two to study I'd be able to come up with a strategy to win 100% of my games vs Rybka so to say that she's rated 3000 is almost arbitrary -- it's mostly a marketing number designed to give an example of her supremacy over the competition but to relate it to humans just doesn't work.

The engine stooges don't get very far in the ICCF.  I don't know what the statistics are but I'm thinking that Rybka by herself could only achieve an ICCF rating between 2300-2400 and most of those points would come against opponents who haven't upgraded to the latest Rybka.  Even poor centaurs regularly perform at a level that is significantly higher than their engine.  The best centaurs are on a completely different playing field and are quite literally playing the strongest chess that's ever been played.

lol Very, very true my friend!  It's extremely satisfying while it's happening but as soon as it's over you start looking around and asking "Who's next?". 

When it's finished, you've certainly not done posterity any favors!  Maybe a database geek or two will actually come across your masterpiece and spend enough time reviewing it to recognize your brilliance - if you're really lucky maybe Tim Krabbe will stumble across it....but don't start looking for accolades in any Yearbooks.  Like many of life's pleasures, it's best if you don't take it too seriously.

See, you're not the only one to make furious use of the Edit option!  I wish I had a good 5 or 10 minutes to make my edits before a post was actually submitted.  I always seem to hit submit much too soon....

On the subject of cheating, I noticed that you said you close accounts, but do you also ban IP addresses? What's to stop someone whose account has been closed for cheating, from simply starting a new account? 

The smart one. The stupid one is the guy who always gets caught right away doing something really stupid like trying to hold up a liquor store when there are three off duty cops inside picking up some beer on their way home from their shift. The smart ones are the guys who embezzle millions of dollars from corporations or even governments and nobody finds about it until he's been retired for 10 years and there's no way to get any of it back. 

The smartest criminals are the ones that even have the law on their side.... like the feds in the case of their extortion /taxes and insurance companies when the law requires you to carry certain insurances while doing nothing to control prices at the same time..... think about it.... and the bankers,  lets not forget them....

Does organized crime still run protection rackets in the big cities like NYC ?

Any city where there is enough money to make large scale organization pay off now has "family" businesses.  New York, Beijing, Moscow,...   Mafia, Black Hand, Cosanostra, Tong, Triad, Yakuza... 

Stop the intellectual bullshit.

Each time you lose it's dued to some kind of a "machine".

Enjoy the the fight, that's all!