Major Proposed Change: Ratings Cap Above 2400 for Unverified Players

The Tactics Trainer method that we're talking about wouldn't require payment.

As I've stated several times, you're testing PATTERN RECOGNITION of patterns that all chess players learn as they improve. Pattern recognition is not about spending days in order to solve a problem. You either recognize it instantly, or you don't. You generally don't even think about it. The answer just leaps out at you.

There will be variety of course, as dunce mentioned, which would have to be taken into account, but there just do not exist people who somehow reach near master status and yet haven't learned any of the standard patterns that all players learn as they improve.

I don't like this idea... it seems unfair. I am a premium member and miles off 2400 but it is suggesting that chess.com has decided that everyone over 2400 is cheating but if you pay that's ok.

I guess everyone's reading comprehension skills is as different as their chess skills but I dont get this at all from chess.com 2400 rating cap. 

First they have exempted titled players ( who don't pay ) and many of them are over 2400 so this makes your statement completely false alone. It seems to me that they are targeting 2400s ( and up ) with no OTB credentials who ALSO do not pay to be here. It seems they think that among this group a large % are likely cheating.  I agree 100% ! Now, understand this is what I understand from what they have said thus far which is very different from what you seem to think/comprehend .  I believe all in the group over 2800 are cheats , no exceptions and think they should inspect them closely too. Start with those who have no otb ratings or otb ratings under 2200. Whether they pay or not makes no difference. 

For what it's worth, here's my two cents: let's assume that cheaters cheat until they get caught, or with this new change, until they reach 2400; and then, they create a new account and keep on cheating. There's no point in continuing with an account that reaches the cap, since one would have to purposefully lose every other game to remain below the radar. I take it that without the cap, getting caught usually happens at a rating far above 2400 - hence the need for this new change.

What this means is that the average rating of a cheater drops considerably. Consequently, honest players above the 2400 mark now get to play against people who don't cheat, while there will be an increase in encountered cheaters below 2400. This is not a big problem, because the site's rating distribution is about normal (Gaussian), meaning that the cheaters will fall into a more populous rating range and the average percentage of cheaters amidst opponents encountered at any level will decrease. So, even though some might argue that the change will only move the cheater population downward in rating and not get rid of it completely, it should be noted that this is actually a good thing - instead of a certain rating range encountering cheaters with, say, a probability of 50%, a slightly lower range will encounter cheaters with a probability of only about 10%.

A further point: if we speculate that one motive for cheating is to see how high a rating can be achieved before being caught, the new change effectively removes this motive. But this is pure speculation - I can't claim to understand the motives of a cheater.

Just because they are introducing another method/tool in the ongoing battle against cheaters doesnt mean they will discard others. 

That's interesting and a great point. However, it's the hardest to cheat in blitz (short time controls). How do these players fare in correspondence, with all the time in the world?

@IMDeviate,

Yes, everybody will get the one-move knight fork, but not everybody will get the Greek Gift sacrifice, for example: a 1000 player won't get it immediately. When the position is relatively simple though, there is no 2400 player who has to spend a long time analyzing the position to see that sacrifice, regardless of how much blitz they play or how much tactics training they've done. Almost every one of them will see it instantly. Ditto for thousands of other common tactical patterns.

Getting better at chess necessarily increases the number of these types of common patterns that you notice immediately and without thinking. Take a visit to the "chess tactics server". That server has many tactics that are basically pattern recognition tasks, and you generally have to solve them in seconds to get full credit, with partial credit extending up to 10 to 15 seconds (but it's much less for some). Not all the problems there are suitable for the test I have in mind, but many of them are. You'll see that there are many types of obvious patterns that can be immediately solved by most people of a given skill level, but the problems that are obvious and quickly solvable by players at one skill level vary for different skill levels. Yes, there will be differences between players of the same strength who have more and less experience solving tactical problems or playing blitz, but these differences will be dwarfed by the differences that are a result of 400 or 600 ELO points (2 or 3 standard deviations).

@Dave_antolie,

Again, i'm not talking about tactics in general. I'm talking about a very limited subset of tactics that are the standard patterns that almost every player has learned by the time they reach a certain level. This is a very important distinction that you seem not to get. Seeing these types of patterns has everything to do with time. That's not just my opinion. It's based on scientific studies that analyze what parts of the brains of strong chess players are activated when they solve positions quickly (pattern recognition (the same part that recognizes faces, actually) and long term memory, not parts corresponding to conscious thought), and it's the result of scientific studies analyzing the eye movements of strong chess players that have found that their eyes immediately go to the most relevant parts of the board before they even have time to think (pattern recognition again). There are many scientific papers that have concluded that acquiring knowledge of patterns is a huge part of what is involved in improving chess skill. Not all the patterns are simple patterns that can be acted on immediately, of course, but some of them are, and that subset is different for players who are rated 2000 than for players who are rated 2400.

You object that people use memory for solving these kinds of problems, but THAT IS THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE PATTERN RECOGNITION TEST. The 2400 players have memorized many more patterns than the 2000 players. This is the case regardless of how much tactics training they have done, because even if the 2400 player doesn't do much tactics training or play much blitz, they will still have learned more patterns as a result of their OTB play. The science is very clear on this, the stronger you get, the more patterns you know. There are variations for players of the same strength, of course, but when you make the rating difference large enough (say 400 or 600 points), those variations are dwarfed by the variations as a result of the different skill. If you want to read the science on patterns in chess, search for terms like "template theory" and chess.

Sorry sapientdust but your idea of verifying someone's blitz skill is completely off the point. You can only confirm you have the necessary skills for a certain blitz level by playing more blitz.

What's the point of ratings if they gonna be capped. There must be other solution to deal with cheaters.

There MUST be some way to apply numerology.

@heinzie, sigh, I've never mentioned blitz skills, and I have  repeatedly explained how what I had in mind IS NOT BLITZ-STYLE TACTICS TRAINING.

I give up though, because clearly it's too much for me to expect people on the Internet to actually respond to the words I write rather than to give a response to their impressionistic interpretation of what they would have meant if they had uttered my words.

The 2400 level in question would be chess.com blitz level or what else?

Look at the bright side: It's only the guys who don't understand who'll argue with you.

Interesting to note that the OP of this thread had his account closed for cheating on friday.

I liked fezzik.  He had informative posts and he was a good player too.  It's sad to see he had been cheating : /

It's already been done.

The problem is not enough resources (apparently) to do this continually.

Two years is quite a lot.  I don't think they should last 6 months, and I agree it is something to ponder when they're left on the site.

It's frustrating when other cheaters remain unbanned.  I have to be concerned with chess.com's methods when unbanned cheaters who have been reported satisfy the following detection method when rating moves based on an engine's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice:

1) database moves are ignored  2) games against equal or greater opposition  3) 40 moves games (or games with 20+ non-database moves).  4) The number of games tested collectively contain 400 non-database moves.  5) percents of those 400+ moves greatly exceed benchmarks established by using the same method against world class pre-computer CC competition as well as standard WC competition.

Perhaps chess.com, due to limited resources, unofficially allows these "ghost players" to cheat and then report others who play well against them.  As long as you catch enough people, you're allowed to continue to cheat.

Sure that sounds nuts, but the alternative (they ignore cheaters) is just as dirty.

I thought book moves were book moves, not engine choices?

And I suspect stuff like forced moves, obvious recaptures etc are also ignored. I think if your named a cheater on here it's pretty much true.

Yeah.  Supposedly their methods are stricter than the ones I outlined above.