blitz/bullet rating is the only thing that matters in internet chess

It is impossible to cheat in one minute (bullet game), that would mean moving the mouse and looking a your chess program; can be possible but I doubt it. Unfortunately, it is too fast for me and bring down the quality of the play. Blitz is best alternative 3-5 minute game, you still can have quality chess game. Another good reason to get good at blitz is a tournament can be decided on a couple blitz games.

I would still probably play Fischer ramdon 960 game, at least there no opening manuel or opening reference a player can refer to and no data base games. Have you ever had the experience, you have totally won game and your opponent refuse to resign in correspondence game, it can take a year to win that game, what I mean being a queen up and your opponent does not resign.  I had a correspondence game my opponent refuse to resign and went over year and when I did finally win I gain no rating point because I was higher rated than him. 

bb_gum234 wrote:

Nope.

You can have a program move for you. You can have it play fast enough to make 100 moves in just 1 or 2 seconds off the clock. 

 That sucks! I don't understand why any player will cheat, how can a cheater take pride in their win.

The sad truth is if somebody wants to cheat they will. Time control does not matter. That's why I don't care about any online ratings. Between that and lag or connection issues, online ratings are not accurate. IMO.

It doesn't matter

Blitz and bullet are the safest time controls to play if you want to avoid cheats. While it's entirely possible to cheat in blitz or bullet, it's much harder to get away with it for a number of reasons. 

That's one good reason the best players in the world play blitz and bullet all the time (Naka and Caruana have played 100's of thousands of blitz and bullet games on various accounts online), but very few correspondence games.

I know a 2600+ GM that quit the 5 min pool on ICC because he said its full of cheats , so it occurs more than you might think at faster time controls too . 

Don't mean to be irrelevant here but how can one accurately tell for sure whether or not someone is playing using a program? I a just a novice player and I can't really tell whether certain moves are "program" moves versus "human" moves.

Well , one thing is that the beasts never blunder like humans do , they dont hang pieces , overlook simple mates , etc . Humans , even strong humans do blunder sometimes , also time usage is one way to tell , if you are playing an engine it uses time very differently than a human does . 

It depends on how sneaky the cheater is. Some will make a bunch of engine moves in a row and analyzing the game with an engine will reveal them. The smart cheats only make enough engine moves to win, like in critical situations. Then it's almost impossible to tell, did they see that tactic or did they have help????? You'll never know.

Shygirl6985 wrote:

Don't mean to be irrelevant here but how can one accurately tell for sure whether or not someone is playing using a program? I a just a novice player and I can't really tell whether certain moves are "program" moves versus "human" moves.

Erik, that sort of smart cheat is not likely to play blitz/bullet because the time is so limited. 

Reb, I don't know whether the 5-minute pool on ICC is full of cheats. I rarely play in such long time controls! But I do know that even GMs are paranoid and will accuse non-GMs of cheating if they get beat. The real poison in chess is paranoia, which is what happened at the European Women's Championships last month.

Still, I rarely play increments online for the same reason that +2600 rated GM gave up on the 5-minute pool. 

We used a D wave Quantum computer at my university to play bullet chess against.

This is a pretty common experiment at many good universities across the world.

It can move more than 100 billion positions in a second, but anyone with about a 2000+ Elo in bullet can beat it 9 out of 10 times.

you can not really cheat at bullet, its like trying to number every atom in the universe and articulating position.

of course its likely not impossible, any more than light speed travel. but its so far beyond our reach in 2015 that it can't even be imagined by an educated theorist of mathematics and computer engineering

and even if you could, it would be so painfully obvious that it is a cheat, ..making the point moot

You're wrong. Bullet is not chess.

You're wrong. Try learning the rules before accusing people of violating them.

If someone is good enough to know when to use an engine and then disciplined enough to only rarely use it, then you are correct, it is almost impossible tell. How many people, that are willing to cheat, are that good to fit both of those?

Having a string of moves match an engine isn't that big of a red-flag; I've had it happen in OTB casual and tourney games. Some positons are easier to play. It is when they statstically play moves that correlate well with engines over a large number of moves, over multiple games that will really  point out a cheater (there are probably other ways too).

Computers actually do better than humans in fast time control, I'm not sure where you're getting your information from. Even if computers don't play absolutely perfect move, they don't fall for any mates or tactics and every move is a pre-move.

Here is a stockfish vs. stockfish game with one minute time control, I think it shows stockfish's high level of chess play gets preserved no matter how short the time controls are.

(Sorry, I don't know what all that extra text is.)

Stockfish even admits in post analysis that some of the moves were not great after it thinks about it for a second. But remember that most moves were made in under half a second. I think this shows that while computers suffer in tight time controls, they suffer much less than humans. Even GMs will start making blunders in bullet chess, and remember that if a GM even falls for a 5 - 8 move combination tactic, stockfish will see it fast enough to premove it (what I mean is that if stockfish answers in less than 1/10 of a second, it was so fast that it might as well have been a premove by a mere human).

Remember that this game is 0 blunders, 0 mistakes, 0 inaccuracies (at least as far as I know, I may be wrong). Many times, human bullet ratings are inflated because we face up against other humans who never bring these kinds of numbers to the table. It is not easy for a human to reliably play such a good game, so reliably, on such short time controls.

Blitz benefit the stronger player, his or her chess knowledge, experience and intiution gives him or her the advantage in blitz. The problem with correspondence chess the tools available to a user, opening reference, endgame books, games date base and moving pieces around, all sudden this player play like a grandmaster in the opening and early middlegame, some player even think they are at a level they are not; I give you an example, this a really joke correspondence grandmaster with a online rating of 2500 - 2600, sound strong but if you actually look at the quality of their game it is at best 2100 elo to 2200 elo level. This not so with blitz, my friend who is a very strong master has otb rating 2400 uscf and his blitz and bullet rating is 2400 level, he can't never go to 2500 blitz and stay there, as soon he get a 2500 blitz rating he drops. What I like about blitz is you know you are playing your opponent with his current knowledge and not some opening manuel, endgame book or games data base, and that is real chess.

What's your opinion on standard time control, such as 30|0 or 45|45? Do you think it accurately represents chess skill?

no, it isn't (title)

indeed. Correspondence Chess allows you to think, play the best move you can. It's truer than championships in some ways