Cheaters? or time-travelers?

Something has been bothering me for some time now about playing on Chess.com.

I very often encounter opponents who are at around my rating or even lower (sometimes much lower - by more than 100 points), who absolutely demolish me and seem to hardly use any time. The game usually ends when I run out of time (being also way behind on material) while they still have close to the five minutes they started with (I always play 5|5 blitz games).

How to explain this? the only two options I can think of is that either Rating means nothing or they are cheating (using an engine, getting help from a much higher rated friend, being Hikaru smurffing or manipulating space-time on their end so they only seem to move almost instantly, but actually, from their perspective, they are spending many many minutes on each move).

Any thoughts? It's very frustrating to think that this site is so full of cheaters at my rating range (700-800).

I looked at one of your recent losses. You're regularly taking 30 to 60 seconds on a move.

In a 5 minute game that's 5 to 10% of your time... and since a chess games usually lasts 40 moves you're pretty much guaranteed to lose at that pace.

Also one of the moves your opponent threatened an undefended knight. You thought for about 40 seconds then made a move that didn't defend it... so your opponent won the knight. That's not time travel or cheating, that's just basics.

Of course it's totally fine to choose longer time controls if 5|5 is too fast for you. That may be your best bet.

As for speedy players, yeah, some people get nervous about the clock so they play time controls where they're never in danger of losing on time. Since you're (perhaps) choosing a time control that's too fast for you, when you meet this type of player it feels like a mismatch.

Thanks for the detailed reply. Obviously I have a long way to go in my Chess career - I didn't even mention my signature move: give away my queen for free. However, the point is that these players play so much better than me, even though their rating in Blitz is similar, sometimes even much lower, than mine.

Just to illustrate:

Imagine your rating is 750. You are matched against a player with a rating of 650 for a 5|5 blitz game. You lose the game badly. When the game ends you have 30s left on your clock, and they have 4:50.

Wouldn't that feel suspicious? or am I just being paranoid?

When you put it like that I see what you mean

One thing that comes to mind is that some people play frequently (no matter their condition) so they'll have 200 or 300 point swings in their rating. So check their profile. Is 650 the lowest rating they've had in a while? What was their peak rating?

Another is that a 100 point difference is 64% to 36% difference. In other words the ratings predict that in a 10 game match the higher rated player should score about 6.5 -- if they score more their rating goes up, if they score less it goes down, that's the basics of how it works. So for a single game it's normal for someone to beat a player rated 100 points above them... and if that person is a habitually fast player perhaps all their games are either crushing wins (they get a little lucky) or crushing losses (they lose most of their pieces quickly).

Totally agree with llamonades explanation. I can also easily have 100-150+ point swings in a day, particularly if I’m tired, drunk, playing outside on the app with a bad connection and so on. I will usually then tend to go on a ‘good run’ while I’m recovering it and underrated (the opposite is also true). Sounds very normal - 100 points isn’t much when people are churning through many games. 

Oh, but it does look like your recent opponent

https://www.chess.com/member/suzie_uk

Is a sandbagger. She wins 10 or so in a row, then resigns 10 or so games in a row (when it's still the opening). That's enough, but also 7-8 months ago her rating shot up to 1250 then went back down to 600.

Chess.com is supposed to close accounts for doing this when you report them, but frankly sometimes they have their heads up their butts and don't close accounts that are painfully obvious abusers.

Still, it'd be worth reporting this person.

What's nice is you can always check your opponent's history.

(Even so, sometimes I lose to a much lower rated opponent and it's inexplicable. Not every low rated player who beats you is cheating, and certainly not when it's only a 100 point difference)

Actually, time travel is cheating, as every science fiction fans knows after having been let down by so many script authors.

Yes, "Suzie" was particularly suspicious. She was playing so fast that when I was down to 30s (and losing) she had 5:30s (in a 5|5 game!). Then i asked her in chat what engine she was using, and suddenly she slowed down. When I ran out of time and lost she was down to 4:40 or something.

But maybe she is just from the future and already played this game with me before...

PS. How do I check a players history?

PSS. Never Mind. Found it.

Click on their name then click on their rating, click on "full stats"