Cheating

I am relatively new to online chess (approaching a year on several free servers including yahoo, fics, ficgs, playchess.com). I've heard a lot of talk about cheating which I assume is just using a chess engine to pick your moves for you. Twice I've been accused of cheating on games where my post-analysis (I do use an engine for this) showed major blunders for both sides (including apparently cheater me).

 First of all, what possible motivation is there for cheating?

Second of all, what types of clues make you suspicious someone is getting help?

Is cheating more common in blitz (on FICS I am 500 points higher on standard than blitz even though I never play faster than 8 0 and on standard never player slower than 20 0)

Everyone gets accused of cheating eventually, you just have to ignore it... if it bothers you abnormally make a point of reporting it to a moderator.

 I've been accused of cheating on several occasions myself, in fact, one site even banned me for it!  Looking back it's all kinda funny.  Just have fun and don't let the occasional sore loser bug you.

accusers are usually people that hate it when their own program gets beat. cheaters often show their hand when suddenly game style changes mid game, computer programs draw end game from a database that mirrors a game footprint. Play a closed game and even computers can be beat, take it out of it known database. (Courtesy John Nunn)

I'm using an engine for post-game analysis, and I think it's helped me a fair bit. But during a game?

 Curiously, what resources are "fair game" in correspondence chess?

 http://www.chessbase.com/workshop2.asp?id=3749

Thanks, great article. It's good to see that people here are pretty grounded. It's a game and we're all trying to improve. I get a kick out of seeing my local Elo go up, but it would be meaningless if it just represented the engine.

 It's good to know that it's legal to go look up an opening in my openings book for correspondence. It is very difficult to force myself to slow down in chess, and two things have helped that: the correspondense games and solving problems without a timer.

I ran home and did a post-game analysis with chessmaster for an OTB game i had won at a local coffee shop (before i would forget it) and it made me realize that he had resigned early. I do post-game analysis on all my games against the computer and it is rewarding to see when i come in and out of sync with the computer.  When i win, i'm more in sync since i play computer players that don't take best move (according to the analysis) everytime.  Almost always, when i've established dominance, i get out of sync with the computer because i don't look for Mate in 9, when i can march a couple of pawns up and have a couple of Queens.  I have no idea how the program scores the position, but that too is interesting to see the changes during the game move by move. One of these days i'll do post-game on my online chess, but my internet is on a mac and my games are on the PC so i'll just put it off/build up some more.

not really a "cheating" post, but just adding on to Erik's and Negobas comments on post-game analysis. 

as far as "fair game": books and existing games are, but i just stick with books and my favorite book wikipedia. a cunning opponent could best me with a little wiki sabotage i suppose haha.  i figure that you have to play the opening to learn it, i don't see the benefit of complex game databases since i will certainly not "learn" it for OTB. 

I really prefer to think that no one that play on chess.com cheats, and just enjoy the game, and even if some one use a computer to play here i dont know how good could that be since i belive that with so much time per move we humas can win over a computer.

Just enjoy the ride :) 

With all the computer chess games available, how could anyone really know someone was cheating?  I've played against some programs that I can beat all the time at hard and some that beat me all the time hard.  I've even watched my children play against the Lego chess program on easiest and seen the computer move out of a near win situation.  Also, if someone played against one program long enough, would they not learn to mimic it pretty well?

There's nothing to learn from being cheated out of a game, Erik.  I expected more from you being the owner of this site.  Your site is filled with cheaters because several accounts are closed for cheating on a daily basis.  They really take the fun out of this website, and I'm contemplating going elsewhere.  Also, I've copied and pasted chats with my opponents who've admitted to getting assistance, and their accounts are still open.  This doesn't sit well with me.  I bet you that cheating was done during this game.  Please click on the link below.

http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=956571287

You missed 10.....Nc5 in that game and if

11.Qb5+ Bd7 12.Qb4 Nd3+

            Reading these threads, and all the post should help!                              http://www.chess.com/forum/search?keyword=cheating                          OUPS!    I just realized;   this thread is 7 years old.   ARE YOU DONE READING YET??

The man was cheating.  Period!

Ok

This thread is cheating death.

You should try 3-minute blitz games, which would surely make it virtually impossible to cheat. Needless to say, I am still accused of cheating from time to time, but that's just because there are quite a few sore losers on this site!

AHAHHAAH, Magic The Gathering, the modern day version of chess!!!