Chess.com or Lichess?

possibly since chess.com is bigger and more better for cheaters to play at.

I really like Lichess for being an open-source platform. I spent almost 2 decades of my professional life working with Microsoft's development tools, but I've always loved Linux and its ecosystem and all the amazing apps and tools that exist in it. In many ways, chess.com feels like Microsoft of chess to me. Just like with Microsoft, I'd love not to be here, but all the local clubs I belong to and all the local players I know are here. And then, it becomes impossible not to have an account here.  I love the analysis board on Lichess. It's refreshingly simple to use, and it's been a tremendous help in analyzing my lost games.

I do tend to agree on that cheaters ratio overview.  Perhaps, the cheating is not massive, and cheaters might only use occasional engine assistance in the game. But if someone uses the engine even 2-3 times in a game against me in a tricky position, it may be just enough to score them a win.  But then again, I don't want to stop playing chess online just because some of my opponents may be cheating. But it does, however, make me want to play more OTB chess and fewer online matches.

I think there's three variables. A sudden influx creating a kind of ratings traffic jam, a lot of people paying close attention to the chess YouTubers, and the concomitant influx of cheaters, who would want to operate at the biggest place. It's not chess[.]com's fault, and I'd guess they're doing a ton of work to solve the problem.

First, thank heavens for honest people such as yourself. If nobody shouts 'the king is naked' once in a while, everyone ends up in a very big problem eventually. Good move!

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ChrisZifo wrote: 

I went over to Lichess and players there were so much more natural and seemed like humans. They would beat me one game, then mess up the next.  If they made an error they would resign- But on chess.com, players make errors and they play on for 30 moves, and suddenly seem to be as good as Magnus Carlsen and they get their pieces back.

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I felt like it when I started playing here, but now I don't feel this way anymore. And. yes. it's weird that here my rate is barely 1700, and there it's 2000+/...

I totally agree - players in Lichess.com seem more human-like!

* There are problematic people everywhere, the question is, is the organization you're in handling them adequately. personally, I'm here because I can publish things easily, and because Lichess.com's background is either total white or total black.

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Way to go for speaking the truth. There IS something strange going on in here. example - high rated players don't seem to actually know things better, they only get snobby and say 'this sucks, this is terrible...'. how about sharing some knowledge... where IS that knowledge... never saw it yet. I mean specific knowledge, e.g. explaining every move, not general shouts about stuff.

I think the best chess server against cheaters, is ICC. but... good luck finding people to play there... it takes some time, if it's not Blitz games or shorter.

Please no discussion about cheaters in the general forums and threads please. If suspicious report players. 

It's a great business model though, isn't it?   Lots of people pay money just to be allowed to play using one engine against itself !

On lichess people are just bad 

Correction: Lichess.com have a Beautiful background - "Transparent". Goodbye chess.com.

I was sick of getting whooped by 1300-1400 rated players on Chess.com Blitz, so I went to Lichess and beat a load of players rated 2100! I am not joking.

The thing is, I USED TO be rated 1700+ on Blitz here on chess.com for many years, and I am still rated well above 1800 on Rapid. So, from time to time I set myself the goal of getting back up to at least 1600 on Blitz. It is incredibly difficult and kind of demoralizing.  I always run the analysis after the game and it usually says "Tough game, your opponent played well" and I look at the analysis and it is 88-90% over 50 moves, no blunders, no mistakes, maybe 1 or 2 inaccuracies. It feels like playing a computer but I guess it could just be some really good chess players concentrating REALLY hard.  They dont seem to make errors in the opening, mid game or ending, You gotta be rock solid.

I have not played chess on lichess for over a week even though they have all kind of chess to play on app. But I’m here everyday. So probably chess.com is better. 

I'm not as good as you, I don't beat *lots* of 2100+ rated (I play only rapid, on lichess, never blitz), but yes, some rare time I beat 2100+ rated players (my rate there is normally 2050+, rapid).

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I think what you're dealing with is, cheetahs which start the game normally, and in the moment they lose, they turn off the chat, turn on the engine, and...yet another annonymous online tactical genius is born. that's why the accuracy is only 88-90 and not 99 or so.

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I believe that, as a paying costumer, you can write a message to chess.com, saying - you guys, pleasure to meet you, great site. the police department needs a bit of awakening nowadays.

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Can I tell you something? I used to be a cheetah myself for some time in the past (probably because I was tired of being cheetah-ed, I don't remember), and I'll tell you what:

chess.com com found that guy after a month, and blocked his ip address (=in order to play on chess.com, he needed to reinstall the operating system).

lichess found that guy after a month, and blocked, but after making a new address

lichess, I was starting a game (Not as a cheetah)... it failed to start... suddenly - a message appeared "cheeting detected", and the game was aborted.

on ICC, it was Really long ago (it was still a command prompt - DOS-like thing), that guy was cheeting, and was caught during the act itself if I remember, even though he was using a different computer to operate the engine!!!

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that guy isn't a cheetah for over 2 years I believe, so pardon me if the content isn't up to date.

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let's see the GM Tal issue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV-qKzSInac

I think that here to, a guy was caught During the Act - meaning it's really a good anti-cheetah server. although... I don't know if it's cheetah, or antisemitism... or both... or blah blah blah...

So, I think ICC is Really good at that.

Farewell.