How to Tell if Someone is Cheating

It occurred to me that most cheating reports are a waste of chess.com's time.

So it would be to chess.com's benefit if they could educate the masses about some basic methods of cheat detection (obviously they can't go into detail). This way a higher percentage of the received reports will be useful.

On the other hand, it will also tell the cheaters how they typically get caught.

Yeah, but the idea is to educate the masses up to the level of a basic cheater. This level of education wouldn't benefit the cheaters.

Chess.com's methods are (reportedly) pretty sophisticated. I'm just talking trying to limit the reports from noobs who think e.g. knight forks on c2/c7 are super-human tactics.

So, for example, when someone tries to send a cheating report, a window could pop up and say "doing these 3 things will make it more likely for your report to result in action!"

Then give some steps.

Anyone who is interested can join the cheating discussion forum at https://www.chess.com/club/cheating-forum if they've been here for more than a month, and they're happy to educate people about the basics. I personally doubt that this would change how people submit their reports, though.

Enabling cheaters is one of the reasons why Chess.com doesn't allow discussion about cheating in the public forums.

David, moderator

Anyone who cheats at chess is a complete loser. What a waste of time...not only for the person who was cheated against, but for the cheater themselves. I play because i love the game. I am always trying to get better. What can possibly be gained by cheating? I will never understand the mindset of a cheat.