Hmm. Interesting observations. I am not sure we can take your individual experience and broaden it out to draw site-wide conclusions about cheating.
The number of Fair Play closures just reported for the first 5 months of 2022 (116,354), was about twice that reported in the last 3 months of 2021 (59,656). It looks like the number of Fair Play closures is increasing. It certainly doesn't look like there was any slowdown in Fair Play closings.
You said that you just got into the Legends Club at the end of May. Presumably, you stopped needing to grind out wins. That might have had an effect on who you were playing, starting when you advanced.
It also seems to me that accounts get closed for many reasons other than cheating. In fact, abuse closures occur far more often than cheating. (As seen in the monthly/quarterly reports.) And many people close their own accounts.
How have you separated the types?
This is from a recent update last February for the last three months of 2021:
It looked like two-thirds of the accounts closed by site were for abuse.
I haven't seen figures on self-closed accounts.
At any rate, it seems fair to say that most closures did not relate to cheating.
The recent report for the first 5 months of 2022 was just released:
The number of Fair Play closures ,116,354 for 5 months, was about twice that reported in the last 3 months of 2021 (59,656). It looks like the number of Fair Play closures is increasing. It certainly doesn't look like there was any slowdown in Fair Play closings.
At any rate, it seems clear that one can't conclude that an observed change in rate of closing on one account necessarily means there has been a change in site fair play policies. There could be many other reasons.
It does seem possible that the demands of adding players under the new verification system would divert some of that department's attention away from catching unverified cheaters. However, it also seems possible that they anticipated the new demand and had hired accordingly.
At any rate, you made some interesting observations. Perhaps other people will take the trouble to look at the rate of closures in their own accounts.
This whole discussion should probably be moved to the Cheating Forum. However, I won't lock it unless and until people start posting names and games, effectively making accusations.
I just finished reviewing my last 5,000 losses (100 pages, 50/page) looking for account closures.
The average number of closures for the older 80 pages was 1.756 per page (3.51%).
Starting in May, the rate of account closures dropped steeply to 0.272/page (0.55%).
Perhaps there's only 1/6 the number of cheats on the site, but I'd guess not.
My next thought was it just takes time for cheaters to be detected, but the incidence of account closures dropped simultaneously with 3 other things and I don't believe in coincidence.
(1) I stopped receiving notifications that my cheat reports are being reviewed, despite submitting many.
(2) I stopped receiving notifications that I have been refunded rating, despite their being account closures within that period.
(3) Literally days before the decline in account closures, chess.com had some big news: https://www.chess.com/news/view/announcing-chesscom-verified
https://www.chess.com/news/view/treasure-chess
"Given that all verifications will receive extensive fair play checks, we believe that the verified system is the beginning of a new kind of security in online chess!"
Did they introduce a new kind of security or just dumb down the existing security?
Has anyone had a similar experience? What conclusions do you make? To me it feels like the site doesn't care if you cheat anymore unless it's against someone who opens their wallet, but I'm not verified so I can't test this.