the people who have two accounts but are not cheating

:board

Hi,
Indeed you have to get approval from chess.com to create your alt via this link (which I recommend you to read) https://support.chess.com/article/596-can-i-have-multiple-accounts else your accountS might get closed for abuse.

but me and my brother also have accounts on the same computer, and we cant play eachother, so how does one play himself?

Actually im curious too, is that the only reason?

Oh okay, I see. Yeah, I guess it must be because of using two accounts to manipulate things. Like I remember you can't post on both accounts in the same thread, which would be vulnerable to sockpuppet manipulation

It's completely legal to have two accounts as long as you are not playing them against each other or any of the other reasons provided by fair play

Wait actually tbh, what people are saying makes sense but I still don't entirely get what the deal is with two accounts.

I used to have two accounts, this one and another one I'll call A. Due to some reasons, I closed A and opened B, assuming that chess.com would be fine with it. I messaged them, and they responded, being like, why did you close A and open B? Completely understandable. I explained, and they approved B, but then they were like, please, no more changing. That part surprised me.
I thought it would be a simple thing and didn't think closing A and opening B would be a problem but it seems they really don't like too many accounts being used for some reason. So I'm just wondering if there's another concern besides the rating/forum manipulation kind of stuff.

You can have multiple chess.com accounts, but you need to let chess.com support know beforehand. They almost always give you permission now as long as you ask first. They just want a record of who is who. At least, this is how I understand it.

That makes sense but why wouldn't they like someone changing between 2nd accts?

I don't think they have a problem with you changing accounts you are on. I think they just want record of which accounts are yours. I honestly don't know the exact reason they want a record of this, but it sounds reasonable to me. When I joined chess.com in 2017, it was very difficult to have a second account approved. It was mostly limited to approved speedruns and a titled player having a second account to prepare or practice anonymously. However, many people like having multiple accounts for other reasons (like one for playing and one more for forums etc.), but personally I like having things on one account when possible.

I don't remember when chess.com loosened their restrictions on multiple accounts if approved, but it was probably around 2020 or somewhere around there when chess.com started allowing more people multiple accounts if they got permission to do so first.

p.s. Also only similarly related, but if an account is a speedrun account (like GM @Hikaru playing under an alias), then after they reach their speedrun goal, they close their speedrun account and chess.com refunds the points of all the players the speedrun account beat. This way people don't feel like they lose their hard earn points to a titled player in disguise etc. Obviously, chess.com can only refund the points if they knew which account was a speedrun account and who is playing on that account.