It's not allowed, and Chess.com has a system, that they have understandably not released the specifics of, to find cheaters, found here. You can use the report abuse link to report your recent opponents, have them reviews.
It's not much of a problem at my level :P but I wouldn't be surprised if there were some cheaters at your level. Good luck!
They will probably lock this thread, but if its a championship game. Aren't there supposed to be people there with them, making sure its legit ?
By the same token, cheating is always possible to some degree. Check out the ingenious methods people go thru at Las Vegas. The problem is when they get caught, and they will eventually, the consequences are not good.
It just isn't worth it. So don't do it, and if you are a player wanting to improve, you are defeating yourself really. As far as a 2000 level player, maybe he is really a higher rated player than that, or is a master with the opening you are playing (plus you mentioned you messed up). There really is not a sure way to know unless you are there, and can actually check the guy for radio frequencies, etc.
At lower levels it is doubtful, the higher the level, it does become more possible people would cheat, (not that they do, mind you), for money especially. Good luck.
Just run them through your engine. If a 2000 player on here is matching houdini on every move you know something is up.
Join this group: http://www.chess.com/groups/home/cheating-forum
and post your concerns in there. There are guys pretty clued up on checking for engine matchups.
Talking about cheating is not allowed in here, rightly or wrongly.... them's the rules.
JDzokic, what is actually so strange about my post, could you please be a bit more specific ? Plus pardon on the turn base/correspondence part. When I read in the op's ? It said Canadian Championship, I took that for Turn based, sorry my bad on that.
I'll use the report abuse thing then and see what they say. When I "mess" up it's a lot different than your average chess.com user. Lol talking about cheating is not allowed? That's funny, since it's obvious to anyone reading my post that I'm not recommending cheating but asking whether engines is allowed. I know there are many sites out there that allow engines or don't care about it and I just wanted to make sure chess.com has a policy set in place so I don't carelessly report him if engine use is fine.
Is this allowed on chess.com and if not, how do you check if your opponent is using an engine? I'm playing a 2000 in the Canadian championships online right now and I got smashed in both games. Now... normally I don't give a crap and I did make some stupid moves in both games but I don't expect 2000's on here to punish me as hard as he did. Even I have trouble converting winning positions against weaker opposition in long games and on here I don't think most people think or play as well as over the board anyhow.