Why do people make such a big deal about cheating?

lanceuppercut_239 wrote:

It's like trying to catch drivers who speed. Most people obey the speed limits. Those who don't will eventually be caught, ticketed, and in the worst cases, punished through the courts or have their driver's licence revoked. Does this prevent speeding? Not entirely, but it deters most people and keeps the system functioning reasonably well.

If we're going with driving analogies, then I have one as well.  People who sign-up for tournaments and then go on 1month vacations, are like drivers in the left line doing 40mph in 65mph zone.  They slow everyone down.

Babyferatu wrote:

I would more agree with . . .  "We have no idea about the frequency of cheating".

Technically you might be right, but then by the same token people who say that cheating is "rampant" have no evidence to support their position either.

Most allegations of cheating seem to revolve around the "how could someone be that good without computer assistance?" argument. That is to say, they're baseless allegations.

>>However, the constant suppositional accusations and whining is far more irritating than the possibility of being cheated, for me.

I agree.

lanceuppercut_239 wrote:  Most people obey the speed limits. LOL... what fantasy world do you live in???

De-Lar,

Had you read more closely you would have realized that my position is that we don't know the degree of cheating.  I've never asserted that cheating is "rampant" here, nor have reported anyone for cheating, nor even suspected that any of my opponents were doing so.

But that doesn't blind me from seeing how easy it would be to cheat, nor from having an opinion on the subject.

De-Lar,

Relax... take a deep breath.  If I was starting a "witch hunt" I'd be breaking out the torches and donning my trusty Puritan garb.   If you easily confuse open and hopefully objective discussion with persecution then it's ok to politely bow of of the conversation and do something else.

How about a nice game of chess?

RiotAct wrote:

lanceuppercut_239 wrote:  Most people obey the speed limits. LOL... what fantasy world do you live in???

Even though exceeding the speed limit by 2 mph is technically speeding, you know what I meant. Most drivers on most roads are driving at a speed such that they're fast enough to not impede traffic, and slow enough that the cops won't pull them over. People driving like maniacs are the exception rather than the rule.

Most people don't cheat.

Babyferatu> I would more agree with "Many people do not cheat, or are very bad at it" or even better "We have no idea about the frequency of cheating".

Most are not cheating using chess engines, and that's easy to demonstrate.

I faced 0 cheaters in my last 25 games. How do I know that? Well, chess engines crush me and I only lost 1 game (due to a silly blunder). Now suppose 50% of people are cheating. The odds of being matched with a non-cheater in 25 games in a row is approximately 1 in 1,000,000. Of course, you could argue this is only indicative of players rated 1000-1800.

If you suspect you're playing the odd cheater, click Report Abuse and the chess.com staff will promptly deal with it--they have their ways. :)

We can reasonably assume there is no cheater detection system in place.  I doubt there's a fritz engine running on the server checking every move, and making sure a player with 1200 rating doesn't keep up with Kasparov.  It would be too computationally intensive.

There probably is some sort of trend detection - you end up winning too many games in a row, you beat too many players with higher ranking than yourself - that raises a flag.  Even then I doubt there's enough people behind the scenes to look at your account.  They're too busy coding in new features, as they should be.

Detecting cheaters is impossible, until computing is fast and cheap enough when we can look at every single move in every single game.  On the plus side, this particular website doesn't attract cheaters - at least in the turn-based chess.  Nobody's going to spend months and months on a single game, just to win it.

In fact - I'd be more weary of people who turn their chess engines only when they get into trouble, or to double check their move, to make sure it's not a blunder.  Those would be virtually impossible to detect.

In the end, I don't think the phenomena is wide-spread on chess.com.  I've played plenty of games, where players better than me made subtle, and sometimes serious mistakes.  Of all the games I've been in so far, I'm pretty sure none of my opponents was using a chess engine - at least not throughout the whole game.  There was one time when a player in his 1600 came back after 2 pawn deficit, but he's in his 2000's now, so I'm assuming he was just that good.

likesforests wrote:

Most are not cheating using chess engines, and that's easy to demonstrate.

I faced 0 cheaters in my last 25 games. How do I know that? Well, chess engines crush me and I only lost 1 game (due to a silly blunder). Now suppose 50% of people are cheating. The odds of being matched with a non-cheater in 25 games in a row is approximately 1 in 1,000,000.

Fundamentally I agree with you likesforests... in fact, I'd go one further and guess that cheaters may only be something like 5-10% of the population, and even then not cheating all the time but instead selectively.

That being said, I'd hesitate to draw any lasting conclusions from a stretch of 25 games.

torqamada wrote:

You are all missing the mark and that is with the advent of the first Fritz chess engine cheating has been rampant on all chess sites, even here! Why do all GM's use them? I know for a matter of fact I am playing at least 5-6 of them at this very moment! How do I know, I ask players that own these contraptions. Sometimes it is so obvious I don't need to ask, based on 40+ years of playing. So to be naive with allusions to speeding and other nonsense is just uninformed. If you cheat it is cruel and a waste of my precious time. I put in my heart and soul, blood sweat & tears into playing and to have my opponent whip of his perfect tactical or positional move no matter the game nor the time, is still cheating. If you cheat go play at RHP and cheat alot and see what happens, see ya. Some sites like Ficgs allow it and that is fine if you know it going in. Some sites allow it tacitly because of other issues such as money or laziness. I hope C.c has a plan because it happens here as much as any other site.

Okay, Mr. Inquisition, I'll set aside the fact that your explanation of how you can detect all of those cheaters is not really comprehensible to me. But if you are playing against 5-6 cheaters now (that is, one-third of the 18 current games you have) why don't you post just one for us. Post it here and explain to us what it is about your opponent's play that demonstrates that he or she is cheating.

I also want to know how many of these rampant cheaters have you reported? If the answer is zero, then why is that?

The only difficulty I've had with cheating on this site is the large number of people who post claiming to know about massive number of cheaters. I'd like to adopt a rule that anyone who wants to assert there are massive numbers of cheaters has to post at least one game to back up this claim. If you can't show even one game, what are you really complaining about?