Why me and playing Internet chess are finished!

Well this is a shame gumpty sorry to see you go like this.  I don't think cheating is widespread at this site and in fact I think that besides ICC this site has one of the lowest cheating percentages out there.  I understand what you are saying though in that we are all bound to run into them time and again which can be endlessly frustrating.  Especially when you take into account the paranoia one endures from these encounters which can greatly tarnish/ruin a player's experience with chess. 

All in all I do hope you change your mind and come back to playing after perhaps cooling down for a couple of weeks.  Good luck!

You can still beat cheaters.  But play because you enjoy it, not just to win.

Gumpty, I see your point of view and I can understand your decision.

B.t.w: Were you the one a day or two ago arguing with the guy trying to legalise engines on a forum post here? 

Most of the people in those two threads were saying using engines was NOT OK.

Honestly, I don't get why people get so worked up about this.  If someone is cheating by using a computer, they're either going to get caught eventually, or their rating is going to go through the roof to the point where I'm not going to be playing them anyway.  Besides, playing against a computer isn't the worst thing in the world -- believe it or not, I play against them voluntarily at times.  (Gasp!)

I feel privileged to play against great players here.  If they make a great move, then congratulations to them; I've never given a second thought to wondering about whether or not they really made it themselves or aided by computer.  In the end, it's still chess.

I agree it is annoying to play against engine-users.

However, you can adopt legitimate practices that greatly raise your playing skill in turn-based chess. You can use Game Explorer or ChessBase to navigate the openings with little peril. Even deep into the opening, you can easily replay hundreds of games in that opening to get idea of tactics and strategies peculiar to that opening, even if you have varied from "book". For endings, you can consult books. Last and most important, you can use ChessBase or similar software to organize your analysis of particular positions, and go deeper than any engine.

All these techniques will not only improve your turn-based rating, they will improve your OTB skill.

Why not play unrated?  There may be people with so little self-confidence that they cheat in unrated games, but (hopefully!) these people are very hard to come by.

give us a smile.'

dont get down ratings is just a #. i recently lost a couple games in the british open tourney to a guy that has a 400 point difference in his quick games and his coresponde4nce. probably a cheater. screw it. chess is fun anyway. if they need to do that then that is their problem. dont take it personally. cheer up. man u are depressing.

I'm definitely against using any sort of engine or programmed help, but it's not like it is impossible to beat people who do.

FWIW, I'd be happy to play unrated games with you, Gumpty.

Its a frustrating situation gumpty, there's no getting around it... but you're only hurting yourself (and the other non-assisted chess players -- who love to have a strong, non-cheating, human in the opponent pool). I say, play chess, enjoy it, and don't let the jerks get ya down... your online rating will always be a bit  deflated becuase of cheaters, but so what... you know you're legit and that should be a source of pride -- it is for me. I hope you'll decide to play on. 

BTW. I'm startled, quite unhappily, to discover that the ICCF allows engines.  I don't believe the hype about how amazing engine assisted ICCF champs are... I think it's raw BS..., I'll accept the argument that building computer chess engines is an intellectual art worthy of praise, ok, I believe that. But, these chess engine drivers, like Robin Smith or Ivar Berg... oh please... *yawn* -- big freaking deal...they've worked out some clever strategies for using software and have the patience to let their engines run a long time...whooopee! And what's this I hear about --  "Advanced Freestyle chess" ? gimme a break...  what an ego-pump of a name that is... hell, we should call it, "Super Advanced Ultra Freestyle Elite XT " chess, and encourage these weenies to circle-jerk each other and their chess engines all day long so the rest of us can play actual chess.

Chessgames.com has had several matches between correspondence chess champs, and a "votechess" type team with open membership drawn from the chessgames.com community... the Chessgames.com teams are undefeated!... because the power of single decent chessplayer, tweaking his computer engine, cannot compete with a thousand organized patzers tweaking their computers, parallel fashion, down a half-dozen promising candidates. The massive "processor time" multiplyer available to the chessgames.com community, blows away the experience + skill of the GM correspondence chess centaur.

In short, the better computer wins. How dull.  

Long live real chess, and real correspondence chess too. (Database assisted chess is NOT engine chess!)

Hello, gumpty-

Although I haven't had the feeling that any of my opponents here at Chess.com have used computers, I have had to wonder about it looking at some of the tournament results that individuals have posted on this website. So, I can see where you're coming from: It's completely frustrating to expend hours pouring over the positions in a given game, only to have the feeling that your opponent dipped into his chess engine for a few key moves, right?

Well, I've got a radical solution for you: Give ICCF a try. The International Correspondence Chess Federation threw the towel in a few years ago. They offer only serious tournament games, and there are no dues. BUT, each tournament begins with the charge: "Gentlemen and Ladies, start your engines." Yup, chess engines are allowed, so it's impossible to "cheat" by using one.

My first reaction was that this would be no more than "my chess engine can beat your chess engine." But regulars on that website assure me that that is not the case. Rather, it's like being like an orchestra conductor--you are in command of all of the resources you can muster. It's a matter of who can best marshall and utilize his/her resources--including chess engines. Top players at this website believe that chess engines are unbeatable at tactics but are not good at strategy, so there are plenty of decisions for the human to make.

I personally haven't tried this yet, but it does intrigue me. It sounds more like being a combined baseball general manager and field manager, rather than a mere ball player. In any case, the ICCF has been playing this way for years now, and with seeming success. Certainly, the fear of cheating by chess engine is gone. It'd just be a matter of deciding to get used to this style of play.

I'm getting tired of people wasting time posting threads on this topic, especially when it really has nothing to do with them. Seriously Gumpty, you want to leave then go quietly into the night and stop griping about the reasons you're leaving. Do you think at all that anyone who does cheat might read this and be saved by the sudden cancellation of your games and picket line stance on no longer playing? Truth be told, if people cheat they're not interested in whether or not you continue to play. You were rated in the 1900's and played 398 games of which you won 245 time and of course that would have been more if you hadn't run out on all the games you were playing. Do you really think you were a victim of cheaters? Do you think you would have been rated higher if cheating never existed? Obviously if your didn't face cheaters in over 61% of your games, things can't be that bad then.

You want to whine and complain? Do so if your dog died, if you lost your job or if you can't get your kid that game he has always wanted for his birthday, but don't complain about cheaters on chess websites. With all the crap going on in this world you'd think people might have better things to worry about. If you don't then kudos, start enjoying your life and quit worrying about morons who like using computer programs. You can handle your own fine, and if you did love the game as much as you profess then you'd enjoy the game instead of worrying about if that guy you're playing against is using a program. Hint, hint if you're beating him or it's close, he's probably not.

It's a short life, you should live the rest of it.

I understand your point of view.  To me, playing here makes me happy and if I play the occasional cheater; to me that's a small price to pay for all the enjoyment I get.

I've come to terms with losing therefore getting cheated is more of a learning experience.

Sorry you went to this extreme gumpty mate, you know you were welcome to stay in CoT and play games with members you were able to trust, over 100 members there should keep anyone in enough one on one games to satisfy your OTB passion.

yeah, cheaters do suck hard... but i got over the whole "ppl who want to have pretty numbers next to their name so they cheat" thing back when Halo 2 was still popular online. Halo 2 over live, you got cheated CONSTANTLY, but you got over it.