Disconnection

I have now had several games where I have had a tactical advantage, my opponent is hesitating, disconnects, comes back 30secs-1min or so later and automatically plays every move perfectly. I have long suspected there is some cheating going on. Is this possible? I lose or draw 100% of the time when this happens so it seems like more than a coincidence.

When they disconnect, they cannot see the board or pieces so don't have that time to study the board.

If you do feel someone in your game maybe cheating, then please contact support and we'll check their games.

 They can always creenshot the board beforehand and then look at in a paint or word document, etc.

that's an awful lot of trouble to gain a few meaningless rating points.

Yeah but some people care alot about ratings.

Or else there wouldn't be cheating.

Or alot of other things in this world for that matter.

This is why I was asking here in the forum... Is there a way to have a chess engine run your game during live chess?  or can a pgn be exported if you disconnect but do not forfeit the game? I'm just curious... Its really a strange phenomenon... I can't figure out how someone can play poorly or slowly then all of a sudden after a disconnect play fast and well. Especially in the 1200-1400 range. None of us are that consistent. :) Thanks and cheers!

pgn doesn't show until the game is over (not if they disconnect as it hasn't ended the game).

Mind there are times when somebody does have a bad connection, but at times it seems that somebody leaves a game out of spite,  Disconnect not needed to cheat--the clock is still running.  Depending on connection problem, they may not lose browser.  If in doubt, play short time controls--you won;t have to wait a long time for your win.

That's all very nice, but today I found out a different possibility of disconnection cheating. My opponent disconnected when it was his/her turn, then reconnected after about 1 minute, and 1 minute was added to his/her clock. It was as if the disconnection never happened. I know for sure he/she did not cheat in this case, but this could be used to gain more time.

Sometimes a piece will "freeze" when I move it to a new square. This will result in a temporary disconnection, but I don't do it intentionally. I don't think I play any better or worse after the reconnection.

Its a pretty strange phenomenon when someone who is playing somewhat poorly diconnects, reconnects after a couple of minutes and all of a sudden makes all the right moves but if I'm the only one experiencing it than I have to assume its just me losing concentration from waiting... I'll take pawnforks advice and tighen time controls on the disconnections.

cheers

righ on man

you rate about 1400. How could you tell what the perfect moves are? If you did you'd be a GM

I just played against you and you didn't have the manners to resign when you were beaten.....just wasted time moving slowly while I advanced pawns

Time to get your ego in check

Astronmer, I think its you who needs to get your ego in check. Just as you are using this forum to inappropriately attack me, you played and acted childishly in our game. It is my choice whether or not to resign and I excercised it. Now please grow up and focus on the game instead of attacking other players. Its not in the spirit of the game. 

You don't need an engine to beat lower level players. People who cheat a lot and have not been caught are probably at least 2400 rated. Also you don't need to lose connection to be cheating. 

I agree Ducthday, this comment is now almost a year old. Though, I still believe that some people, who are petty and care a lot about their online rating, may be inclined to cheat when they are down, I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that the disconnection is associated with their winning. When I discussed a 'perfect game' I was referring to a player who blunders loses material, disconnects comes back and plays a perfect game. I too have had connection issues so I'm not suggesting everyone who disconnects is cheating I was frustrated with the pattern and was wondering if anyone else had the same experience. astromoner999 had some child rage issues and decided to try to act them out in this forum instead of sending me a message or just letting it go. One issue has nothing to do with the other and quite honestly unless other people see a pattern of poor players blundering ,disconnecting, reconnecting, then playing a precision game which they maraculously win then I feel its probably just psychological on my part. Tech support swears there is no possible way for people to cheat this way and I'm inclined to support them. cheers 

Sorry about that. People have recently been replying, so I never saw the age of the OP. It is not impossible a lower rated player sometimes cheats. If you think that, of course you should report him/her. I can't say I've had the problem. I don't play that much and if people do blunder material away and then decide to turn on an engine, obviously they're not going to get back the piece unless the position was really messy. 

If you suspect someone, please use the Help link at the bottom of the page. When that page opens, click on the left side option where it says Contact Us and submit a 'Suspected Cheat' ticket.

Also see this page

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/chesscom-policy-on-cheating

We provide tools to report cheating to our staff. But having several constant and redundant threads on the topic that circulate with the same questions and comments over and over again isn't helpful, and instead causes people to worry more than they need to. If you want to discuss cheating, please do it in this group

http://www.chess.com/groups/home/cheating-forum