Cheating in chess

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Any link to the game itself? (So I can use it against the next GM I play!)

[Matt Mackenzie]

Kramnik seems to have gone down a real rabbit hole regarding this, it is sad to see.

[Matthew Turner]

Any link to the game itself? (So I can use it against the next GM I play!)

The game is here https://www.chess.com/game/live/103416156517

[NickFaulks]

That game is proof of cheating? By which player?

[Roger Lancaster]

The point has been made before, so I'll keep the post brief. If someone is a sophisticated online cheat (meaning that they get outside assistance only, say, two or three times in a game) then it's virtually impossible to determine this with anything approaching near-certainty because there's the alternative possibility (perhaps a remote one but one which can't be discounted) that they just got lucky - by which I mean they legitimately found moves which someone of their playing strength wouldn't be expected to find - on those two or three moves. If someone keeps doing this over many games then the 'luck' explanation becomes less and less plausible. But, unless there's a preponderance of unsophisticated cheats who follow Stockfish or similar for move after move, I admit to being puzzled how so many people can decide their opponent is cheating on the basis of a single game.

[Chris Rice]

Ameet Ghasi, one of the nicest and most honest guys you will ever meet, beat Kramnik at Titled Tuesday and inevitably was subject to the usual from Kramnik afterwards. On social media Ameet has taken it well and would probably laugh at it if it wasn't for the nagging feeling that someone might think there is something in it.

[Simon Rogers]

Sad news about the death of Igors Rausis, which I have just reported in the Deaths & Obituaries Category.

[LawrenceCooper]

Kramnik banned for 3 months for playing Titled Tuesday on someone else's account: https://twitter.com/chesscom/status/177 ... 98/photo/1

[Christopher Kreuzer]

The person whose account he used (GM Denis Khismatullin) was banned indefinitely!

[Matt Mackenzie]

As one might say to a certain other prominent Russian right now - stop it Vlad!

[Mick Norris]

Cheating in Online Chess (Part 1): Suspicions of Engine Assistance

Raúl Sánchez García and Héctor Laiz Ibáñez are currently conducting a qualitative study on cheating in online chess, whose preliminary findings they describe in a two-part blog entry. This blog post is the first of the two parts.

Concluding this first post of preliminary findings from the study, we found that the mere suspicion of cheating (engine assistance) by the opponent was enough to alter the player’s capacity to engage the game, negatively affecting his performance. Perhaps the most negative impact on the current sensation of extended cheating in online chess (Zaksaitė, 2020, p. 68), qualified by many participants in the experiment as paranoia, is precisely this: many players are underperforming on their chess play due to the suspicions of cheating.

[Roger de Coverly]

Cheating in Online Chess (Part 1): Suspicions of Engine Assistance

An interesting question is whether the chess.com tool for detecting those infringing terms and conditions was switched on and what if anything it spotted.

[Andrew Smith]

At my level, playing opposition usually ranging from 2000 - 2300 at 3min + 2 seconds on lichess, I have never ever had any inkling that an opponent has cheated. Its casual chess, so why should they bother. But I can appreciate that it is a different issue if there is prize money at stake.

[Roger Lancaster]

Cheating in Online Chess (Part 1): Suspicions of Engine Assistance

An interesting question is whether the chess.com tool for detecting those infringing terms and conditions was switched on and what if anything it spotted.

In this study, did the participants know the nature of the three groups? In other words, did they know that the study involved 33% non-cheats, 33% invariable cheats and 33% 'occasional' cheats or was this information withheld so that they assumed they were playing a 'normal' sample of opponents?

[Brian Beattie]

At my level, playing opposition usually ranging from 2000 - 2300 at 3min + 2 seconds on lichess, I have never ever had any inkling that an opponent has cheated. Its casual chess, so why should they bother. But I can appreciate that it is a different issue if there is prize money at stake.

My son plays around the same rating range but on Lichess Classical instead. I have some stats from his last 50 games. There were a total of 8 players out of those 50 who either breached Lichess Terms of Service or the owner had closed their account. Of the ones that closed their accounts I know for certain a few of them have closed their accounts because they had breached Lichess Terms of Service as I reported them for cheating and they were subsequently banned. It is actually quite common for those who get caught cheating to simply close their account as this detail supercedes breaching the terms of service and therefore no longer associates their account with being a cheater. Of those eight there were also three that had closed their account who I had not reported nor had any feeling they were cheating. The fact that my kid scored 0 for 3 against them and the fact that is isn't generally normal for people to just close an account leads me to believe it is highly likely that they had also been banned for cheating.

As to my kid, though, out of those 50 he never felt that any were cheating. There were, however, maybe one or two games that he felt his opponent was playing particularly well. My perspective was a bit different as I watch his games in real time with an engine and the opening explorer. Mainly so that I can explore alternative ideas working through them while the game was ongoing and trying to identify just the salient ones so I can explore these with my son after the game. And, from time to time I found that the opponent was also finding these same salient ideas with me and in a similar timeframe.

In short out of 50 players I had 4 banned, Lichess likely banned 4 more that I never suspected (3 - closed account; 1 - Terms of Service). Additionally, as I haven't mentioned it above, there were an additional 2 accounts that I suspected were cheating but at least to date that looks to be incorrect.