4NCL Online

[JustinHorton]

So Chess.com banned 12,000+ accounts last month. Lets say 10% of those were innocent, in the space of a year you would have 15,000 people slagging chess.com off, isn't that going to do reputational damage?

It might. I think the percentage is smaller than that though, and I think a lot of people don't have anybody to slag them off to, since we're not all on widely-read forums, and I also think many people will just go somewhere else and accept it rather than make a fuss and draw attention to themselves. So the practical problem for chess.com is actually much smaller than that, and the practiccal advantages are probably much larger by comparison.

[Ian Thompson]

So Chess.com banned 12,000+ accounts last month. Lets say 10% of those were innocent, in the space of a year you would have 15,000 people slagging chess.com off, isn't that going to do reputational damage?

Perhaps rather less than having large numbers of people claiming that chess.com is rife with people cheating and that they don't care and do nothing about it.

[Roger de Coverly]

Clearly there is a much greater probability that you will pass a test in round 9 if you have already passed a test in round 8.

I would not have thought that followed. Round 9 might be a more critical or difficult game with more temptation to seek the occasional hint.

[MartinCarpenter]

With chess.com & blitz accounts I think people mostly don’t care that much when caught? At the moment with 4NCL they clearly view as a major offence.

That does suggest another way which feels reasonable? You set a fairly ‘high’ false positive rate, but agree that a first offence simply means that you’re rested for the rest of the season and it is then forgotten. No implications of proven guilt.

You could even plausibly enough let the results stand and so keep it pretty quiet - especially if you ran the main check just before the final stages.

Obviously you’d very firmly slap down anyone caught twice, and by then you’d have enormous statistical confidence in doing so.

Or does this need flying elephants as well?

[JustinHorton]

Yeah I did wonder if Alex meant pigs

[Ian Thompson]

Clearly there is a much greater probability that you will pass a test in round 9 if you have already passed a test in round 8.

I would not have thought that followed. Round 9 might be a more critical or difficult game with more temptation to seek the occasional hint.

But the comment was made about players who are not cheating. It's clearly true that the more games you've played without exceeding a cumulative threshold for being considered a cheat, the less likely you are to exceed it in the future.

Players who only cheat in a few games that matter more are a different problem. Looking at average performance over a number of games isn't going to catch them. You need something that looks at individual games, with the consequent increased likelihood of convicting an innocent person.

[Matthew Turner]

With chess.com & blitz accounts I think people mostly don’t care that much when caught? At the moment with 4NCL they clearly view as a major offence.

That does suggest another way which feels reasonable? You set a fairly ‘high’ false positive rate, but agree that a first offence simply means that you’re rested for the rest of the season and it is then forgotten. No implications of proven guilt.

You could even plausibly enough let the results stand and so keep it pretty quiet - especially if you ran the main check just before the final stages.

Obviously you’d very firmly slap down anyone caught twice, and by then you’d have enormous statistical confidence in doing so.

Or does this need flying elephants as well?

Martin,
The thing is, I think what you are describing is de facto true!! There have been players caught who nobody knows about. There are some cause celebres, but these are mainly because captains have chosen to go public with a vehement defence of their player. Time will tell whether that was the best thing to do/in the player's best interests.

[MartinCarpenter]

That's good

It is genuinely a bit tricky for higher profile teams of course. If you turn all the games to defaults the punishment is already arguably de facto public.

Maybe also if a high division team suddenly drops a high profile, obviously very well scoring!, player.

The really hard part is going to be getting the rest of the chess world not too treat them like a proven cheat.

[JustinHorton]

Well yes

[Matthew Turner]

So Chess.com banned 12,000+ accounts last month. Lets say 10% of those were innocent, in the space of a year you would have 15,000 people slagging chess.com off, isn't that going to do reputational damage?

It might. I think the percentage is smaller than that though, and I think a lot of people don't have anybody to slag them off to, since we're not all on widely-read forums, and I also think many people will just go somewhere else and accept it rather than make a fuss and draw attention to themselves. So the practical problem for chess.com is actually much smaller than that, and the practiccal advantages are probably much larger by comparison.

Let’s say instead then that there are 120 innocent people wrongly banned each month, I think Chess.com could live with that, particularly given all the reason you’ve stated. At this sort of level, I think there is no reason why you couldn’t run ‘serious’ events like the 4NCL on their platform. Yes, you would still have false positives, but maybe at the rate of one every ten years. If you add in an extra layer of protection with a good 4NCL appeals process then I think you have the balance between protecting the players from cheating and the individual from false accusations.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Yeah I did wonder if Alex meant pigs

My sole contribution to this thread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v2exWrsGOc

[JustinHorton]

Oh yeah I know about Dumbo but it's not proverbial in the same way.

[MartinCarpenter]

Sure, but flying pigs is easy compared to flying elephants

[Nick Grey]

So have we got the flgures yet. Number of accusation of cheating in 10 rounds against number of games played, Number not sure yet.

[Alex McFarlane]

For clarity ... I thought any chance of agreement was way beyond flying pigs