below are the postings that misslead is refering to in her 'shame'
posting. More or less in the right sequence (difficult with multi-
subtrhreads).
A plea for decency
Posted by tenebr8 [05 October 2002 21:47]
No, I am not going to make any accusations here-- but I am 99
percent certain that there is at least one currently active player using
a
program-- this person has not been named publicly, and I am not
about to do so, either. I am, instead, going to ask a simple favor-- if
you need a program to play your games for you, please go to one of
the websites where programs are allowed, in their own division. Or at
least have the decency to mention in your profile that you use a
program-- there might be some people here that enjoy the challenge
of playing against a program. Personally, I suspect that such people
would simply purchase the program they wanted to play against...
I play my ass off for every point I get, and yet I am still having
trouble staying ahead of the infamous threefigs, who plays against
himself to amass points. How ridiculous is that?
Chess is about competition, folks. Honest competition. It is simply
the medium of the Internet, and the availability of software, that
makes such cheating possible. In correspondence/Internet chess, you
also have the option of using databases or books like Modern Chess
Openings. After that, you should be on your own. If you can't hack
that, please play elsewhere.
Tim
Too annoyed to use a title
Re: A plea for decency
Posted by Schliemann [05 October 2002 21:56]
A very well thought out and very purposeful post.
The day that I find winning a game is so important that I would use a
program is the day that I quit playing chess.
Very well said Tim.
Dave
Re: A plea for decency
Posted by misslead [06 October 2002 11:52]
"A well thought out post".😀.
It has in it's title "plea",But what about Chris's plea to refrain from
posting alligations.
This is the second time that code as been broken.You made an
alligation within a week.
Many players will look down Tim's game list to spot the cheat,so
everyone on that list is a suspect.
It isn't me.Tim whopped me.There are some names on there who are
above suspision.There are some who can't be cheats because of there
rating.
The danger of these posts is someone who is not up to speed with
what is going on can easily draw the wrong conclusion.
Some newbi might look at the list and decide it must be the guy with
the highest rating.
So,it is better to stick to Chris's code.
Lyn(who knows what it is like to be the victim of not very well thought
out posts).
Re: A plea for decency
Posted by Hotpawn [06 October 2002 13:54]
Good post, misslead!
After tenebr8 posted his accusation I looked at his games and
concluded that whoever he was talking about couldn't be one of his
opponents.
I started thinking that perhaps he meant me! (I'm the highest rated
who has won all his games), but I had never anything to do with him.
Whatever, I don't like the way how overall suspicion is brought to this
site... I hope it will stop.
Just an idea: if you think someone uses a program, which by the way
is very hard to prove, post feedback about it to Chrismo and Russ
and let them decide what to do with it.
Re: A plea for decency
Posted by Chrismo [06 October 2002 00:40]
As many of you will now, I have written a chess playing program
called "Rival". I have used Rival to play on some internet chess
servers as a computer player, in order to gauge its strength amongst
a field of human players and other computer players. These servers
were realtime servers where the program had to operate within the
same time constraints as the human players and other computer
players when making each move. It is mandatory on these servers to
declare that you are using a program to make the moves; the
program essentially has its own account.
Although I have no doubt that it occurs, I can't see the motivation for
using a program on RHP. The only reason we implemented the rating
system was so that people could measure their strength amongst the
community and to find suitable opponents to challenge. It seems
strange that someone would want to achieve a high-ranking just for
the sake of it. I could understand it perhaps if there was a prize!! But
there isn't!
If players want to use a program to play their moves, then it is fine,
so long as it is mentioned in the profile.
As for playing games against yourself to increase your rating; well,
this is just wrong. If a player uses a computer to boost their rating,
then at least the rating will in some way reflect the strength of the
nick
you are challenging, even though it isn't a human. But if a player
boosts their rating by playing themselves, then the nick you are
playing has a genuinely false rating.
I will update the site soon the notify us when this is occuring. As you
can imagine it is not difficult to spot!!
Cheers,
Chris
Re: A plea for decency
Posted by Schliemann [06 October 2002 01:01]
Chris...I must say a few things on this.
I am not sure which site you refer to about testing out Rival..but I
know they do allow that on ICC..and like you said..you KNOW you are
playing a computer and not a real person.
I really wish though you would not encourage that use here...whether
it is in someone's profile or not. The fact that the other places
use "Real Time" play..such as RHP Live is ALOT different than
Correspondance play. It would upset the ratings and would command
NO respect from anyone...in essence whoever had the most money
would be #1 because they could purchase Deep Fritz and and multi
processor computer to run it on (8 to be exact which is what Kramnik
the current World Champion is playing against right now) and how fair
would that be?
All of these people who have chosen to play here in a correspondance
based world and earn their points I am sure would agree with me. If
they want to play against a program then buy one...on here I think all
want to play against real people.
As for the "three figs" crap..you should know that we are always
watching and and will always pipe up real quick and point it out.
Dave
Re: A plea for decency
Posted by Acolyte [05 October 2002 22:08]
"I play my ass off for every point I get, and yet I am still having
trouble staying ahead of the infamous threefigs, who plays against
himself to amass points. How ridiculous is that?"
I thought threefigs had been deleted.
Very few people seem to believe this, but threefigs and xenaphobe
both cheated in the most
obvious way they could think of so that people would immediately
notice that they were
cheating. This was done as a joke, but also with the intention of
getting people to think
about cheating on RHP. They were caricaturing the much more
widespread low-level cheating
and gamesmanship that went on then, and may still be happening
now.
If threefigs really wanted to reach the top of the table and stay there,
he would have taken a
multi-pronged approach that would be much less obvious. I won't say
what he could have
done, because I also believe in fair play and don't want to encourage
people.
If I thought someone was using a program, I would try to ask them
about it first, then I
would e-mail Chris or Russ about it. To be honest though, I'm not a
good enough chess
player to distinguish a strong player from a program.
Colin