Hey all-- bad-ass community you got here.
I couldn't think of a more appropriate forum to put this in.
What do you guys do about cheating? I have computer chess programs that, if I ran my games through them and switched sides, I could see exactly what move I want to make by copying the AI.
Obviously, I can't be the only one who's thought of this; any experiences with this? Perhaps a suspicious and stunning upset at the end from a patzer like myself that shouldn't have been?
Of course, I think cheating would be distasteful to most, but there are some people out there who, I'd imagine, take their ratings very seriously. And who knows?
Furthermore, is consulting Fritz or Chessmaster any different than consulting MCO?
Well, the short version is, yes, there are ways the site admins can catch you cheating when you use software on another computer to tell you what to move in your games here. It all boils down to "statistics". After you've played enough games here, they can analyze your play and see how closely the moves you made correspond to the moves that any of the known chess engines would have made, and if there's too high a statistical correlation, you're busted.
The April 2004 issue of Chess Life had a good cover story about this.
You are not the first person to think of doing this, BTW.
I might add, that even without official Administrative proof and finger-pointing, if the rest of the people here start to get the feeling that you might possibly be cheating like this--if a groundswell of consensus starts to build that you're possibly consulting, say, Fritz on your laptop while you're online--you will have trouble finding decent opponents to play you.
Adding also, even patzers have stunning upsets. That alone doesn't prove that the patzer in question was cheating. But what WOULD prove cheating would be a certain type of statistical pattern in the upsets. Because the sort of person who would cheat like this is also the sort of person who will never be satisfied with just the one spectacular win--they keep going back to the well again and again, and eventually people start to notice.
Originally posted by ChessMomChess Life had a cover story, but not as good as it might have been. A large proportion of the USCF membership eschews online play because they fear cheating. The article in Chess Life on cheating was the magazine's first extensive article concerned with online play. They need to pay a little more attention to other aspects of online chess.
The April 2004 issue of Chess Life had a good cover story about this.
Although cheating occurs in online play, it also occurs in face-to-face tournaments. But, it is rare in both cases. Certainly more people cheat online, and it is easier to do so. But many more games--by several orders of magnitude--are played online, and cheating is much easier to spot online than in the tournament hall.
At the highest levels of play at correspondence time controls, the best software remains relatively weak compared to human players. ICCF allows the use of computers because it neither can be prevented, nor be helpful beyond recognized limits.
The complexity of chess belies calculation monsters. If my processor can see 14 plies deep in a particular position after 60 seconds, how many plies will it see after 48 hours? Rarely more than 18 (a wild guess, although this guess is based on tests I've run from time to time since 1990).
Originally posted by WulebgrGood point, online chess, although cheating is more prevalent, everything is recorded to a tee and analyzed throughly. If the site admins are dedicated to catching cheaters (and that's a big IF), then even if you get away with cheating and think you are safe, a year later, it could come back to bite you, as your cheating games are in the databases. As poor JW and Tlai soon found out, when some random ppl started analyzing their games and their "improvement", and lo and behold, one thing led to another and the whole community found out they cheated, this is common stuff online. If it wasn't for someone like darvley commenting, "don't tell me JW is now better then me after a beat him in 6 moves a month ago", and ppl got interested and started analzying his games, JW might of got away with cheating altogether.
Chess Life had a cover story, but not as good as it might have been. A large proportion of the USCF membership eschews online play because they fear cheating. The article in Chess Life on cheating was the magazine's first extensive article concerned with online play. They need to pay a little more attention to other aspects of online chess.
...[text shortened]... 18 (a wild guess, although this guess is based on tests I've run from time to time since 1990).
Now, compare that to say an amateurs OTB tournament with limited funds and maybe 2-3 arbiters at most. Say, you are playing someone at a far end table and you just have to go to the bathroom, then when you come back, you find yourself in an obvious queen fork on your move, and then you say to your opponent, "that queen wasn't there when I left", then he says, "prove it, don't be upset because you overlooked a simple tactic", when you just knew that before you left that situation was impossible, but, unless they have something drastic like bishops on both colors, there's no way to prove this.
Most OTB chess players are very honorable compared to online players, and I've never had this kinda problem when I played OTB as a kid 10 years ago, but ppl don't realize just how easy it is to cheat at OTB and how difficult it can be to prove they cheat, while online it's all itched in stone, but for whatever reason, ppl think it's easier to get away with cheating.
Originally posted by mateuloseIn an OTB tournament, you have your scoresheet to verify the position.
Say, you are playing someone at a far end table and you just have to go to the bathroom, then when you come back, you find yourself in an obvious queen fork on your move, and then you say to your opponent, "that queen wasn't there when I left", then he says, "prove it, don't be upset because you overlooked a simple tactic", when you just knew that be ...[text shortened]... unless they have something drastic like bishops on both colors, there's no way to prove this.
The danger comes from the PDA your opponent consulted while she was in the restroom.