Engine cheats - How should we approach them?

Originally posted by Phlabibit
There is a reliable way to detect cheats

Only the blatant cheats. If I use an engine to assist with a single move in a game, I’m cheating, but good luck detecting that. Don’t overestimate what can be reliably detected because we’ve never had a means of telling which cheats have went undetected.

Originally posted by Phlabibit
There is a reliable way to detect cheats, admins have no interest in removing them so I gave up bothering sending info in as did others I've talked with.

Even RJHinds can't figure out why he's still here.

Admins want to be sure they are correct and fair in their actions. That is why I am still here, IMO.

Originally posted by Varenka
Only the blatant cheats. If I use an engine to assist with a single move in a game, I’m cheating, but good luck detecting that. Don’t overestimate what can be reliably detected because we’ve never had a means of telling which cheats have went undetected.

True. But there is a morality here. If your
morals dont stop you cheating then I think
you will be inclined to do it again and again.

A good comparison is steroids in athletics.
Most (we hope) get caught eventually.

Originally posted by Marinkatomb
With the demise of the game mods and the constant on going grumblings of the community as a result, i thought it might be interesting to have a discussion about possible alternative ways of dealing with this issue.

From what i can gather/remember, the game mods were disbanded, in part, because members of the moderation team were themselves accused of ...[text shortened]... robably shouldn't go on and on indefinitely. What are peoples thoughts/suggestions?

Have you thought about the psychology of cheating with a chess engine. That is, what benefits does the cheater see that makes it worth cheating rather than just enjoying a good competitive game of chess?

Originally posted by Marinkatomb
Thank you for your input. I guess you started this thread at least partially because of me (complaining and so on).

Well yes and no, Personally i really don't see any good reason why the policy has been abandoned. Yes there were problems, but an internet chess site that doesn't remove cheats isn't a serious chess site, it's just as simple as t ...[text shortened]... will be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to turn the clocks back...

Very nice summary about the situation.

Should we ask Russ now what he thinks about this?

There are almost 500 players here with a rating of 1900+, approximately half of them are paying. If the genuine players are driven away, and replaced one by one by engine users, well at the end, the engine users just pay their membership to play another version of Fritz. Same for the few remaining non-engine users.

Originally posted by RJHinds
Have you thought about the psychology of cheating with a chess engine. That is, what benefits does the cheater see that makes it worth cheating rather than just enjoying a good competitive game of chess?

And what would that be?

Originally posted by gambit05
And what would that be?

Also what is the psychology of the person that would accuse someone of cheating? I was rated about 2000 maybe a little less when Proper Knob first accused me of cheating and we never played a game. We only knew each other because I had only been ridiculing his belief in evolution on the Spirituality Forum.

Originally posted by RJHinds
Also what is the psychology of the person that would accuse someone of cheating? I was rated about 2000 maybe a little less when Proper Knob first accused me of cheating and we never played a game. We only knew each other because I had only been ridiculing his belief in evolution on the Spirituality Forum.

Now it is getting interesting. First of all, I am a Scientist, generally speaking I am supporting the "theory of evolution" as you call it. I dont' believe in any godness (God in your world), but as long as people do not knock at my door at home, I generally tolerate/accept them.

Now to the chess bit: I don't think that Prober Knob especially picked you for analysis. He's analysing most of the 2000+ players. So, I guess it is nothing personal. However, you showed a high match-up, and you didn't commit to either leave the site (as you have promised), or at least not to participate in the Chess Forum ( as you have promised).

Combining your religion (don't cheat) with your performance on RHP (looks like you cheat for physiological reason; what exactly are they?) I would say something went wrong one way or the other.

If you would be able to admit that you have cheated in the past, it would be fine for me. No penalty from my site. If you don't do it again, you should be a valuable member of this community. If you decide to not cheat, you actually would learn much more. Your choice.

A very easy way to reduce cheating would simply be to make it impossible to view the PGN/FEN during the game. Of course, it would still be possible to manually input the FEN into an engine, but cheats are lazy and I'm sure it would be too time consuming to do it manually when you have 50+ games in progress.
Just a thought.

For what it's worth, I played on this site under another nick from 2006 to 2010, and back then, cheating was much less of an issue. Sure, there were always a couple of people pointing fingers at one or two top players, but compared to now, it was nothing. It seems like now there are hundreds of cheaters. Heck, I just played a game against a 1700 player who I am almost sure was cheating. He just resigns games randomly every now and then to keep his rating low.

Originally posted by dashkar

it would be too time consuming to do it manually when you have 50+ games in progress

The cheat could just keep track of each game from the start in a database such as ChessBase. Then when it's their turn to move, they open the particular game in their database and add their opponent's last move. I once used Chessbase to keep track of variations, etc.

I just played a game against a 1700 player who I am almost sure was cheating. He just resigns games randomly every now and then to keep his rating low.

Just make sure you keep playing him enough games for it to even itself out then... 😉

So is preventing cheating a lost cause? If it is, then why has cheating only become so rampant in the last couple of years?

Has anyone gotten an answer from Russ about why he stopped banning cheaters? Surely if people just refused to continue subscribing as long as obvious cheaters are allowed to continue playing, the issue would be resolved very quickly.

From what I gather I think infighting/accusations within the game mod team was the final straw for Russ.
Personally I always thought the only possible way forward was to have non-playing analysts doing the work. At least it eliminates a lot of potential issues, especially if a mod keeps winning high-profile tourneys etc...

Originally posted by Zygalski
From what I gather I think infighting/accusations within the game mod team was the final straw for Russ.
Personally I always thought the only possible way forward was to have non-playing analysts doing the work. At least it eliminates a lot of potential issues, especially if a mod keeps winning high-profile tourneys etc...

I honestly don't know the truth of this. But it rings true from bits I've heard from the mods. It may not be the whole story either.

Remember always: RHP isn't a public service (non-subs apart). It's a private website that must minimally cover its costs from subs - even, heaven forbid, make a penny. So from Russ's POV in business terms, £30/$45 from a cheat is the same as £30/$45 from a non-cheat. And banning cheats is cash foregone.

Marinkatomb's points are well-made, but clearly not decisive as far as site owners are concerned. And setting up another 'mod system', how would one do that? Pay Zygalski maybe 😉

Thanks, but I'd rather not have 12 hours average analysis per suspect at 100% cpu randomly acted upon or totally ignored.
I'd rather do it freely where the results are actually acted upon, as they are on another site where I've helped 50 or so idiots get booted.

Originally posted by gambit05
Now it is getting interesting. First of all, I am a Scientist, generally speaking I am supporting the "theory of evolution" as you call it. I dont' believe in any godness (God in your world), but as long as people do not knock at my door at home, I generally tolerate/accept them.

Now to the chess bit: I don't think that Prober Knob especially picked you ...[text shortened]... community. If you decide to not cheat, you actually would learn much more. Your choice.

At the time I made that statement, I was being intimidated and harrassed by the accusations, but when I discovered that players that I was being checked against had higher matchup rates than myself, I reconsidered my hasty decision. If I am considered a cheater then I wondered why were not the rest being harrassed. The only thing I could see was that they were not outspoken about their belief in God and Christ and in showing how stupid belief in evolution was. Therefore, I decided I was needed here to present the truth.