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Cheat reports

Do moderators even check reports anymore? I remember getting regularl rating refunds a year or more ago. Yet I haven't had a single one for definitely more than a year, despite having a bunch of suspicious opponents.

If it is simply a case of not enough evidence, it should be considered how many of these people are getting into Lost positions early then playing completely perfectly and winning from extreme deficits. It is incredibly demoralising for people who are trying to play legitimately, but are unable to play naturally because of Engines refuting everything humans have to offer.

I am clearly aware that humans can defeat me, but I find it incredibly unnatural how many opponents defeat me from unbelievably lost positions, considering how infrequent this is OTB.
I've reported some players for sandbagging or cheating and some have gotten banned. So I think they still check reports
yeah they do, I have gotten some of those messages now and then
Perhaps only for high rated players, then? I don't understand why I wouldn't have had any for the last year or so.
@arsenalfanrichi #1
Suspicious looking opponents does not always equal cheaters that will get marked. If your claims were incorrect, then simply nothing will happen.
Of course, I am not the algorithm to determine whether someone is not cheating, although I don't suspect people for no reason. Also of the many thousands of games I have played on here in the past year, I think the odds are incredibly remote that I wouldn't receive a single refund. The fact that I have reported about 30 suspicious accounts in the past year, notwithstanding.
I had a refund the other day where someone else must have reported. The only time I have reported they took action almost immediately. I think they are pretty on top of things but thats just my humble opinion.
Since I started with lichess about a year ago, 95% of my reports are banned.

About 5% weren't banned.
About 5% took 2 weeks.
About 50% within a few days.
About 30% within hours.
About 10% within minutes.

A year ago it was up to several a day, now it's up to several a week, but normally it's vastly improved to being on a monthly or bi-monthly basis.

I could offer a few telltale signs above and beyond the algorithms that the official LiChess anti-cheat team uses to definitively identify and ban cheaters, but that's not my place to say, and I'd rather my own personal methods not become public knowledge.

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To sum up this point,

YES, there have been a lot less cheaters being caught, but this would stand to reason for many reasons.

We'll discuss those reasons in a bit.

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First, let me share my firsthand empirical assessment of the matter:

1. The worst case that I've seen was someone with a FIDE titled account, that had played 1000s of games, and was finally caught in a tournament. Given that they'd played so many games and had such a high profile, I believe this was a bona fide titled master; although, I suppose there is a remote chance that it could have been a skilled imposter.

This kind of cheating is the worst kind because it's the kind that takes the longest to detect and prove.

Luckily for us, when we understand what it takes to become a titled FIDE player, we quickly realize that this must be a minute fraction of the people cheating.

I would not be surprised if there are no more than 1 titled players that cheat on an annual basis across all chess sites.

In other words, unless you're concerned about that 1 game that you have yet to play, that will take place in the year 2027 when you're regularly playing titled FIDE masters, this 'worst-case-scenario' is of absolutely no concern.

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2. Next worst are the 'dunce-squad' who make a game out of seeing how high of a rating they can get before they're found out and banned.

Again, don't rule them out from assuming an alias name of an actual FIDE ranked master, and pretending that they're that player for cover.

That's their game. Cheat as much as possible, get as high a score as possible, evade being caught as much as possible.

These are your typical socio-paths and psycho-paths that have enormous ego, and are talented enough to lie to themselves that their high ratings and congratulations and attention that they receive, are legitimate, justified, and actually earned.

It's like being so insane that you have the capacity to walk in a bank, kill all, steal all, and by the time you're on the way to the getaway car, you've already convinced yourself that you just committed multiple acts of self-defense, against a group of people who were about to brandish deadly weapons, and that the money was actually yours to begin with and you were just "taking it all back."

Yes. The 'dunce-squad'. They don't like us, and we don't like them.

They hate us because they can't be us and don't have the guts to work at being good without having to lie to themselves.

They say asinine things like, "everyone cheats. The only reason I did it was to 'even the odds'."

They say donkey things like, "I convinced myself that if I would play with a computer enough that I would learn it's patterns and be able to turn it off and play the same."

They say psychopathic things like, "it's not about winning fair, it's about the power to know that you're victimizing someone and there is nothing that they can do about it."

They say weak things like, "I thought that my opponent was cheating, so I started cheating just to see if they could beat me or not. At first I would resign once I had my answer, but then I convinced myself that they were actually still cheating and couldn't possibly know for certain unless I cheated right through to the very last winning move. After that, it became an addiction, and I had to know what the cheating move would be at all times. I couldn't play without it."

These are real live confessions of real live chess cheaters in an article that I read 10-15 years ago.

These ones , likewise, are somewhat annoying, but really when we look at the psychology and the effort that's needed to game the system, the cost-benefit simply isn't there.

These are often younger players who are fully aware that there are much more gratifying online games that they can cheat at, where they can "blow out brains" and "have the power to piss off 20 people at time" and "have everyone upset at the cheater with no way to stop it aside from leaving and finding somewhere else to play."

Once again, note that in other forums of gaming, the psychopathic/sociopathic tendencies are satiated to a far greater degree.

It's for this reason that we wouldn't be surprised to find 40-50-60 year old psychopath cheaters that are past the online multiplayer gaming generation, but still want their little dunce, psycho, selfish, dishonest, pathetic, ego, power-trip.

Further, don't be surprised to find most of them fresh out the joint on sexual assault charges.

So this is simply to make the case that when we look at what the "'opath dunce-squad" gets from cheating at online chess, it would be like some stupid kid robbing a piggy bank full up of coins, when dad's passed out drunk on the sofa with his moneyroll/billfold half-hanging out of his pocket.

For these reasons, these types must be, for the most part, quite limited.

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3. In addition to being limited, these types must also be temporary.

When we look at what it would take to effectively evade being discovered as a chess cheater, it would be far easier to simply study and work to achieve that FIDE title legitimately.

Many of the people that I report are no more than a few weeks deep, no doubt having had been reported and banned prior.

Again, we shouldn't discuss ANY methods publicly, but it's sufficed to say that almost all of these stupid people are too stupid and lazy and pathetic and a walking talking punchline joke, to even look into how best to be stealthy about it, much less actually having the work ethic to put in the work of being stealthy.

Too stupid to know how, and too lazy even if they did.

Once again, we're faced with the obvious fact that it's easier to become a legitimate master, than to evade cheat-detection for any real amount of time and certainly to any significant degree.

The point is, there is no way that someone is so loserish that they would cheat, get banned, make a new account, cheat, get banned, make a new account, cheat, get banned make a new account, etc. forever.

It's simply not possible. Nobody is THAT pathetic.

4. Even if they are that pathetic, they are a minuscule fraction of the fraction of a percentile of people that cheat, and of those, we can rest assure that about 90% of them reside at other chess sites.

With Lichess's transparent and dedicated team of anti-cheat engineers, a reputation has grown. When people play here, they see cheaters get snuffed. In most other spots, they do not. It's not made obvious and you're certainly not given your points back.

So really, the only cheaters we'll see here are the ones that accidentally found us first, and aren't yet smart enough to realize that all other chess sites are way more easier to cheat.

When they make that discovery, typically after the 1st or 2nd time being banned, they'll migrate to the easier mark.

Once again, when we look to the vain and egotistical nature of the intellectually-retarded dunce-squad...we find that they prefer easy pickings and big recognition.

Keep in mind, these are mostly people that were neglected as children, where ANY attention is better than NO attention, so even if they're busted by an anti-cheat team, in their minds, that's still a win because at least someone took the time to serve them a crisp backhand before booting them out the door.

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5. The case could be made that there a portion of the dunce-squad that will try to target Lichess BECAUSE of their top-tier anti-cheat team, and will therefore feel ratified as "chess hackers" if they can go for an extended period of time without being detected.

On this point, again, I'll have to cut my point short, but it's sufficed to say that for anyone to cheat in order to maintain a low rating somewhere between 1500 and 2100, and think that they "got one over on the lichess cheat team" well, congratulation to you, you stupid dunce mutts, yup, you cheated every 4th game and are maintaining a mediocre rating nowhere near the titled master level which starts probably somewhere around 2250-2300.

Congratulation you stinking muppet, you tricked a 65 year old casual grandma or grandpa, with a 1600 rating, into thinking that you actually beat them and you didn't get caught. *WOW*. All bow to the dunce bozo and their magnificent wit and fox-like prowess. They are truly great.

Congratulations you mangy mongrel dunce-boy...you tricked an 11 year old girl, future Grandmaster, with a rating of 2050, into thinking that you legitimately beat them, and got away with it.

Congrats to you...dunce-squad. You really showed everyone!

I wonder if they know that their names don't show up when they're banned?

I wonder if they know that absolutely nobody knows or cares who they are?

There are far more easier ways to stroke ego than to come cheat 10 year olds and grandmas and grandpas with cataracts

Think about it. If even that IM got scratched, after 1000s of games...DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY GAMES YOU'D HAVE TO PLAY AND LOSE ON PURPOSE TO EVADE OBVIOUS DETECTION??

We are talking 1000s of hours just to provide a jacket that doesn't look suspicious, we're talking about 100s and 100s and 100s of hours of INTENTIONALLY LOSING UNSUSPICIOUSLY.

Imagine how much attention to detail you'd need in order to evade even preliminary investigations!

It's literally the WORST place to be a cheater.
Nobody will ever know your name, your little points that you cheat will mean absolutely nothing to nobody.

I can't think of anything more pathetic.

Like I said, the energy that it would take to make yourself "anti-cheat proof" is way more than it takes to become titled, and even if it wasn't, we're still dealing with a baseline ego that can't possibly be satiated without attention and notice.

***So it's contrary that these kinds would lose enough to evade detection, because along with that, would stem evading the notice of absolutely everyone.***

:)

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6. I am so confident in my analysis and in the progress that the LiChess anti-cheat team has made in ensuring that LiChess remains a hard-target, that I've basically taunted all of these dunce-squad of underachievers that don't have a legitimate, honest, dignified or humane bone in their body, to come and target me when I search games.

I'm so confident that they are so very few and far between, that I have no worries about them keeping their eyes glued for me to "really show that guy for telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth about my cheating-dunce-stupidity."

And even if I'm wrong, if I suspect that cheaters are "sticking it to me" I have absolutely *no problems* making a new account and continuing right where I left off with absolutely no hiccups. I couldn't care less about ratings or the small task of transferring all of a few dozen studies.

No biggie. No biggie at all.

This is the truth, and it needs to be said.

The end-game here, and the reason for me taking time to share my notes, is that 99.99% of online chess players needn't play in fear of cheaters at LiChess, and the 0.001% that are cheating, can finally know that they're nothing but a non-thought, non-concern, insignificant, NOTHING, chess-player wanna-be, joke.

One should feel great about being here.
The other should feel like the canine droppings that they are.

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Now circling back to the point of less cheaters being caught...

There could be a few reasons for this:

1. If there are some full-time volunteers on the team, and a few of them happen to take a vacation at the same time, this might explain the effect of less people being caught cheating for a period of time.

However, this would not explain the 9 points I had returned 5 days ago, the 5 points I had returned 6 days ago, or the 10 points I had returned a week ago.

So certainly there is someone at the other end of the reports checking into things. And again, I believe that's 3 for 3. I'm not sitting here throwing cheaters at the wall to see who sticks. About 95% of the people I report end up returning my points.

2. So since people are still getting banned, we know that LiChess anti-cheat is well-active. Since 3 inside a week is an anomaly for 2018, since it's usually 1 every week or two, we know that the overall improvement is taking effect and cheaters are getting the message, giving up, and going elsewhere.

This would be the most likely rationale to explain what we're seeing.

This also tracks with human behavior, because it's not possible that the personality type of most cheaters would come here to cheat, get caught, start over, again and again, without anyone even recognizing them, or their efforts, aside from the anti-cheat team.

That's not how the pathological cheater would operate, and that's a vast majority of them.

So it tracks that "1 cheater down, 99 to go" would create an effect where we ban more than register or re-register.

It tracks that we find a slow decrease in the instances of cheating.

3. Whichever chess site lets them get away with it most, will have the most cheaters. Humans are creatures of least resistance, especially the lazy dunce variety.

It tracks that we'd gradually see less cheating overtime.

4. Other sites, even paysites, have suspected that having members pay to play is a good way to stave off cheaters. I think this idea is valid. Even if the fee is $1 a year, at least it gets a name on a card and cheaters won't have unlimited tries.

With that said...these sites have a habit of putting money > honesty, where warnings are issued, or where cheaters are outright overlooked altogether. At $60 a year, there is incentive to let them stay and play.

Once again, the cheaters will know where the easiest spots are to cheat, and that's where they will flock to.

Based on this logic, we should either be seeing more and more cheaters here at LiChess, or we should overall be gradually seeing less and less...

...which is exactly what you and I and others have made note of.

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***IN CONCLUSION***

You now understand that very very very very very few people out there are cheating.

You now know that I've served myself up as the perfect red herring where these psychopathic dunce-boys will be trying to target my search parameters, and times I play, to wait at the search menu for me to arrive, where they can pounce on my seek and "really get that guy good for telling all that truth about how dunce and pathetic we really are. We'll cheat that guy and he won't even know it. Let's see him figure it out when I win 3 for every 2 that I lose. I'll be 30-20 playing him by the year 2026, and he won't have a clue. Haha, I'm so smart. I'm so superior."

Hey you, dunce-cheater reading this. Listen careful. I didn't say you can't be detected, stupid, I said that the level of pathetic dunceness would be unimaginable for you to even want to try, much less succeed at going undetected.

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Now, these are the types to troll forums and make sure that everyone sees them and their garbage-egos....

...so rest assured, that of the 0.001% of the dunce-squad that play here, I just trolled them all to come "really show me good," and they will be leaving everyone else alone.

Rest well and just enjoy your chess here at LiChess.

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:)

You.

Really.

Have.

Nothing.

To.

Worry.

About.

:)

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Bottom-line, if you see something, say something, and we'll use the teamwork of honest chess-players in order to continue to eject this pestilence from this first-rate site, over to second-rate sites.

We'll let other sites, ran by lazy admins, have the lion's share of our dunce nuisance.

:) :) :)

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