Follow up on recent rating changes and possible wide bot use

@MrAWD said in #8:

Any constructive idea is welcome!

ideas and feelings aren't going to help.

if you have the interest, there are open source programs that analyze games for cheating, maybe other types of analysis that might give you an indication of how well you played for each game, you could download all of your games in png's, analyze them, maybe graph that over time to see if you're playing consistently but your rating is changing. or maybe if the strength of your opponents is consistent or changes. maybe opponents rated 2000 did play weaker a year ago than today?

I think even then it's very easy to draw the wrong conclusion without having a lot of training and experience in statistics.

still, if you find that sort of thing fun, go for it. that would be better than asking random people to share their feelings.

@MrAWD said in #8:

Any constructive idea is welcome!

You mean as opposed to some idea that doesn't quite fit in with your view of things.

Sounds a bit like Nathan Thurm: "It's them...right?"

@MrPushwood said in #12:

You mean as opposed to some idea that doesn't quite fit in with your view of things.

Sounds a bit like Nathan Thurm: "It's them...right?"
Failed to see any suggestions from your end for me to oppose...

I am really wondering what is going on...if you don't have anything smart to say, please don't!

I play (nearly) only 5 0 blitz. At that speed, in a couple of years, I have never felt like I encountered a bot. Not once.

Furthermore, I often have the Lichess computer "find mistakes" after the game is over. And I've seen no players, once evaluated, appear to be computers. Not once. In many, many, many checks.

Awhile ago, I posted on the forum my SURPRISE at how much changing my sleep habits affected my game. The post was taken down, because somebody thought it wasn't "chessy" enough or something, for the chess topic.

But I put it there for a reason -- I've found (anecdotally, of course) that even reducing sleep by 2 hours a day can have a surprisingly suppressive effect on my chess. As a person who remembers my misspent youth, I always thought I could go forward on scant hours of sleep with no real effect. Maybe it was true years ago. But now? Surprisingly -- distressingly -- no.

And over the last two or three years, my results (in game percentage won, per day) goes from very low to very high, day after day in variation, even while always playing at the same rating -- since once I got a rating that would allow me to play reasonably strong players, I quit playing rated and am content to just play. I'm happier amd more relaxed that way, especially since my internet has been, until very recently, unreliable.

In my watchful experience, variation in results does not seem remotely to be a clue to the existence of "bots" here or in another club I used to frequent.

I assume Lichess can see "bots" pretty easily -- and even if somebody goes around normal safeguards, their play should be revealed by just checking them after the game, looking for the number and nature of their mistakes.

I fear the possibility of some form of "cheating" at slow time controls. But at blitz? Or even more so, at bullet? Naaaahhhh.

I could have my mind changed. But I'd need to see something really convincing.

@DavidDennison said in #3:

There is something strange about ratings and matchups here. That is probably what spurs so many complaints about the perception of cheating. I am much lower rated than you, but I believe I play fairly consistently, having played for a number of years. Nevertheless, my 5 min. blitz rating has varied from a low of 1235 to a high 1622, all the while I play at about the same level of ability (mediocre).

Even at my low ratings, some members with even lower ratings play far better than their rating would indicate. I lose to someone 100 to 200 points lower. Some do not seem to make any mistakes. Some seem to have memorized all the best moves of given openings and defenses. They sure seem like bots. It does not really bother me, but I see forum posts from people who seem convinced that they have suddenly gotten much worse or better.

Sometimes, I am matched with different players who play the exact same openings or defenses in sequence, as if the system discovers a particular weakness or strength in your playing style.

It is odd. I have not figured it out yet. Initially, I thought games were somehow manipulated to get members to spend money on something, but I am not sure why these odd matchups, ratings, and pairings occur. Algorithms are so sophisticated now, you will probably never discover the answers.

I actually have experienced this weird matching thing as well. You get paired with players in a row that play a similar opening. I tended to write it off as pure coincidence, but a few months ago I started experimenting and I have found some consistent. In particular the matching mechanisms seems to (with statistic significance) aim at keeping your rating as stable as possible (reduce the variance in ratings).

@Noflaps said in #14:

I play (nearly) only 5 0 blitz. At that speed, in a couple of years, I have never felt like I encountered a bot. Not once.

Furthermore, I often have the Lichess computer "find mistakes" after the game is over. And I've seen no players, once evaluated, appear to be computers. Not once. In many, many, many checks.

Awhile ago, I posted on the forum my SURPRISE at how much changing my sleep habits affected my game. The post was taken down, because somebody thought it wasn't "chessy" enough or something, for the chess topic.

But I put it there for a reason -- I've found (anecdotally, of course) that even reducing sleep by 2 hours a day can have a surprisingly suppressive effect on my chess. As a person who remembers my misspent youth, I always thought I could go forward on scant hours of sleep with no real effect. Maybe it was true years ago. But now? Surprisingly -- distressingly -- no.

And over the last two or three years, my results (in game percentage won, per day) goes from very low to very high, day after day in variation, even while always playing at the same rating -- since once I got a rating that would allow me to play reasonably strong players, I quit playing rated and am content to just play. I'm happier amd more relaxed that way, especially since my internet has been, until very recently, unreliable.

In my watchful experience, variation in results does not seem remotely to be a clue to the existence of "bots" here or in another club I used to frequent.

I assume Lichess can see "bots" pretty easily -- and even if somebody goes around normal safeguards, their play should be revealed by just checking them after the game, looking for the number and nature of their mistakes.

I fear the possibility of some form of "cheating" at slow time controls. But at blitz? Or even more so, at bullet? Naaaahhhh.

I could have my mind changed. But I'd need to see something really convincing.

I also don't buy the paranoia that cheating is rampant, but don't say you don't agree with something without a bit of research. There are multiple simple ways to cheat even at bullet, see here for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jg47Gt5CsE or this for lag cheats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilYdC0_DCBo

@newlinkwave , I detailed the "bit of research" that I did, my friend. And it was not trivial.

I checked over several years the play of my opponents, using the computer -- and found nothing suspicious.
Lots of errors, lots of missed obvious moves. Even by players rated roughly 1800.

Telling others "not to say something" is a relatively trendy phenomenon that seems to be becoming too common.
There are more polite ways to deal with disagreement than telling people, in so many words, to shut up if they disagree with you.

@Noflaps said in #17:

@newlinkwave , I detailed the "bit of research" that I did, my friend. And it was not trivial.

I checked over several years the play of my opponents, using the computer -- and found nothing suspicious.
Lots of errors, lots of missed obvious moves. Even by players rated roughly 1800.

Telling others "not to say something" is a relatively trendy phenomenon that seems to be becoming too common.
There are more polite ways to deal with disagreement than telling people, in so many words, to shut up if they disagree with you.

Please read my comment again. If you don't understand English well, then use a translator (I recommend DeepL). What I said is that before "agreeing" or not with something, do some research. I did not say that you faced cheaters. I only contested this argument:

I fear the possibility of some form of "cheating" at slow time controls. But at blitz? Or even more so, at bullet? Naaaahhhh.

And showed you that not only it is possible, but relatively easy to cheat at those time controls. This does not mean at all that most people do it. In fact, I believe most people don't.

I see people bringing cheating here associated with the mentioning of bots - that was not my intention and I still don't understand how that cheating goes. I watched two videos above and still can not see how that "lag switching" works.

The reason I brought bots to this discussion was only about a different level of play from players in 2200s few months ago, vs. players around 1900 today. It looks pretty much the same to me. If I wouldn't know any better it looks like an AI bot that was just learning to play better and with lots of them at the beginning, average ratings would go higher and players like me would have easier time winning against them, so my rating would go up in 2200s. After a while, with them playing/learning among themselves, they are getting better and so the average rating level. Now, I have hard time winning against even a low 2000 player.

So, either I am at the same chess level and this above is true (or parts of it), or something is wrong with my brain and I am unable to play at the level I used to play 2-3 months ago. Since I am performing all the other things just the same as before, I don't think I can blame my brain for it.

Maybe, my internet connection is fluctuating and Verizon Fios is doing some strange things there that affect my bullet games. Perhaps, T-Mobile uploaded a software version on my phone that is different from before and causing all of this.

I would really like to know what is going on here. And again, this has really nothing to do with any kind of cheating

@MrAWD said in #19:

Since I am performing all the other things just the same as before

In chess we can quantify things with a number. In most areas of life we cannot, so small changes can be unnoticable.