How To Avoid Engine Users

@Morozov That's a good method, the only downside is you may not get a game when you want it. You're right, I have no known statistics, but I can say by using these filters I have played way less cheaters than before.

@etaLaskera Thank you. I think some people took this post the wrong way, I was just giving advice that has worked for me personally. Take it for what you want

I like these tips as I also have ran into engine accounts, but the final tip is a bit awkward, especially for players like me who only play classical. I feel that its nothing to worry about since lichess anticheat will decide but suspecting classical only players seems a bit weird no?

The cheat has already admitted to himself that everyone else is better than he is.
Pity him.

@everyone

Let's make surgical use of these forums to provide ourselves an echo-chamber that functions in the best interest of online chess.

@etaLaskera

"His main hypothesis is very unlikely to be true."

You use the word "hypothesis"; yet, you employ an unscientific propensity for half-truth and slant, as you leave out the empirically understood information that finished with an obvious, logical, and empirically understood conclusion.

Then, you simply called the conclusion a "hypothesis", incorrectly force-fit a logical fallacy that didn't apply, pretended that no valid point was made, and then continued on as though that were a competent assessment or worth anyone's time to read.

Cause and consequence, no different than the chessboard, were intelligently analyzed in that video.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Finding contention with the information in that video says nothing about it, and everything about you.

The only interest I have in you, at this point, is understanding what synapses are firing in order to make you believe that you disagree with the reality of the situation.

Where could your cognitive dissonance be stemming from?
Why is it important to you that you believe that a significant amount of people are cheating?
What happened to your old account?

Not relevant to this conversation, eta, but I've seen you disparage Lichess and encourage people to patronize rival chess sites in other threads.

In my book, that's an automatic fail.

Additionally, the idea that "Lasker" appears in your name, (true to real-life or not), makes you a trifector of insult.

You blaspheme science.
You sabotage Lichess and online chess in general.
You slander the names and memories of great chess-thinkers.

I find your attitude repugnant.
Don't bother replying, you are dead to me.

@youngmoney2299

Why are you still on about this nonsense?
At first, you could claim that you were accidentally contributing to what little cheating there is.

Now, after that video, you know better than to say anything besides:

1. Cheating is at a minimum.
2. Lichess has the most effective anti-cheat division.
3. If someone suspects a cheater, they should report them by clicking on the report button on the right side of their profile.

@RubySeaTurtle

NONE of those "tips" are any better than the tip about classical players.

They are all, on balance, of far more cost than of benefit.

It's not to say that if you took a sample of every cheater that was caught, that you wouldn't find a sprinkling of each kind of a cheater, you would; however, to think that this is some kind of a valid "checklist", that ever needs to be observed by anyone, is a nearsighted, fallacious, and a counter-productive perspective.

To highlight my point and the ensuing paranoia, all I need to do is ask you about the last 100 games that you played against people that you did NOT suspect of cheating, and then show you where that same sprinkling occurs.

Yes. There are a few indicators that are almost exclusive to cheaters.
No. Nobody with a lick of good-sense would be willing to discuss those instances here in the forum.

1. When people believe that most people are cheating, they somehow don't really want to play chess anymore. Hear sloppy thinkers tell it, and this is just a "disconnected hypothesis". You make up your own mind on that.

2. When people believe that most people are cheating, the odds of them persisting in an environment where they believe themselves to be "the only one who doesn't cheat", are unlikely.

They will begin using engines themselves, dub themselves the "white-hat cheaters", and profess to "cheat in the name of good". They will use their "everyone is cheating" narrative to justify their own cowardice until it's time to make a new account.

Not only is this "disconnected hypothesis" completely valid, logical, and easily predicted in and of itself, but we have a plurality of confessed cheaters parroting this exact same narrative; hear sloppy thinkers tell it, and this is all just "hypothetical".

"There is no such thing as 'witness testimony', 'fact', 'logic', or 'reality' outside of my own ego," said the self-deluded blind man with 20/20 ocular vision.

3. Even if they don't quit and don't start cheating, is that perspective more or less helpful? Does it make chess more or less rewarding? What kinds of realities will stem from each perspective?

Call me crazy, but I think that it's obviously clear that the echo-chambers, stemming from the forums in chess sites, should be ones that promote, promise, and progress chess in it's best possible variation, not it's worst. Again, I'll let you decide for yourself.

4. It is a total and complete lie that any great amount of people are out there preying on chess players who are trying to enjoy their sport. The problem is so minute that it makes absolutely no sense to address it in the forums.

My analyses are based on empirical calculations by experienced proponents of cheat detection, where large samples of successfully reported cheaters have been weighed against total number of games played.

Outside of employing the logical fallacy of 'proving a negative', i.e., "You can't prove that 100% of the people you play aren't using the engine for just one move and then turning it back off," there is ZERO empirical evidence of a large amount of cheating taking place.

For example, we can empirically prove that 1 in 100 cheat, factor for 'undetected' by doubling that, and call it "2%", but really there is still actually only evidence of 1% of the people cheating.

In my own work, I came up with a competent and concise 2-3%, with 4% being extremely unlikely (but possible), and 5% being logically impossible and out of the question. (These figures pertain to +1900 with a classical time control.)

5. It makes no sense to address this topic in the forums, because if you sent the 10,000 people playing chess right now to the forums to read up on these kinds of posts, it HAS directly caused people to start cheating, and/ a path to cheating, that they otherwise wouldn't have pursued if not for all of this careless, thoughtless, near-sighted, loose-speak. Loose lips sink ships. (That's why I don't much care for a particular GM that used this exact idea in an attempt to obliterate Lichess. It's good to see his peers take him to task.)

6. This post is probably responsible for ZERO cheaters having been caught who wouldn't have been caught anyway. I, myself, have caught many cheaters, NONE of them were because of these kinds of posts.

These posts have nothing to do with causing cheaters to be caught, but they have everything to do with helping create them in the first place.

The best anti-cheat method for catching cheaters, is to get to a point where you can play about 50 games without being suspicious of anyone. Simply focus on the chess to get there.

Then, when that ONE game seems a bit "off", you could check their profile for several different things that might help confirm your suspicion. Alternately, you could even just report them and let Lichess anti-cheat sort them out.

I remember a game I played where my opponent was somewhere around 2100. He had played 1000s of games over 3 years.

A fine tooth comb revealed something mildly curious in his profile, but on balance, there were no big red flags.

The overwhelming logic was: "Nobody is going to spend time playing 1000s of games, only to cheat on one or two games here or there. This guy has been here for 3 years, played 1000s of games, and if he was cheating he would have been caught by now. And since there is no obvious point to cheating 'just enough', let's just let it go. Besides, surely, nobody would be so completely pathetic that they would spend time intentionally losing chess games just to make their cheat-score appear more legitimate."

But what I couldn't let go of, and had to ask Lichess to look into, was an extremely peculiar rejection of a line, in favour of what looked like an obviously inferior line, where only a few moves later it became clear that there would be compensation. It was definitely something that GMs would have seen with ease, it was not impossible to see, but I have a very good grasp of where my level of play is at, and this was a little bit too far out of reach for my comfort.

I reported the guy and Lichess found enough evidence to terminate his account.

So let's take all of the obvious indicators that we find with people who have 20-0 records attached to their provisional accounts.

These indicators are completely superfluous, because the obvious nature of this type of cheater doesn't require specialized attention, or posts in the forums instructing how to identify them.

It's those that attempt to hide, who won't necessarily be caught due to anything obvious, that do...NOT...require our attention.

**

If you are talking about the cheater that is actively working to stay under the radar, the best thing you can do is wait for them to present themselves.

If you go looking for them, then everyone will begin to look like them, and the actual cheaters will be able to hide in a crowd of 100% of the people that you play.

Even the people that you beat, you will still have to suspect.

You will have to end up wanting to report EITHER everybody, OR nobody.

**
*

It's not rocket science that chess would quickly become a chore and a problem.

It's not rocket science that logically, then, follows:

a) use of an engine to solve the problem of knowing the cheaters from the non-cheaters
b) quitting the headache of online chess altogether

So again, not only is it unproductive in one or two areas...but it is completely unproductive, in many different areas, to increase suspicions.

It-does-nobody-any-good-at-all.

"Thanks to my suspicions, I've successfully reported many people!" - Simple-Argument

Was that due to fallacious suspicion, or a measured response to a particular player, where you decided to report them for cheating? - Counter-Argument

If they're obvious cheaters, they will be caught.

Suspecting a great amount of people of cheating, and operating under incorrect and damaging assumptions, has absolutely nothing to do with it.

If they are less-obvious cheaters, they will be caught by well-reasoned people of the community, like myself and others.

Suspecting a great amount of people of cheating is COMPLETELY counter-productive to these ends.

Let's make surgical use of these forums to provide ourselves an echo-chamber that functions in the best interest of online chess.

@Onyx_Chess Hahahahahha I really laughed towards the end. Good luck in life, my friend. Best wishes, from the grave to you.

Savielly Tartakower once said: "I never defeated a healthy opponent."

This quotation refers to players who blame an illness, sometimes imaginary, for their loss.

If Tartakower lived nowadays, I strongly doubt that he would say : "I only lose against engine cheaters".

Savielly would say : "I pity all these zombies, who replaced their own brain by a machine".

Didn't the video which @Onyx_Chess posted show the truth ?

All these cheaters know very well that they harm themselves the most. Losing their pleasure in the game, destroying their chess abilities, harming their OTB ratings and so on.

Why do you want to find and ban them ? Let them "die" in their own agony and misery. Don't care about them. Don't talk about them.

Before I came to Lichess, I was not even aware of this issue. But on Lichess the forum is full with this issue, as if the whole online chess world would be cheating.

Onyx_Chess is right with his statement. The suspicion about cheating is not the solution , it is part of the problem.

I think that I will never start playing online-chess on Lichess or somewhere else, after this thread.

Better joining a real club, better getting some kind of social chess life, better playing only OTB games.

@Onyx_Chess What is the fuss about? I don't care how low cheating is, or how effective lichess's anti- cheating system is. The fact is there are still cheaters at the end of the day, and these tips help me and others filter them out even more. There is no reason for you to complain about my post, or calling it nonsense.

@Bishop1964 I believe you're being too negative. Obviously the majority of people are not cheaters, just use the filters and enjoy your game.

YOUNGMONEY2299 said:

"What is the fuss about?"

BISHOP1964 said:

"Before I came to Lichess, I was not even aware of this issue. But on Lichess the forum is full with this issue, as if the whole online chess world would be cheating...

...I think that I will never start playing online-chess on Lichess or somewhere else, after this thread." - Bishop1964

@youngmoney2299

Congratulations. This post, and the many just like it, have caused another person to not want to play chess any more.

Are you content to sit up and IGNORE Bishop's experience, and the RAW POLLUTION that these kinds of posts cause?

If what you're saying obviously causes people to quit or to start cheating, would you still say those things?

Yeah huh? Know why? Because you're a self-absorbed dingbat who thinks that no matter how stinky and repulsive your ideas are, that everyone deserves to hear them.

You're lucky that all you've done is de-incentivized Bishop from playing.

Many other people, who aren't as vested with chess, or as honest as Bishop is, start using engines at this point instead of quitting altogether. They become a part of the problem.

@Bishop1964

Put this CRAP out of your mind.

Consider that of the 20,000 people who were live in-game earlier today, there were only TWO imbeciles who took the time to visit the forums and spread this pollution.

Because of these kinds of posts, visiting these forums is the worst thing that real chess players should be doing.
In my view, this kind of repulsive damage should be corrected.

I promise you that 2% is the REAL NUMBER regarding how many cheaters there are.
I promise that you, on average, will have to play about 50 different people in order to find one cheater.

And if that one cheater is completely obvious, then it's not much of a problem as they will be banned in short order if they haven't been banned already.

And if that one cheater is working to avoid detection, then there is a good chance that they will intentionally lose against you in order to not look so obvious, where they will eventually be found out by someone like me, and banned anyway.

Also, remember that a large amount of the people who come to these forums to promote a culture of suspicion, are actually cheaters themselves. They have to be involved in the discussions. They want to convince themselves that they're a part of a large group of cheaters, instead of an extremely small minority of crappy people who need to be wiped from the bottom of the chess world's shoe.

Also, keine schaden!
Viel spass!
Schach ist die spitze!
Ubergehen die verruckte kindern.
Lass loss die dumme kommentar.

@Onyx_Chess Lol