Intersting thing is Hans Niemann Report (Cheaters are rare 2.0)

@Onyx_Chess said in #30:

When I was at my height and could actually do a good job of telling if someone was cheating, my friend invited me to play on his team at chesscom.

Since, at that time, it sometimes took minutes to get a 15+15 game, I was seeking on both sites and chesscom sometimes had the faster response.

As a result, I ended up playing there for a little while.

I reported the exact same type of gameplay that I had found suspicious on Lichess...but on chesscom...most of these accounts had been around for several years or more.

That's what really stuck out at me. It was quite glaring.

(On Lichess, the vast majority of the cheaters I reported were around for weeks or months...but I only remember one of them being around for more than a year or two.)

Then, after about a month of that, my account was "put under review" and I couldn't play there for several weeks or whatever.

Finally, they reinstated my account, but I thought that it was a little bit inept that they were allowing cheaters to play while investigating honest players.

As I theorized a few years ago, Lichess has always been the gold standard.

Most people don't know it, but chesscom actually used to be the most ratty, mickey-mouse, cheap, glitched-out, free site on the net. It reminded me of a an upgraded and neglected zone.com site. They used to do just enough not to be the worst, and even then, they barely managed to stay ahead of FICS.

Back in the day, ICC was the gold standard, then came Playchess, and later chesscom and Lichess arrived on the scene...and chesscom remained at the bottom of the barrel.

But as Lichess implemented change after change, improvement after improvement, update after update, chesscom began stealing the free-source ideas and began monetizing them at their site.

That's why chesscom looks as good as it does, today.
It's only because Lichess forced them to improve themselves.
It's only because Lichess modeled a competent site for them to mirror themselves after.
And, also, it seems clear that somewhere in the 2010s, chesscom finally hired efficiency experts to find ways to better compete.

Meanwhile, I.C.C. did not keep up with the Jones' and retained their 90s coded format and hoarded their millions of dollars instead of reinvesting it...and as a result...they are missing out on the billions of dollars which they worked so hard to earmark for themselves back in the late 90s.

I.C.C. was the gold standard for everything. All of the best GMs, all of the best cheat detection, the first internet company to cover live tournies and simultaneously offer expert analyses by people like Jen Shahade, John Federowicz, Joel Benjamin, Larry Christiansen, and a few others, everything. They had it all.

But Lichess took that crown with their open-source and cutting edge technologies, alongside a team of cheat detectors who were ACTUALLY very interested in keeping the site as cheat-free as possible.

As a result, for almost a decade, Lichess has sent cheaters over to chesscom and other sites in a 1-way rotating door.

The perception, for cheaters, is that Lichess is the spot to get away with it. So many of them try here first.
After they keep having to make new accounts...they finally try chesscom...where they can play for years without detection.

And so, as Lichess stayed dedicated to their cheat detection, it accrued many more legitimate chess players in the long run, and shipped the ne'er-do-wells to chesscom on a consistent basis...and...because of it's hard anti-cheat work and diligence...Lichess has now evolved as the pinnacle of cheat-free, up-to-date, cutting-edge, online chess...and they've done it on nothing but donations.

Not only should this should be the leading narrative in the chess world regarding "where are there the fewest amount of cheaters?" but it should be the leading narrative, full-stop and period.

Lichess.org has earned it's spot as the #1 place to enjoy the most cheat-free play, and they've earned themselves a premiere headline concerning all matters regarding the best site to play chess on in terms of streamlined user experience.

Chess players should have the where-with-all to make sure that this conversation rises to the top.

Truly incredible and well done.

I believe that lichess.org is one of the only examples on this planet where the people are offered a state of the art resource, for free, for everyone to enjoy...while corporations struggle to keep up.

I believe that it is a brilliant example of civilization and civilized conduct.

As a result, anyone wanting access to the top studies and video lectures by GMs doesn't need to pay 100 dollars a year.
And not only is lichess.org an option for them...but it's the best objective option available.

In my view, this is the model that every resource should fall under.
In my view, it's a bit of a shame that 100% of the people playing online chess aren't immediately made privy to this information.

There are people on this planet who pollute it, who have monetized water, and who would monetize air if they could.
There are people on this planet who prefer clean air, who don't really feel the need to monetize it, and think that people should continue to have it for free.

I think that I prefer and support the latter.

Also, I think that this thread is what everyone should use to 'talk-chess', because it's best that it stays at the very top of the forums for a very long time.

I intend to ask everyone who posts in this thread, how their day is going.

My day is going good! (I got there first.) :) How is your day going Onyx? (Thank you!)

@Onyx_Chess said in #30:

I believe that lichess.org is one of the only examples on this planet where the people are offered a state of the art resource, for free, for everyone to enjoy...while corporations struggle to keep up.

I believe that it is a brilliant example of civilization and civilized conduct.

I couldn't agree more. Lichess is a stunning achievement. To carve out any space - whether "real" or virtual - outside of the relentless logic of capital is incredibly difficult, and to do it so successfully (and in such an aesthetically pleasing way) is rare in the extreme.

Oh no! I wasn't finished editing, and I made some good ones, too!
Now all of my edits are laid bare!
How can I ever show my face in public again?!
LOL

Anyway, so far, so good, thanks!

It's important because as Socrates said, "The secret to change is focusing all of one's energy not on fighting the old, but creating the new."

The only or best way to really change the world is simply to create something new, healthy, whether it's mind-state, idea, culture, wisdom, etc., -- all of this, and transplant it, strengthen it, all this. Create a new culture of healthy-mindedness, fairness, peace, and encourage it and share it and so forth.

All of this recent drama illustrates very clearly the need for a more stable organization of chess players of some kind. So hopefully this will be a good result of the horror show of this last month, thanks to Carlsen. Which, make no mistake, it was because of, along with Hikaru, Moist Critical and the drop in disgustingness by Elon.

@Onyx_Chess said in #33:

Oh no! I wasn't finished editing!
Now all of my edits are laid bare!
How can I ever show my face in public again?!
LOL

Anyway, so far, so good, thanks!

As they say these days in songs, "Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!" (I think I got that quote right :)

Cheating in chess appears to be a real social and communicated concern. However the object of which is very obscure.

Precision of numbers doesn't not imply accuracy. A fallacy** that has often been used in the past to promote one thing or its opposite.

In absence of open source, open data, and open non-coder documentation (or user interpratibility) of all the claims or statement looking like empirical data, i think the most healthy mental stance is not to care about the object of the cheating concern.

And to never come in such threads, even if curious about what is the fuss all about.

Only cheaters and cheater obsessed people allowed. If you do not care about cheating, just make any comment as such here is suspect..

Intention projection is such a silly mirror recursion game.... it has no bottom case, to get a conclusion (that might be CS speak, with some old psychology).

** Maybe the reasoning error is not a logical error, but still a an error in inference that is assume to hold when using quantitative numbers that look like precision to let the reader (or oneself) trust it being about an accurate jugement of its accuracy too... it may still be unfounded.. Saying chess.com does not give me more confidence.. i doubt, they have the extent of transparency that lichess would have..

All having limits, i understand, but some more reproducible than others, with data and source code, while not feasible by many, still not impossible like chess.com, and other authoritative but not transparent or reproducible claim sources (like interviews, opinions, and video stream of those.

point here is that quantitative opinions, are still opinions. sometimes they pass the test of time like (1,3,3,5,9), don't they. Did i just discredit myself?

@dboing said in #36:

Cheating in chess appears to be a real social and communicated concern. However the object of which is very obscure.

You could, reasonably, ask the question: what is the concern here? Is it just the psychology, the idea that you don't want to be fooled into playing a computer instead of a human, or is there some other reason you may want to object against cheating?

I think there is. And the reason is very similar to the reason that computers are very, very poor training opponents. Ideally, the best opponent you can have, is an opponent that plays at a level slightly stronger than you. Say, 100 rating points higher. This kind of opponent will beat you, probably. But you understand why you lose. You see what it takes to take your play to the next level.

And here's the problem: computers are fundamentally incapable of being that kind of opponent. Sure, you can gimp them to play at a rating level 100 above you. But the consequence of this gimping is that they play completely meaningless moves, but will still see all tactical errors you make most of the time. It's far from the kind of play a human opponent of that level will give you.

So yes, it makes a lot of sense to object to cheating. It's not just a psychological thing, it concretely and objectively ruins play.

But here's the good news: cheating in online chess is very, very rare. Thanks to excellent cheat detection mechanisms.

So the concern is legitimate, but in practice most people don't need to worry about it.

@Molurus
The thumbs up is for the level. did not finnish reading. but thanks for discussing that. whatever the conclusion.
( i am impulsive AND touch typing, bad mixture against being coherent at times). Below, i develop, maybe too much, and it veers maybe too tangential. but i have written it , so i did think it...

So I agree with the statements before the conclusion that we should care, and i mean, in the specific case of large population and random paring within a judicious fun AND challenging band of ratings. The promise of a complete interesting game, whether losing or winning.

I do not believe in the existence of the cheater that is already so good at chess, that they can fool IRwin, or modern statistics things like machine learning to stay in the pool for long.

And contrary to some opinions. i think it would take an even stronger chess player to do that in low ratings..

In some way, while low rating might be a motivator, it goes against the self-contradicting hypotheses of the clever cheater, monster under the bed..

For me the psychology of cheating is a child of the psychology of rating (in both cases, cheater and cheater forecaster, in hindsight of lost game).

But yes, i can put myself in the shoes, of the victim, seeing a game quality for some while, and then ooops, when it matters on the board, a move unthought of, possibly as ugly as an engine can find them, that does not look human, makes one lose fast... Can this really happen? can it be verified? maybe yes and no. for one game.

but in large population, and random pairing (if not, then you may have found a good friend to play with, or somebody who likes to play with you and you with they), the potential victim that i would be, does not understand how a sub-population of closed and reopening accounts, could be maintaining a sub-pool of miraculous rating stable of cheaters, that i would on any given day of playing have a high probability of being paired with.

Personal point of view.

I may trust my low rating, to be a shield perhaps.. where would be the goal.. Because a prerequisite to the cheater, in my belief system, is itself that the cheater puts very high the meaning of rating number in own scale of values in own life worthiness. (or something about self esteem).

So maybe, i should not come here and participate, because i care more about the quality of the time i will spend on my correspondence games, than on winning them or not, as long as it was all during of the same average quality (see the conundrum of rating and cheating when looked in time dynamics, can't even define quality of game).

But I would not like to accept playing a rando, with advertised rating, if that rando, were to play outside (higher) of its advertised rating.. If might also undermined the value of rating, if there were actually such weird chess cheater able to maintain a low rating, by chess scrutiny. If using a dumbed down engine (SF has some 20 such levels i think, and lichess has reduced that to 8, with some non human knobs choices), then what would be the point.

Lichess already has the bots for that. and a user could have responsibility for it.

I also do not like to win on shallow blunders, for the same reason, i am committing a lot of days to my games. So I would offer takebacks. and would not enjoy as much the rest of the game if the takeback was refused through some generalized morals out of place.. (for me, and my fun in chess, i like to base my abstraction dreaming on positional stories, not on rating glory, speaking of holy grail caricatures).

I really liked you training by engine point.. we really don't like to play against engine.. But would it not be good if we actually could analyses the engine analyses. to demystifiy it, and know why it plays so ugly? other thread stuff. but could be related in the chess community psychology of things..

Let me opinion that to you, it is not of divine source.

Computers are really good to play against. Why in heaven would you think they are not?

@LegendaryQueen said in #39:

Computers are really good to play against. Why in heaven would you think they are not?

You don't read much, do you?