Use of chess engine

@LeechessMothsRGhey said in #40:

My opinion is that if all engines disappeared tomorrow, ratings across the board would drop 300 points overnight.
No, they would not. Even if, hypothetically, all players actually started playing "300 rating points worse" out of a sudden (and I'm not saying I agree with the rest of your comment), it could not possibly result in all players dropping their rating.

Add a motor to a human and it's a race car. Remove the motor and the player is running or walking. So yes remove the assistance (Use of an engine) and expect the users rating to drop. Even the WDL will change.

@tpr said in #3:

If you suspect engine use, then report the game.
Do not get paranoid and do not attribute all your losses to cheating.
Who has time for that plus rapid has more cheaters

@Toscani said in #42:

So yes remove the assistance (Use of an engine) and expect the users rating to drop.
What is "users" here? Is it user's or users'?
If one player suddenly starts playing worse, his/her rating will drop.
If all players suddenly start playing worse, you cannot expect all their ratings to drop.

Just a question to any of the folks who stopped in to reassure the OP that (I'll paraphrase) cheating is common (conditionally no argument there) and that his intuition from his own games is justified (big argument there). Personally, I say the cheating does exist, but that either they've grouped users in such a way that more often than not the cheaters play each other and the less suspected/fair folks play each other also. Or, cheating is done so well nowadays that it's pointless to resist. Anyway, I say if you don't have big red flags, you'll mostly play others without big red flags. That's just my perception strictly from looking at games of other folks. Players who look fair look like they mostly play others who look fair. Maybe I'm wrong.

The question: Can some of you please offer up PGNs (no identifying info of course) of some games where they feel cheating is suspected and the game evaluation follows the patterns I should look for. Perhaps as a computer analysis so the move times are included for reference. I ask because it seems my perception of cheating differs from others and I'd welcome seeing what others feel is suspicious. Historically, I've been VERY good at picking out people who get banned, even if it took years for it to happen.

Since I had only looked at losses before, last night I looked at wins by the OP to see how those games go. And my rough estimate from the games I've seen so far, he's about 3-4x as likely to play a game without major mistakes than his opponents are. It's not all that uncommon to see games where the graph is pretty one sided. Now, he has only played classical in the last 3 weeks so really I don't understand why even post about quitting rated games to begin with. Additionally, his overall w/l ratio looks pretty solid so I hesitate to guess what the "real" win rate is supposed to be.

Anyway, there were some serious head-scratchers in there. I won't try to offer examples from memory since I now see I had W/B reversed on one I gave notation for above (was correct on squares and pieces, but board/colors reversed, sue me, my memory isn't perfect). But one in particular stands out in my mind as totally unmissable, especially considering the >1m time used to make the move. That one confuses me. I have no idea how to look at a game and see if cheating could be happening other than to go through the moves and see how many are ones I might have made and how many are 100% off my radar. For the most part I saw stuff that they made the moves I thought looked plausible and the computer says do something else I really wasn't looking at.

Anyway, I'd be curious to look at some games from un-banned people (anonymous of course) where a prudent person would/should suspect cheating. They can be pm'ed if that's preferred. I have no dog in the fight either way so it'll stay quiet with me. This is just for my curiosity.

@Woland52 said in #1:

I've decided to stop playing classical point-based games. I estimate that at least 50% of players use chess engines. It's inconceivable that a player can make mistakes at the beginning of a game due to lack of skill, only to become as skilled as a master when the game seems compromised. It's so obvious that this is cheating that I'm surprised the anti-cheating system doesn't detect it. They probably know how to circumvent the controls. And this naturally happens much more frequently in classical games, where there's more time to use computers. I hope we can limit this type of cheating. What do you think about this matter?
lichess.org/report

Reporting does nothing.

i'm curious how you come up with your estimate of 50% cheaters. What methods do you use to detect cheating? How many games did you evaluate to determine this figure?

There are many many threads of people ad-hoc giving some cheating rate who never explain how they obtain them. I hope you have been more systematic. Otherwise you are just one of hundreds of threads with unfounded claims.

I've never been able to prove someone here cheated, or even suspected it much. Last Friday before closing my chesscom account, I had an opponent develop a knight, then pull it back, at first I thought it was a slip but he kept doing it until he had nothing developed but had F2 kind of protected, I was fully developed, then he turned into Gary Kasparov and won the game. Blatant cheating. I finished the game, then he sent a rematch and I did just for curiousity, he played a little less weird but still beat me with some robotic pawn moves and other hard to spot weird moves after a weird opening, he was about 700 rated there with Romanian flag. Probably a play account where he loses some matches to keep from getting flagged. I didn't bother reporting him, no use. Just closed my account even though I had a paid account through January 2026 with access to all their features. I'm happier using this site for chess.

@Woland52 said in #1:

I've decided to stop playing classical point-based games. I estimate that at least 50% of players use chess engines. It's inconceivable that a player can make mistakes at the beginning of a game due to lack of skill, only to become as skilled as a master when the game seems compromised. It's so obvious that this is cheating that I'm surprised the anti-cheating system doesn't detect it. They probably know how to circumvent the controls. And this naturally happens much more frequently in classical games, where there's more time to use computers. I hope we can limit this type of cheating. What do you think about this matter?

basically the only way to beat a cheater is to beat them on time or report them or smth