@Andrew51290 Lichess allows the use of an opening explorer, simply because it's pretty much impossible to prohibit it's use
lichess.org/faq#correspondence
lichess.org/faq#correspondence
I've been on Chess.com for a while now and think they do a better job of banning cheats...I get a message every couple of weeks there. I think the rate of cheaters is quite high on both sites...hope they can figure out a way of catching up with them faster in the near future!n
@Chessaddict100 So you‘re thinking the work is done better at cc because there are more notifications ? Might be a spurious correlation.
I can tell: after a couple of games the show is over. Yet someone has to report, this might be the catch. I played against blatant cheaters who have sky-rocketed just before. Reported - banned. Question: why haven‘t they been banned before? It wasn’t difficult to figure it out. A crucial hint: relatively new members, say a couple of days or weeks.
I can tell: after a couple of games the show is over. Yet someone has to report, this might be the catch. I played against blatant cheaters who have sky-rocketed just before. Reported - banned. Question: why haven‘t they been banned before? It wasn’t difficult to figure it out. A crucial hint: relatively new members, say a couple of days or weeks.
***ANTI-CHEAT***
I did some undercover ops at cc recently for a few days.
What I found was a complete joke.
Firstly, my success rate at picking out cheaters here at Lichess is very good.
Secondly, the amount of people that had to have cheated me at cc was probably nearing the 20%-25% mark.
Thirdly, I was shocked to find that these were never new accounts. Most of them were 2-3-4-5 years old. Here, most cheaters don't last more than a few days, weeks, or maybe months if they're lucky. Over there, I didn't find one single new account that I suspected of cheating. Not a single one.
Fourthly, everyone that Lichess bans ends up staying over there, at cc, because they don't have to keep making new accounts.
So get it perfectly clear. Lichess' anti-cheat is completely superior to cc...and not by the little bit that I initially assumed.
No. Lichess anti-cheat is way ahead.
I used to speculate this might be the case, but I'm now making this claim as empirical truth.
It's shocking what's going on over there at cc.
The reason Lichess is a banned word in the forums at cc is because they do not want their members learning about Lichess. They know that they would never be able to retain them.
The reason cc isn't a banned word in these forums, is because everyone already knows about that piece of crap site that went ham on marketing, paid GMs to look legit, does a terrible job catching cheaters, and has been ripping off all of Lichess' good ideas since day one.
The idea that they're putting a price tag on a quality chess resource SHOULD have every chess fan fuming and evacuating that garbage anti-chessworld site. Seriously.
What is wrong with chess fans that they would go patronize a company that's trying to monetize world-class chess resources?
To me, this is an insult.
To me, the people that know of both and still go there, are completely irritating.
The only people that have any business being there are the titled masters who get paid to advertise.
But even then, there is no excuse for them not to spend the bulk of their time here, at Lichess, when they're off the clock.
I'll say it again:
What is wrong with chess fans that they would go patronize a company that's trying to monetize world-class chess resources?
Forget that they're trying to make good chess available only to people that can pay for it...
Forget that Lichess does everything better and for free...
...cc was a joke until they started stealing Lichess' good ideas.
CC deserves a scowl.
If not for Lichess...that foul little cc site would corner the market and monopolize all things chess, and then sell it back to people at a premium.
Chess fans who miss these politics and fundamentals that are at play, deserve a scowl.
I'm embarrassed that any one of them could ever put me in checkmate.
It's a mystery how people can be so stupid, and so smart, at the same time.
Anyway. Enough about that.
-
***CHEATERS***
There are several types of cheaters in no specific order:
1. Attention seekers. Parents ignored them as children and they learned that any attention is better than no attention.
They can "force you to pay attention" when they deliver that checkmate.
They are playing out a kind of 'correction scenario' by proxy, regarding them being neglected in childhood.
To them, you don't exist. It's their parent(s) sitting across from them.
To them, what's one little game of cheated chess to you, compared to the entirety of everything that was bad about their childhood.
To you, it's just a game. To them, it's "real life".
2. Sociopaths/psychopaths. Their simple robot brains understand that winning is the point, and it doesn't make the distinction on how that comes about. They're simple animals. Ideas of humanity and honor and fairplay are out of the window. For these "people", it's about winning.
Most of these couldn't care less if their opponent realizes that they've been cheated or not. In their simple little dunce minds, they've done a good job for themselves, and they care not at all about anything else. Some of the pseudo-intellects in their group argue that they are doing what they ought do, what everyone ought do, and that they are the evolution of humankind; but, if Thibault was "all about himself" he wouldn't have created Lichess for people to enjoy at all, and absolutely everyone would be cheating even if he did.
Like I said, they're very simple and don't understand the need to look past themselves.
On the psychopathic side of things, these people enjoy knowing that you're having a tough time avoiding checkmate, and that they are the ones that caused your tough time. Legitimate/fair has absolutely nothing to do with it. At all.
All of the other comments alluding to this are perfectly accurate. There is often a side of 'power-tripping' to psychopaths, and in their mind, they didn't come to play chess, they couldn't care less about chess, they're just here to mess with people. Plain and simple.
I'll give you one guess why they chose chess players? That's right. Sociopaths/psychopaths are 100% egocentric. To them, 'they' are all that matter.
They are used to often being among the most intelligent people in the room. So it makes sense that they would bump into actual intellect, feel offended and out-done, and then go find a way to try to undermine their newfound antagonist.
So it's actually a double-whammy. They lick their little bruised egos while enjoying the power of being in a position to cause suffering. As far as they're concerned, they've put themselves back on the proper side of the predator:prey equation.
In other words, we offended their ego and inflated sense of 'self', and so they really showed us what's 'what'.
3. Power-trippers. Often sharing space with the sociopaths/psychopaths, the power trippers know what it's like to think on their deepest levels and still get hemmed into a checkmate by a better chess-mind.
To them, because things like ego and "getting the last word" and "I'll have my way" are a very big deal in life, they, in turn, cheat their opponents and revel in the helplessness that their opponents are experiencing.
Where you and I simply play an enjoyable game and be done with it; to them, they feel like they've been put in a straight-jacket and that we're actually subjugating them on some very real and important levels.
Remember, they've made it a point of always being the predator in the predator:prey equation. It's all they know.
When they come here assuming that they're still the smartest in the room, and we put that delusion to a close with vicious efficiency, to them, there is a score to even. To them, something that's been made wrong needs to be corrected.
By the way, this ties in directly to the game of "seeing how far you can go without getting caught".
They make no distinction, whatsoever, between the player and the anti-cheat programmer.
All their narrow minds see is "I've been made subject to someone/something else, and this needs to be corrected."
These are the same people that will bust a bike tire simply in order to remind themselves that they're still a predator.
It's all but a guarantee that they exercise a "predator point system" in their mind, where they need to effect their will on others or else feel like something is very wrong with the world and the order of things.
If you've ever heard of the "points system" in terms of running over different people with a car, you now understand where and why that came about.
For some of them, what really annoys them is when their opponents don't know that they've been cheated.
These kind are often people that were picked on or otherwise hurt at a young age. As such, where healthy adults put a value of "0/10" on having the capacity to 'impose our will' on others, these kinds of people have an inherent "10/10" importance associated to 'imposing will'.
These are the same people that employ roofies in order to practice control of other humans. These are the same people that cheat everyone at everything, every chance that they get.
Again, without realizing it, they are rehearsing a correction of their childhood, and so what they're actually "gaining" from this practice is completely sub-conscious and subliminal. They won't have a logical or rational conscious causal assessment of their behaviour, but the sense of corrective-relief will be consciously experienced. To them, what they're doing is real, productive, and effective.
Again, it's got nothing at all to do with chess, game, competition, or me or you. At all.
In their minds, it's them and a problem that began long ago.
In their minds, they're making correct today what went wrong yesterday.
Where we see a low-down cheater, scum of the earth, they see a very necessary correction of their past. To them, it must feel like life or death, but without ever understanding any of the problem or why their perceived solution/misbehaviour seems appropriate to them.
***Don't mistake this explanation for an excuse!***
Grown adults need to correct this garbage because they know that it's incorrect.
Effectively, they can't cheat today without justifying their attackers from yesterday. Plain and simple.
In other words, the only reason their attackers even existed yesterday, is because of their own willingness, as adults, to misbehave and victimize people today.
In fact, I would be completely surprised if this brand of cheaters didn't experience acute and regular nightmares as a direct result of their incessant cheating and victimizing everyone, everywhere that they can.
I don't see how it wouldn't cause them nightmares.
It would have to.
4. Information addicts. Some people have started out cheating with an honest inquiry as to the legitimacy of their opponent. The testimonies that I've read by these people all state that they never intended to cheat and just wanted to catch cheaters at first.
Over time, they inevitably end up using a computer move in a live game that they wouldn't otherwise have seen, and from there the slippery slope is mandatory. Next thing they know, they've become the person that they initially set out to "catch".
Luckily Lichess is so thorough that this measure isn't needed. Simply report your opponent, and if they are cheating, they will be caught. It takes about 15-20 seconds to report. Yes. It's that simple.
Anyway, besides the idea of checking for legitimacy, there are also those who have claimed that playing enough computer moves would eventually help them replicate computer moves. So people justified it as a "I'll just do this for a while until I progress a few 100 points." Stupid people, I know, but don't look at me. I didn't write the testimonials, I just read them.
Second to last, in the "information addict" category, is the literal addict that begins using the computer while following along with a live tournament or studying.
Inevitably they'll reach a point in one of their games where they want the engine suggestion as a force of habit.
They forget that they're not watching a tournament or studying.
So to get rid of the feeling of "something missing", they turn on their engine and use it as a crutch, often convincing themselves that they would have thought of the move themselves anyway.
5. The insecure and paranoid. These are people that will play engines against you until they've achieved a better/winning position. Now that they've proven that they're not up against an engine, they feel free to turn it off and play through.
But that's not all. Remember. They're insecure and paranoid. Everywhere they look, they see talk of "cheater this" and "cheater that".
If 98% of the time they visit the forums there is a topic regarding cheating on the front page, and ignorant people proclaiming about some "massive cheating epidemic", when the real number can't possibly be too far north of 2% on Lichess, (or too far south of 15% on cc), then they feel the need to double check.
So even though they've "proven" that you're not cheating, when you finally gain back your 1.50 2.00 deficit, they wonder if you are maybe the kind that uses the engine to get out of trouble...and so they turn it back on and "prove" themselves correct/incorrect about you probably being one of the 98% that cheat.
Of course, within 5-10 moves all of your targets disappear and there are tactics that will have you choose between losing a rook or a bishop and a pawn, for little or nothing.
By the way...DON'T THINK FOR A SECOND...that it's a weird coincidence that SO MANY PEOPLE who write in these topics of cheating are cheaters themselves.
MANY are here talking about the epidemic of "vast and out of control amounts of cheating" because:
a) They decided that they could do a better job catching cheaters, got caught cheating themselves, and want to convince themselves that they're still correct about it being a 22% problem instead of a 2% problem. (They'd actually be right if they were talking about cc, not Lichess.)
b) They simply can't accept that 98% of the people that play here can box them into a checkmate and completely victimize them at will. In order to preserve their ego and grandeur, it's necessary that they invent some lie about, "I'm not actually terrible at chess. I'm smart. So I don't suck, it's that everyone else must be cheating."
"Hey momo! Why do you keep saying that cheating is rampant?" - Me
"I have evidence. I lose except when I use a program. There is no other explanation." - Mr. Dunce.
-
Fact:
Assuming the 10,000-15,000 people on at any one time in prime time only play one game...2 in 100 games is still a fair amount.
Let's please, everyone, work together and make sure that we're doing our part and reporting cheaters. It's the single most important counter-measure that anyone who thinks that cheating is a problem, can take.
-
Conclusion:
Lichess does an EXCELLENT job with their anti-cheat division. You can't imagine what it would take to do as good a job as they do.
They won't be posted here, but there are very interesting programs that track for cheating. The less that is said about these algorithms, the better. Just know that they're there. For intents and purposes you can even consider them "self-learning".
Yes. They are that advanced.
In tandem with titled masters who fully understand how positions and certain tactical motifs arise, yes, Lichess is completely thorough, cutting-edge, and unparalleled.
I hope I've proven how simply increasing the amount of suspicion, and reason for suspicion, only serves to create additional cheaters. I hope, above all, that I've made this case complete and perfect.
No. There is no way around it. Filling these forums with the word "cheat" and "engine" does absolutely NOTHING to help the issue. Period full stop. Zip. Zero. But it AB-SO-LUTE-LY causes more cheating than there would otherwise be. Full stop.
The cost-benefit is ?:0.
-
Bottom line?
1. Lichess does anti-cheat the best.
2. There isn't much to catch except for a small group of about 2%.
I did some undercover ops at cc recently for a few days.
What I found was a complete joke.
Firstly, my success rate at picking out cheaters here at Lichess is very good.
Secondly, the amount of people that had to have cheated me at cc was probably nearing the 20%-25% mark.
Thirdly, I was shocked to find that these were never new accounts. Most of them were 2-3-4-5 years old. Here, most cheaters don't last more than a few days, weeks, or maybe months if they're lucky. Over there, I didn't find one single new account that I suspected of cheating. Not a single one.
Fourthly, everyone that Lichess bans ends up staying over there, at cc, because they don't have to keep making new accounts.
So get it perfectly clear. Lichess' anti-cheat is completely superior to cc...and not by the little bit that I initially assumed.
No. Lichess anti-cheat is way ahead.
I used to speculate this might be the case, but I'm now making this claim as empirical truth.
It's shocking what's going on over there at cc.
The reason Lichess is a banned word in the forums at cc is because they do not want their members learning about Lichess. They know that they would never be able to retain them.
The reason cc isn't a banned word in these forums, is because everyone already knows about that piece of crap site that went ham on marketing, paid GMs to look legit, does a terrible job catching cheaters, and has been ripping off all of Lichess' good ideas since day one.
The idea that they're putting a price tag on a quality chess resource SHOULD have every chess fan fuming and evacuating that garbage anti-chessworld site. Seriously.
What is wrong with chess fans that they would go patronize a company that's trying to monetize world-class chess resources?
To me, this is an insult.
To me, the people that know of both and still go there, are completely irritating.
The only people that have any business being there are the titled masters who get paid to advertise.
But even then, there is no excuse for them not to spend the bulk of their time here, at Lichess, when they're off the clock.
I'll say it again:
What is wrong with chess fans that they would go patronize a company that's trying to monetize world-class chess resources?
Forget that they're trying to make good chess available only to people that can pay for it...
Forget that Lichess does everything better and for free...
...cc was a joke until they started stealing Lichess' good ideas.
CC deserves a scowl.
If not for Lichess...that foul little cc site would corner the market and monopolize all things chess, and then sell it back to people at a premium.
Chess fans who miss these politics and fundamentals that are at play, deserve a scowl.
I'm embarrassed that any one of them could ever put me in checkmate.
It's a mystery how people can be so stupid, and so smart, at the same time.
Anyway. Enough about that.
-
***CHEATERS***
There are several types of cheaters in no specific order:
1. Attention seekers. Parents ignored them as children and they learned that any attention is better than no attention.
They can "force you to pay attention" when they deliver that checkmate.
They are playing out a kind of 'correction scenario' by proxy, regarding them being neglected in childhood.
To them, you don't exist. It's their parent(s) sitting across from them.
To them, what's one little game of cheated chess to you, compared to the entirety of everything that was bad about their childhood.
To you, it's just a game. To them, it's "real life".
2. Sociopaths/psychopaths. Their simple robot brains understand that winning is the point, and it doesn't make the distinction on how that comes about. They're simple animals. Ideas of humanity and honor and fairplay are out of the window. For these "people", it's about winning.
Most of these couldn't care less if their opponent realizes that they've been cheated or not. In their simple little dunce minds, they've done a good job for themselves, and they care not at all about anything else. Some of the pseudo-intellects in their group argue that they are doing what they ought do, what everyone ought do, and that they are the evolution of humankind; but, if Thibault was "all about himself" he wouldn't have created Lichess for people to enjoy at all, and absolutely everyone would be cheating even if he did.
Like I said, they're very simple and don't understand the need to look past themselves.
On the psychopathic side of things, these people enjoy knowing that you're having a tough time avoiding checkmate, and that they are the ones that caused your tough time. Legitimate/fair has absolutely nothing to do with it. At all.
All of the other comments alluding to this are perfectly accurate. There is often a side of 'power-tripping' to psychopaths, and in their mind, they didn't come to play chess, they couldn't care less about chess, they're just here to mess with people. Plain and simple.
I'll give you one guess why they chose chess players? That's right. Sociopaths/psychopaths are 100% egocentric. To them, 'they' are all that matter.
They are used to often being among the most intelligent people in the room. So it makes sense that they would bump into actual intellect, feel offended and out-done, and then go find a way to try to undermine their newfound antagonist.
So it's actually a double-whammy. They lick their little bruised egos while enjoying the power of being in a position to cause suffering. As far as they're concerned, they've put themselves back on the proper side of the predator:prey equation.
In other words, we offended their ego and inflated sense of 'self', and so they really showed us what's 'what'.
3. Power-trippers. Often sharing space with the sociopaths/psychopaths, the power trippers know what it's like to think on their deepest levels and still get hemmed into a checkmate by a better chess-mind.
To them, because things like ego and "getting the last word" and "I'll have my way" are a very big deal in life, they, in turn, cheat their opponents and revel in the helplessness that their opponents are experiencing.
Where you and I simply play an enjoyable game and be done with it; to them, they feel like they've been put in a straight-jacket and that we're actually subjugating them on some very real and important levels.
Remember, they've made it a point of always being the predator in the predator:prey equation. It's all they know.
When they come here assuming that they're still the smartest in the room, and we put that delusion to a close with vicious efficiency, to them, there is a score to even. To them, something that's been made wrong needs to be corrected.
By the way, this ties in directly to the game of "seeing how far you can go without getting caught".
They make no distinction, whatsoever, between the player and the anti-cheat programmer.
All their narrow minds see is "I've been made subject to someone/something else, and this needs to be corrected."
These are the same people that will bust a bike tire simply in order to remind themselves that they're still a predator.
It's all but a guarantee that they exercise a "predator point system" in their mind, where they need to effect their will on others or else feel like something is very wrong with the world and the order of things.
If you've ever heard of the "points system" in terms of running over different people with a car, you now understand where and why that came about.
For some of them, what really annoys them is when their opponents don't know that they've been cheated.
These kind are often people that were picked on or otherwise hurt at a young age. As such, where healthy adults put a value of "0/10" on having the capacity to 'impose our will' on others, these kinds of people have an inherent "10/10" importance associated to 'imposing will'.
These are the same people that employ roofies in order to practice control of other humans. These are the same people that cheat everyone at everything, every chance that they get.
Again, without realizing it, they are rehearsing a correction of their childhood, and so what they're actually "gaining" from this practice is completely sub-conscious and subliminal. They won't have a logical or rational conscious causal assessment of their behaviour, but the sense of corrective-relief will be consciously experienced. To them, what they're doing is real, productive, and effective.
Again, it's got nothing at all to do with chess, game, competition, or me or you. At all.
In their minds, it's them and a problem that began long ago.
In their minds, they're making correct today what went wrong yesterday.
Where we see a low-down cheater, scum of the earth, they see a very necessary correction of their past. To them, it must feel like life or death, but without ever understanding any of the problem or why their perceived solution/misbehaviour seems appropriate to them.
***Don't mistake this explanation for an excuse!***
Grown adults need to correct this garbage because they know that it's incorrect.
Effectively, they can't cheat today without justifying their attackers from yesterday. Plain and simple.
In other words, the only reason their attackers even existed yesterday, is because of their own willingness, as adults, to misbehave and victimize people today.
In fact, I would be completely surprised if this brand of cheaters didn't experience acute and regular nightmares as a direct result of their incessant cheating and victimizing everyone, everywhere that they can.
I don't see how it wouldn't cause them nightmares.
It would have to.
4. Information addicts. Some people have started out cheating with an honest inquiry as to the legitimacy of their opponent. The testimonies that I've read by these people all state that they never intended to cheat and just wanted to catch cheaters at first.
Over time, they inevitably end up using a computer move in a live game that they wouldn't otherwise have seen, and from there the slippery slope is mandatory. Next thing they know, they've become the person that they initially set out to "catch".
Luckily Lichess is so thorough that this measure isn't needed. Simply report your opponent, and if they are cheating, they will be caught. It takes about 15-20 seconds to report. Yes. It's that simple.
Anyway, besides the idea of checking for legitimacy, there are also those who have claimed that playing enough computer moves would eventually help them replicate computer moves. So people justified it as a "I'll just do this for a while until I progress a few 100 points." Stupid people, I know, but don't look at me. I didn't write the testimonials, I just read them.
Second to last, in the "information addict" category, is the literal addict that begins using the computer while following along with a live tournament or studying.
Inevitably they'll reach a point in one of their games where they want the engine suggestion as a force of habit.
They forget that they're not watching a tournament or studying.
So to get rid of the feeling of "something missing", they turn on their engine and use it as a crutch, often convincing themselves that they would have thought of the move themselves anyway.
5. The insecure and paranoid. These are people that will play engines against you until they've achieved a better/winning position. Now that they've proven that they're not up against an engine, they feel free to turn it off and play through.
But that's not all. Remember. They're insecure and paranoid. Everywhere they look, they see talk of "cheater this" and "cheater that".
If 98% of the time they visit the forums there is a topic regarding cheating on the front page, and ignorant people proclaiming about some "massive cheating epidemic", when the real number can't possibly be too far north of 2% on Lichess, (or too far south of 15% on cc), then they feel the need to double check.
So even though they've "proven" that you're not cheating, when you finally gain back your 1.50 2.00 deficit, they wonder if you are maybe the kind that uses the engine to get out of trouble...and so they turn it back on and "prove" themselves correct/incorrect about you probably being one of the 98% that cheat.
Of course, within 5-10 moves all of your targets disappear and there are tactics that will have you choose between losing a rook or a bishop and a pawn, for little or nothing.
By the way...DON'T THINK FOR A SECOND...that it's a weird coincidence that SO MANY PEOPLE who write in these topics of cheating are cheaters themselves.
MANY are here talking about the epidemic of "vast and out of control amounts of cheating" because:
a) They decided that they could do a better job catching cheaters, got caught cheating themselves, and want to convince themselves that they're still correct about it being a 22% problem instead of a 2% problem. (They'd actually be right if they were talking about cc, not Lichess.)
b) They simply can't accept that 98% of the people that play here can box them into a checkmate and completely victimize them at will. In order to preserve their ego and grandeur, it's necessary that they invent some lie about, "I'm not actually terrible at chess. I'm smart. So I don't suck, it's that everyone else must be cheating."
"Hey momo! Why do you keep saying that cheating is rampant?" - Me
"I have evidence. I lose except when I use a program. There is no other explanation." - Mr. Dunce.
-
Fact:
Assuming the 10,000-15,000 people on at any one time in prime time only play one game...2 in 100 games is still a fair amount.
Let's please, everyone, work together and make sure that we're doing our part and reporting cheaters. It's the single most important counter-measure that anyone who thinks that cheating is a problem, can take.
-
Conclusion:
Lichess does an EXCELLENT job with their anti-cheat division. You can't imagine what it would take to do as good a job as they do.
They won't be posted here, but there are very interesting programs that track for cheating. The less that is said about these algorithms, the better. Just know that they're there. For intents and purposes you can even consider them "self-learning".
Yes. They are that advanced.
In tandem with titled masters who fully understand how positions and certain tactical motifs arise, yes, Lichess is completely thorough, cutting-edge, and unparalleled.
I hope I've proven how simply increasing the amount of suspicion, and reason for suspicion, only serves to create additional cheaters. I hope, above all, that I've made this case complete and perfect.
No. There is no way around it. Filling these forums with the word "cheat" and "engine" does absolutely NOTHING to help the issue. Period full stop. Zip. Zero. But it AB-SO-LUTE-LY causes more cheating than there would otherwise be. Full stop.
The cost-benefit is ?:0.
-
Bottom line?
1. Lichess does anti-cheat the best.
2. There isn't much to catch except for a small group of about 2%.
Nice post!
After a long break from chess I started playing online chess again on cheat . com. I faced so many cheaters there that I left this site. I regret that I had even paid them for a diamond membership. Recently I gave them another chance, but I had to realize that its still impossible to play there with rapid time controls. You get smashed by 1700 blitz/bullet guys left and right. I wonder how anyone finds pleasure in playing on cheat . com.
Does anyone happen to know how my old love "ICC" (Internet Chess Club) is handling cheating. I play there very rarely but I ve noticed an increase of players who are above 2200 rapid (15 minute-pool) and like 1500 blitz (blitz/5-minute pool). Although I havent checked any of their games in detail (which is not my job), it leaves me with a bad feeling.
After a long break from chess I started playing online chess again on cheat . com. I faced so many cheaters there that I left this site. I regret that I had even paid them for a diamond membership. Recently I gave them another chance, but I had to realize that its still impossible to play there with rapid time controls. You get smashed by 1700 blitz/bullet guys left and right. I wonder how anyone finds pleasure in playing on cheat . com.
Does anyone happen to know how my old love "ICC" (Internet Chess Club) is handling cheating. I play there very rarely but I ve noticed an increase of players who are above 2200 rapid (15 minute-pool) and like 1500 blitz (blitz/5-minute pool). Although I havent checked any of their games in detail (which is not my job), it leaves me with a bad feeling.
@SpeedCobra
1. "Cheat . com"...I like that. Yeah man, cheatcom is disgusting.
There is no other word for it. On all levels, it's abhorrent. Period.
There is no good reason for them to continue to exist.
2. ICC's infrastructure is a solid indication of their interest in keeping up with the Jones'. Same interface since the 90s, and it shows. I remember trying to make lectures in the early 2000s, and the process was basically computer-programming. Little has changed since.
Cheating is far less at ICC than it is at cheatcom, that's definitely true. But that said, I have suspected a few, here and there, that seem to survive investigation.
People assume that the subscription fees dissuade cheaters, but I'm fairly confident that Lichess' anti-cheat division does a better job than ICC's Speedtrap.
The one thing that ICC got correct that I pay careful attention to, is the fact that the people who have lost interest in chess still pay subscription fees just to hang out with their long time friends in order to talk about all of the different topics in their chat rooms.
In my view, their appeal to COMMUNITY and FELLOWSHIP is worthy of study and replication. That's why I went hard on the importance of producing an environment that is conducive with oxytocin production, and the mammalian mandate to socialize and share human experience with others aka "Hang Out and Share Good and Enjoyalbe Times".
3. That said, sadly, I'm almost positive that ICC is way too far behind and on it's way out.
Instead of reinvesting the millions upon millions that they accrued, they sat on it.
They allowed cc and everyone else to bypass them.
Now they have to not only be better than everyone else, but they have to offer 10-15-20 minute wait times depending on your rating. When people can go anywhere else and wait 10-15-20 seconds for a game.
It's tough to see how they can regain a relevant foothold.
Even if they were 11/10 in all areas of site-design, addictiveness-factor, anti-cheat, and everything else, it's tough to see how they could claw their way back.
To me, this is a cardinal sin.
To me, I invested in the ICC community and expected that it would be looked after to where I could continue to brag that I was on *THE* #1 spot to play online.
ICC used to have 100% of the titled masters.
ICC used to own the chess market from top to bottom. There were no others that could be taken seriously, with the exception of playchess which had a real sort of glitchy 'msn freeware' feel to it.
At the time, cc looked like it was programmed by a 6 year old after getting into the liquor cabinet and then playing with legos and building a "rectangle".
That site used to be so far beyond garbage that it was incredible.
Somehow, despite a slightly improved layout, they've managed to somehow outdo themselves and make it super-extra-garbage.
4. I was with ICC since the 90s until only a few years ago.
It was Maurice, Jen, or Yasser that made passing mention of Lichess, and that was the end of ICC for me.
As a loyal long-time supporter, I took time to report back and highlight what Lichess was up to, and I let ICC know that if they could replicate a similar product, that I would stay loyal. They promised that they were working on upgrading and revamping the entire site by the end of the year...and that was several years ago.
I gave them 1.5 years to tighten up their program, and told them that I wouldn't renew if they couldn't deliver.
I explained that it's a complete insult and slap in the face to pay big money, year in, year out, only to find a free site that does absolutely everything far better.
At the time, Stockfish 8 had just dropped, and ICC had all these directions on where to go to d/l the program and which folder to copy it to and everything else. Lichess did it automatically for me, and that was probably the last straw that I couldn't ignore.
It was blatantly apparent that I was paying big money to do things that others do automatically.
One of the only things that ICC had going for them was the illusion that they deal with cheaters far more efficiently.
But as we know now, that's most likely not true at all.
The list of very useful extras that Lichess offers is very long and very good.
I won't bore you with a page long synopsis. The site speaks for itself.
-
Look.
I'm nearly 4 decades deep on this planet, and after the second day of poking around on Lichess, I almost couldn't sleep that night.
I felt like a kid on christmas day.
Lichess' setup is designed to invigorate and entice and excite and enthrall chess players, and there isn't much more that a chess player could ask for in a chess resource.
If you pulled me aside in 1988 when I first learned this game...
...and showed me all of the features in Lichess...
...and the internet chess world...
...and told me that this was what chess was like in heaven...
...I would have believed it.
Plain and simple.
1. "Cheat . com"...I like that. Yeah man, cheatcom is disgusting.
There is no other word for it. On all levels, it's abhorrent. Period.
There is no good reason for them to continue to exist.
2. ICC's infrastructure is a solid indication of their interest in keeping up with the Jones'. Same interface since the 90s, and it shows. I remember trying to make lectures in the early 2000s, and the process was basically computer-programming. Little has changed since.
Cheating is far less at ICC than it is at cheatcom, that's definitely true. But that said, I have suspected a few, here and there, that seem to survive investigation.
People assume that the subscription fees dissuade cheaters, but I'm fairly confident that Lichess' anti-cheat division does a better job than ICC's Speedtrap.
The one thing that ICC got correct that I pay careful attention to, is the fact that the people who have lost interest in chess still pay subscription fees just to hang out with their long time friends in order to talk about all of the different topics in their chat rooms.
In my view, their appeal to COMMUNITY and FELLOWSHIP is worthy of study and replication. That's why I went hard on the importance of producing an environment that is conducive with oxytocin production, and the mammalian mandate to socialize and share human experience with others aka "Hang Out and Share Good and Enjoyalbe Times".
3. That said, sadly, I'm almost positive that ICC is way too far behind and on it's way out.
Instead of reinvesting the millions upon millions that they accrued, they sat on it.
They allowed cc and everyone else to bypass them.
Now they have to not only be better than everyone else, but they have to offer 10-15-20 minute wait times depending on your rating. When people can go anywhere else and wait 10-15-20 seconds for a game.
It's tough to see how they can regain a relevant foothold.
Even if they were 11/10 in all areas of site-design, addictiveness-factor, anti-cheat, and everything else, it's tough to see how they could claw their way back.
To me, this is a cardinal sin.
To me, I invested in the ICC community and expected that it would be looked after to where I could continue to brag that I was on *THE* #1 spot to play online.
ICC used to have 100% of the titled masters.
ICC used to own the chess market from top to bottom. There were no others that could be taken seriously, with the exception of playchess which had a real sort of glitchy 'msn freeware' feel to it.
At the time, cc looked like it was programmed by a 6 year old after getting into the liquor cabinet and then playing with legos and building a "rectangle".
That site used to be so far beyond garbage that it was incredible.
Somehow, despite a slightly improved layout, they've managed to somehow outdo themselves and make it super-extra-garbage.
4. I was with ICC since the 90s until only a few years ago.
It was Maurice, Jen, or Yasser that made passing mention of Lichess, and that was the end of ICC for me.
As a loyal long-time supporter, I took time to report back and highlight what Lichess was up to, and I let ICC know that if they could replicate a similar product, that I would stay loyal. They promised that they were working on upgrading and revamping the entire site by the end of the year...and that was several years ago.
I gave them 1.5 years to tighten up their program, and told them that I wouldn't renew if they couldn't deliver.
I explained that it's a complete insult and slap in the face to pay big money, year in, year out, only to find a free site that does absolutely everything far better.
At the time, Stockfish 8 had just dropped, and ICC had all these directions on where to go to d/l the program and which folder to copy it to and everything else. Lichess did it automatically for me, and that was probably the last straw that I couldn't ignore.
It was blatantly apparent that I was paying big money to do things that others do automatically.
One of the only things that ICC had going for them was the illusion that they deal with cheaters far more efficiently.
But as we know now, that's most likely not true at all.
The list of very useful extras that Lichess offers is very long and very good.
I won't bore you with a page long synopsis. The site speaks for itself.
-
Look.
I'm nearly 4 decades deep on this planet, and after the second day of poking around on Lichess, I almost couldn't sleep that night.
I felt like a kid on christmas day.
Lichess' setup is designed to invigorate and entice and excite and enthrall chess players, and there isn't much more that a chess player could ask for in a chess resource.
If you pulled me aside in 1988 when I first learned this game...
...and showed me all of the features in Lichess...
...and the internet chess world...
...and told me that this was what chess was like in heaven...
...I would have believed it.
Plain and simple.
i cheated on and off for a year or do and idk why but i think basically its because i wanted to look like a stronger player. i plugged in all kinds of sacrifices on the engine to try to make them work
i don't think i've ever been cheated on......... i picture that looking like i'm playing something implacably brilliant, and it destroys me. i guess people might grab a handful from an engine now and then????
@ZeroSocialSkills @Andrew51290 opening explorer is allowable because corresp chess allows notes, books, videos, tables of openings... just about anything except an engine. unfortunately on lichess the opening explorer includes an engine, which has a toggle switch! i discovered this by accident a week ago ------- and i guess lichess' cheating detector works --- it fingered me, lol?!?
lesson learned...... but i wish the toggle or engine were more evident..........it had toggled back to where the engine was running............ usually it stays toggled in one position or the other....
some corresp. chess allow engines --- i've never played on those sites to experience that. i think it's international correspondence chess?? i don't know why they allow engines, but have heard it's like a battle of who has the best one.
@ZeroSocialSkills @Andrew51290 opening explorer is allowable because corresp chess allows notes, books, videos, tables of openings... just about anything except an engine. unfortunately on lichess the opening explorer includes an engine, which has a toggle switch! i discovered this by accident a week ago ------- and i guess lichess' cheating detector works --- it fingered me, lol?!?
lesson learned...... but i wish the toggle or engine were more evident..........it had toggled back to where the engine was running............ usually it stays toggled in one position or the other....
some corresp. chess allow engines --- i've never played on those sites to experience that. i think it's international correspondence chess?? i don't know why they allow engines, but have heard it's like a battle of who has the best one.
You can use the opening explorer on lichess without an engine by opening the analysis board and using it from there @doublebanzai
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