Why Lichess forbids us to choose our adversary

Take for example a tournament I played a few hours ago:

Winning against a 2100

I almost never encounter cheaters. I think its because I'm not even 2000 yet. I think below 2000 you won't find many cheaters, because obviously, if they were cheating, their rating would go up fast. I think you're probably overestimating how many cheaters there are. Don't cancel your games - most likely you are not playing cheaters.

So you judge whether to play a player or not based on their history?
That's the cheapest excuse I have ever heard of!

@Durtan said in #1:

Hi,
I play on Lichess since three years, and for the first time, I've been suspended for nine minutes today, then twelve minutes, because I've cancelled too many times a game at its beginning. But if I started to refuse so many chess games, it's only because I'm really fed up to come accross so many cheaters which abound on this platform. So, now, before starting a game, I look on the player profile, and when I see he beats some 1700-1800 players, but was beaten by some 700-800 others, it's - for me - suspicious enough to refuse the meeting.

I looked at some of the games you aborted, and checked the opponent profiles. What I saw was, players who had a wide range of win/loss rating as you note. Victories against 1600's and losses against 800-900s. But - in most cases, the low rated losses were 2-3 years ago while the higher rated victories were more recent. Could just be that these players improved with time (after all, isn't that everyone's goal?). If they were consistently cheating over a long period they'd probably be marked by now.

I have no idea how common cheaters are at lower levels, but I recently browsed through my 90 or so games and found that 1 opponent has been marked for cheating. And I don't remember any games where I really thought my opponent was cheating. I think there's too much paranoia about cheaters. Just play the games, lichess will find them if they cheat (or you can report anyone you find suspicious). Aborting games is not the way to go. I routinely block players who abort games with me.

@Durtan said in #1:

I don't understand why Lichess doesn't allow to choose a good partner,

They do allow it. Go to the Lobby, select an existing game someone has created. Challenge an individual player with the Play With A Friend option.

@Durtan All these people are trying to help you

@Durtan said in #1:

>Hi,
>I play on Lichess since three years, and for the first time, I've been suspended for nine minutes today, then twelve minutes, because I've cancelled too many times a game at its beginning. But if I started to refuse so many chess games, it's only because I'm really fed up to come accross so many cheaters which abound on this platform. So, now, before starting a game, I look on the player profile, and when I see he beats some 1700-1800 players, but was beaten by some 700-800 others, it's - for me - suspicious enough to refuse the meeting.
>
>I don't understand why Lichess doesn't allow to choose a good partner, when cheating is so aboundant and seemingly undectable, if really Lichess want us to live here a relaxed expérience in a good atmosphere.
>
>We have therefore to suffer cheating in silence, or give up playing online ?

@Orciety said in #10:

Everybody wins games against higher rated players and loses to lower rated players every once in a while. You were wasting other people's time aborting games, so the time out wasn't unfair in any way. Plus, there's literally no cheaters at your rating.

lulz.. .Orciety

They are at every rating because they are using multiple usernames at multiple ratings. They don't care about the rankings on all their fake accounts, they are justt tools.

Duran has an honest gripe. I actually hate it when people quit immediately. But if they do it before the game gets going it's better there than half way through or 3 moves in. If he doesn't want to play some fake joker he shouldn't be forced to.

@Orciety said in #11:

Take for example a tournament I played a few hours ago:

Winning against a 2100

Losing to a 1400

It gets better! Looks like you're currently that 1400's number one "Best rated victories", which makes your accomplishment all the sweeter (I've done the same). Huh... all of their best victories happened today and yesterday. Looks like you crossed their path at the wrong time.

@Durtan said in #1:

Hi,
I play on Lichess since three years, and for the first time, I've been suspended for nine minutes today, then twelve minutes, because I've cancelled too many times a game at its beginning. But if I started to refuse so many chess games, it's only because I'm really fed up to come accross so many cheaters which abound on this platform. So, now, before starting a game, I look on the player profile, and when I see he beats some 1700-1800 players, but was beaten by some 700-800 others, it's - for me - suspicious enough to refuse the meeting.

I don't understand why Lichess doesn't allow to choose a good partner, when cheating is so aboundant and seemingly undectable, if really Lichess want us to live here a relaxed expérience in a good atmosphere.

We have therefore to suffer cheating in silence, or give up playing online ?

You can choose your opponent. either via direct invite, or somehow via the custom lobby. If you're using the quick queue, you're not choosing, that's how it works.

Now for the other part, just because a player beats you doesn't mean he is a cheater. The majority of the players who beat you are not cheaters. I know it is much more easy on oneself to say that we lost to a cheater rather than saying that we lost because our opponent was better, but the majority of the time, it's not the truth. Also, your example about a player who has beaten 1800 but lost to a 700 is complete nonsense. These stats are intemporal. For example on my account it says that I lost to 1300 but these games were so long ago that they are not representative of the player I am today. Also you don't know, maybe that player was playing drunk that night or something. If you're basing your choice of cancelling games based on that, you deserve your ban. Period.

Sorry my post isn't very friendly, but everything in your initial post is completely off. If you don't change your attitude towards the game not only you'll never improve (which in itself is not a problem if you don't want to, we all have different goals), but more importantly you'll deprive yourself of the joy of playing by constantly being suspicious of things that are not suspicious. Just be more positive, play the games. If someone cheats, whatever. When I'm playing anonymous on the site I don't suspect that more than 5-10% of players are cheating (and most of them are just using the opening explorer and no engine). I have a hard time believing that there are more than 1% of cheaters with registered accounts. Still a lot, but 1% of my blitz games is not a big problem: especially if I'm focusing on playing good chess myself it actually doesn't matter if the opposing player is in fact an engine.

Edit: Oh, and about your argument about this guy losing to a 900 and therefore you considering him as a cheater. What if the 900 was the cheater? This scenario alone should be enough for you to realize how idiotic a train of thoughts that is.

@greysensei said in #12:

I almost never encounter cheaters. I think its because I'm not even 2000 yet. I think below 2000 you won't find many cheaters, because obviously, if they were cheating, their rating would go up fast. I think you're probably overestimating how many cheaters there are. Don't cancel your games - most likely you are not playing cheaters.

I'm not sure about that. I guess that many cheaters are not consistent, but just once in a while they decided to play with an engine just to have fun a few games (not sure what they find fun about it but...). Also because if someone is cheating consistently accross all his games, his rating will go up but also he has a lot more chances to get caught.