Reporting cheaters should be faster

Check this tournament: https://lichess.org/tournament/SomtlMw3

I had to stop playing after the initial rounds to report a cheater, after that i got back and started playing again, got in a winning streak and got the same points than the winner... the feeling is that if i hadn't lost that time going to the report page, filling the form, etc, I could have won the tournament... the worst part it's not the first time this happen to me (I got 3rd or 4th in other tournament recently with tied points at top after loosing time reporting in the middle of the tournament).

I know it's impossible to stop all forms of cheating, but reporting should be faster and easier, otherwise this things will happen again and again (I'm pretty sure this happens somewhat often but people do not write here in the forum about that).

And no, reporting after the tournament doesn't work because you forgot which opponent was, you are not angry anymore, you have better things to do, you want to play again and not loose time reporting, etc.

Btw, and this is of course my opinion, 20 games for new accounts to get into a tournament should be more, it's too much easy for cheaters to create new accounts that way, they should be 50 at least.

Thanks

thank you for your well written and respectful feedback

@saverius said in #1:

you are not angry anymore
This rather sounds like a very good reason to wait with the report to me. Reporting someone should be a rational decision, not emotional.

you have better things to do, you want to play again and not loose time reporting
Same here. If you do not feel enough motivation any more, it may be a sign that it was perhaps not a good idea when you thought about it first.

@saverius said in #1:

Btw, and this is of course my opinion, 20 games for new accounts to get into a tournament should be more, it's too much easy for cheaters to create new accounts that way, they should be 50 at least.
Blitz tunnel vision. For me, 50 games is almost half a year... Anyway, setting the entry conditions and their parameters is up to organizer of the tournament. Some tournaments do not require minimum number of games at all, some have 5; when you organize a tournament, you can probably set the minimum to 50 or even 100. If a tournament has the minimum set to 20, it's its organizer's decision.

I guess it will always be a compromise how experienced you need the players to be, or how long they should be registered. After all, people want to play, and play in tournaments. Especially when you are new you want to try things out. It is somewhat doubtful that raising the bar would have a huge effect with regards to "fresh cheaters".

As for your current tournament, I can only guess who you reported - but you lost to only two players in the beginning. I have to say, those players have thousands of games, and absolutely nothing indicates cheating on their part. So your suggestion to require more than 20 games is unrelated to this.

If you look at the games now with fresh eyes, you will probably agree that your moves after the initial blunder were absolute terrible, and no thought was needed for the opponent to play at all - in fact, I guess most of the time the opponent could have played any random move and they would still be winning. This is typically where people misunderstand the accuracy measure. They see those amazing numbers, when in fact it would be pretty hard to get a lower number. More often than not, it shows how easy you made it for your opponent, not how brilliant there moves are. And once the position is completely lost, it loses most of its meaning.

One final thing: Stalling your games will also not help you to speed up the process and get more games in. You stalled for over a minute, which should result in a warning and/or play ban. And - quite frankly - you could have resigned with over 2:40 on the clock, saving you about 3-4 minutes total. By comparison: a report takes about 20 seconds or so do.

@mkubecek said in #3:

This rather sounds like a very good reason to wait with the report to me. Reporting someone should be a rational decision, not emotional.

Not at all. If a legit player plays a cheater, he will get mad/frustrated/annoyed/etc, since a legit player IS a human... may be the cheater is a bot tho hah. As an organizer of anything you want to get a good grasp of what your users are experiencing, if you put the "complaints book" too far you'll miss the majority of the valuable feedback, that's for sure.

Plus, I'm asking for a quicker report system since lichess is interested to have a better experience by fighting cheating as possible (otherwise the report page wouldn't exist). I reported a bunch of players over the years and a good amount of them got banned, so may be I'm not that wrong dude. Just saying.

@mkubecek said in #3:

For me, 50 games is almost half a year

Then you are not a tournament player so you won't bother about the games requirement hah. My suggestion is against cheaters not occasional players like you. This dudes are actively trying to cheat and, believe it or not, they do put time and effort in creating accounts to loose a bunch of games and get a low rating (thats sandbagging) to then enter tournaments to literally cheat.
But I get your point on low frequency players, and may be the lichess team also, so I'll enhance my suggestion: 50 rated games OR 20 rated games with an at least year-old account.

@saverius said in #5:

Not at all. If a legit player plays a cheater, he will get mad/frustrated/annoyed/etc, since a legit player IS a human... may be the cheater is a bot tho hah.
It's a natural human reaction, true. But that doesn't mean it's right to act immediately in response to such emotional reaction. IMHO you should only report when you calm down and are still convinced that cheating actually happen. Not while you are full of emotions right after a lost game and far from objective.

@nadjarostowa said in #4:

As for your current tournament, I can only guess who you reported - but you lost to only two players in the beginning. I have to say, those players have thousands of games, and absolutely nothing indicates cheating on their part. So your suggestion to require more than 20 games is unrelated to this.

The player I reported had a low rating for the tournament, played at 95%+ precision and played at almost a bullet level speed for his moves. You can get 2 of those 3 here and there, but the 3? Super unlikely. I'm pretty sure you do agree with me there.
Plus, after he noticed discovered in the chat, he paused playing... which is a behaviour I saw already before.

If you look at the games now with fresh eyes, you will probably agree that your moves after the initial blunder were absolute terrible,

Yeah, I'm a human and got angry when playing a cheater, my moves selection worsen a lot naturally. I understand if you say "you think he is a cheater but he is not", even tho, I'm a legit player, with years of experience, and when facing a low rated player with bot-like behaviour I naturally got suspicious. But again, even if I'm wrong about that player I reported, what I'm asking is different, I'm not complaining about someone here.

Btw, facing a sandbagger it's super annoying because, say you are a 1700 facing a 1400, you pick an opening to that kind of player, when you notice he plays like a 2000 it's totally late for choosing an opening more suitable for that kind of player. Getting mad after something like that it's natural for someone with blood in the veins.

One final thing: Stalling your games will also not help you to speed up the process and get more games in. You stalled for over a minute, which should result in a warning and/or play ban. And - quite frankly - you could have resigned with over 2:40 on the clock, saving you about 3-4 minutes total. By comparison: a report takes about 20 seconds or so do.

You are missing the point of my post dude, from the start to the end of your writing. In any case, I will reply to you. 1) I thought about resigning before but kept playing to be really sure he was cheating (plus, I usually ignore cheaters in the last rounds to not loose time, but this was in the start of the tournament). 2) I didn't stall at all, I was chatting complaining about the cheater (without blaming the specific user or I would got banned) and you can see that in the chat box, and also I was thinking about the game and deciding whether report it or not (most of times when I got suspicious I don't report finally, because sometimes exceptional play in an opponent can happen). 3) A report takes 20 seconds?? Have you ever filled a good report form? You've to explain what's happening. May be you are a light at it, but not me and I'm pretty sure most of users neither are. And even so, 20 seconds are quite a lot for some time controls, my suggestion to get a faster way remains.

@nadjarostowa said in #4:
"This is typically where people misunderstand the accuracy measure. They see those amazing numbers, when in fact it would be pretty hard to get a lower number. More often than not, it shows how easy you made it for your opponent, not how brilliant there moves are. And once the position is completely lost, it loses most of its meaning."

Absolutely. If you make an early-game blunder, then your opponent can play very easily and win, and have over 90% precision. It does not mean that they are cheating. The only time when I find it odd is when a player plays excellent moves very very fast, and most importantly, always with the same amount of time between each move, and in a very complex game, has over 95% precision.

@PSG888 said in #8:

Absolutely. If you make an early-game blunder, then your opponent can play very easily and win, and have over 90% precision. It does not mean that they are cheating. The only time when I find it odd is when a player plays excellent moves very very fast, and most importantly, always with the same amount of time between each move, and in a very complex game, has over 95% precision.

Yeah, he played fast, and lets say I only committed 2 errors and 5 imprecisions in the game with a 86% of precision, but nadjarostowa says I played a bad game and I respect his opinion, it's a matter of taste, but I don't think I was that bad in that game. Still, my low rated opponent managed to bulldoze me with fast reflexes consistently move after move with a few imprecisions along the whole game.
But yet again, my point was not about that game nor the user that played that game, but that the report circuit is slow compared with other options that might be implemented, say, a REPORT button on the game analysis or something like that, that automatically fills the user name and links the game analysis (which btw could be a mandatory requisite for reporting).
I'm just trying to suggest an improvement to lichess from my perspective, may be there's something useful in what I say.

09:01:01 Unfamiliar skills steals victory. Cheater!
09:01:03 Start my report to lichess: "HEY, BUDDY, YOU GOTTA LISTEN TO ME LIKE YOU NEVER LISTENED TO ANYTHING IN YOUR LIFE!...1.E4, E5...I KNEW THERE WAS NO WAY!....FINALLY I RESIGNED! GO, NOW! HE'S GETTING AWAY!..."
09:06:25.
That was pretty good time IMHO.
I. Ben Swindold
p.s. we really need to beef up security around here
hurry up, go!