Lichess cheater arena pairing

Hello. I'm 100% not interested in playing with an account so I have been playing anonymous games in the last year and my win rate is close to 0%, taking in account the first/second game in a row, which usually is very stupid boring and easy game. Otherwise it's just 0%.

Clearly many (if not most or all) of those players are cheating, for example it's easy to notice when the other player is very weak and struggles a lot not to loose major pieces, and as soon as I'am completelly winning, my opponent enters in godlike mode and of course, the engine rapes me very easily.

But even if they are just stronger players trolling for some reasons (24hs/day?) I believe the anonymous arena has something like a hidden ELO, because the first game when I start playing is usually very easy and as soon as I win it (sometimes the first two), it doesn't matter how long I continue to play, I get completely destroyed on every single game (which starts to be very boring when I reach game five or ten..). So the question is, why lichess keeps pairing me exclusivelly with cheaters and/or strong players? I'm not a strong player and I'm not interested in analysing my games or anything like that, otherwise I'll just use an engine...

In general I think people should play with people.

But engines are good for some specialized tasks. Everyone should be able to win games where they have a decent material advantage. Using stockfish on its highest level to practice is a good idea. Start with queen odds, then rook, then minor piece, and practice translating a won position into a won game.

Thanks. I understand how that could be true for some players but I'm not trying to level up (at least by force, that would be rather easy, time consuming and boring). I have many engines installed (even wrote some chess software) and I never play them, even leela with the human-like neural network maia, it just plays well but makes random incoherent blunders just to pretend it's a lower rated human (?) that's not chess.

If you don't want to play against cheaters, just don't play anonymously. I can't really judge it but I really wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority of anonymous players were cheating.

And stopping that is certainly not worth the huge moderation effort. If it's even possible in the first place which I doubt.

As far as I can see, there's really no reason not to play on your account which completely avoids this issue.

Stopping cheaters there shouldn't be easy or possible. But the pairing algorithm seems to think that because I can beat a kid learning the basics, I can play (exclusively) against far stronger players (with or without engines) which is absolutely not the case.

I'm sorry but as a general rule I don't use any website or services which keeps any kind of information associated with me, the only exceptions are indispensable and the information is not public. A solution to the cheaters playing anonimously could be to allow anonymous play with accounts (hidden names, no recorded activity except statistics -not games or dates- needed to detect cheaters..).

When there's no point in playing anonymous and when it's just harmful, might wonder why it still exists in the first place ...

I've played anonymously before and I win almost 100% of my games... maybe you're just rated below most anonymous players, I don't know. Just play rated games, you'll be paired against people your strength.

@Cedur216 said in #6:
> When there's no point in playing anonymous and when it's just harmful, might wonder why it still exists in the first place ...

As far as I know, there is no unique true view of the world. Whether you (or many others) like something or not, should not be impossed to others, I believe. Maybe I'm wrong but I think many of the anonymous players do have an account but they don't want their games to be recorded for any reasons. I don't see why this could be "wrong" or "bad" or why this preference should be explained to anybody.

@Cedur216 said in #6:
> When there's no point in playing anonymous and when it's just harmful, might wonder why it still exists in the first place ...

I guess it's still useful for a quick game vs a friend that doesn't have an account or doesn't have their login info handy. Or for some random playing around to try stuff out. Certainly don't understand why anybody would try to play normal games in the pool where you don't even have a rating or anything.

@taco_fischer said in #5:
> Stopping cheaters there shouldn't be easy or possible. But the pairing algorithm seems to think that because I can beat a kid learning the basics, I can play (exclusively) against far stronger players (with or without engines) which is absolutely not the case.

As far as I'm aware the anon pairing isn't that sophisticated. iirc it just creates anon lobby seeks which means anybody can randomly accept your game (though ofc there is nothing that would tell anybody who's game it is and how strong they are). And I guess it randomly pairs seeks with matching TCs. I don't think there's any performance tracking involved. Either way, improving this system is definitely not a priority. If you want properly matched games, use an account. From just a few games, you'll never get an actually good pairing.

> I'm sorry but as a general rule I don't use any website or services which keeps any kind of information associated with me, the only exceptions are indispensable and the information is not public.

Well, that's your problem. Though I really don't see why you care whether some random games you played on a random account with 1400 rating are stored.

> A solution to the cheaters playing anonimously could be to allow anonymous play with accounts (hidden names, no recorded activity except statistics -not games or dates- needed to detect cheaters..).

Not sure how you think cheating detecting without games works? But also, I don't understand why you even care whether games are stored? Lichess itself already stores anonymous games all the same and could track you either way if it wanted?

Just play publicly with casual mode on.