Fair play violations

I've read in the new conditions this:

"Speedruns - Where not covered by any of the other sections, a speedrun (starting from a low rating and trying to increase it as quickly as possible) either being streamed or not, is not currently allowed on Lichess."

I understand the meaning of the behaviour, but not the aim of not allowing it.

Why is it forbidden?

Very good point. Actually I see no evil in speedruns, because it is already covered by other rules:
- you are not allowed to create multiple accounts to avoid resttrictions;
- you are not allowed to artificially increase or decrease your rating.

But if a player was never present on lichess, what is bad in trying to get max rating as quickly as possible?

Nothing is bad about trying to get the max rating as quickly as possible, that's the aim of every chess player.

What you can't do is the opposite, that is trying to get to the minimum of rating as quickly as possible, which practically means resigning early or in winning positions or throwing the games by intentionally losing pieces, because that is the exact definition of rating manipulation.

Speedruns are prohibited on Lichess because the rating system is different from chesscom for example, where speedruns are allowed.
The glicko2 system (the one that Lichess uses) provides a way to quickly get to your real rating according to your strength in a few games. And it also recommends the starting rating to be set at 1500.
You can't speedrun here because say you reach 600 (the min rating on Lichess), as soon as you start playing seriously and win one game you will jump to a much higher rating because your RD will still be very high.
This doesn't happen on chesscom because they use glicko1, which is the older version, and if I'm not mistaken, every win is capped at +16 there. Besides, they set your initial rating manually at a very low rating and refund people losing after every game.
This doesn't happen on Lichess.

@Deadban said in #3:
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> Speedruns are prohibited on Lichess because the rating system is different from chesscom for example, where speedruns are allowed.
> The glicko2 system (the one that Lichess uses) provides a way to quickly get to your real rating according to your strength in a few games. And it also recommends the starting rating to be set at 1500.
> You can't speedrun here because say you reach 600 (the min rating on Lichess), as soon as you start playing seriously and win one game you will jump to a much higher rating because your RD will still be very high.

This is very interesting because I totally ignored the RD parameter (Rating Deviation) and glicko rating system. Now, thanks to Wikipedia, I've just updated this gap in my mind.

So it is intended that speedrun isn't allowed just in case of a high RD, because your rating increment is directly proportional to your RD, and inversely with respect to the one of your opponent. This seems suggest that you cannot exploit speedrun at the very beginning, when your RD is maximum. I wonder however how Lichess evaluate as unfair this behaviour: A user start at 1500 and quickly reaches e.g. 1900 (a lot faster than, e.g.,, after having played say 500 games); what does this mean? That is he cheating? It sounds as an absurdity. And then, what should he do? Somehow he'll have of course to start playing, isn't it?

Moreover I don't understand the meaning of the expression

«...either being streamed or not...»

I consider this condition as futile and superfluous, but above all ambiguous, because there are other specific and CLEAR sections that avoid unfair escalations. (see @tcmfan ).

> This doesn't happen on chesscom because they use glicko1, which is the older version, and if I'm not mistaken, every win is capped at +16 there. Besides, they set your initial rating manually at a very low rating and refund people losing after every game.

This last assertion is really incomprehensible: Why do they refund after losing a game?!

> I wonder however how Lichess evaluate as unfair this behaviour: A user start at 1500 and quickly reaches e.g. 1900 (a lot faster than, e.g.,, after having played say 500 games); what does this mean? That is he cheating? It sounds as an absurdity.

I'm not sure what you mean in this passage, but I will respond according to what my understanding is.
If a player starts a brand new account and starts playing games normally, which means with the aim of winning every game, and when his rd gets below 110 (not provisional anymore) he's reached 1900 that just means that their strength is close to that number. The rating will then stabilize when the rd gets to about 50.

> And then, what should he do? Somehow he'll have of course to start playing, isn't it?

I have no idea what you have in mind considering you just posted this question.

> Moreover I don't understand the meaning of the expression
«...either being streamed or not...»

People who usually do speedruns do it for their twitch or YouTube content. Lichess is just specifying that even if you are an approved streamer, speedruns are still not allowed.

> This last assertion is really incomprehensible: Why do they refund after losing a game?!

Because if a GM, whose main and public account has say a 2500 rating, starts a speedrun at say 400 rating, the people that he will face, who don't know he's a GM, will obviously think his strength is that one shown by his rating.
So for example, if a 1500 gets destroyed by the speedrunner and loses say 10 points, and later he finds out he faced a GM with a 1500 rating, I bet he'd be pretty pissed.
Chesscom came up with the refund solution to cover the fact that the GM is sandbagging, otherwise they would have to ban him.

> I consider this condition as futile and superfluous, but above all ambiguous, because there are other specific and CLEAR sections that avoid unfair escalations. (see @tcmfan ).

tcmfan and you evidently don't understand the concept of speedrunning. I have posted an example above to explain what a speedrun is about.
What you fail to understand is that on Lichess the only way to perform a speedrun is to sandbag and not even just once, but several times until the RD is low enough to stop. There's no other way to do it.
So ultimately: speedrun = sandbagging = rating manipulation = cheating = ban.

As someone who has benefitted a lot from watching speedruns, and who loves this platform, I wish there were a way to allow speedruns on the site without negatively affecting those who may not appreciate being a part of it. Maybe speedrunners can designate their accounts accordingly, which gives points back to opponents? This solves the rating manipulation problem, does it not? There are plenty of people who would of course skirt around the rules and not designate their accounts properly, but to that I say to only let titled players designate accounts as speedrun accounts. I think documented speed runs are a great educational source, as well as a good source of new players to the platform.

@Deadban said in #5:
> I'm not sure what you mean in this passage, but I will respond according to what my understanding is.
> If a player starts a brand new account and starts playing games normally, which means with the aim of winning every game, and when his rd gets below 110 (not provisional anymore) he's reached 1900 that just means that their strength is close to that number. The rating will then stabilize when the rd gets to about 50.
>
>
>
> I have no idea what you have in mind considering you just posted this question.

Previous the reading of this answer I intended that speedrun was this: A user starts playing (1500 the default ranking on Lichess), then he tries to win as many games as possible, so I founded absurd the fact that having maximum RD (a matter absolutely independent from his will) could influence negatively his playing behaviour on this platform

> >«...either being streamed or not...»
>
> People who usually do speedruns do it for their twitch or YouTube content. Lichess is just specifying that even if you are an approved streamer, speedruns are still not allowed.

I didn't imagine this meaning at all. So it is when some chess master, e.g. on YouTube, do things like “My rising from 400 to 2200”

> Because if a GM, whose main and public account has say a 2500 rating, starts a speedrun at say 400 rating, the people that he will face, who don't know he's a GM, will obviously think his strength is that one shown by his rating.
> So for example, if a 1500 gets destroyed by the speedrunner and loses say 10 points, and later he finds out he faced a GM with a 1500 rating, I bet he'd be pretty pissed.
> Chesscom came up with the refund solution to cover the fact that the GM is sandbagging, otherwise they would have to ban him.

I object what said above with this considerations:

1) Starting at 1500, anyway lower ranked players will face the GM decreasing their score.

2) There's a flag or label to advise you of the uncertainty of the ranking, that is, the "?" character.

> ... on Lichess the only way to perform a speedrun is to sandbag and not even just once, but several times until the RD is low enough to stop. There's no other way to do it.
> So ultimately: speedrun = sandbagging = rating manipulation = cheating = ban.

And I object this ultimate part because you're substantially saying that speedrun implies sandbagging, and this, as I and @tcmfan said, is already regulated by Lichess TOS: You cannot artificially decrease your rating, at any time, even when your RD has stabilized.

Moreover there's a subtle question: How can we establish if a user is sandbagging? I'm 1500 rank and I'm in a bad day (troubles, worries and so on), so I not intentionally lose many games, then stop playing say at 1000. Am I cheating?

Again, if a GM wishes to stabilize his RD he can play alternating wins and defeats, then he could do sandbagging just once. This wouldn't be allowed by TOS (intentionally deflate your rating), but, as said above, who can say he's sandbagging?

> 1) Starting at 1500, anyway lower ranked players will face the GM decreasing their score.

I have difficulty understanding this sentence as well. The whole point of chess ratings is that a player is paired (via lobby) against players of the same strength. There is absolute no sense in pairing a 1500 with someone who's 1000 points higher.

> 2) There's a flag or label to advise you of the uncertainty of the ranking, that is, the "?" character.

The question mark disappears as soon as the RD in a tc/variant gets under 110. The whole point of the speedrun is that the player must have a low RD, otherwise the rating would jump after one win only. So when the GM starts the speedrun the "?" will be long gone.
Besides, on Lichess GMs start with a 2500? rating exactly to avoid being paired with 1300-1700 rated players.
So I don't really know what you're objecting here.

> And I object this ultimate part because you're substantially saying that speedrun implies sandbagging,

Of course I am saying that, I thought it was clear by now.

> and this, as I and @tcmfan said, is already regulated by Lichess TOS: You cannot artificially decrease your rating, at any time, even when your RD has stabilized.

This is utter nonsense, sorry to say. What are you even trying to say here? That sandbagging is feasibly impossible on Lichess? Why do you think there is a rating manipulation section in lichess.org/report then? Because people sandbag everyday for the most various reasons. To gain an unfair advantage in rating restricted tournaments for example.

The speedrun passage in the TOS is supposed to be just a clarification, since it is a common phenomenon which is allowed on other chess sites.
There have been cases on Lichess where people have tried doing a speedrun and got banned for it. Notorious the case of an English GM who got banned for this not long ago.
Of course it is already covered in the rating manipulation section, it is the same thing!

> Moreover there's a subtle question: How can we establish if a user is sandbagging? I'm 1500 rank and I'm in a bad day (troubles, worries and so on), so I not intentionally lose many games, then stop playing say at 1000. Am I cheating?

> Again, if a GM wishes to stabilize his RD he can play alternating wins and defeats, then he could do sandbagging just once. This wouldn't be allowed by TOS (intentionally deflate your rating), but, as said above, who can say he's sandbagging?

Dear PerversissimusEns, you've been caught talking about something you clearly didn't know already once. Now you're doing it again. I would advise you, for the future, not to start claiming things if you are not sure about what the object of the discussion is.

The mods will certainly know better, but it is fairly easy to recognize when someone's sandbagging because all games are public.
When it says "intentionally losing games" or "not trying to win all the games you play" it refers to the fact that some people resign on move one, resign early (move 7-10) without a valid reason, resign in winning positions, do not move on move one and so on.
So when I say that a player willing to do a speedrun must sandbag at all costs, I mean that he keeps doing one of those things in all the games until he reaches the lowest rating possible. At that point he will start playing seriously because the aim of the speedrun is to reach the highest rating possible (according to the strength of the player) in the least amount of time.

Well, that actually was a good point, but, in chess, that didn't make sence... :~0

First of all thanks for these accurate explanations.

@Deadban said in #8:
> I have difficulty understanding this sentence as well. The whole point of chess ratings is that a player is paired (via lobby) against players of the same strength. There is absolute no sense in pairing a 1500 with someone who's 1000 points higher.

I had noticed immediately this mechanism, and I think it is evident to any player. I meant that anyway lower ranked players will face the GM when he or she starts playing on Lichess; but saying this I ignored the immediately following point (see below)
>
>
> The question mark disappears as soon as the RD in a tc/variant gets under 110. The whole point of the speedrun is that the player must have a low RD, otherwise the rating would jump after one win only. So when the GM starts the speedrun the "?" will be long gone.
> Besides, on Lichess GMs start with a 2500? rating exactly to avoid being paired with 1300-1700 rated players.
> So I don't really know what you're objecting here.
>
>
Again, as I've said above, I didn't know a GM gets 2500 rating when starting. However we can observe that a strong player (maybe an IM or a GM) could open an account without specifying his FIDE title.

> Of course I am saying that, I thought it was clear by now.
> This is utter nonsense, sorry to say. What are you even trying to say here? That sandbagging is feasibly impossible on Lichess? Why do you think there is a rating manipulation section in lichess.org/report then? Because people sandbag everyday for the most various reasons. To gain an unfair advantage in rating restricted tournaments for example.

I didn't consider the advantage in chess tournaments, because I ignored it (I suppose it consists in being paired with lower ranked players). On the other side, I meant the exact contrary: Sandbagging is easily possible, as I had expressed in successive considerations.

> The speedrun passage in the TOS is supposed to be just a clarification,

This clarify a lot the matter. So the objections I did aren't brutal nonsenses, indeed:

> Of course it is already covered in the rating manipulation section, it is the same thing!

> Dear PerversissimusEns, you've been caught talking about something you clearly didn't know already once. Now you're doing it again. I would advise you, for the future, not to start claiming things if you are not sure about what the object of the discussion is.

Let me disagree. Many information on a specific matter may be out of the brain of anyone. For this reason, using his limited or incomplete point of view, it is highly likely he'll do mistakes in exposing his doubts and questions (and he's here exactly to clarify them :-))

> The mods will certainly know better, but it is fairly easy to recognize when someone's sandbagging because all games are public.
> When it says "intentionally losing games" or "not trying to win all the games you play"

Allow me to still consider this last assertion (not trying to...) an illogicality, a real contradiction in terms.

EDIT: Okay, sorry, I missed the sense of the assertion: It must be inserted in the speedrun (and consequent sandbagging) context