4NCL Online

[JustinHorton]

Which is going to be quite hard, if one or two are innocent and don't fancy being told otherwise.

[Roger de Coverly]

Which is going to be quite hard, if one or two are innocent and don't fancy being told otherwise.

It also sends a message particularly to lower rated players that they shouldn't play too well, else they get banned. It's acceptable to publish Elo performance ratings even when they hint at assistance. If the Regan methods can validly use rating as an input, why not make an estimate of playing strength based on the moves played and publish that as well?

We seem to be approaching a position where if players are under suspicion, the entire tournament results will be suppressed from publication.

[Thomas Rendle]

Alternatively they may all be guilty, which would make things somewhat easier. Can anyone point me towards anyone trying to appeal beyond saying 'I didn't cheat'? I did outline a while back what an appeal might look like!

[Michael Farthing]

Quite frankly none of these people are guilty. They are accused. They cannot be described as guilty until after they have either admitted this or been given the opportunity of an appeal at which they can present their own evidence, cross-examine their accusers and be represented if they so choose. It's called justice and it's time that those on this forum whose idea of justice is "I've done some analysis which I know is wonderful so therefore you are guilty and that's that" were made to realise that this is unethical, immoral and probably libellous. It's non negotiable.

[Thomas Rendle]

Ok, let me rephrase.

It's possible that Lichess (and other sites) actually do a very good job of detecting outside assistance, it's possible that the vast majority of those banned are done so correctly. Is there evidence to contradict that?

On the other-hand we have caution correctly urged when someone says 'look at these results, they must be cheating'.

I would very much like serious tournaments/leagues etc. to be held online, and to do that there needs to be some confidence that cheaters are being caught and innocent people are not being banned. It may be that this is impossible, or that there is a feeling this is impossible but I'd still like to know if there is any intended appeal out there, or even someone just giving an explanation for their performances.

[Michael Farthing]

A splendid rephrasing

[Adam Raoof]

A splendid rephrasing

A splendid praising of a splendid rephrasing!

[Nick Burrows]

It's called justice and it's time that those on this forum whose idea of justice is "I've done some analysis which I know is wonderful so therefore you are guilty and that's that" were made to realise that this is unethical, immoral and probably libellous. It's non negotiable.

Exactly right. Pointing out that i was told by Lichess that my opponent "cheated" and that inspite of his consistently low standard of play of many years has in recent games become significantly better than Magnus Carlsen is unethical and immoral.

Player who has acted as described must not be named anywhere. Is innocent until PROVEN guilty (impossible). And if found to be guilty of cheating shall receive a very short temporary ban.

Sounds like the balance is about right.

[Tim Spanton]

It's called justice and it's time that those on this forum whose idea of justice is "I've done some analysis which I know is wonderful so therefore you are guilty and that's that" were made to realise that this is unethical, immoral and probably libellous. It's non negotiable.

Exactly right. Pointing out that i was told by Lichess that my opponent "cheated" and that inspite of his consistently low standard of play of many years has in recent games become significantly better than Magnus Carlsen is unethical and immoral.

Player who has acted as described must not be named anywhere. Is innocent until PROVEN guilty (impossible). And if found to be guilty of cheating shall receive a very short temporary ban.

Sounds like the balance is about right.

Are you not exaggerating the punishment? From what I have read here it seems Lichess close the account but the player is free to open a new one seconds later.

[JustinHorton]

Player who has acted as described must not be named anywhere.

To be honest, you're perfectly at liberty to name anybody you choose by (say) creating a blog, or posting on Twitter, or what you will.

[Nick Grey]

Season 2 is a NO from me. Hopefully OTB 2021 - 2022 - 2023`

[John McKenna]

1st 4NCL Online Tournament Best Performance Prizes announced -

http://www.4ncl.co.uk/fide/online/winners_1.htm

[Adam Ashton]

Ok, let me rephrase.

It's possible that Lichess (and other sites) actually do a very good job of detecting outside assistance, it's possible that the vast majority of those banned are done so correctly. Is there evidence to contradict that?

On the other-hand we have caution correctly urged when someone says 'look at these results, they must be cheating'.

I would very much like serious tournaments/leagues etc. to be held online, and to do that there needs to be some confidence that cheaters are being caught and innocent people are not being banned. It may be that this is impossible, or that there is a feeling this is impossible but I'd still like to know if there is any intended appeal out there, or even someone just giving an explanation for their performances.

Well Lichess just overturned a recent ban (see cheating thread), in that case I'm not aware of any evidence offered except a fair bit of support from other players. This would suggest they are not that sure about the reliability of their anti-cheating methods after all.

I'd also add that I'd expect the vast majority of their bans are correct, but in my opinion that is slightly misleading. If you take out all the blatantly obvious cheating and consider only marginal/grey cases, I wonder what the accuracy of their anti-cheating algorithms drops to. Taking into account the experience of Justin Horton and Mr Palomar above, does anyone really think it is likely to be an acceptable number for the purposes of naming and shaming cheats?

[Neil Graham]

There have been around 2,000 contributions to this thread and the "Cheating in Chess" thread in General Chat (including the other odds and sods ones that have cropped up). Frankly I lost track of it all around posting 763.

Can I therefore ask some questions which may (or may not) have been answered?

Firstly at the half way stage there was a FairPlay update on 11th May 2020 which detailed 19 cases of players on the barred list. Seven of the players had already been debarred by Lichess and eight of the remaining 12 had been identified as using computers plus four others. In Alex's article on Fair Play he mentions a figure of 30 players.

a) Is there going to be a further FairPlay update on the On-Line League?
b) Lichess ban players for using computer assistance "we have the right to ban or close an account for any reason without warning". They do not reveal their methodology and the appeal rights are extremely limited. How many players have actually appealed to Lichess and have any been successful? 4NCL states it has nothing to do with banning by the host platform (Lichess).
c) On the other hand 4NCL have a clear Fairplay policy. How many players have failed the Regan cheating test in the 4NCL On-Line? How many appeals have there been and were any successful?
d) Of the 30 players mentioned in para 3 only two owned up to cheating. As far as I understand, the other 28 said "no - not me guv" or words to that effect. Could this be confirmed?
e) Several teams withdrew in protest about alleged cheating - is there any comment on this?
f) Two semi-finals didn't take place when teams withdrew - was this because of cheating?
g) Where cheating is established should there be a retrospective amending of results? Promotions/Relegations were clearly affected this time round.
h) Was cheating established at the recent 4NCL On-Line Congress? If so are we likely to see a report on this?
i) Various players have been named on this site. Is it right and proper that the sole penalty for cheating is a ban? Should a list of banned players be shown together with reasons so other players/organisers are aware.

Enough to be going on with?

I wrote the above piece some weeks ago and had hoped that we might have had some response before 4NCL On-Line League 2 started.
But we haven't. If there was evidence of cheating in the 4NCL let's hear it - at the very least there should be a further Fair Play update to detail what happened. What we have had is some comments (and indeed there has been yet more comment on yet another thread recently) that everyone is innocent, presumably because there aren't cameras covering their every move and alternatively that everyone who has been banned should be named - but we aren't allowed to do that on this forum. If the sum total of this is that anyone found out under the current rules merely disappears under a cloak of anonymity to subsequently reappear at some later date under some new pseudonym this is really giving the more unscrupulous a "Cheat's Charter". Alex's article is fine but I really need to have all the above clarified for my own and I suspect others satisfaction.

[Roger de Coverly]

If the sum total of this is that anyone found out under the current rules merely disappears under a cloak of anonymity to subsequently reappear at some later date under some new pseudonym this is really giving the more unscrupulous a "Cheat's Charter".

I don't know about later reappearing, but disappearance is what seems to be happening. It's not helped by lichess and chess.com issuing bans or incriminating flags without the say so of the bodies notionally in charge of the events they are hosting. Organisers seem to be reacting by reversing the process of making results and games readily available. Team events are easier to cover up than individual ones, since all that's needed is to turn wins or draws into losses. Making game scores difficult to find helps the cover up as well.

On the face of it, events held for junior players appear to have been particularly affected, although rapidly improving players are also vulnerable to the accusation that "on past results, you aren't good enough to play that well".