Chess.Com getting sued.

[Chris Rice]

Chess.com's stance on cheating is very transparent. I was told by someone that the 'c' stood for closed account but as evidenced below its defintely a 'cheater's icon'. Apparently it was engine matching moves but in a way chess.com have stitched themselves up by going public rather than just closing the account and quietly asking the guy to go away. The guy has been publicly embarrassed and will obviously look to redeem himself by painting himself as some sort of victim. Now, as Clive and Ray state above, the burden of proof is with chess.com and its procedures and the way these things usually go chess.com will probably end up offering an out of court settlement rather than having to spend a lot more proving their case.

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/communi ... t-cheaters

[Roger de Coverly]

Chess.com's stance on cheating is very transparent.

One of the top 5 bullet players named on their home page is also associated with very credible accusations of using an engine on a phone in the loo during German league matches.

[MartinCarpenter]

Near impossible to cheat at bullet except in the really blatant/obvious way though, surely?

(Mildly) Slower time limits are where its get worrying with time to consult analysis/databases etc which you'd never be able to detect.

[Gordon Cadden]

Chess.com's stance on cheating is very transparent. I was told by someone that the 'c' stood for closed account but as evidenced below its defintely a 'cheater's icon'. Apparently it was engine matching moves but in a way chess.com have stitched themselves up by going public rather than just closing the account and quietly asking the guy to go away. The guy has been publicly embarrassed and will obviously look to redeem himself by painting himself as some sort of victim. Now, as Clive and Ray state above, the burden of proof is with chess.com and its procedures and the way these things usually go chess.com will probably end up offering an out of court settlement rather than having to spend a lot more proving their case.

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/communi ... t-cheaters

I agree with your comments, Chess.com should simply have closed his account, without giving a reason. The burden of proof will be very difficult to establish, since the element of coincidence will always be in the background.

[Jonathan Bryant]

Chess.com should simply have closed his account, without giving a reason. The burden of proof will be very difficult to establish, since the element of coincidence will always be in the background.

Red Hot Pawn used to have a cheaters' list years ago. Then it just disappeared - I assume for the legal reasons you have both identified. It's not a truly satisfactory situation for those are left. You end up with a situation where everbody knows there's something going on but they're not able to talk about it.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Jonathan,

The list was of banned players. RHP never reveal why a player is banned.
In some cases it is not for cheating but for forum abuse or offensive PM's.

Other have been banned for posing as IM's and GM's.
In one case the player was posting in the forums and playing moves on RHP.
Meanwhile at the same time the real GM was playing moves in a live game in Moscow!

RHP seemed to have stop banning known box users. I've no idea why.

[Jonathan Bryant]

RHP seemed to have stop banning known box users. I've no idea why.

My memory is that they used to declare a person banned for engine use but then stopped doing that then dropped the banned list altogether. This was several years ago. If memory serves that was before you became active on the site but I could well be wrong about that too.


Certainly when I popped back and had a nose around a few months back it was clear that they'd given up on even bothering to try to get rid of engine users. There was a guy who I turned over pretty easily 4 games in a row, he had a rating consistently in the 1800s-1900s for years. I turn my back for a bit and suddenly he's one of the top players on the site. Many similar examples too: which is why I didn't restart playing there.

[Peter D Williams]

I have never understood why any one would want to cheat at internet chess games?. We used to use internet chess games as a way of trying out ideas and in a way it was good if you lost so you could look though it so as not to allow it to happen in a real chess game.

Hope your all keeping warm with this cold snap we are having drink plenty of soup and serve it with warm crusty bread/ butter.

[Geoff Chandler]

HI Jonathan,

I think you are correct, I had a look through some very old pre-me posts
and the list was called a cheaters list.

They possibly stopped publishing it anticipating what's going on at Chess.com.

Good site, the chess forum ticks over nicely (everyone uses fens and pgns)
There is no pecking order or cliche, There are loads of good players who can explain
thing very really well.
No question no matter how crude goes unaswered and it's all Chess Chess Chess.
I Love it.

Of course I've bumped into cheats (shrug, why use a box v me, just play soundly
eventually I'll throw a piece at you.)
But I've tricked and trapped my way up to 2000 with some outrageous play & sacs.
IMHO The vast majority of the lads play clean.

[Jonathan Bryant]

IMHO The vast majority of the lads play clean.

I'm sure you're right about that. When I was there I decided that I'd simply default games when I thought the other guy was an engine user. The blatant ones were easy to spot. Didn't seem like something I wanted to spend money on again, though.

[David Robertson]

On RHP, the vast majority of players do indeed play clean. But that doesn't say very much.

During November, to date, c. 16,000 players have made at least one move (ie. they are 'active'). Of those, a mere 300 are rated 2000+. So the vast majority clearly play clean. A small number of u-2000 'risers' may be using engines though; and another small fraction 'turn it on' when they meet a c. 2000+ player.

Of the 'top' 300, engine-use is widespread now. I'd guess 95% of the 'top 300' rising to 99% of the 'top 30'

[Roger de Coverly]

On RHP, the vast majority of players do indeed play clean. But that doesn't say very much.

To judge from the games that Geoff Chandler posts from time to time, they don't use computers or books even when it's legal, namely to check their opening play is sensible when playing under correspondence rules..

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Dave,

I would not put the top 300 as high 95% but I'd say certainly in the top 70%.

Hi Roger,

The vast majority are home or casual club players who simply love the game.
Some do use an opening book to get a playable middle game and then due to the
game load they take on 20-30 games at once (!) so the blunders creep in. Big blunders.
Blunders you would never see OTB because there they are concentrating on one game
with no distractions.

Suppose this is a cue for an example.
This is from my latest column where I am covering Rook Endings.

(actually as one punter has posted this is just another collection of
tactical tricks using Rook Endings as a platform....er.....he's right.)

http://www.redhotpawn.com/blog/blogread ... postid=153

I have learned never to judged a position as won, lost or drawn till I see the end.
This one I would not be surprised to see in OTB play.

gd28 - Telboy 2 RHP 2006

[FEN "8/8/1k6/2R5/P5r1/3K4/8/8 w - - 0 48"] 48. Rc4 {Of course Black should have chopped the Rooks instead he finds a neat way to lose.} 48... Rg3+ 49. Kd4 Ka5 50. Kc5 Ra3 51. Re4 {A wee trick to catch the unwary.} 51... Rxa4 {OOPS! Ra1 and if as in the Re8, then Rc1+ and then Black can take the a-pawn.} 52. Re8 {White mates or skewers the Rook.}

[JustinHorton]

Anybody remember this?

Well, now Chess.com have picked on me.

Why? I have, literally, not the slightest idea, not least because they do not say.

I am really very angry about it. Do read about it, here. (And here, here, here and here.)

All questions are welcomed. A pgn file is available on request.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Hi Justin. I had a quick read through, and it is obvious that you've done nothing wrong here. I can see it is distressing for you, but when sites adopt policies of having 'black box' appeals, where those appealing don't have enough information about what they have been accused of, there is very little that can be done if those administering the site just keep blanking you and refuse to engage. It can be hard to accept that, and it may be that nothing changes even if you do win in the 'court of public opinion'. For the record, I fundamentally disagree with sites that operate these sorts of policies where they are not needed (sometimes they are needed, but not here).