Cheating in chess

[Roger de Coverly]

Viesturs Meijers who was the GM loser in this Ist round Morra Gambit ended up winning the tournament.

Not a line I know anything about, or the Morra Gambit in general having discovered that if prepared to defend c3 Sicilians, that's all you need to know ( 1.e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 Nf6)

With engine assistance, these seem to be the critical points.

[SetUp "1"] [FEN "r1bqkbnr/pp2pppp/2np4/8/2B1P3/2N2N2/PP3PPP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 3 6"]

Provoking e5 seems unwise, with .. a6, .. e6, .. Bd7 or even .. h6 suggested as slightly better alternatives.

Even so, Black still has a pawn in compensation for the suffering, but it doesn't completely slip until

[SetUp "1"] [FEN "1rbn1b1r/p1N1kppp/1p2pn2/4N3/2B5/4B3/PP3PPP/2KR3R b - - 1 13"] with .. Rb7 suggested as the defence to hold things together. That had already been played, admittedly in obscure 1990s junior tournaments.




Event "It (open)"] [Site "Bad Zwesten (Germany)"] [Date "2013.01.02"] [Round "1"] [White "Weber Andre1"] [Black "Meijers Viesturs (LAT)"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B21"] [WhiteElo "1862"] [BlackElo "2478"] [ 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Nxc3 d6 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.Bc4 Nf6 7.e5 dxe5 8.Qxd8+ Nxd8 9.Nb5 Rb8 10.Nxe5 e6 11.Nc7+ Ke7 12.Be3 b6 13.O-O-O Nd7 14.Bf4 Nxe5 15.Bxe5 Nc6 16.Bd6+ Kd7 17.Be5+ Ke7 18.Bd6+ Kf6 19.Ne8+ Kg6 20.Bxb8 Bc5 21.Bg3 Rxe8 22.Bb5 Bb7 23.Rd7 a6 24.Bd3+ 1-0

[Roger Lancaster]

It's something of a distraction from the main thread but I came across the following game played between two juniors [neither is known to me so I have no vested interest] where I include Stockfish annotations. Before White could even consider Nf5, Lichess decided s/he was cheating. I'm simply curious - can anyone explain why?

1e4 c5
2 Nf3 g6
3 d4 cxd
4 Nxd4 Nf6
5 Nc3 d6
6 Be3 Bg7
7 Bc4? [Mistake. f3 was best] Nc6?! [Inaccuracy. Ng4 was best]
8 f3 Qb6
0-1
Cheat detected, Black is victorious

[Jacob Ward]

I think that Lichess will flag it as cheating immediately if it can see you have a Lichess analysis board open with the same position, so that is one possibility. I have heard (unconfirmed) that there have been false positives where another person is looking at the position from the same IP, although I have done that with no issues.

[Wadih Khoury]

Yes that is my understanding. If it detects an analysis board open with the same position as the game, from the same machine (or IP?), then lichess stops the game.
The individual is not necessarily tagged as a cheater by the way.

[JustinHorton]

Meanwhile in Lancaster

[Roger de Coverly]

Meanwhile

I see a defence quoted as "a friend was using the account". That's not much of a defence really as it would certainly be cheating to send a substitute to compete in an OTB event.

[Michael Farthing]

Well he certainly had no need to cheat in his last graded OTB game - the rubbishy play of his opponent made that quite unnecessary.

[Colin Purdon]

Is there chess software that runs the same algorithm used by Ken Regan, so that you can put in games and it gives you the parameters than Regan uses?

I know that online sites such as lichess and software such as Lucas Chess give an average centipawn value and an Elo rating derived from that value, but I am not sure if they are using method and/or tables that Regan uses. For example, do they apply the rule that if the centipawn evaluation for a particular position is >300 then that move is ignored for the purposes of calculating average centipawn value and Elo?

This is a general question, not related to recent cases being discussed here.

[John McKenna]

For what Ken Regan had to say see -

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10832&p=245597&hili ... an#p245598

This alternative (PGN-Spy) has been tried but, I believe, proved problematical -

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10929&p=248806&hilit=pgnspy#p248806

[Martin Benjamin]

I was very disappointed to hear from a good friend of mine that lichess had restricted his activity because of "violations" which they will not specify. My friend is honest and I know he would not cheat. Like me, he plays some online blitz for fun, and has not played any serious chess online. I also have an account on chess.com, where I play some arena blitz, and looking at my notifications, I see a mounting number of occasions where I have been awarded rating points because my opponent has "violated fair play policy". I don't know whether this is an indication of a considerable number of people cheating or false positives (or a combination of both).

If someone wants to cheat against me in a blitz arena, let them, if they gain satisfaction from winning that way. I really don't care (different matter in "serious" chess, of course). However, it is irritating when my friend gets restricted from playing for fun. He could create a new account, but it must irk to have your integrity questioned.

[JustinHorton]

I was very disappointed to hear from a good friend of mine that lichess had restricted his activity because of "violations" which they will not specify.

Are you able to tell us any more about what you mean by "restricted"?

[Jacob Ward]

I apologise for lowering the tone of this very interesting thread, but I cannot help saying that every time I see one of Justin's posts I am amused by the juxtaposition of his strong (and to my mind entirely fair) views on cheating and his post signature!

[JustinHorton]

It's rendered slightly differently in the novel, by the way.

Stok rolled the cigar across his mouth and said, "Buyer watch out," a couple of times. I just drank the lemon tea and said nothing. Stok ambled across to the chessboard on the side-table, his leather coat creaking like a windjammer.

"Are you a chess player, English?" he said.

"I prefer games where there's a better chance to cheat," I said.

I have a preference for the film version, which I'd link to if I could locate the right clip.

[Martin Benjamin]

It's rendered slightly differently in the novel, by the way.

Stok rolled the cigar across his mouth and said, "Buyer watch out," a couple of times. I just drank the lemon tea and said nothing. Stok ambled across to the chessboard on the side-table, his leather coat creaking like a windjammer.

"Are you a chess player, English?" he said.

"I prefer games where there's a better chance to cheat," I said.

I have a preference for the film version, which I'd link to if I could locate the right clip.

My favourite line from the film is where the German waiter approaches Harry Palmer in the nightclub and asks "Bitte, mein Herr?" to which Palmer replies "No, Lowenbrau".

[Martin Benjamin]

I was very disappointed to hear from a good friend of mine that lichess had restricted his activity because of "violations" which they will not specify.

Are you able to tell us any more about what you mean by "restricted"?

No rated games, unable to join tournaments or receive challenges. Maybe some other features that he has yet to explore are also off limits. He doesn't care about the rating per se, but most players of his standard (circa 1900) want to play rated games.