(C)omputer (C)heating at Playchess

[Sean Evans]

Hi, I do notice the Playchess computer chess program detector does catch cheaters, but I had an obvious one, who played the opening like a God and tactics like a GM and Playchess never caught him. I reported it to the Admins and still nothing. Not hard to see the person was cheating:

1) Played opening like a God
2) Tactics like a GM
3) Used very little time to make moves
4) At SLOW time controls player loses to 1300 ELO players and consistently beats 1700+ level players

I quit playing, once I determined it was clearly a computer chess cheater, here is the game I played against this guy:

[Event "Rated game, 30m + 10s"]
[Site "Main Playing Hall"]
[Date "2009.01.24"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Sir Isaac Brock"]
[Black "Sleepwalker1392"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C68"]
[WhiteElo "1559"]
[BlackElo "1606"]
[PlyCount "48"]
[EventDate "2009.01.24"]
[TimeControl "1800+10"]

1. e4 {3} e5 {3} 2. Nf3 {8} Nc6 {5} 3. Bb5 {15} a6 {13} 4. Bxc6 {7} dxc6 {5} 5.
O-O {11} Bg4 {10} 6. h3 {9} h5 {16} 7. d3 {27} Qf6 {12} 8. Nbd2 {18} Ne7 {13}
9. Re1 {26} Ng6 {14} 10. d4 {37} Bd6 {3} 11. hxg4 {41} hxg4 {4} 12. Nh2 {18}
Rxh2 {3} 13. Qxg4 {39} Qh4 {3} 14. Qxh4 {31} Rxh4 {3} 15. Nf3 {22} Rh8 {3} 16.
dxe5 {50} Nxe5 {60} 17. Ng5 {106} Ke7 {44} 18. b3 {91} f6 {33} 19. Nh3 {14}
Rxh3 {26} 20. gxh3 {35} Nf3+ {3} 21. Kf1 {8} Nxe1 {1} 22. Kxe1 {11} Rh8 {2} 23.
Bb2 {16} Rh4 {23} 24. f3 {24} Rxh3 {Sleepwalker1392 claims win on disconnect
Sleepwalker1392 claims win on disconnect Sleepwalker1392 claims win on
disconnect Time (Lag: Av=0.60s, max=2.1s) 22} 0-1

[swami]

[Event "Rated game, 30m + 10s"]

Well, I don't see any point in playing the game at this time control, It's that long. And probably there are many people who would resort to using the chess engine since it gives them an ample time to make a move. They would just use another computer to replay moves/get input. So the detector cannot catch players doing this. If you report it to the admin, sometimes they delete the Id/rating, other times they don't. They cannot go over the games to verify the validity of the complaints.

I'd suggest that you play either 3+0, 3+1, or 5+0 or anything lesser than 7 minutes. Never more than that. More the time limit, more you encounter such guys.

Play as many games as possible in blitz. That's much better than playing a few game at longer time control. I have been hearing it's much easier to improve the game by playing a lot of blitz than playing few long time games, provided you read books, train yourself and learn to improve. And you can keep track of your everyday progress too as well.

[Philippe]

[Event "Rated game, 30m + 10s"]

I'd suggest that you play either 3+0, 3+1, or 5+0 or anything lesser than 7 minutes. Never more than that. More the time limit, more you encounter such guys.

Playing fast games does not prevent cheating. There is a 'tool' which captures screen and sends infos to any chess program. It is like doping in sports, only unclever cheaters get caught.

[jdart]

FICS has this problem pretty badly, too. But ICC (chessclub.com) is aggressive about going after cheaters, in my experience.

--Jon

[Cubeman]

Just look at the rating increases of the Human field.As the computers have become much stronger in the last ten years so have the top humans.Players with ratings of 3200 etc is just absurd.Even those with Fide titles cheat.

[Uri Blass]

[Event "Rated game, 30m + 10s"]

I'd suggest that you play either 3+0, 3+1, or 5+0 or anything lesser than 7 minutes. Never more than that. More the time limit, more you encounter such guys.

Playing fast games does not prevent cheating. There is a 'tool' which captures screen and sends infos to any chess program. It is like doping in sports, only unclever cheaters get caught.

1)Swami did not claim that playing fast games prevent cheating but only that it reduce cheating
I do not know if he is right because it take more time to cheat in long time control

2)It is not like any other sport because people cannot earn a lot of money by cheating in playchess when people can earn a lot of money by being the faster 100 meter runner.

3)most people do not cheat regardless of the time control so I think that cheating is not a big problem for most people who are not grandmasters

Edit:If we talk about cheating then I wonder what is your opinion about the following thread about rating for tacticians:


http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26224

cheating,a bug or combination of both things?

[swami]

1)Swami did not claim that playing fast games prevent cheating but only that it reduce cheating
I do not know if he is right because it take more time to cheat in long time control

Yes, I meant that it will be greatly reduced when one plays blitz.

3)most people do not cheat regardless of the time control so I think that cheating is not a big problem for most people who are not grandmasters

Playchess and probably many servers have fairly larger number of users who are young kids, and they are far from mature, so they more often do this.

I think significant number of users do this, probably more than you can imagine. So You underestimate it. If you notice the infos, then you will often see "Member XYZ used the software assistance, his ratings got erased" messages from an admin in chat area. But I agree that nearly 90% of people don't use software assistance or any kind. But that probability ought to be 70% when it comes to games played at longer time controls. People more often get caught using software assistance when playing longer TC than blitz.

[Eizenhammer]

[quote="Sean Evans"
[WhiteElo "1559"]
0-1[/quote]

One does not have to play like a god to beat a 1500 player. I don't see any point in your posting, sorry.

I never play long time controls and have higher ratings, but even against the better players it is extremely rare that I suspect that someone uses an engine. Swami guesses a number of 10% cheaters in an answer below; this is absurd, in my experience. It may be 1 %, and this 1% may consist mainly of people who want to test if one c a n cheat, out of couriosity.

regards
Peter

[swami]

I never play long time controls and have higher ratings, but even against the better players it is extremely rare that I suspect that someone uses an engine. Swami guesses a number of 10% cheaters in an answer below; this is absurd, in my experience. It may be 1 %, and this 1% may consist mainly of people who want to test if one c a n cheat, out of couriosity.

Well, I was just guessing that they may have used engine help on some of their games in longer TC, but not in all of their games. There certainly are more people in other online chess servers who continually use computers to assist them to gain ratings. Maybe the trend has changed lately, you could be right.

But the point is that there still are more people who would resort to using chess engines when playing at longer TC than they would when playing blitz.

[Philippe]

Uri :
You state :
**********************************************************
2)It is not like any other sport because people cannot earn a lot of money by cheating in playchess when people can earn a lot of money by being the faster 100 meter runner.
***********************************************************

The question is not to earn money. It is a question of egocentricity, egocentrism. They want to have a higher rating in order to earn respect. A high level player will be more trusted and believed when he states something about chess, comments etc.
Such is life even for amateurs.
"I want to do better than you" even if I must use illegal things and even if the goal seems ridiculous. Yes, it's true

You will be surprised when I learn you that I saw cheating tools for web servers games (bejewel, 8 pool, card games etc).