Cheats, cronyism and Frankenstein's Monster.

Toutatis - respectfully I kind of disagree with some of your points. As a background to this incident, it seems a mini challenge was present for battling for the highest blitz rating or something.

Time and effort was spent trying to get to be No.1 on the rating list, and I think it might be possible to have empathy for Super GM Wesley So at the frustration of losing points, and making the whole exercise seem a bit pointless. However, he might sleep on this incident and think he overall enjoyed the site, and come back at some point.

The reasons I think your draconian measures would negatively effect the site and its enjoyment, would be basically linked to making it harder for new players to come here. Who would want to register their credit cards etc?! Seriously. You must be kidding right?!

The site is attracting more and more strong players, and from my recent perspecitves, I think there needs to be more education around the average centipawn loss reports in particular - and why they can be low sometimes - e.g. when one has a losing position early on (BTW I can do a video about this if needed and also to say a further sorry for my recent bad accusation). As an example, in my last hyperbullet game earlier today, my average centipawn loss was 8 - against a FIDE 2400+ player. I think if people either stopped looking at the centipawn loss reports, or were more informed about why there can be low Centipawn loss - that would increase the overall happiness of the site, as right now, I think they are one source of potentially unfounded accusations of cheating etc - which I am of course guilty of recently.

I have this idea in fact, if the average centipawn loss reports were removed, a lot of people would be happier. I know I have been far happier not checking the reports in recent days. That is the truth! And I also used to check my games from other sites here - again causing mainly unhappiness.

Now, this is not to question if Wesley's opponent was cheating or not - other indicators like a low puzzle rating etc give some idea that something is not consistent. But even that - there could be more than one person using the account, or the person wasn't serious about solving chess puzzles etc.

Essentially I think the GMs nowadays should be aware that online cheats do exist, and be careful when trying to beat the hell out of everyone to get a no.1 rating. I am pretty sure Chessbrahs is not keen on longer time controls because of engine risk, and I am a bit suprised myself by this particular Wesley So incident.

Generally Wesley so is a fantastic person and he just got caught up in the heat of the moment and a loss potentially of considerable time and effort trying for the elusive no.1 ranking. His comments about charging etc - are good for a commercial site like ICC which will naturally filter a lot of potential cheats but even there, they have open door policies for new accounts to try things which may sometimes lead to engine abusers in that first week of trial period etc. But this is a fast growing free site.

We are now in the engine era, and I think to maximise the happiness of everyone - try this suggestion - don't go out of your way to check any average centipawn loss reports. I think mods can find and detect cheaters without everyone being potentially upset by such reports. GMs and Super Gms chasing top rankings should also be aware of engine risk and see bullet as a safer "haven" for avoiding engine abusers in general than say longer games. I thought in fact this was kind of common knowledge for most GMs right ?!

Cheers, K

Who cares anyway? It's online chess.

Wesley So doesn't play on the same website you play on :'(

You sometimes lose to a cheater :'(

Your rating is not accurate :'(

Go and play OTB where no one cheats... oh, wait

I think that people who write in the forums trying to solve these kinds of problems are respectable and difficult to think they are cheaters, at least apparently. In my opinion, this could be a good start to label a player with some kind of distinction like "Respectable player". For example, I would label with this distinction the following:

- Toutatis
- noob2chess
- ConstantinAlex
- c_O
- PegasusTheGreat
etc.

I really wish that there is some way we can stop all cheaters but it would just be too hard. People can create fake email addresses and use that to multiaccount if we were to ask to verify private information to this site. So it would be almost impossible to make sure they use their "real" name. It is likely that we would lose more than 1/3 of players on this site because they don't feel safe revealing that type of information. Some people don't even have credit cards yet (Such as me).

Even if verifying identification would work, then we have the players who sign up themselves, and let the stronger players that have other accounts already do all the work for them. If you try verifying identification every time, then we have the person who created the profile giving their information to the stronger player to pass through the system. So now we still have multiaccounters. (A large portion of cheaters)

You also have the players who use a separate device with a chess engine who just copy the moves from it. And if they don't want to be caught, they'll make a couple inaccuracies here and there, and occasionally make a mistake. (but not a game losing mistake) So, now you still have people using computer assistance. (likely the largest portion of cheaters)

Unless someone can enlighten me, I think the only but very, VERY unlikely way of actually knowing who is cheating is by actually seeing the player. If we can make a computer that would complete a constant retinal scan of all the players on the site when the play, then we would officially verify the player. (Seems impossible and future like but today's science is progressing rapidly and will stumble upon this system if they have not already have.) If we were to enforce this idea then we would have to ask all players to allow lichess to access the device's camera. (Listing all devices that the user might potentially play on.) Unfortunately, it is highly possible that WELL over 50% of all active players on this site would quit. Why? Because they answered no to the question, "Is getting rid of all the cheaters on this site really worth risking your privacy?"

Sincerely,
imthebadchessplayer
P.S. I would answer no to the question.

How about something like a community review board?

Let's say a new feature is added where you can commend or report a player. After so many commendations the player gets some sort of reward (special icon or something). After so many reports, the players reported games (or some sampling of them) go to the community review board.

There, the games are reviewed by reputable players in the community (those without a negative reputation) and judged. Players who are found guilty by enough reviewers can receive varying levels of punishment, up to and including permabans.

The community members who participate in these reviews would also receive some sort of reward for their time.

This would require a not insignificant amount of development effort, but the end result would be a community that's capable of taking out it's own trash. ;)

My $.02

Well said @Kingscrusher

"You also have the players who use a separate device with a chess engine who just copy the moves from it. And if they don't want to be caught, they'll make a couple inaccuracies here and there, and occasionally make a mistake. (but not a game losing mistake) So, now you still have people using computer assistance. (likely the largest portion of cheaters)"

You'll never eliminate cheaters.

Stop trying to turn the website into a courthouse.

Just making my point.

#33 not sure whether or not that would work cuz then ppl planning to cheat could just earn themselves a 'respectable player' title and then start cheating to make themselves look less suspicious... similar to how some cheaters join the CIA...

I am in CIA team and do not cheat.