Why would someone cheat at online chess?

@SilentLucidity So you admit that you cheated. Good for you. Bravo! Now, you failed to explain why you decided to cheat with this account. You have cheated with different accounts and have been marked many times before. What makes you keep opening new accounts, cheat with them and get them marked?

@SilentLucidity I originally did give you credit for your honesty but it makes it hard to continue to do so now that I know you were lying to us just moments ago about having stopped cheating.

And believe it or not, it is not anger at you that is motivating me to continue to reply to this thread. I am genuinely fascinated by your mindset. I do however recommend therapy.

On chess.com, this forum would be locked.

Well, first off, to CafeMorphy, I admitted I cheated a few posts back. Now, the reason why I lied is simple. I figured, perhaps stupidly, if I could get a mod to confirm my rating, they'd doubt their ruling at least a little. I quickly realized that wasn't happening, and that it wasn't a good idea anyway pretty quickly, though. Sorry about that. Now, as for you, CafeMorphy, I think you need to calm down a little. I'm not a raging cheater with malicious intent who has no interest in stopping. I'm somebody who has a fairly long history of doing so, who cheated in 5 games in a tournament and feels awful for it, because it was a moment of weakness for me that messed with other people's chess. I get you're upset with cheaters in general, but I'm not the great evil. Just try to relax a bit, ok? As for you, tangelo, as I already explained, it's not quite so simple. I didn't create this account for cheating. I created it for getting out of the habit, including daily simuls I couldn't cheat in even if wanted to. Nay, I got flagged because i cheated in 5 games in a classical tournament that I cheated in to inflate my rating for simuls. It was idiotic, thruthfully. But I didn't create this account to cheat, quite the opposite, is my point.
trickynick, yeah, sorry about lying. Dumb self-defense mechanism. Not going to get therapy, though, as it only affects me online and I'm decently fighting it off now. Never had any issues OTB.

#33 do you say that in a positive sense or a negative one? (btw, none of our games we cheated in, so don't worry)

Cheaters lose credibility for all their games. All the points have been refunded. This cheater will create a new account and keep cheating. Once a cheater, always a cheater! There are lots of cheaters everywhere, ask Trump.

#36 I'm not going to tell you everything you think about cheating is wrong, but cheaters aren't always going to be cheaters, and I'll be damned if I haven't tried to stop. When I was 200 points weaker, I cheated every game. Now I've lowered it to 5 out of all the games I have played, and I've also gone over 20 games without cheating on ICC. People can change, stop being so damn cynical.

I don't know, I was just saying it's not a very good topic to discus as it can get violent. :) It's good to hear you really want to stop. But haven't you told yourself that in the past? Yet did it again? I think this can go for any addiction. You can't take the addiction away yourself. It's impossible. You'll keep doing it again and again. But, there is one way to stop any kind of addiction. This doesn't just go for online cheating, this can go for anything in your life that is addicting to you. You must fill that addiction with something else. The only thing that can fill that is Christ. You need to confess your sins before him and ask him to save you. It's impossible to stop this cheating on your own. Only God can help you stop. But, yet again, you also need to meet God half way. You should put Him first in your life instead of chess. You must put all the effort you can into stopping it yourself. You only have so much time in your life. You need to make a decision. Ask God to save you so you can have eternal life with Him, or don't and live forever in hell. I hope you choose right.

#38 Ah, sorry, man, I'm an agnostic. I'll fight it myself, I'm clearly capable, I've only cheated 5 out of my last about 100 games, and they were all right in a row in a moment of weakness. I've made a whole lot of progress, and I can do it. Doing it is motivation enough in and of itself. When I got through a simul without even thinking of using an engine (as it always was) I felt legitimately good for myself. When I'd play a normal game, get in a complicated position and think about reaching for my phone, using my self-control to stop myself felt great. Now, I may have slipped up, but I will never give up. As far as God goes, I respect your right to believe in one, and I'm an agnostic, not an atheist, buyback regardless, I'm not converting. Sorry, and I wish you the best.

@beyondthemask If religion works for you that's great, but there are a lot of us atheists/humanists out there who have tried religion and it was just not the right fit. The Bible has some great stories in it, but as far as being an authoritative historical record or any kind of hard evidence (besides just evidence that stories can be passed down over centuries in different languages), I don't think so.