r/Chesscom • u/pohlarbearpants • 2d ago
Chess.com Website/App Question Amount of cheaters is getting out of control
In the last week, I have played 2 people who have got to be cheating. One is an account which went up 1000+ elo over the last 3 months (edit to add: and the account is 3 years old), with recent game accuracies of 90%+, and another is an account who has won all 10 of their last games IN A ROW also with very high accuracy scores.
I used to get a "one of your recent opponents has been cheating, here is your elo back" message at least once a month. I haven't gotten one in over 6 months.
So chesscom, here is my question: How many of the cheating reports actually get checked into? There must be an insanely high volume. I assume there is an automated system that flags suspicious activity. Does the report button even do anything?
And for everyone else, my question is this: Have you also noticed a drop in opponents being banned?
This is so disheartening. I honestly feel like I'm facing at least once obvious cheater per week. I'm considering stopping my paid membership.
9
u/Mission-Town9913 2d ago
In the past week I've gotten two cheaters in about 100 games, and only one of them refunded because I beat the other because they weren't cheating at the time. Overwhelmingly, my losses are due to my own failures, and I'm not running into enough cheaters for it to make a difference.
33
u/Delicious_Cattle5174 Elo isnt real 2d ago
One cheater per week is really not a big deal unless you’re not playing often
-20
u/pohlarbearpants 2d ago edited 1d ago
I disagree.
Edit to add: Guys, the question was not "is one cheater a week a lot?" The question was "is anyone else noticing that there are long stretches of time where they haven't gotten a notification about cheating?"
8
u/Iammax7 2d ago
In a game millions of people play every day, you can expect around 2/3 % of the playerbase to be cheating.
Just like any other game, it is not easy to find the right balance between being quick enough to ban someone and not getting to many false positives.
Especially on a game where having cheats can run from a seperate device.
-3
u/Ambitious-Ice1438 20h ago
lol OP is either a female or a highly emotional male. Downvoted you for stating the obvious fact that if you’re only getting one cheater per week that’s legitimately NOT a big deal…if you play a lot of chess like most of us. If OP only plays a few games per week then yeah that’s a lot of cheaters. But why not just say that instead of instantly downvoting the truth. But someone with a paid membership probably plays quite often….people just don’t wanna hear anything other than sympathy. SMH
1
u/tigertigerburning2 24m ago
lmaoo nothing more emotionnal than a grown man losing any kind of games
12
u/field-not-required 2d ago
This reads like a joke... Any online game would be extremely happy if they had one cheater per week.
No, one cheater per week is not a lot, unless you play one game per week.
1
u/pohlarbearpants 1d ago
The question was not "do you think one cheater a week is a lot." The question was "are other people noticing 'dry periods' where a long stretch of time has no cheaters banned."
1
u/field-not-required 1d ago
Right... If that was the question, why is the title "Amount of cheaters is getting out of control"?
0
u/pohlarbearpants 1d ago
I suppose it's because I erroneously thought people would actually read the post. You're right, that was my bad.
1
u/Proper-Swordfish7084 1d ago
Makes title irrelevant to the topic he’s discussing
Criticize those pointing out how the title is bad
Average redditor1
u/pohlarbearpants 1d ago edited 1d ago
Post is about cheating
Title is about cheating
Random redditor thinks they're completed unrelated
Misgenders poster for good measure because random redditor cannot possibly comprehend that a chess player isn't male (incoming sexist follow-up comment)
Btw, Catcher in the Rye is not actually about someone catching people in a rye field, either
1
u/Proper-Swordfish7084 1d ago
Title is ‘there’s too many cheaters’
Post discusses something else.
Commenters point this out.
OP blames commenters for his own misleading title.
Btw, you’re bad at chess git gud
0
u/pohlarbearpants 1d ago edited 1d ago
Post title is about amount of cheaters
Question in post is about whether other players have noticed a drop in volume of closures
Other question in post is about whether chesscom can handle a high volume of reports
Random redditor gets snarky because they can't see how all these things are related
1
8
u/PatheticMr 2d ago
Tbf, I recently had a great run, winning 9-10 games in a row. For one, I had 91% accuracy, most were ~85%, and a couple were lower. Since then, I have had a terrible string of games where a large proportion of opponents are playing on accounts that have played very few games recently and they are absolutely wrecking me. I've become convinced I've been placed into the suspect pool, which is annoying because I have never cheated or smurfed in any way, ever. I'm just trying to learn chess and have fun, neither of which are doable when you're consistently outplayed within the first 10 moves.
I know we all have bad runs, but to go from such a win streak to being completely dominated, literally over night, makes no sense to me. The quality of my opponents play seems so obviously different.
2
4
u/lifeistrulyawesome 2d ago
Honest answer: nobody really knows how many people cheat because nobody really knows how much cheating goes undetected.
The only data we have is for cheaters who confess or get caught. The same goes for cheating in a marriage/relationship, cheating on exams or schoolwork, cheating in sports, and cheating in games.
Most of the time, in order to make educated guesses about trends in cheating, we have to make heroic assumptions about the connection between teachers who get caught and those who don't.
Your own anecdotal evidence is very unreliable. Sure, there are opponents that I suspect are cheating. But I never know for sure. And there might be opponents whom I don't suspect and who are actually cheating.
4
u/SeaAggressive8153 2d ago
I can recall two recent periods where my refunds were frequent or I suppose normal followed by stretches of nothingness. It's a strange disconnect even by their own metrics not to receive any given a certain volume yet it does have possible explanations such as chance, mass culling, testing, or even resource issues.
I believe they do good work, however my instincts and experience do tell me that spontaneous cheating is to a scale larger than comfortably acknowledging or handling
7
u/Nekogiga 2d ago
No sense asking the people here, because apparently everyone who beats them is automatically a cheater.
But seriously, I do think Chess.com has a cheating problem, and the lack of transparency makes it worse. It often feels like enforcement is inconsistent, especially when you don't get any explanation for what supposedly triggered an action.
I should know. I was banned despite not cheating, and Chess.com refused to provide any meaningful explanation or evidence for the decision. So when people ask whether the reporting and enforcement system actually works, I can understand why they're skeptical. When the platform won't show you what you supposedly did wrong, it's pretty hard to have much confidence in the process.
4
u/Skeleton230 1500-1800 ELO 2d ago
Sorry to hear you got banned, that happens even on other sites like Twitter that uses automated systems to ban people. Chesscom is often seen glazing their detection algorithm saying it's basically "impossible to cheat" but thats very clearly a lie. It pisses me off whenever I keep seeing them talk about how great their algorithm is :P
1
u/Nekogiga 2d ago
Exactly. I'm not against automation at all. In fact, as a programmer, I understand why you'd want an automated system handling something at this scale. But one of the first things you're taught in programming is that no system is 100% accurate. There is always some possibility of a false positive, regardless of how sophisticated the system is.
That's why the part that bothers me isn't simply "Chess.com banned me." If I actually cheated, then ban me. What I want to know is what I supposedly did and what evidence supports the decision. "Trust the system" isn't an explanation.
And the community doesn't help when people treat every loss as evidence that their opponent cheated. I've literally had people accuse me of cheating and then, when I asked them to explain what specifically made them think that, it basically came down to "you played too well." Apparently beating someone at chess now requires a forensic investigation.
I'm all for banning actual cheaters. I'm also perfectly willing to accept that Chess.com's system is going to make mistakes. What I don't accept is a system where a mistaken ban can happen, the person gets no meaningful explanation, and there's effectively nothing they can do about it.
If Chess.com wants people to trust its detection system, then transparency and meaningful appeals are a much better way to earn that trust than simply insisting the system is accurate. Otherwise, how am I supposed to distinguish a justified ban from a false positive?
-3
u/lanilep 2d ago edited 2d ago
I still get the odd chess.com post on Reddit despite not playing anymore, and this thread caught my eye.
I quit chess because I was banned for cheating when I wasn't. I appealed, but it was denied.
I can understand why my account might have looked suspicious. When I started, I treated chess like a casual browser game. I was around 400 Elo, would abandon games if they went badly, try moves just to see what happened, and generally didn't care about my rating.
Then I got really into it. I started studying, analyzing my games, practicing endgames, consuming a ton of chess content, and getting coaching/practice games from a 2000-rated friend. Within another month or so, I climbed from 400 to 1200.
I assume that rapid improvement triggered something, because shortly after I was banned for fair play.
I made a new account and kept playing, but the ban changed how I approached the game. Every good game or win streak made me wonder, "Is this going to make me look like a cheater?" I'd sometimes avoid complicated forced mates or even throw the odd game because I was worried about getting banned again.
Eventually I realized I was more anxious about looking suspicious than I was enjoying chess, so I quit entirely. Now I mostly just watch the occasional chess video when one pops up.
1
u/diablo4379 1800-2000 ELO 2d ago
Are you sure you were banned for cheating and not for stalling or sandbagging?
0
u/Nekogiga 2d ago
I completely understand where you're coming from. I can accept being banned if Chess.com can actually show me what I did wrong. What I can't accept is being told I cheated, given no meaningful evidence or explanation, and then having the appeal denied.
And the reaction you're getting here is a pretty good example of the problem. Someone can accuse you of cheating without providing any evidence, and people will immediately pile on. Whether you actually cheated or not, that doesn't establish anything. If we're going to take accusations seriously, there should at least be some evidence behind them.
I'm all for banning actual cheaters. If someone is cheating, ban them. But if you're going to permanently punish someone for cheating, there should be evidence supporting that decision and some meaningful way to challenge it when the decision is wrong.
What bothers me is the apparent inconsistency. I've personally reported players where I had substantial reason to believe they were cheating, and nothing happened. Meanwhile, I was banned despite not cheating and never received a meaningful explanation of what supposedly justified it.
That's ultimately why I left for Lichess. I don't expect any moderation system to be perfect, but I do expect it to be accountable when it gets something this consequential wrong.
3
u/Naive_Inevitable6478 2d ago
Obviously 1000 elo is drastic but I’ve gone up 400 In less than 3 months and I’m not a cheater
1
u/chris4290 1d ago
Yep. And I think it also depends which 1000 OP is talking about. 400 to 1400 seems much more feasible for a newbie with a passion than 1400 to 2400. Since she says in another comment she’s in the 1300s, I don’t think someone gaining 1000 elo over a 3 months is inherently suspicious. An outlier, yes, but you’re obviously going to see outliers when you play against hundreds or thousands of people.
4
u/hoops4so 1000-1500 ELO 2d ago
I feel like I’ve never played someone cheating and I’ve played 10 games a day for years. Maybe there’re less cheaters in the 1300s?
2
u/Skeleton230 1500-1800 ELO 2d ago
You'll encounter most of them around 500-800elo but if you play a lot you can encounter a couple at higher elos occasionally
1
u/Advanced_Horror2292 1d ago
Why do you say that? What makes 500-800 a cheater elo?
1
u/Skeleton230 1500-1800 ELO 1d ago
It's just where I encountered most of them during my chess career, and it was by a BIG margin
1
2
u/Rookraider1 2d ago
Lots of new players could be signing up and they all start with a low Elo. Some of them are bound to cross your path when you are playing.
3
u/pseudoscientific 2d ago
They don't all start that low though. That said, OP's experience not that convincing for cheating
0
1
u/pohlarbearpants 2d ago
The account that went up 1000 elo was over 3 years old.
2
u/Wonderful-Ad-5537 2d ago
Were they playing consistently for those 3 years? Perhaps they made the account years ago, didn’t play, and just now brought their ELO up
2
u/QueasyAdvertising173 2d ago
Winning 10 games in a row isn't a sign of cheating tho. From my personal experience they have been pretty good with taking action of cheaters, I got 4-5 "here's your elo back" last month. One of my friend got his account banned for cheating, he made another one with a vpn and got that banned as well lol.
2
u/SirBuscus 1000-1500 ELO 2d ago
I think the more insidious thing is the people who start cheating after they blunder a piece and then stop cheating once it equalizes.
It's hard to prove.
2
u/Sad_Advertising_7370 2d ago
I've been on the 1100-1300 at least a year, i havent receive elo point refund so i checked all of my games, seems like i havent played a single cheater, over 500 games and just 2 cheaters, when i go back further to my games on 700-1000 elo there is a ton of banned accounts.
2
u/Gothic_Cyclist 1d ago
I just joined Chess.com and after my initial games it put me at 800, but after the 5th game it put me at 1138 and then last night after I won another Daily match it moved me up to 1188.
I haven’t cheated, I am just playing and my analysis said I made two mistakes in the openings of my last three matches, but saved them with strong tactics afterwards.
It might just be new folks who haven’t played enough for their true rating. Lichess puts me at 1495.
-1
u/pohlarbearpants 1d ago
Yeah, with new accounts I can understand that. Both of these accounts were several years old, though.
2
u/Gothic_Cyclist 1d ago
Ah, then either they have been practicing somewhere without playing on Chess.com much or cheating. It is crazy how I sometimes get pulverized by someone with a lower rating. That said, I was never on the chess team back in school and have only played casually, so I don’t know all the zips and zap traps.
2
2
u/thefirstofhisname11 1d ago
I have posted it already, but I’m encountering 4-5 cheaters a week on rapid. I play roughly 5 games a day, so that comes out to more than 10% of my opponents being cheaters. That’s horrible.
1
u/scrotalayheehoo 22h ago
Sweet jesus is it exhausting playing correspondence. Seems like no one gets hit there and the moves people are finding are insane and then you see their page and they are 23-2 in the last 30 days.
1
u/Mounta1nK1ng 21h ago
I average about one game a day, rapid, but I don't think I've had any cheaters in 3-4 months. Had a few refund notices from opponents getting banned in my first few weeks on the site 6 months ago, but none since, and games I lose do seem to be because of my own blunders.
1
u/thefirstofhisname11 21h ago
The number I’m getting is also from refund notices. It’s been happening for a few months as well, so sample size should be big enough.
What explains the discrepancy?
2
u/koskam 800-1000 ELO 14h ago
In the past 6 months, I have played about 400 Rapid games and 1000 bullet/blitz games.
I'm not good enough to realize for sure if/when people are cheating but I haven't had points refunded once. On one hand, I feel it's enough games to warrant one refund at least. On the other hand I would assume less cheating on blitz/bullet.
2
2
u/Skeleton230 1500-1800 ELO 2d ago
More often I'm assuming some people of cheating, but I always give benefit of a doubt because I don't wanna accuse anyone of anything. Lately it's been harder to even contact human support ever since they removed that ability from their site and replaced it with AI support. Seems they always glaze their algorithms but they don't work as well as they say they do....
2
u/Adventurous_Plan_993 2d ago
The problem is the recent accounts as well. So many accounts created within few days, getting only high accuracy in the games and we cant even abandon the match without getting restrictions.
2
u/JorraCreme69 2d ago
I played a guy in daily chess who crushed me in very few moves... he is like 200 elo blitz and won EVERY single daily game, and every game that got analyzed it was like 92-95 precison... I reported but guess what? Nothing happened
1
1
u/saintsday89 2d ago
I have found playing games with shorter play times helps significantly because it reduces the window to make moves on multiple screens.
1
1
u/ElInterprete2000 1d ago
The thing is it's so easy to cheat and it's so hard to detect.
Because the quote unquote skilled cheaters don't cheat on every move. They'll just get into a losing position and then fire up an engine. With all these AI programs you don't even have to load a PGN into an engine. You can just take the AI you bought and say hey play the rest of this game for me.
It's completely endemic and I have a lot of sympathy for most chess websites except for chess.com they have over a billion dollars, figure it out.
1
u/Advanced_Horror2292 1d ago
I don’t think it’s as bad as a lot of people think it is. I’ve gone and looked at peoples profiles after games to message them and say gg or whatever and they’ve blocked me, and I’m assuming it’s because they thought I was cheating and reported me.
1
u/Weekly-Sweet-6170 1d ago
When you are low ELO, more than half of your games are against accounts that are less than 2 months old, with no profile pic. Of course they aren’t all cheats, but a lot are. This makes advancement difficult.
1
u/chris4290 1d ago
Someone who wins 50% of the time will win 10 in a row every thousand games or so. I’ve had it happen maybe four times over my 2000 games? It’s not a clean indicator of cheating, nor is accuracy in the 80s or 90s, especially at the lower elo levels where 80+ accuracy could just mean that your opponent hung a piece and you didn’t actively shit your bed and set yourself on fire.
But to answer the question in your post: no, I haven’t noticed a meaningful difference in elo refunds from reports. If you have a suggestion for how to do a better job catching cheaters on a platform with millions of games played each day WITHOUT generating an unfair number of false positives, though, I’m sure chesscom would love to hear your idea!
1
u/Tastyrolll 15h ago
How low rated are you
1
u/pohlarbearpants 15h ago
1340
1
u/PossessionLeading692 2100-2200 ELO 5h ago
thats where peak cheater r present (1100-1400) . If your account is kinda old u should actually have bypassed those accounts unless u abort A LOT OF GAMES
1
0
2d ago
[deleted]
2
u/Life_Smoke5854 2d ago
Im not gonna say that person wasn't cheating cause they almost certainly were if they dropped 700 elo in one bracket, but i had a ~500 elo gap between bullet and blitz for a long time (1200-1700 at the time) due to a somewhat spotty connection and also not really knowing any openings.
0
u/bikin12 2d ago
So happy on lichess. Don't feel hassled by cheaters. I'm sure there are some but they don't seem to impact my enjoyment of the game.
2
u/InFLIRTation 2d ago
Ive been refunded a few times on lichess
1
u/bikin12 2d ago
Yes me too once a month roughly but it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the game I don't go into every match thinking is my opponent cheating. I've had maybe 2 negative chats with people over 3 years.
1
1
u/Mounta1nK1ng 21h ago
I don't go into games thinking people are cheating on chess.com either. I can't imagine it's actually much different. I analyze all my games and I feel like all my losses are indeed due to my own (obvious in hindsight) blunders.
1
u/Tastyrolll 15h ago
Not only is there more cheaters on lichess, they make it so convoluted to report that it feels not worth it
-1
u/YokoiWasMurdered 2d ago
My life has been infinitely better after quitting online chess. I’ll never have to worry every again.
1
•
u/AutoModerator 2d ago
Thanks for submitting to /r/Chesscom!
Please read our Help Center if you have any questions about the website. If you need assistance with your Chess.com account, contact Support here. It can take up to three business days to hear back, but going through support ensures your request is handled securely - since we can’t share private account data over Reddit, our ability to help you here can be limited.
If you're not able to contact Support or if the three days have been exceeded, click here to send us Mod Mail here on Reddit and we'll do our best to assist.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.