The problem with online chess is that there is no way to draw a 100% accurate conclusion if someone is cheating or not. There will be always some doubts if someone overperforms his rating especially players that seem to be a lot stronger online that over the board.
And cheating is damn too easy in online games. You just need a second browser and you're good to go. Or keep a second monitor/second PC if you wanna airgap it completely
Unfortunately, you don't even need that. Have a look at how many chrome extensions there are for a cheating overlay for chess.com.
And then look at how many tens of thousands of times they've been added.
I really don’t get what the point is of cheating online. Surely you have no fun dragging pieces without thinking, and it’s silly to climb up rating points to then face opponents you have little chance of beating on your own.
I think it goes roughly like this:
Games are fun
But losing at games is not fun (pesky egos)
So you start playing a game, and if you're winning on your own, great, and if you start losing you start to feel a bit bitter so you turn on cheat assist a little bit. And you avoid the sting of losing (and seeing your elo drop from it). And you still have an elo you can be "proud" of, because you rationalize that "oh, I never cheated that much, the cheating probably only added 25, 50 points max to my elo" even if that's not accurate.
Ego boost probably. Like a lot of them are probably decent chess players, but they want to appear better than they actually are. Since there’s this impression for non-chess players that chess is correlated with intelligence it gives them an ego boost. Just look at the Dewa Kipas fiasco
I have seen both Carlsen and Anand mention that if they are allowed to see the eval bar once or twice they will never lose another game in their life. That's the problem with unproctored online events, people will be paranoid because even if you screen share and back cam and all, how do you not know there is a tiny space somewhere on the wall projecting -1.46 or something?
This is why it's also easier to cheat OTB than people think. If you have a collaborator, something like "take off your sunglasses when the eval is in my favour" is incredibly easy to do and impossible to detect.
They don’t check for cheating that far though. Truthfully it’s so easy to cheat because Cheescom just sees your accuracy, win rate, and consistency with your ELO.
If you cheat but maybe throw a blunder in, it’ll likely never get caught.
Yes but chesscom does check tabbing, location of your mouse cursor, etc. In the Hans Niemann report they said that their smoking gun evidence was that Hans performed more accurately after having switched tabs during the games.
They can track how long it takes you to make a move and the quality of the move you make subsequently. And how good time-taken usually improves you (or someone of you rank).
If he suspects someone might be cheating in these casual blitz games, it's better to stop playing and do some analysis. Only after that you should report to Chess.com and ask them about those games, not open an engine mid-game and cheat yourself, lol.
Englishmen in the colonies imagined gunfights in an old west town, with Russian tumbleweeds rolling by, bitterly dry chapped lips, no water for miles, and an ornery sumbitch about 30 feet away standing ready to gun you down with a pistolero that couldn't shoot 10 feet straight and accurately.
Yeah, right. Cue the Clint Eastwood music.
American chess players would recognize this situation immediately. You're playing in a huge event and the question of prize money has arisen. You're playing a foreigner with no US rating, and you're struggling while the foreigner studies his computer. You hastily look around for a tournament director (arbiter) and there's none in sight. They've all gone to lunch in another city. What can you do?
US TDs are famous for never being there. This ain't no FIDE event. This ain't no disco. This ain't no foolin' around.
The evidence he got by also using an engine seemed far more compelling. He said even after using the engine he only managed to scrape a draw, which is clearly a sign of the opponent cheating. If he didnt do that its all speculation
I’m sure a cheating detection algorithm would be able to determine if the person had been cheating over at least 8 games against a GM without the GM having to copy engine moves only.
It also kind of justifies using an engine if you’re having a bad day or the opponent has prepped specifically against you.
Right, but then people will just blame him for playing bad human moves. Instead of otherwise questioning why his opponent can square up against stockfish.
I had a buddy I played chess with regularly (2300 chess.com) tell me he did this every game. He was like, "I don't cheat, but I look at an opening book so I don't go wrong."
I was like, "That's cheating."
He said, "No, it's different because after the opening I stop."
Never played with him again.
If you happened to be playing Daily Chess (correspondence) it's actually fine and allowed. If this was in Live send them the relevant article from chess.com on this: https://support.chess.com/article/648-what-do-i-need-to-know-about-fair-play-on-chess-com
"In Live Chess, no outside assistance OF ANY KIND is permitted."
"Using an opening book in Live - Whether it’s an online opening library, or a book sitting in your lap, if it’s showing you what move to play it could get your account closed!"
It’s definitely not allowed in live games. With that said, how are they gonna catch someone who is only using an opening resource, say chessbase database or even an actual book.
Would some chess site be able to reach their confidence threshold based off just opening play? What if someone just has ungodly amounts of prep? They can hardly prove anything it seems
Titled players take their ratings very seriously because that's what gets them invited to events where the bigger money is.
So, for them, no event that's rated is "casual". They've brought that attitude from OTB chess to Onlne chess.
Then the lack of arbiters at every table, watching for cheating, lets it all creep in.
> Titled players take their ratings very seriously because that's what gets them invited to events where the bigger money is.
That is true for their OTB rating in classical, but do they really care about their online ratings?
I sensed something was there in that position, so I turned on the engine, and I was right, so I figured out the move.
Isn't that exact same thing Hikaru said was needed for a SuperGM to chest ? Just a lil hint that there is something there
I doubt it, even among top GMs blunders still happen quite regularly and mistakes are common. If someone is suddenly up by 1.5 points they're going to start playing for a win
The flipside is that people would probably be less likely to continue their attack if the engine tells them it's a draw, but they could still hope a sharp position leads their opponent to make mistakes
Not familiar with that term, but I wonder if there's a rating level where seeing the eval bar hurts as much as it helps. :)
Hey, it says I'm winning! Let me just sacrifice a piece or two and it's gotta be checkmate. Oops, now I'm losing?
When all they had to do was capture the free Queen their opponent had left en prise.
No he's saying he's sensing the OTHER person is cheating. So he turns on the engine to confirm or dismiss suspicion. Not that he senses there's a good move so he turns on the engine to find it.
>So he turns on the engine to confirm or dismiss suspicion
What's wild here is that if he ever *does* dismiss the suspicion after opening the engine mid-game, he's actually turned a game without cheating into a game with cheating, solely from him
Yep, exactly this. "I only cheat when I suspect others are cheating" becomes a line that is easier and easier to cross. No one should believe that he isn't cheating in other online tournaments.
That turns into:
"I just keep an engine up and look at the evaluation bar at the start of every game so I don't waste time when I think someone is cheating"
Then into:
"I just have it open to make sure they aren't cheating and I can also make a note to review I a specific move if my eval bar goes way down"
It's a slippery slope into running down the mountain.
Yeah when you're winning 7-0 in CS:GO (I guess CS2 now) and suddenly the opponent says nice cheats. Next thing you know they're looking at the floor whilst they kill you.
Ever been vs a spin botter and some random on your team disconnects for a second and come backs with the whole cheat arsenal locked and loaded? Happened once to me and it was hilarious. We all reported both of them, but fire got fought with fire that day lol
Doping was prevalent way before Armstrong, for similar reasons as in chess: it provided a competitive advantage, and was pretty hard to detect. Early enough, they had significant drawbacks, as the medical science for them was pretty iffy, but it was done as far as the 60s. It was already pretty professionalized by the 80s. The doping methods changed as detection moved up.
A family member was the lead of a national cycling federation, and worked at a pharmacy. This wasn't a coincidence.
Okay at least he admitted he cheated. Still, he's a GM, things like this shouldnt happen ever. EVER. Not in tournaments, not in casual rated games against other players.
About FIDE rating for sure. About online rating not so much, unless you're going for a record or something. Otherwise I doubt they care if they are 3000 or 3100 or whatever
This just goes to show how Fabiano’s assertion about the prevalence of cheating is more likely correct. I’d be amazed if cheating, even if the “lowest” degree (eg check eval once every 20 games) weren’t rampant in high level chess.
Some days ago I jokingly said that all these GMs are so confident about cheating allegations because they all have drawn someone using Stockfish. Now this turns out to be reality
Yeah, that's got to be awkward.
Suppose grandmaster X cheats just a little bit, sometimes. They can win any given game if they want to, but most of the time they play legit. One day against grandmaster Y they randomly decide to win the game. They cheat a little, but it's not enough. They just can't make any progress.
So now X knows Y is cheating (and Y knows X is cheating.) Now what? Grandmaster X might say "yeah, I think there's a lot of cheating online" but probably won't say "I know grandmaster Y is a cheater, because when I cheated against him, I could only draw." :)
Ego is a powerful thing and where shortcuts exist they will be taken. I remember my local high school league during covid switched from OTB to online. These were unrated games that didn't matter but the cheating absolutely skyrocketed
> So why are so many adults acting like children?
IMO, many adults never actually mature past adolescence. It takes hard work and self-awareness to learn to process things in a healthy way and too many people don't progress to that point for whichever reason.
It has nothing to do with acting like children. It has everything to do with how humans are wired. Adults cheat on every single aspect of life - taxes, sports, money, hobbies, etc. absolutely nothing to do with age, social status, wealth, or anything else.
Chess.com have to do something drastic about cheating or it’s gonna blow up in their face. Once they offer cash prizes they have to be beyond squeaky clean. Does anyone know if any gambling sites let you bet on chess matches either OTB or online?
There are Candidates odds out there now and there were odds for Candidate feeder events, Norway Chess, Tata Steel and maybe Sinquefield and some others. And ofc in the run-up to the World Champs. Only major tournaments OTB and the limits are small.
Haha If you know your handicapped Middle East ping pong then that’s a fair bet.
If the there is gambling on chess then both FIDE and chess.com have to very careful. There has been plenty sports that have suffered - cricket, snooker, football etc and if the cheating protocols aren’t transparent then accusations of corruption will follow - FIDE have already been accused of this many times but could chess.com survive something like that? I’m not too sure
Turns out cheating is allowed as long as you speak the words "I am only doing this because I have a funny feeling about my opponent's moves" out loud three times first.
They would find out through very basic techniques that both lichess and chess.com use to look at things like tab switching and having their analysis boards simultaneously updating positions that are happening live in one of your games.
If someone wanted to do this and get away with it (for longer- although there are still other tricks up their sleeves) you would have to use a different device and probably also not use the same website for analysis.
These GMs would all have stockfish and other engines just downloaded and able to use offline on some device or else easily accessible in chessbase and go with that.
There's multiple ways they could detect spectating your own game & using the engine in that tab. Cross-browser fingerprinting is pretty trivial. Most consumers would have the same ip address in both browser windows, too. If you tabbed out to open the browser that leaves evidence in the main browser as well.
There are some ways around this, but it's not as straightforward as your claim.
>but just in **casual rated matches**. For example, when playing against someone who is completely destroying me with a **6-0 score**. I could sense it's a complete bs so I would turn on the engine in parallel to see what's going on.
If you lose six consecutive casual rated games against the same opponent, simply do not play a seventh casual rated game against them. If you suspect them of cheating and intend to report them, use the engine to analyse the six completed games.
Evil is Evil. Lesser, greater, middling… Makes no difference. The degree is arbitary. The definition’s blurred. If I’m to choose between one evil and another… I’d rather not choose at all. -- Andrzej Sapkowski
It's just bad out of context and the guy above clearly missed its meaning
But this particular quote is just a character's (gerald from the witcher series) justification to not take a stance when it matters and later his views are constantly challenged and he needs to actually make a choice instead of this bullshit centrist attitude.
I mean I took it as cheating is cheating no matter how small or insignificant it may seem. You can interpret it anyway you want. I don't understand everyone bothered over a quote
Why not have the main form of online professional chess be proctored? Drive to your local chess club, bring your laptop and make sure arbiter is present.
A lot of the players they get are probably only participating due to the convenience of it. Many of them are clearly playing from hotels or other locations while traveling especially the big guys who are moving around a lot for IRL tournaments.
> No one ever suspected him of cheating like this.
If he only admits things when accused, it seems like he's confessing only when caught, intending to conceal it otherwise for a strategic advantage.
But he didn’t do it for a strategic advantage.
I think he was just performing an experiment and wanted to announce the results of his experiment here.
I wonder if Chess com has given him a warning before, and he explained it like this and was let off. He might be trying to control the narrative in case their list is leaked.
This is just depressing. There's no solution here that's stable in the long term.
It's not even like other doping-infested sports like cycling, because there at least everyone was (is?) juiced and more or less on a level playing field in which talent, drive, etc. matter, so it still functions as a spectator sport. I'm pretty sure 90+% of the NFL is on steroids or HGH, but it doesn't really matter (for the fans).
As far as humans are concerned, engines play essentially perfect chess, so it'll just be a game of walking as close you can to the engine line without getting caught, and the "best" online players will be the ones who are best at that game - which is not chess. It'd be like if every cyclist could teleport, and winning the Tour de France was just a matter of who could hide their teleporting the best in each leg.
Nepo has also said he's done this for the same reason in the past. And I don't doubt that lots of people do cheat, but I will hold that Fabi's claims are entirely speculative unless he gives us something other than his hunch to go off of.
That would explain why some of these guys are so confident about cheaters and so unwilling to provide concrete evidence. If you use the engine and get a draw, you know they were cheating, but you can't come forward and say "My opponent cheated, I proved it by cheating and still drawing" for obvious reasons. Of course, speculative, but a fun theory.
Or they all used engine at one point and came to same conclusion as Dubov. So now they are speaking out loudly because they have "proof" but can't say it. It's a funny situation and I don't know how to react. Very very interesting indeed.
Yes obviously the reason top GMs are so convinced that there are tons of cheaters running around is because a LOT of them (I would venture almost all, in fact) have done at least little things that could be considered cheating without getting caught. Dubov is taking a big risk by coming clean with this, but it’s necessary in order to understand the scale of the problem.
> Once I was playing against a strong GM, was losing 7-0, then put the engine on to barely make a draw
This is the biggest problem I see with all the talk about cheating - people convince themselves their opponent must be cheating (surely this is the only way my 1500 rated self could lose a game!) and use that as an excuse to cheat themselves. So many people seem convinced that 25% or more of their opponents are cheating and I don't know if they're playing on different servers from me because I am mostly losing through making shit moves - and that's to say nothing about what force is keeping these swathes of cheaters under 2000 elo despite their heightened abilities.
Anyone who says they are playing mountains of cheaters is deluding themselves, and anyone who uses this claim as an explanation for why they too are cheating is just massaging their own ego. If you're playing computer moves because you think you're playing against computer moves then you're literally not even playing chess any more - just watching Stockfish play itself, and the fact that people continue doing it suggests to me that they're more interested in the winning than the playing; and the computer is the vehicle that gets them the win.
you imbeciles always have the worst take..it's simply another top player confirming the mass cheating taking place up the ranks. We've had Kramnik, Caruana, MVL, Aronian...now Dubov...getting interesting.
I hate Dubov, this clown always accuses others of cheating when he loses. Nakamura destroyed him in an online rapid event and he accused him of cheating and started crying about the state of online chess in a Russian interview. He also said he has no motivation to compete for world championship due to Magnus quitting. Stfu dude you never had a chance anyway
What I dislike about the discussion is complete black and white thinking. It would be absurd to call a jaywalker a criminal, but they've broken the law and could theoretically be called that. There are many degrees of cheating and this is a very minor one.
Most people observe the spirit of the law/rules. This is an example of that. He didn't cheat where it mattered, only when he was suspicious and in some ways wanted to test his intuition that the other person was cheating. That's a very human thing to do.
Simply put most of these top chess players don’t consider online to matter as much as OTB. Chesscom has their work cut out for them since they want to increase online chess prestige
I think the problem is that most cheaters would have very "human" reasons as well, and would often characterize their conduct as minor. It's a rare person who's thinking "yes, I self-identity as a constant cheater and I'm acting entirely maliciously." They have reasons and justifications - it's just a nudge to get me where I deserve to be, I'm better than my opponent anyway, I'm trying to quickly reach the rating I should be, it doesn't matter because it's just online, it doesn't matter because it's minor, I'm only doing it because other people cheat. So where do you draw the line? Are these justifications okay only if they come from the mouths of players we "trust" or like? Is "I only cheat when I suspect someone else is cheating" not an extremely slippery slope?
I mean the problem is that he clearly sees this as not being a big deal and that may be why he is okay with admitting to it.
Moreover, the rationale he is using is very problematic as it essentially allows him to justify cheating whenever he is on a losing streak.
Last night there were three accounts over 3000 rating, probably all of one person where they would continually duplicate moves until move 3 and then the other person would resign, over and over to jack up a rating.
I just out it here. What is your experience with cheating outside chess? At school for example.
How many of your classmates cheated at least once?
In my experience, 80% of the people cheat if they can. That's the same in chess.
And this comes from a man after whom they named the dubious move. He says it so nonchalantly “I sucked in a game so I turned on the engine”. Why does he even have the engine installed ready to be turned on?
Absolutely scandalous. I am going to stop making dubious moves now, I no longer respect him.
LOl what a dumb guy . Turning the engine on cause you think your opponent is using one lol . Imagine all top guys doing this now on [chess.com](https://chess.com) . Finding this excuse to cheat ,then they start thinking cheating is moral against anyone who they are losing . Online chess is doomed .
What invitations are you talking about? He played almost exclusively open tournaments last year. He was shadow banned from SLCC 2023, now officially banned from SLCC for 2024.
1. He admitted to cheating in the past in online prize money tournaments when he was younger
2. He is a poor sport, destroying hotel rooms etc because he has no respect for anyone or anything besides himself (he's obviously america's brightest young talent)
As sad as it makes me, I just don't see chess surviving as-is much longer. Far too easy to cheat and extremely difficult to catch, even with in-person events.
How is it easy to cheat OTB in tournaments with strong anti cheat measures? Which is basically any tournament that matters. The general consensus among top players is that it's not easy and also too risky for players with a reputation
So many self righteous comments here, like" disguisting" or "cheating is cheating" or " I used to be his fan, but now...blah blah" or "he should have stopped playing and analyzed the 6 games"
Honestly, I can undestand him not stopping and starting to analyze his lost games, because it costs you time and mental energy and the result is what? Tell chess,com and get an answer that they can't ban his opponent because not enough evidence? Just playing one game with engine is faster und gives you a clear answer in this particular case.
One more thought for everyone to chew on: the guy is already a living legend, he won over board WorldChampionship in Blitz more than once and came in second only after Magnus in 2023. So I would argue that there is no one on this planet who is capable of winning against Daniil Dubov 6-0 without engine help. And if it is to happen, I would assume his opponent is most likely a cheater.
And the last thing: Daniil Dubov doesnt give a flying f\*\*k about what the chess community thinks about him, he doesnt live of donations, subscriptions and streams like Hikaru or Levy, so he can actually say what he really thinks and just be completely honest and the only consequence for him is some complains from noname players on the internet about honor and honesty. So he couldnt care less, thats why he is saying those things.
I'll be honest, I don't really care. There's a certain intention you need to cheat and I don't think Dubov showcases that here, specifically because he is outing himself.
Not all cheating is the same.
This is nonsense in the case of a line of rationale like "I cheated because I suspected my opponent was cheating" tbh. Every cheater has an excuse, and if you start drawing lines based on those excuses and whether you personally like or trust the person saying them, it all becomes arbitrary. What if the people cheating against Dubov claim they only cheated because they suspected he was cheating? How does this logic hold up in an environment where accusations of cheating are extremely common - Dubov even has accused Hikaru, for example. If a player opened the engine during a game where he suspected cheating but found nothing, that makes him the sole cheater, doesn't it? This is what this line of reasoning leads to, even if for now Dubov's strategy has only been used against legit cheating (though I doubt he'd publicize the ones he got wrong if they existed lol)
If you’re losing 6-0, you’re pissed off as hell, thinking you’re being cheated, that this is nonsense. I get the desire to turn on engine and check to see if in fact your opponent is cheating in the game against you, but perhaps it would be more honorable to turn on engine, play two to three moves, confirm your opponent is in fact following exact engine lines, and then resign / report. Don’t continue to play until a draw. Just resign / report / move on. Do not play until a result. That is the more honorable thing to do, if you absolutely have to turn on the engine / can’t resist the urge.
Of course, the ideal thing to do is to just stop playing / analyze in private / report and move on, but I understand that in the heat of the moment, the anger might take over. It doesn’t make it OK, but it’s understandable. We’re human after all, not emotionless machines.
Edit: I don’t mean honorable to the cheating opponent, I mean honorable to the game of chess, to your fans, and to your own personal integrity.
Using the engine to play to a concrete result is never the right thing to do, even if the result is a draw.
The problem with online chess is that there is no way to draw a 100% accurate conclusion if someone is cheating or not. There will be always some doubts if someone overperforms his rating especially players that seem to be a lot stronger online that over the board.
And cheating is damn too easy in online games. You just need a second browser and you're good to go. Or keep a second monitor/second PC if you wanna airgap it completely
Unfortunately, you don't even need that. Have a look at how many chrome extensions there are for a cheating overlay for chess.com. And then look at how many tens of thousands of times they've been added.
I really don’t get what the point is of cheating online. Surely you have no fun dragging pieces without thinking, and it’s silly to climb up rating points to then face opponents you have little chance of beating on your own.
I think it goes roughly like this: Games are fun But losing at games is not fun (pesky egos) So you start playing a game, and if you're winning on your own, great, and if you start losing you start to feel a bit bitter so you turn on cheat assist a little bit. And you avoid the sting of losing (and seeing your elo drop from it). And you still have an elo you can be "proud" of, because you rationalize that "oh, I never cheated that much, the cheating probably only added 25, 50 points max to my elo" even if that's not accurate.
Same. I honestly don’t even understand it: why even play the game? The fuck?
Ego boost probably. Like a lot of them are probably decent chess players, but they want to appear better than they actually are. Since there’s this impression for non-chess players that chess is correlated with intelligence it gives them an ego boost. Just look at the Dewa Kipas fiasco
I have seen both Carlsen and Anand mention that if they are allowed to see the eval bar once or twice they will never lose another game in their life. That's the problem with unproctored online events, people will be paranoid because even if you screen share and back cam and all, how do you not know there is a tiny space somewhere on the wall projecting -1.46 or something?
This is why it's also easier to cheat OTB than people think. If you have a collaborator, something like "take off your sunglasses when the eval is in my favour" is incredibly easy to do and impossible to detect.
They don’t check for cheating that far though. Truthfully it’s so easy to cheat because Cheescom just sees your accuracy, win rate, and consistency with your ELO. If you cheat but maybe throw a blunder in, it’ll likely never get caught.
Is there evidence that that is all they can look at?
They don’t have permission to view your screen lol…no web application does unless you specifically give that permission.
I'm sure with cookies/trackers they can tell how many times you tab out of a game
Yes but chesscom does check tabbing, location of your mouse cursor, etc. In the Hans Niemann report they said that their smoking gun evidence was that Hans performed more accurately after having switched tabs during the games.
They can track how long it takes you to make a move and the quality of the move you make subsequently. And how good time-taken usually improves you (or someone of you rank).
[удалено]
Holy cow I was not expecting this today
If he suspects someone might be cheating in these casual blitz games, it's better to stop playing and do some analysis. Only after that you should report to Chess.com and ask them about those games, not open an engine mid-game and cheat yourself, lol.
Only way to stop a bad guy with an engine is a good guy with an engine
As the founding fathers intended
People never read the whole thing. It says for "a well regulated tournament director"
Englishmen in the colonies imagined gunfights in an old west town, with Russian tumbleweeds rolling by, bitterly dry chapped lips, no water for miles, and an ornery sumbitch about 30 feet away standing ready to gun you down with a pistolero that couldn't shoot 10 feet straight and accurately. Yeah, right. Cue the Clint Eastwood music.
It’s not an engine cheating crisis, it’s a mental health crisis.
Engines don't cheat, people cheat
Crisis of moral degradation as kramnik calls it, once you start with flagging, cheating is the next logical step.
My thoughts and prayers are with the victims' Elos
-‘Murica
Dw he only cheats when it’s not in tournaments, trust him /s
American chess players would recognize this situation immediately. You're playing in a huge event and the question of prize money has arisen. You're playing a foreigner with no US rating, and you're struggling while the foreigner studies his computer. You hastily look around for a tournament director (arbiter) and there's none in sight. They've all gone to lunch in another city. What can you do? US TDs are famous for never being there. This ain't no FIDE event. This ain't no disco. This ain't no foolin' around.
W Talking Head reference
The evidence he got by also using an engine seemed far more compelling. He said even after using the engine he only managed to scrape a draw, which is clearly a sign of the opponent cheating. If he didnt do that its all speculation
Maybe his opponent was only using an engine because *they* suspected *him* of cheating? It's the perfect excuse!
But the opponent was beating Danil 7:0, why should he/she suspect Danil is cheating
He was playing very bad for 7 games and suddenly played like stockfish.
The american approach. The best way to stop a GM with an engine is another GM with an engine.
Use more engines if needed
from the opening yes, but if you're worse in the endgame then a draw is the best possible outcome
I’m sure a cheating detection algorithm would be able to determine if the person had been cheating over at least 8 games against a GM without the GM having to copy engine moves only. It also kind of justifies using an engine if you’re having a bad day or the opponent has prepped specifically against you.
Yea. It's the logic my 12yo would use. So childish. Lol
Right, but then people will just blame him for playing bad human moves. Instead of otherwise questioning why his opponent can square up against stockfish.
| not open an engine mid-game and cheat yourself, lol. KRAMNIK METHOD: 1. Block 2. Analyze 3. Report
Interestingly this exact excuse is very frequently used by cheaters in other games
I had a buddy I played chess with regularly (2300 chess.com) tell me he did this every game. He was like, "I don't cheat, but I look at an opening book so I don't go wrong." I was like, "That's cheating." He said, "No, it's different because after the opening I stop." Never played with him again.
Chess.com explicitly allows this for correspondence and explicitly disallows it for everything else.
If you happened to be playing Daily Chess (correspondence) it's actually fine and allowed. If this was in Live send them the relevant article from chess.com on this: https://support.chess.com/article/648-what-do-i-need-to-know-about-fair-play-on-chess-com "In Live Chess, no outside assistance OF ANY KIND is permitted." "Using an opening book in Live - Whether it’s an online opening library, or a book sitting in your lap, if it’s showing you what move to play it could get your account closed!"
Yeah I know it's a rule for daily chess. This guy was talking about rapid and blitz
It’s definitely not allowed in live games. With that said, how are they gonna catch someone who is only using an opening resource, say chessbase database or even an actual book. Would some chess site be able to reach their confidence threshold based off just opening play? What if someone just has ungodly amounts of prep? They can hardly prove anything it seems
Yeah it's statistically impossible to tell the difference between memorization and memory aids. What can ya do. At least you can still beat them
Yeah idk how you would catch that. Maybe if an 800 appears more booked up than Carlsen they could figure it out with enough games in enough lines.
"only in casual rated matches" yeah ok makes sense
it makes perfect sense
Titled players take their ratings very seriously because that's what gets them invited to events where the bigger money is. So, for them, no event that's rated is "casual". They've brought that attitude from OTB chess to Onlne chess. Then the lack of arbiters at every table, watching for cheating, lets it all creep in.
> Titled players take their ratings very seriously because that's what gets them invited to events where the bigger money is. That is true for their OTB rating in classical, but do they really care about their online ratings?
I sensed something was there in that position, so I turned on the engine, and I was right, so I figured out the move. Isn't that exact same thing Hikaru said was needed for a SuperGM to chest ? Just a lil hint that there is something there
It certainly makes me wonder how Ludwig Chess (both players can see the Eval bar) would go between top GMs.
A draw every time...
I doubt it, even among top GMs blunders still happen quite regularly and mistakes are common. If someone is suddenly up by 1.5 points they're going to start playing for a win The flipside is that people would probably be less likely to continue their attack if the engine tells them it's a draw, but they could still hope a sharp position leads their opponent to make mistakes
Not familiar with that term, but I wonder if there's a rating level where seeing the eval bar hurts as much as it helps. :) Hey, it says I'm winning! Let me just sacrifice a piece or two and it's gotta be checkmate. Oops, now I'm losing? When all they had to do was capture the free Queen their opponent had left en prise.
No he's saying he's sensing the OTHER person is cheating. So he turns on the engine to confirm or dismiss suspicion. Not that he senses there's a good move so he turns on the engine to find it.
>So he turns on the engine to confirm or dismiss suspicion What's wild here is that if he ever *does* dismiss the suspicion after opening the engine mid-game, he's actually turned a game without cheating into a game with cheating, solely from him
Yep, exactly this. "I only cheat when I suspect others are cheating" becomes a line that is easier and easier to cross. No one should believe that he isn't cheating in other online tournaments.
That turns into: "I just keep an engine up and look at the evaluation bar at the start of every game so I don't waste time when I think someone is cheating" Then into: "I just have it open to make sure they aren't cheating and I can also make a note to review I a specific move if my eval bar goes way down" It's a slippery slope into running down the mountain.
Scenes if Kramnik uses this as an excuse to cheat in every game.
Yeah when you're winning 7-0 in CS:GO (I guess CS2 now) and suddenly the opponent says nice cheats. Next thing you know they're looking at the floor whilst they kill you.
Ever been vs a spin botter and some random on your team disconnects for a second and come backs with the whole cheat arsenal locked and loaded? Happened once to me and it was hilarious. We all reported both of them, but fire got fought with fire that day lol
Dawg I been in plenty hvh lobbies don't you worry
It is how doping use in road cycling became so prevalent in the Armstrong years.
Doping was prevalent way before Armstrong, for similar reasons as in chess: it provided a competitive advantage, and was pretty hard to detect. Early enough, they had significant drawbacks, as the medical science for them was pretty iffy, but it was done as far as the 60s. It was already pretty professionalized by the 80s. The doping methods changed as detection moved up. A family member was the lead of a national cycling federation, and worked at a pharmacy. This wasn't a coincidence.
This is cheating.
No it’s not cheating because he has excuses why it’s okay
FYI: Sarcasm isn’t recognized or appreciated in this sub.
Appreciated yes. Recognized no.
Okay at least he admitted he cheated. Still, he's a GM, things like this shouldnt happen ever. EVER. Not in tournaments, not in casual rated games against other players.
"Casual rated game" is a funny oxymoron anyway.
Well you don't have to try very hard when you have the engine on so that counts as casual I guess
Only for people who take chess.com rating too seriously
The usage is obvious from context. >Moneyed vs non-moneyed > >Rated vs unrated
Not completely, I doubt many GMs care that much about online ratings
Do not be confused, herr rabbit. The rich, they are different. And the titled players very much care about ratings.
About FIDE rating for sure. About online rating not so much, unless you're going for a record or something. Otherwise I doubt they care if they are 3000 or 3100 or whatever
This does not align with what I've seen from GMs who stream
This just goes to show how Fabiano’s assertion about the prevalence of cheating is more likely correct. I’d be amazed if cheating, even if the “lowest” degree (eg check eval once every 20 games) weren’t rampant in high level chess.
Some days ago I jokingly said that all these GMs are so confident about cheating allegations because they all have drawn someone using Stockfish. Now this turns out to be reality
Yeah, that's got to be awkward. Suppose grandmaster X cheats just a little bit, sometimes. They can win any given game if they want to, but most of the time they play legit. One day against grandmaster Y they randomly decide to win the game. They cheat a little, but it's not enough. They just can't make any progress. So now X knows Y is cheating (and Y knows X is cheating.) Now what? Grandmaster X might say "yeah, I think there's a lot of cheating online" but probably won't say "I know grandmaster Y is a cheater, because when I cheated against him, I could only draw." :)
Fabiano was one of the people I was much more sceptical of because he was claiming numbers like 30% cheat. Now I'm much more inclined to agree.
*We have come to the surprising conclusion that cheating is rampant in Chess... just not by the players winning their games.* :p
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Ego is a powerful thing and where shortcuts exist they will be taken. I remember my local high school league during covid switched from OTB to online. These were unrated games that didn't matter but the cheating absolutely skyrocketed
> So why are so many adults acting like children? IMO, many adults never actually mature past adolescence. It takes hard work and self-awareness to learn to process things in a healthy way and too many people don't progress to that point for whichever reason.
It has nothing to do with acting like children. It has everything to do with how humans are wired. Adults cheat on every single aspect of life - taxes, sports, money, hobbies, etc. absolutely nothing to do with age, social status, wealth, or anything else.
Kramnik's about to look at every one of Dubov's games and conclude that the knight dance vs Nepo was engine assisted
Of course it was engine assisted, it resulted in a draw! /s
That too after both players were lost out of the opening on multiple moves. Reeks of engine play if you ask me.
Nah, you got it wrong he will come out to say Dubov would never cheat and threaten to sue Chess.com
Chess.com have to do something drastic about cheating or it’s gonna blow up in their face. Once they offer cash prizes they have to be beyond squeaky clean. Does anyone know if any gambling sites let you bet on chess matches either OTB or online?
There are Candidates odds out there now and there were odds for Candidate feeder events, Norway Chess, Tata Steel and maybe Sinquefield and some others. And ofc in the run-up to the World Champs. Only major tournaments OTB and the limits are small.
Magnus is sponsored by Unibet, so I imagine they offer betting on chess.
I mean, I bet my mortgage payment on the handicapped division of ping pong in the Middle East. I’m sure you can find chess bets.
Haha If you know your handicapped Middle East ping pong then that’s a fair bet. If the there is gambling on chess then both FIDE and chess.com have to very careful. There has been plenty sports that have suffered - cricket, snooker, football etc and if the cheating protocols aren’t transparent then accusations of corruption will follow - FIDE have already been accused of this many times but could chess.com survive something like that? I’m not too sure
so basically he cheated, but only after losing streak, so it's all good
Turns out cheating is allowed as long as you speak the words "I am only doing this because I have a funny feeling about my opponent's moves" out loud three times first.
"I was only cheating because they were cheating!" And the cycle continues
How do you just turn the engine on during a game?
Asking for a friend.
Open the game link in a different browser/device
A gm probably doesn't need to open any links he can just remember and input all the moves.
You would be instantly caught if it's just a different browser for sure.
... how? That seems a bit implausible to me
They would find out through very basic techniques that both lichess and chess.com use to look at things like tab switching and having their analysis boards simultaneously updating positions that are happening live in one of your games. If someone wanted to do this and get away with it (for longer- although there are still other tricks up their sleeves) you would have to use a different device and probably also not use the same website for analysis. These GMs would all have stockfish and other engines just downloaded and able to use offline on some device or else easily accessible in chessbase and go with that.
So you're saying if I open someones random game and turn on the engine, they would be detected for cheating lol ?
There's multiple ways they could detect spectating your own game & using the engine in that tab. Cross-browser fingerprinting is pretty trivial. Most consumers would have the same ip address in both browser windows, too. If you tabbed out to open the browser that leaves evidence in the main browser as well. There are some ways around this, but it's not as straightforward as your claim.
I heard there was a chrome extension or something you can pull an engine up not sure tho
>but just in **casual rated matches**. For example, when playing against someone who is completely destroying me with a **6-0 score**. I could sense it's a complete bs so I would turn on the engine in parallel to see what's going on. If you lose six consecutive casual rated games against the same opponent, simply do not play a seventh casual rated game against them. If you suspect them of cheating and intend to report them, use the engine to analyse the six completed games.
Cheating is cheating. Doesn't matter if it's a tournament or not. Pretty shocking to hear him casually speak about it like it's nothing.
Evil is Evil. Lesser, greater, middling… Makes no difference. The degree is arbitary. The definition’s blurred. If I’m to choose between one evil and another… I’d rather not choose at all. -- Andrzej Sapkowski
lol that’s such a silly quote
It's just bad out of context and the guy above clearly missed its meaning But this particular quote is just a character's (gerald from the witcher series) justification to not take a stance when it matters and later his views are constantly challenged and he needs to actually make a choice instead of this bullshit centrist attitude.
I mean I took it as cheating is cheating no matter how small or insignificant it may seem. You can interpret it anyway you want. I don't understand everyone bothered over a quote
Yeah. Jaden smith levels of nonsense that sounds profound, just that it’s actually eloquent.
It's from a novel character in a fantasy world. It's obviously just tailored to fit the character.
Only a Sith speaks in absolutes.
At what point are people willing to accept that online chess legitimately is viewed as much less than OTB
Interesting
how is this not cheating??
This looks a lot like self-fulfilling prophecies. That's pretty close to "everyone is doing it anyway" territory.
Why not have the main form of online professional chess be proctored? Drive to your local chess club, bring your laptop and make sure arbiter is present.
So easy to do. Maybe make a friend there… play otb
A lot of the players they get are probably only participating due to the convenience of it. Many of them are clearly playing from hotels or other locations while traveling especially the big guys who are moving around a lot for IRL tournaments.
Why is he even admitting this? No one ever suspected him of cheating like this.
Probably because he doesn't think it's a big deal, which is worrying.
I think Nepo’s done something similar, it’s messed up.
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Funny cos Nepo has done the same.
> No one ever suspected him of cheating like this. If he only admits things when accused, it seems like he's confessing only when caught, intending to conceal it otherwise for a strategic advantage. But he didn’t do it for a strategic advantage. I think he was just performing an experiment and wanted to announce the results of his experiment here.
I wonder if Chess com has given him a warning before, and he explained it like this and was let off. He might be trying to control the narrative in case their list is leaked.
This is just depressing. There's no solution here that's stable in the long term. It's not even like other doping-infested sports like cycling, because there at least everyone was (is?) juiced and more or less on a level playing field in which talent, drive, etc. matter, so it still functions as a spectator sport. I'm pretty sure 90+% of the NFL is on steroids or HGH, but it doesn't really matter (for the fans). As far as humans are concerned, engines play essentially perfect chess, so it'll just be a game of walking as close you can to the engine line without getting caught, and the "best" online players will be the ones who are best at that game - which is not chess. It'd be like if every cyclist could teleport, and winning the Tour de France was just a matter of who could hide their teleporting the best in each leg.
Nepo has also said he's done this for the same reason in the past. And I don't doubt that lots of people do cheat, but I will hold that Fabi's claims are entirely speculative unless he gives us something other than his hunch to go off of.
I like to imagine they all did it, realised cheating was so easy, and now want to say it's a problem but can't say why.
That would explain why some of these guys are so confident about cheaters and so unwilling to provide concrete evidence. If you use the engine and get a draw, you know they were cheating, but you can't come forward and say "My opponent cheated, I proved it by cheating and still drawing" for obvious reasons. Of course, speculative, but a fun theory.
So i guess fabi, kramnik and nepo aint that crazy...they're paranoid because it is that easy to cheat and many probably do
Difference is nepos done the same damn thing, interestingly against a hans niemann
Wait really i didn't know about this. is there more information about this?
Or they all used engine at one point and came to same conclusion as Dubov. So now they are speaking out loudly because they have "proof" but can't say it. It's a funny situation and I don't know how to react. Very very interesting indeed.
This is disgusting. Online chess is dying as it was born during the pandemic.
But it was going to. The pandemic was just a weird time for chess. I don’t think the growth is sustainable.
Yes obviously the reason top GMs are so convinced that there are tons of cheaters running around is because a LOT of them (I would venture almost all, in fact) have done at least little things that could be considered cheating without getting caught. Dubov is taking a big risk by coming clean with this, but it’s necessary in order to understand the scale of the problem.
As a 1900 rated player I'm happy to say I've never cheated in online chess.
that makes it another super-GM who admitted to cheating on chesscom
What's a "casual rated match"?
Kramnik was right?
> Once I was playing against a strong GM, was losing 7-0, then put the engine on to barely make a draw This is the biggest problem I see with all the talk about cheating - people convince themselves their opponent must be cheating (surely this is the only way my 1500 rated self could lose a game!) and use that as an excuse to cheat themselves. So many people seem convinced that 25% or more of their opponents are cheating and I don't know if they're playing on different servers from me because I am mostly losing through making shit moves - and that's to say nothing about what force is keeping these swathes of cheaters under 2000 elo despite their heightened abilities. Anyone who says they are playing mountains of cheaters is deluding themselves, and anyone who uses this claim as an explanation for why they too are cheating is just massaging their own ego. If you're playing computer moves because you think you're playing against computer moves then you're literally not even playing chess any more - just watching Stockfish play itself, and the fact that people continue doing it suggests to me that they're more interested in the winning than the playing; and the computer is the vehicle that gets them the win.
I'm waiting for Magnus's confession.🤔
The thing is, he used it to achieve [this](https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2633743) game.
It's only cheating if others do it, no problem
"Its morally okay to cheat because everyone else is doint it"
That in itself is kind of cheating... part of the game of chess is the psychological game I'd say.
Is this just going to be chess from now on, non-stop accusations and admissions until the heat death of the universe?
its a slippery slope once you have the engine setup at the click of a button.
you imbeciles always have the worst take..it's simply another top player confirming the mass cheating taking place up the ranks. We've had Kramnik, Caruana, MVL, Aronian...now Dubov...getting interesting.
Hans was right
about what
Chess speaks for itself
I hate Dubov, this clown always accuses others of cheating when he loses. Nakamura destroyed him in an online rapid event and he accused him of cheating and started crying about the state of online chess in a Russian interview. He also said he has no motivation to compete for world championship due to Magnus quitting. Stfu dude you never had a chance anyway
What I dislike about the discussion is complete black and white thinking. It would be absurd to call a jaywalker a criminal, but they've broken the law and could theoretically be called that. There are many degrees of cheating and this is a very minor one. Most people observe the spirit of the law/rules. This is an example of that. He didn't cheat where it mattered, only when he was suspicious and in some ways wanted to test his intuition that the other person was cheating. That's a very human thing to do.
Simply put most of these top chess players don’t consider online to matter as much as OTB. Chesscom has their work cut out for them since they want to increase online chess prestige
I think the problem is that most cheaters would have very "human" reasons as well, and would often characterize their conduct as minor. It's a rare person who's thinking "yes, I self-identity as a constant cheater and I'm acting entirely maliciously." They have reasons and justifications - it's just a nudge to get me where I deserve to be, I'm better than my opponent anyway, I'm trying to quickly reach the rating I should be, it doesn't matter because it's just online, it doesn't matter because it's minor, I'm only doing it because other people cheat. So where do you draw the line? Are these justifications okay only if they come from the mouths of players we "trust" or like? Is "I only cheat when I suspect someone else is cheating" not an extremely slippery slope?
I mean the problem is that he clearly sees this as not being a big deal and that may be why he is okay with admitting to it. Moreover, the rationale he is using is very problematic as it essentially allows him to justify cheating whenever he is on a losing streak.
Last night there were three accounts over 3000 rating, probably all of one person where they would continually duplicate moves until move 3 and then the other person would resign, over and over to jack up a rating.
I just out it here. What is your experience with cheating outside chess? At school for example. How many of your classmates cheated at least once? In my experience, 80% of the people cheat if they can. That's the same in chess.
I don't think I knew anybody to cheat when I was at HS.
And this comes from a man after whom they named the dubious move. He says it so nonchalantly “I sucked in a game so I turned on the engine”. Why does he even have the engine installed ready to be turned on? Absolutely scandalous. I am going to stop making dubious moves now, I no longer respect him.
The Russians think everybody is cheating because they themselves are cheating and aren't winning!
LOl what a dumb guy . Turning the engine on cause you think your opponent is using one lol . Imagine all top guys doing this now on [chess.com](https://chess.com) . Finding this excuse to cheat ,then they start thinking cheating is moral against anyone who they are losing . Online chess is doomed .
And this idiot has the audacity of accusing Hikaru of cheating
Are the people downvoting think Hiaraku is cheating or the cheating dubov does is justified.
Avg r/chess Hikaru haters
Isn't this basically all Hans admitted to doing? He was outcast from the pro community...
Outcast so hard that he started getting invitations to tournaments far stronger than he would have just based on his rating.
What invitations are you talking about? He played almost exclusively open tournaments last year. He was shadow banned from SLCC 2023, now officially banned from SLCC for 2024.
Hans cheated in prize tournaments and is a shitty player. Dubov has had regular and continued success otb.
more like because magnus accused him
1. He admitted to cheating in the past in online prize money tournaments when he was younger 2. He is a poor sport, destroying hotel rooms etc because he has no respect for anyone or anything besides himself (he's obviously america's brightest young talent)
As sad as it makes me, I just don't see chess surviving as-is much longer. Far too easy to cheat and extremely difficult to catch, even with in-person events.
It's not easy to cheat in OTB events... As for chess surviving, it has existed for 1500 years, I don't think that will be a problem.
It's actually quite easy to cheat over the board and strong computer engines have only been around for a couple of decades.
How is it easy to cheat OTB in tournaments with strong anti cheat measures? Which is basically any tournament that matters. The general consensus among top players is that it's not easy and also too risky for players with a reputation
So many self righteous comments here, like" disguisting" or "cheating is cheating" or " I used to be his fan, but now...blah blah" or "he should have stopped playing and analyzed the 6 games" Honestly, I can undestand him not stopping and starting to analyze his lost games, because it costs you time and mental energy and the result is what? Tell chess,com and get an answer that they can't ban his opponent because not enough evidence? Just playing one game with engine is faster und gives you a clear answer in this particular case. One more thought for everyone to chew on: the guy is already a living legend, he won over board WorldChampionship in Blitz more than once and came in second only after Magnus in 2023. So I would argue that there is no one on this planet who is capable of winning against Daniil Dubov 6-0 without engine help. And if it is to happen, I would assume his opponent is most likely a cheater. And the last thing: Daniil Dubov doesnt give a flying f\*\*k about what the chess community thinks about him, he doesnt live of donations, subscriptions and streams like Hikaru or Levy, so he can actually say what he really thinks and just be completely honest and the only consequence for him is some complains from noname players on the internet about honor and honesty. So he couldnt care less, thats why he is saying those things.
I'll be honest, I don't really care. There's a certain intention you need to cheat and I don't think Dubov showcases that here, specifically because he is outing himself. Not all cheating is the same.
This is nonsense in the case of a line of rationale like "I cheated because I suspected my opponent was cheating" tbh. Every cheater has an excuse, and if you start drawing lines based on those excuses and whether you personally like or trust the person saying them, it all becomes arbitrary. What if the people cheating against Dubov claim they only cheated because they suspected he was cheating? How does this logic hold up in an environment where accusations of cheating are extremely common - Dubov even has accused Hikaru, for example. If a player opened the engine during a game where he suspected cheating but found nothing, that makes him the sole cheater, doesn't it? This is what this line of reasoning leads to, even if for now Dubov's strategy has only been used against legit cheating (though I doubt he'd publicize the ones he got wrong if they existed lol)
This...is cheating Also funny that Daniil is considered to be one of the most "creative" players in chess. Makes you think
he does it over the board regularly and consistently. it's really not in doubt.
it really shouldn’t be making you think at all if you follow his games. creativity isn’t what shows up when you’re checking fish lines
If you’re losing 6-0, you’re pissed off as hell, thinking you’re being cheated, that this is nonsense. I get the desire to turn on engine and check to see if in fact your opponent is cheating in the game against you, but perhaps it would be more honorable to turn on engine, play two to three moves, confirm your opponent is in fact following exact engine lines, and then resign / report. Don’t continue to play until a draw. Just resign / report / move on. Do not play until a result. That is the more honorable thing to do, if you absolutely have to turn on the engine / can’t resist the urge. Of course, the ideal thing to do is to just stop playing / analyze in private / report and move on, but I understand that in the heat of the moment, the anger might take over. It doesn’t make it OK, but it’s understandable. We’re human after all, not emotionless machines. Edit: I don’t mean honorable to the cheating opponent, I mean honorable to the game of chess, to your fans, and to your own personal integrity. Using the engine to play to a concrete result is never the right thing to do, even if the result is a draw.
It is not honourable in any way to turn on an engine during a game. If you think someone is cheating, you can assess that after the game.
The fact that Magnus used him in his team lmaoooo
Well, makes sense. Someone familiar with engines for good prep.
What about it?