lichess.org
Donate

Cheaters in classic games

Hello. I wanted to talk about cheaters. I don't play classic games to avoid this. What has been your experience in classic games?
In my experience, it seems more likely to face a cheater in tournaments. And, when you're seeking for a classical game: check if they have played enough (how much is 'enough'? That's up to you) games in that category and if they have consistent/established ratings in bullet and blitz.
I never faced a cheater in classical on lichess and I played quite a lot. At least I wasn't able to spot one as it is harder to find out if you opponent uses computer-assistence to eliminate blunders.

The reason why there are so many "cheaters" is because many players claim players to fast as cheater if they get outplayed.
I am not a very active player on this site but I have never faced a cheater at all. I think in my skill range, it's more unlikely to face one than in the higher regions.
In my ~1200 classical games I ran into one person I suspected to be a cheater. After looking at a few of his previous games the suspicion was stronger. I reported that player and, indeed, after a short while this player was flagged as one.

This was a long time ago.

I also played ~1600 Fischer Random games with 15 minutes on the clock and never ran into cheaters.
I've not played as much classical as MouseSlip, but have similar experience. I don't tend to play tournaments and I reckon I've played one cheater (maybe two) at blitz, and one at classical so far.

My experience is that there really don't seem to be that many cheaters (as a proportion of the total number of players) and that they tend to be caught fairly quickly - I reported my suspicious opponent, who was banned whilst playing his very next game.
In my own experience most of the people I have suspected of cheating all have been in playing either classical or blitz and have been banned because of my reports,. But recently played against someone in a tournament who I suspected of cheating and reported him yet he never got banned, and after reviewing his profile he had almost 600 point increase in 3 days in classical and his average opponent was well below his rating, so no idea how this would be possible but this seems really fishy. But as I have read in other posts innocent people have been accused of cheating and banned by mistake, so perhaps the same could happen when someone does actually cheat and gets away with it.
@LadyNorth #7 False positives and false negatives are of coursealways possible. I'd say it's best to err on the side of banning slightly too few rather than slightly too many people - this site seems to me to get it about right.
#8 I would disagree but that's just me, knowing that some people might get away with cheating for whatever reason would be a BIG turn off and I for one would not consider donating or playing on a site that would allow that. So with that said, I'm not sure it would be in interest of any games site to allow some cheaters to slip through the cracks.
I occasionally get smashed at standard. I don't recall ever using the report button... What are you worried about exactly? One person taking a few points out of the system? The percentage of people doing this must be very low!

When cheaters have been caught in the past, I have received rating points back for games lost against them. tada! Game on.

This topic has been archived and can no longer be replied to.