how to cheat at chess

The internet website styled Chess Dot Com is purportedly the world's leading online platform for chess players.

Statistics for the site claim over two hundred million regular users. Occasionally there are higher claims of up to 400 million users.

It is a phenomenally successful site.

I would recommend it for anyone looking to learn chess, improve at chess, or test themselves against chess players of all abilities.

I am accused of cheating by other players about once every two months.

Some players would make such an accusation during a game merely to distract you.

Others may be a little neurotic.

Or maybe I'm just good.

I always take such accusations as compliments and often reply via the messaging service to wit: "Sorry it's against my religion."

A fellow from Spain accused me thusly during an intense blood and thunder game last night: "What the hell Bro! You're moving instantly and every move's a good one."

I made a special effort in replying to him as follows: "I'm flattered but I have learned not to praise the morning until I see what the evening brings."

This is a one liner lifted from the German general Heinrici who is reputed to have said it while playing war against the Russian army on the outskirts of Berlin.

I have never been accused of cheating by the administrators at Chess Dot Com.

About once a month the administrators send me an email to award a game to me in which they have adjudged my opponent was cheating.

I'm not sure if this is simply to reassure me that there is oversight from the website's owners or if a genuine cheat has been identified and excluded.

Chess Dot Game claims to have closed the accounts of tens of thousands of users caught cheating in recent years.

There is no point in cheating.

It is a meaningless act.

And in the words of Mr Mackey from the opprobrious television cartoon Southpark: "Cheating is wrong, mkay."

The method of cheating which is said to be most favoured on Chess Dot Com is for a player to have a chess computer programme running while he plays you so that effectively you are playing Big Blue or some such thing.

The meaninglessness of cheating is summed up for me by the analogy of me racing against champion athlete Mo Farah over the 5000 metres and claiming to win because I drove a car while Mo was on foot, or of me fighting Mike Tyson in the boxing ring and claiming to win because I used a machine gun.

The use of machines to cheat is without merit in terms of genuine achievement in any human endeavour.

Chess is only of interest because human beings compete honestly against each other.

It seems to me that the vast majority of players on Chess Dot Com do not cheat and have no willingness to do so.

But those that do cheat, have methodologies beyond machines.

Each chess player is given an Elo points rating, so named for Arpad Elo the Hungarian American chess master who originally devised the system.

Elo points ratings are used by Chess Dot Com and other websites as well as by the international Chess Federation FIDE (Federation International d'Echecs.)

You are awarded Elo points for each game you win.

You lose some for each game you lose.

It is a continual rating.

The central computer at Chess Dot Com selects competitors for you as close to your Elo points rating as possible.

The chess master Anna Cramling says that a 2000 point Elo rating on Chess Dot Com implies you are what she calls a chess expert.

Positions in league tables on Chess Dot Com are decided by a separate points award for each game you win. These are called Trophy points. Unlike with Elo points, you do not have trophy points deducted when you lose a game.

So a high volume of  winning games can put you high up in the league regardless of a high volume of losses.

In the scenario I am citing, cheating involves artificially depressing your Elo points by deliberate losses so that you are matched against players much weaker than your real ability.

These novice opponents will be easy to defeat rapidly.

Trophy points will thereby mount up quickly while you keep your Elo points low by ensuring you have as many deliberate losses as wins.

Another method of cheating is for two or more players to get together and play in relays on one account, allowing them to log up incredible numbers of trophy points.

The most prestigious league on Chess Dot Com is the Legends League which this week has nearly two million participants.

My assessment is that the top five positions in the world on Chess Dot Com's Legends League this evening are held by people or groups of people systematically gaming the system.

I would say the same about most of their top fifty.

The player at the very top of the Legends League whose user profile features a picture of President Trump in a chicken outfit and who calls himself "Oops Wrong Piece," has an Elo points rating right this moment a little above 100.

Not a thousand, a hundred.

This would be considered a beginners' level Elo points rating and theoretically could not arise for someone in the Legends League let alone someone who is topping the Legends League worldwide.

The next four players also have very low Elo points ratings between 400 and 1100 still guaranteeing them opponents well below the level of an average player in the Legends League.

I am suggesting that all of these players or more probably groups of players using the cover of each of the top five accounts to play in relays, are cheating.

I would expect the cheating cabals to register new accounts next week when the League resets and on into the future.

In person to person chess games, cheating is also a part of the landscape.

In 2022 the world champion Magnus Carlsen accused 19 year old American Hans Niemann of cheating against him in a tournament that Carlsen withdrew from in a huff.

Chess Dot Com has said their investigations into Mr Niemann indicate cheating in online games.

Mr Niemann admits to twice cheating in such games.

Fide's investigation declared that there was no evidence of cheating in his person to person clash with Carlsen.

Various methods have been postulated as to how Mr Niemann might have cheated against Carlsen. The billionaire Elon Musk suggested, perhaps mischievously, that Mr Nieman may have had a sensor device in his anus through which an external agent could signal moves to him using vibrations.

The external agent in this scenario would be using a chess computer to come up with his moves.

The conventional more prosaic methods for cheating in person to person games are thought to involve a player going for a toilet break and contacting an external agent for advice through his mobile phone (as opposed to through his anus) while in the toilet cubicle.

Classic chess tournament games are usually set at ninety minutes.

Football players are not routinely allowed toilet breaks or the use of mobile phones during 90 minute international soccer championships.

It is probably past time for Fide and other chess authorities to forbid mobile phone use or possession for players during tournaments. It would also seem sensible for world championship events to stop facilitating unsupervised toilet breaks for participants while a game is in progress.