Let's make RHP a safe and better place for everybody

Is there, somewhere in the site a list with the "cheaters" names???

Yes, it's here:
http://www.redhotpawn.com/players/playertable.php?cbqsid=15068

Originally posted by delnz
So if the 3 or 4 of the higher ranked players on this thread got together with some players they know well you might have a core group of say 10 and then set up a club or clan. The "Clean 2k+ Club"

There are about 250 or so players over 2000.

That would mean each of the core group would have to successfully proselytize to only 10 other players over 2000 ...[text shortened]... st bet...
(and the rest of us wouldn't have to listen to this issue coming up again - result!)

There was a great active club at one time where known OTB players and legitimate chess people could associate and exchange credentials and do a bit of name dropping etc.
I think one of the admins went inactive and the other still posts here but evidently stopped playing here.

Originally posted by KingOnPoint
If United States college football members can unionize, maybe international law will let Paying RHP members unionize. Perhaps, this will only amount to a joke.

Yes, Let's call it the Fairplayers Union or FU for short. 🙂

Originally posted by hopeless6
Just wondering.... Is it possible that some of these "cheaters" are really just damn good players? I'd guess that some of you are assuming a very high rating means cheating.

Even the very strongest human players in history do not have the match-ups with Fritz that some of the players on this site achieve. So, yes, very high match-up with Fritz = that player is using Fritz.

Of course strong players will have a higher match-up than a weaker player, because Fritz is very good at chess and the top move it suggests is often incontrovertibly the "best" one, for example one which wins material in a few moves or which defends against a dangerous attack. The strong players are more likely to find these moves than the weak players.

However there are also positions where there is no obvious "best" move, but where Fritz (and other engines) will prefer some moves over others for reasons which are either too complicated for us to work out or because of some heuristic in its algorithm which means that it prefers some positions.

Humans make the same decisions but based on different criteria. For example a strong player might prefer queenless positions (Kramnik) or ones where he has the initiative, even at the cost of the exchange (Topov) or ones where we end up with two bishops vs our opponents bishop/knight or two knights (most of us middle order players).

The chances of the things that Fritz likes in the position resulting from a certain move matching the things a strong human player likes being the same for dozens and dozens of positions seems to me to be vanishingly small. That's why Magnus Carlsen doesn't have a 100% match-up with Fritz - he doesn't play like Fritz. A lot of his moves will match Fritz's #1, 2 or 3 choices because of tactical or basic (for super GM) positional reasons, but a lot of them will not be. That doesn't mean they are weaker moves, it means they are moves which are likely to result in a position that Carlsen is happy with.

Just play through some of the games from the recent Candidates tournament on a site like chessbomb.com which has the computer evaluation displayed. In almost every game you will see the very best players in the world "blundering", i.e. playing a move which results in the computer evaluation of the position dropping by a whole pawn or more! And yet the people on the first page of the RHP ratings never make these "blunders".

So, I say again, high match-up with Fritz means the player is using Fritz (or another strong engine, they all play roughly the same).

Originally posted by SwissGambit
RHP doesn't do anything about cheats anymore. Sorry, you're jolly well screwed if you get matched up against one of them.

I agree with radicalcpp. Thumbs up from me.

I used to play TheBigKat User 653175 regularly. He was recommended to me by an OTB friend who played him on here and called him a strong player. I trust my OTB friend, so I took the games on. I've played 8 against him, and mostly gotten my butt kicked. I walked away with 1 win, Game 9900006. He must not have used his silicone processing skills on his second to last move...

I have recently messaged TheBigKat, asking for some explanations, trying to see if there was an honest answer to all this.

My questions were-at one point in time, some of you may remember this, TheBigKat posted he had an OTB rate of something near 2400 (I think 2392 was the exact number?), but he then later amended it to 2172. Btw, that has been removed from his profile too. In our games, I learned his first name was David and he claimed to be from Pennsylvania. Of course, how much of any this could be true I don't know. I messaged him asking if there was any record he wished to provide showing proof of his rate. I remember sometime ago caissad4 User 66723 asked him to PM her some information proving his rates and the tournaments he claimed to have played in. He at one point claimed he met a 'young Fischer'. That is straight from his profile-again that has been removed some time ago. Well, I messaged caissad4 asking if he ever did provide that information she asked for. She replied he has not...

So that was one reason I messaged him. He and I used to have a decent relationship, before I realized he used his computer in every move against me. I have not heard back from him on this point.

I also brought up his consistent matchup rates that exceed 85+%. One user on here, pikejohn User 689304, has said to me that he read somewhere that OTB masters and GMs have a matchup rate 90% of Houdini or other strong chess engines. He never provided where he read that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but 60% is the accepted threshhold for top 1 picks for OTB Super GMs.

I brought this all up to TheBigKat. If that is the accepted threshhold for a 2700+ then what is it for a 2172, IF that is his true rate...

All of this is to say, I do not even slightly believe TheBigKat is a true and honest player. There should be some consequences for this as radicalcpp pointed out. If not a banning, then at least a censorship.

I was recently asked to join in a club called 'Maybe Masters?' by Pikejohn. I joined without thinking but then noticed that TheBigKat was in the club already. I messaged Pikejohn pushing for TheBigKat to be removed from the club. He at first argued he didn't see any proof that TheBig Kat was cheating. I presented my arguments, and it was put to a vote in the club. The result was, TheBigKat got kicked from the club. This is only a minor victory, but if enough players start fussing about him, and other players, maybe, just maybe the players can be censored enough that most to almost all won't play them. If it is fake rating points they are after, that can be denied by a literal 'boycott'.

I just wanted to share this 'minor' victory, and maybe TheBigKat will come full round and be honest. I once talked with atticus2 User 465997 what his thought was if a player came honest about their play. He said, and I agreed, they should be accepted again, if they will now play fair.

fullcoldbright User 664256 admitted to cheating (I have several who can verify this if needed). I wish he had stayed after coming honest.

Hope you got something out of these ramblings, if not, still go enjoy your chess!

Cheers!

K.T.

P.S. [EDIT], Data Fly should more carefully consider his/her statments before he/she lumps everyone on page one into the category of cheats. I ask that he/she qualify their statements-I have received no response yet. I believe there are many honest players on page 1, many of them mentioned on my profile. Many have been page 1 players and are no longer who were honest. You should carefully consider an accusation before making. There should be consequences for cheating, but there should also be consequences for making false accusations!