Only Chess
09 Feb 07
09 Feb 07
Originally posted by Dragon FireThis has been discussed ad nauseam. All blunder rates tell you is how careful a player is - an engine user with a high blunder rate is just a careless engine user; honest players are going to miss things.
If what you are saying (and I suspect it is) that you don't play like a patzer one day and a GM the next then I agree. Such a sudden and dramatic improvement evidenced by a long string of games (at patzer level) suddening becoming a long string of games (at GM level) would indicate definate abuse. Any such improvement would be slow (over years not month ...[text shortened]... se is possible. Analysis of a significant number of games would then be required to prove this.
The main things I imagine that the games mods look for are match up rates and "engine only" mistakes. There are various things engines do to improve their performance which make them vulnerable in some positions (eg. zugzwang at the leaf nodes in the search tree if the engine uses a null move heuristic). Heading for such a position would be indicative of engine use. The only thing that the games moderators have told us is that they take evidence from many games, so non-engine users need have little fear about being unfairly banned.
Also 3b applies not only to engine cheats, but also to people who get human help. The site admins may have gotten hold of evidence that some of these people were getting non-engine outside help.
I'm quite wary of the statement that sudden improvements in performance are due to cheating. I think people's chess improvement has a tendency of coming in bursts, so that people will have jumps in rating. In correspondence chess this is, if anything, exaggerated as games can start before the period of improvement and end after it - so that the improvers rating only really starts to go up after they've finished off the games their earlier, less skilled, self had already messed up. Sudden improvements in rating may be cause for suspicion, but I'd hope a thorough examination of their games would be the only thing that the games moderators would use as evidence to ban people.
09 Feb 07
Originally posted by UndeadNightOrcmost people here use databases and download pgns all the time.
They should also be checking the frequency with which the player downloads the PGN/FEN files of a game. If it's every other turn or more than that, that would, to me, indicate very suspicious behavior. I mean, who needs to see PGN/FEN copies of the game every move?
09 Feb 07
Originally posted by UndeadNightOrcI can see little point in downloading it until the game is over.
They should also be checking the frequency with which the player downloads the PGN/FEN files of a game. If it's every other turn or more than that, that would, to me, indicate very suspicious behavior. I mean, who needs to see PGN/FEN copies of the game every move?
09 Feb 07
I'm not sure how accurate the rating system here is, would it be possible for a 2000+ rated player here to still require use of an opening database in a majority of their games? Perhaps in a small percentage of those games. But someone rated so high should already be knowledgable enough in their opening repetoire to not have to repeatedly download PGN/FENs for every move in every game.
Of course, having read this, engine users are probably going to switch tactics and avoid the use of PGN/FEN downloads now...
09 Feb 07
Originally posted by UndeadNightOrcNice observation made Mr. UNO - being a non-techy (my last computer programme was chess master 5000 or something!), I don't think about all these computer manipulations. 🙂
They should also be checking the frequency with which the player downloads the PGN/FEN files of a game. If it's every other turn or more than that, that would, to me, indicate very suspicious behavior. I mean, who needs to see PGN/FEN copies of the game every move?
09 Feb 07
Originally posted by thekillersfanLook, this is a total red herring - if someone never downloaded the PGN would you take that as evidence of non-use of an engine? It's like saying that all people who own knives are murder suspects. The way engine users are caught is by the moves they make, and occasionally by confessing in the forums; using the FEN or PGN in a database or winboard is perfectly within the rules of the site provided that no engine is switched on.
Nice observation made Mr. UNO - being a non-techy (my last computer programme was chess master 5000 or something!), I don't think about all these computer manipulations. 🙂
