How does a chess site detect cheating?

Factual Questions
1

I’ve been visiting playchess.com now and then. To date, I’ve simply watched others play in the Main Room., where you see the board of the game in progress, the record of the moves, a small chat window (for talking back and forth, plus announcements of various kinds) and a list of kibitzers who’re watching.

The surprising part is, that even though I’ve only watched sporadically for perhaps a week and a half, I have seen at least 4 annoucements in a Bold RED font (which seems to be reserved for this purpose only):

"[Player’s Nickname] has comitted a rule offense (e.g., used chess software assistance). His ELO rating got deleted. [Player’s Nickname] [Player’s ELO rating]"

(Curiously enough, there’s never mention of the person being evicted.)

I think it’s wonderful that the chess site is able to detect at least some cheating, but how do they do it? Someone complains that a player is making some very very sophisticated moves well beyond his ELO, and they start watching that player? My guess is that it’s almost always kids who do this.

Beyond doubt, the website must build up a rock solid case against the offender, because the charge is extremely serious and the person’s chess reputation is forever ruined, probably. At this site, that is.

By the way, if you think I’m asking all this to learn how to cheat successfully at chess, fine. Just don’t bother to answer. Fact is I’m a stickler for playing within the rules —and the spirit — of every game I play.

A sidelight…

Many years ago, a top flight British Contract Bridge player was accused of cheating in a South American (?) tournament. Other players noticed that the position of the fingers of say his right hand as he held the cards seemed to indicate how many Hearts he had at the start of the hand.

This suspicion was reported, so the tourney admins watched him very carefully, determined that the man was indeed cheating and I believe he was thrown out of the event and the Bridge association, as well.

Knowing just how many hearts your partner holds at the outset might seem innocuous, but it can be a significant advantage to merely good club players and I would guess and a huge edge to Life Masters.

Howsomever, I’m pretty sure this guy lawyered up and forced the decision to be reversed. Maybe he wasn’t guilty after all.

2

WAG, there are probably only so many chess programs capable of playing at a certain level. So, what you do is you purchase one of each kind and any time you think a player is playing not very humanly, you start comparing his moves with what move each program plays for that setup. If the player makes the same moves as the program each time (or pretty darn regularly) then you know he’s cheating.

Again, just a guess.

3

but it’s not always a question of the software suggesting only a single move. I would think that you could get some pretty good ‘chess assistance’ software that might give a couple of different moves, along with superficial notes on them at least. Move this pawn if you want to play defensively, capture with the bishop if you want to press a strong attack, or move the rook sideways if you want to be subtle and try to catch a weak player with a ploy he might not see in time.

It’d be a lot harder to demonstrate that if someone’s always making one of the same few moves the program reccommends, that he’s using that program or a similar one. Maybe he’s just better than you expect him to be. :wink:

4

Most chess software has many different settings of levels, styles, opening books, etc. The chess site would have many many many variants to test against if that methodology was used.

5

I didn’t mean to suggest that the method I proposed was very good. Anyone smart enough to figure out that that may be tha way the site is checking for cheaters would be able to circumvent it.

It would mostly succeed on the rough assumption that cheaters are generally not that motivated.

6

Playchess.com uses downloaded client software, so rather than dectecting patterns in play (which seems near impossible to me, but I’m not an expert) it may just detect known cheating software on your PC.

7

Which doesnt stop someone from having 2 seperate PCs running, one with playchess and the other with chess software.

8

Many computer chess cheaters manually enter each move into their chess program. So there tends to be a minimum delay for each move, even for moves that are more or less automatic, such as K x Q. Another red flag is when the player tends to be much better at slow time controls than fast. Another symptom is play that is consistently tactically flawless. If somebody is a suspected computer cheater, their games can be run through the most popular chess programs to see if their moves match that of the programs.

A more sophisticated cheater would write software that automatically tranfers game moves to the chess program so there is no delay. And he or she would also be careful not to choose the number 1 move suggested by the program each time. Such a cheater would be very difficult to bust.

9

I doubt the owners of such sites are going to bother putting much effort into detection. Why would they spend money doing this?
As griffin1977 said, they may just look for a chess program on your PC.

Also, why does it matter if ‘anon27’ has his ‘reputation’ ruined? He can just register as ‘anon28’.

You are probably referring to Terence Reese and Boris Schapiro, who were accused of cheating in the World Championships in Buenos Aires. Allegedly the number of fingers showing represtented the number of hearts held.
They were found guilty in a hastily convened inquiry at the time, but cleared in a proper legal tribunal later.

“The incident spawned two famous books - The Great Bridge Scandal by Alan Truscott, and Story of an Accusation by Terence Reese.”

10

Yes, I was referring to Reese.

And is it that easy to re-register under a different name? I could do that at playchess.com, while my current registration is in force?

11

The technical answer probably has to do with cookies and IP addresses.
I’ve never tried to reregister, so I don’t know.

But consider the work involved in answering complaints about cheating by analysing games. You’d probably get some spurious clims, then you need a strong player to study several games, plus loading up a few programs…

No site is going to pay for that.

12

But the detection seems to be going at a rate that would suggest the site is doing exactly what you say they wouldn’t. I’ve been at the site on and off for about 10 days and playchess.com nailed 4 players. That’s an awful lot.

I don’t see anything like that at online poker sites. In fact, I have never seen even one player penalized, and I spend more time playing poker than chess.

It just may be that this site has found a way to keep things relatively clean.

13

Well, there’s no real way to cheat in poker by getting computer assistance, as you can in chess, since poker-playing computers are not even as good as a novice poker player, except in extraordinary situations (heads-up, e.g.). But poker players have been caught cheating by playing under multiple accounts at once. The sites tend not to advertise this too prominently, as they’d rather not have their customers realize that any cheating occurs.

14

Thinking about it, how hard can it be to catch the perps?

First off, most folks are honest and would never stoop to cheating.

So, the Mods can just sit back until someone complains. “FlipBishop has a 1300 rating, but when I played him he made moves like Capablanca.”

So a Mod goes to the computer and brings up the game in question, and looks at the recorded score sheet which also has the time-wait for each move. One look and he has a good idea if something’s up. Then he brings up FlipBishop’s last n games, and he can probably tell when that player started with computer assistance.

15

It may be just a random message. How hard would it be to just broadcast a message saying …

“Player ‘random made-up name’ has been found to be cheating”

This would give you all of the deterant value with little or no cost. Like the security system stickers you can get for your home windows (“This home protected by Ever-alert Security System”, etc.)

Cost of home security system = $5,000
Cost of sticker = $1.99

16

I think this is exactly right - the software is simply checking processes running on your computer that it knows are created by popular chess software. Of course, you can skirt this by using two computers, but imagine what a PITA that would be.

17

I’ve been thinking along those lines for the chess site, Zoomer, but for some reason I didn’t want to mention it. :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

You could invent a few cheaters, and at the same time, actually check a few complaints. That would probably keep the cheating to a minimum.

18

The chess sites specifically do not let it be known how they go about exactly detecting cheating, for obvious reasons. They undoubtedly use all the techniques mentioned (although I am not sure about the checking the processes on your computer) and probably others. They do have an incentive to keep the cheaters away, most folks want to and like to know they are playing an on the level game. There are usually a lot of computer programs playing on these sites, but they are clearly identified as such and are allowed.

19

I don’t understand the above.

It’s quick to automatically check whether chess software is running unannounced on a chess site.
By comparison, it takes far more effort to get a strong player to look through a game and make a decision on the strength of the player (and whether a program is involved*).

*I have passed this test on the SDMB (spotting a computer game out of 4 possibles), but then I’ve got an international rating (and charge £50 / hour for coaching).

20

I think I get your point at last, Glee. You’re right, of course. Beg your pardon.