Hi Mark,

OTB means "Over the Board" - same as FTF "Face to Face".

If you check my profile, you'll see the player I've played the MOST games with (15) was rated 2200 at peak.  This was my chess.com greeter.  If you click his profile, you'll see he was busted for cheating.  I won the very last game with him because he timed out as a cheater.  During the games, I felt that there were certain ways he was setting up the position, and then executing a 6-move combo which just seemed almost too "genius" to be true.  I always suspected he was using a computer program.  When I would do the chess.com's post-game computer analysis on those games, he would almost never ever make any inaccuracies/mistakes. 

In contrast to this, I've played some 2000 rated players, and there are plenty of inaccuracies in the post-game analysis - and while playing them, I can feel that they are better (and they win), but I don't have that "spider sense" tingling I had with my original greeter.

As for rating and advantage/disadvantage, I just think of rating as a means to match me up with someone who will give me a fairly even game - all things being equal.  If someone cheats with computer programs, they will find themselves at a higher rating than otherwise, and when the crutch is removed, they will tumble hard.  If they don't remove that crutch, then they will be perpetually playing meaningless games at the 2200+ rating club.  They change from chess players into data entry clerks!

As for prestige being a reason for them doing this, maybe they don't realize that it is hollow.  And this doesn't even really matter unless you're at the stratospheric rating of 2500+, really...  And even then, these ELO ratings are chess.com specific.  There are a lot of new players who abandon, or who are simply very bad at the 1200 level when they start.  They abandon their accounts, and the remainder of the serious player's ratings get inflated as a result.  Also, postal ELO doesn't translate into an OTB (FTF) ELO... I mean, sometimes if I know I have a key position (and the time), I'll look at it day 1 for 30 mins, and leave it... let it swill around in my subconcious for a day, return, and look at it again for 30 mins.  To contrast this, there are also times where I have so many games going that each one gets the 20-second treatment too!  Or the beginnings of the games (like in a tournament) if I'm playing the openings I know well, the first 10 moves are pretty automatic.

Anyways, this is definitely TLDR for many (TLDR=too long, didn't read).

i think if players are using computers and programs to win games and boost their rating ,who are they kidding except them selves because they know it is not a genuine win on their part and they have really been assisted. will that help them become better players ? i dont know because it may take some thinking away from them or they may benefit from moves shown or analysed . to be honest i dont know what these things can do im computer programe illiterete but i get the gist of maybe what is possible. also if you the opponent are being played by a good computer rather than a person then maybe that might be  helpful to defend your self against such. i dunno, ijust think sad case on the ones that are doing it, where as my conscience is clear in regards to this and im just rubbish lol

I play for fun and hope to improve with every game.  If someone's using computer analysis, that's okay by me.  I may not beat them, but I'll probably learn something along the way.  And since I'm just a goat, I'm always happy to eat the board once the game is over.

Hi Mark.

Yes, it's an issue - you can't be sure your opponent isn't using computer analysis, and some claim it is definitely going on, especially at the higher ratings. Apparently chess.com have some form of analysis facility that allows them to check the likelihood that someone is using computer analysis to assist them by checking the % unforced moves that the player has made compared to what the main computer packages would use. I don't know how successful this has been because I have only ever once thought an opponent may be using an analysis package to assist them and didn't bother following it up.

I hate playing computers - I find it incredibly boring, but I have recently been considering buying a package to analyze my games (after I've finished them) to help me improve. I am an honest person, but could imagine being tempted in a high-stakes game. It is highly unlikely that I would use it if I had it available, but I can certainly see why some people do. That's just the way it goes. If chess.com find them out, then great, otherwise, the ratings will settle to the appropriate level regardless of whether it is a computer or a human making the moves.

Jonny

You bring up good points. The problem of "assisted" analysis has been plaguing postal chess--and by extension, email chess--for years. The general rule is usually that consulting books and spending hours moving pieces back and forth on a board (real or digital) is okay--even expected--but consulting a chess "engine" (whether digital or living) is considered cheating. Some sites and some leagues attempt to police this, but I'm not sure how. I don't know what Chess.com does about it.

Personally, I tend to avoid games against players whose win/loss ratio seems wildly lopsided. My assumption is that no matter what your rating is you should be losing a healthy number of games, since you ought to be playing mostly against people of your own strength. Someone going through a rapid rise because they just started in the league or on the site, or someone going through rapid improvement might temporarily be winning way more than they are losing, but eventually everyone but the very best ought to settle into a pattern of losing chess games a non-trivial percent of the time they play.

Also, so long as money isn't on the line, cheating is less of an issue. It doesn't go away--with kids, especially, I suspect that sometimes people cheat just to not lose, or to pump up their rating or whatever. I don't care about my rating, and losing is just learning, for me.

Personally I don't spend a lot of time on each game. I treat it like any friendly OTB (over the board, i.e. real life face to face) game. I play correspondence chess mostly for fun and also for improvement. I have so many games going at once (about 30 here, another 30 at RedHotPawn.com, and maybe a dozen or two email games) that losing a single game is never going to break my heart. So if someone is cheating me, so what? Just so long as I'm not aware of it, and so having my sense of fun spoiled, I figure the cheater is mostly just hurting themselves.

 

Well, it is not so much the three days, since mostly I wouldn't have time for a "whole game in a sitting" very often, whereas I can squeeze in a minute or two between emails when it becomes my turn.  In fact, on two occasions now, I won on time since my opponents were away from their computers for a few days (and hadn't done the "vacation" thing) so that was unfortunate and the wins were not very satisfying.  I'd actually like a feature where the likely winner can opt to say, "it's OK, give them a few more days."  But I was just curious, more on a sociological level, whether most players here presume some sort of honor system about not relying on external analysis tools and just using the old (no longer the most powerful chess computer) noggin.  An analogy might be made to distance learning.  As soon as grades become a consideration, you end up with some sort of live, f2f "test center" so that the school/university can be confident you aren't having your friend the expert answer the test questions for you.  Right now I've mostly played with family and so we aren't worried someone "going postal" about this -- but suppose for example that some players started betting on the games.  A sad reality of human nature is that, once the pots become large enough, at least a few will be tempted to "cheat" in this way.  For others, perhaps just wanting to say they have a "high rating" will be enough temptation.  Anyway, I was just curious about the sociology of this factor.

I know it might not seem like much of an improvement, but when you create a new game, you can select 1 day in the 'time per move' drop down.  Hey, its better than 3 :)

However I do see your point that the time period of more than a few minutes or hours can seem excessive. Chess.com is working on a solution for this exact problem--we'll be releasing a live chess game very soon that will be as close to face to face as you can get.  Hang in there!

 

Sorry for my ignorance -- what's "otb"?  Anyway, thanks for the comments.  My sons play but more likely to play this way since they are all grown up and don't live at home.  They introduced me to this site.

 

well my main problem with otb is nobody plays here , wife hates it son thinks its sad so do mates, you have to put in quite an effort to be "ok" at chess and you need to love the game to put the effort in.but i`m seriously considering going to the local club if it still exists just to get some face to face games , i`ll let you know how i get on,an aside ,you do get to play more games online aswell ....