Hi,
I found your web site very entertaining. I often cheat, but I am a bit different than what you describe. I don't always set my
chess program for
"maximum kill", there are honest players whom I respect out there, and I will often
turn my chess computer program down to "strong tournament player" or the like to give
them half a chance. I enter tournaments all the time, and I don't want to monopolize them, only
win once in awhile. Winning everytime would just make me a big target, and ics's would crack
down on me. For me it is all about control, if I see a player whom I respect greatly I will say
hey it is his turn to win, I won last week and so I will turn my program down to just under his
level so it looks like I put up a good fight but he will win. And then I will kibitz the rest of
his games and root for him and pump him up and tell him how well he is doing etc. This helps my
own reputation, as a good sport, so when a week comes around that I feel like winning no one
will complain when I decide to blow them off the board.
When someone accuses me of cheating, when they can tell I am using a program, I take it as a personal screw up ( how did I l screw up and let them find out? ) and will "turn the other cheek", the next time I play them, I will make 1 or 2 moves and then resign and then say something like " There. Crybaby. There you go. Are you happy now? you won. I hope your happy. Go win the tournament."
This will plant doubts in their mind, and think maybe I was a legitamate player, and they will feel guilty from then on. If you detect that they don't feel guilty, then you should show them no mercy and make sure you destroy them by an embarrassing margin when you meet them again. My rule of thumb is to let an honest strong player beat you twice for every one time you decide to beat him.
He should not bitch too strongly if you follow this rule. But definately show no mercy to anyone who accuses you of cheating. You have spent time and effort building your reputation, a jerk like this we cannot tolerate.
My advice to fellow cheaters:
1) keep quiet for the most part- do not become a chatterbox. Most good chess players do not talk much during games and tournaments, and you should follow their lead.
2) Work hard on your reputation- make friends with tournament hosts and try to build your reputation as a very strong honest good-sport player. This will give you leverage when some jerkoff really pisses you off and you need to destroy him and then gloat about it.
3) When you are accused of cheating- Act like nothing is wrong, keep your cool. Just go about your business of embarrasing him. If he is a real prick, it might help to let him win the first week so he will look like a jerk for accusing you. No one will believe him that you are cheating if you let him win. You must have patience, you will destroy him later. Just keep the game close but let him win.
4) If you run into a fellow cheater- If you have your chess computer set for "maximum kill" and someone still beats you, they are 99% for sure a fellow cheater. You need to make friends with them. Then the next time you run into them in a tournament, you need to work out deals so that I win this week, you win the next week, etc. Do not get into a war with them. Ex: My chess computer can beat your chess computer etc. You may just be surprised, there is always someone out there with a faster computer than you, with a bigger wallet etc. that can afford stronger, more up-to-date software than you can.
5) Try to minimize accusations- If you have a really bad week, when even the host starts to wonder if you are a cheater, you need to keep a low profile, and lose to anybody within a few hundred ratings points of you. Do not spend much time and effort rebutting accusers, a simple joke or brush-off will do. You don't want to over-do it, and draw attention to yourself. Use this time to build your good reputation, you will need that later.
My favorite line: I guess SO AND SO ( fill in name ) thinks that no human can beat him. Or: "Thanks for the compliment, but I think a computer could have beaten you much quicker than I did"
6) A word on one-minute games- Usually this will only happen in a tournament you decide to win, someone will accuse you of cheating and demand you to play a one-minute game with them, so if you are using a chess-program you won't have enough time to enter all the moves in. Just say: "Too bad this isn't a one-minute tournament, or else we could have had the chance" or "If I didn't have such a crappy mouse, I would take you up on your offer" This isn't really a great answer, will definately cut some ice...but there is no real good way to respond to this particular challenge. You will have to bite-the-bullet on this one, or be creative and come up with your own good response, a real cheater's nightmare.
7) What not to say:- You will be found out to be a cheater if you slip up and say any of the following ( So don't say any of these for sure )
A) My mind thinks like a program
B) "Now you got me pissed, I needed to lose a few games to get motivated and kick butt"
C) "I teach chess", or "I am a chess coach" or " I just took a job at my local chess club as a chess teacher"
8) When chess enthusiests ask you for advice:- Tell them "books,books, books"
"read many chess books" "work first on becoming good at end-games".....
while
they are spending days reading chess books like the stupid idiots that they are, we will be
taking the easy road to glory!
DISHONESTJERK
Sun Jan 30 2000 20:30:53
DISHONESTJERK, you fit the profile alright. You want to control what people should be thinking of you, how people should be behaving towards you, how others should be praising you, how your ICS ratings (and chess status that comes along with it) should be and how your chess game should be. Your goals are exactly like other cheaters': your tactics only differ from other cheaters by dosage, form and implementation. You're pretty arrogant on top of that. You're the cry-baby here: you can't play without tactically planned assistance. You're just like all the cheaters on ICSes: you miss the whole point of joining an ICS and of playing chess on the internet. As long as you cheat, you'll never be certain of the rating you deserve and the progress you could achieve on your own. In your email, you talk about "respect" and "friend" when all your behaviours are not respectable, cannot promote nor lead to friendships. You can't have real friends by lying to all these people all the time. If you want respect, be respectable. If you want friends, act like one. You use artificial means and rigged conditions to get/achieve things (good sport reputation, respect, friend, glory, etc...) that can only be obtained, felt, lived when accomplished through natural means and within normal and natural conditions.
The more you calculate, control and plan your cheating, the more you become a consenting accomplice of your psychological distortions, a co-operative hostage of your own falseness and estrangement: you are a counterfeit of the people you "respect". By misinforming, fooling, lying to people around you all the time, you take away from yourself a part of your own reality. You can't live your very true feelings since you're disconnected from your genuine emotions. You are incapable of authenticity because you are disconnected from your sensitive experiences. You tell people things that you don't live. You live things that you don't tell them. You do things that are the inverse of what you say to others. You say things that are the inverse of what you do.
Only pathological liars are able to sustain time after time, month after month, year after year a psychological and emotional detachment, split between their reality and the human reality around them.
Doctor Unclear,
A few years ago I discovered chess on the internet. The very first site I came to was caissa.com. I signed up, played for a while and thought it was great. But my rating was a mere **00. I thought that I could make people think that I am really good by using *censored*.
*censored* though was only capable of **00 strength, but it was better than the rating I had. (...) Time went on and I later used *censored*. That *censored* got a **00 rating. I felt just great! These people really suck and they can't beat me!! Wrong -- They can't beat the chess program I was using.
Later I found out about the *an ICS1* and was really excited about being able to play against (GM)s and meet truly legendary chess players. I thought to myself "Why not try the program here?"; I did. (...). I was busted cheating for the first time on this server and I went down like a ton of bricks. Breaking out in a sweat, shaking, I lost the offensive and found myself on the defensive. I could not really say much because I knew I would be lying. (...)
I ditched that account because I got a (C) added onto that name which bothered me. I wanted to continue to be a master chess player! Oops -- I mean I wanted to continue watching my computer program be at master level. I got another account, cheated there, and then later got busted again.
By this point in time, I would say a few months had passed since I had discovered internet chess and found myself flying over to yet another server. My next victim was *an ICS2*. I was later busted and 'nuked' from the server. I still felt great though! Look at all that I was accomplishing; oops -- again, I mean look at all that my computer was accomplishing. I flew back and forth to the servers mentionned above a couple more times to (C)heat and, if i recollect right, *an ICS3* was a victim of me as well.
In 1999, I had come to realize that what in fact I was doing was somewhat 'not right'. The people who did not cheat worked hard for the ratings they had and were probably quite proud of them; then a chump like me comes along and takes them away. It just wasn't right. I had thought that my cheating career was over. I was able to use *censored* which could not be detected (...). I was invincible, or was I? (...) I got busted again.
There were several more cases in which I cheated that are not mentioned in the above. I could go on here but I don't want to.
It is now february 2000 and I have been cheat free for a long time. I find it absolutely terribly frustrating when I lose to a computer cheater: it hurts a lot. That adds to my previous guilt. I gave it up.
IMO, cheaters will never care. Never. Cheaters will never changed. They won't listen to what others have to say. I don't think any will listen to whatever you might want to tell them. They have to do it all on their own. (...) Cheaters hurt themselves as well as others by doing this. They will only change when they will realize that, deep inside and for themselves, just like I did.
I personnally didn't care and never cared about the people I fooled and abused while I was cheating. I beat people senselessly in many games and never had any thoughts about them. I took away hundreds of rating points from others. After a while I realized what I did and what I had not accomplished: it made me feel bad. (...)
Cheaters only do this to be recognized, they feel they need attention, to be noticed. (...)
While I was cheating, I even skimmed over your own homepage; it had no impact on me whatsoever.
What helped me to stop was that cheating just got boring; I was going to go back and try it again, but then I realized at a deeper level what I had done and how it had affected me and others. I just got into (...) and I guess that also helped me stop.
(...)
The problem now is that there are ways now to go 100% undetected. It's easy: I could get a 2*00 rating in blitz and bullet without being even accused. Even today with the best detectors, I would easily get away with it. I could cheat and no one would know it. When I cheated, I made plans on how (...) ! It worked 100% of the time.
(...)
I still feel sorry for what I did and I hope my own testimony in your homepage will make others think about what they are doing to themselves and to others. I'm not sure it will anyways ... but who knows?
Tue Feb 8 2000 20:49:27
