Dear Sir,

I remember the day my dad taught me to play chess, I believe I was 7 years old. He showed me how the "horsie" jumped. He showed me the scholastic 4 move check mate. He showed me the basic strategies of pawns out and knights out first, then castle quick etc. We have all been there.

The game gave me great joy and I was very competitive. I started playing against some friends and it wasn't really about the chess as much as it was about having a great time, bonding with your friends, showing off what you know and fighting to be the one who is "better than the other" at chess. Isn't this what this game is all about? At professional levels it's different but still there is always the love of the game and that passion.

Years passed and a friend who played online "shoot em up" games suggested that I play a game of "shoot em up" online with him. So I went to the web site "www.zone.com" and among the list of games I saw "CHESS". This is how it all began.

I immediately became interested and started playing chess frequently. The memories were coming back and it was great to play 1 minute chess and 5 minute chess against other people around the world. Months passed and I was at about the 1600 level at the zone, which is about 1300-1400 on any other chess server.

I was frustrated, mad and not improving. *handle* sent me a message and said "I know a way to cheat and gain rating points. Want to join me?" I said sure, thinking this might be my ticket to happiness within the world of chess since I had been stuck at 1600 for some time hoping to magically improve so that I could get the same status as I had seen the other high rated people on the zone received.

He told me how to create accounts and come back and resign to each other, so we did and my rating inflated to 2200. I thought this would give me some status and joy within the world of chess. I WAS WRONG.

The reasons I started coming to the Internet to play chess were no longer alive. I would only come and show off my rating and cuss out the occasional "rookie" who would say "Hey, how did you get that 2200 rating, do you cheat? Blahblah..."

I grew more and more unhappy as the lies piled up. Another friend said "Hey, buy Chess Master 5000, switch windows and feed the move into the game and you will cheat with it, it's great". I thought "wow, what a great idea". If I started playing games I could become someone and all the cheat accusations would quiet down if they saw me win.

I got Chess Master 5000 and did just this. The lies were piling up and the artificial rating grew. I became even more unhappy but tried to convince myself that I would play the same moves Chess Master suggested anyway. I told myself that Chess Master was just there to remind me of the move I was going play anyway, which of course was not true at all.

I finally couldn't stand being in the spotlight for something I wasn't doing and I took my Chess Master out and broke it in two pieces and threw it away. I was starting the honest life as a chess player, created a new account, played completely honest and got about a 1700 level rating. I was pretty happy how things were going with my Internet chess life. But eventualy I started to lose to people who I honestly believe were computer cheaters and I was going through a slight slump. I was becoming more and more angry.

I played a man called *handle* who was about 2300 and he kicked my ass about 10 times in a row. I was getting frustrated. So I tried a dirty cheat trick by setting my clock to 2 hours instead of 2 minutes, which we had been playing. He wasn't mad and simply asked me to stop cheating like that. We started chatting and became very good friends. He is not a computer abuser and he is now an IM with nearly 2500 elo.

I started to play some others and got frustrated. I was losing to people lower rated, who I truly believe cheated with a computer etc. So I asked my friend my new internet friend who had kicked my ass several times to log in and play some games for me and kick that persons ass. He said fine.

This went on as I "watched" myself kick some ass. The feeling was great, better than Chess Master 5000, it was a human playing. It could be me playing, not him. I started to ask him to play more and more for me and my rating went up to about 2300 zone rating. Then I finally decided that this was enough and that I needed to go back and start over again as an honest chess player.

I finally learned after all this "cheating" around that if I wasn't good enough for myself I could never be good enough for anyone else. If I couldn't live with my 1700 rating then I would only be playing to please others and be someone in the Internet chess world. That is the particular danger...

(...)

I quit coming for reasons I started playing... the love of the game, competition against others, bonding with others. I didn't play, I just sat and watch others do the dirty work for me. I couldn't take credit for what others have done for me. I DIDN'T COME TO HAVE FUN ANYMORE. I CAME TO SHOW OFF MY RATING BECAUSE I COULDN'T STAND TO BE MYSELF. When I finally realized this, I finally realized a life long lesson.

(...)

I do not cheat anymore and never will as long as a live. I can honestly say this. I have really learned something from all this. To Be myself. To Play for myself. To Be happy with my rating. Accept the rating I have. ACCEPT MYSELF AND WHO I AM.

Cheating is wrong because you always end up at square one again; after all the hours and hours of cheating, you have only fooled yourself. We all heard the quote "cheaters only cheat themselves": I heard it many times myself but I had to learn the hard way. I had to see for myself before I could truly understand the meaning behind these words.

People get frustrated having played a cheater and start to question their abilities, so they turn to the easy way out (use of a chess computer or friend) to inflate their ratings. They extend the vicious cycle of cheating; they don't see another alternative.

(...)

Now, I come to ICS servers for more productive reasons than I once did. I got involved in some real world activities and sports and got away from the fantasy illusion of internet chess. I now use ICS servers to sit down for a 10 0 or 15 0 or study a game or take a lesson. My life is in better balance now than when I was a cheater. Im much happier as a chess player and as a person too.

Sat, 28 Jul 2001 16:44:57 -0700
Message-Id: <150D30D8B7385D1168150005B81E66C9@*censored*.com>