Chess.com's cheat detection system & unresolved bugs since 2024.

[u/Ema_non]

A player has been reporting possible problems with Chess.com’s sandbagging detection since 2024, and is still posting examples in chess.com's Cheating Forum. Danny mentioned the thread in the latest Q&A, and Chess.com’s response to a Q&A submission said a fix should arrive “in a month or so”. https://www.reddit.com/r/Chesscom/comments/1w1pli1/state_of_chesscom_qa_submissions/

Here’s my understanding of the timeline:

• The original reports include claims that the system’s checks for players far below their peak rating before tournaments aren’t working as intended, as well as examples of players repeatedly resigning quickly in very short games.
• The forum OP says Chess.com spent roughly the first 18 months asking for more examples. The thread now contains several hundreds of examples.
• In December last year, Chess.com said it was actively working on the issues.
• In February, staff said a solution was expected around mid-year. 3 months ago when that deadline passed, Chess.com said they would provide a revised timeline, but we are still missing the updated timeline.
• The OP is still posting examples, and the promised fix is still missing along with a new timeline.

Does this kind of issues reasonably take this long to investigate and address?

Some points the OP is making: If there are known bugs in the cheat detection system, why should we trust the reported numbers by chess.com? Sandbagging is mainly causing problems for low rated players, why would new chess players prefer chess.com over eg lichess? Chess.com lack "communication skill", eg sparse communication in the thread, broken promises. Was it ok by chess.com to keep asking for more examples for 18 months or so?

[u/JimFive]

False positives are a big issue. How can you tell if someone is sandbagging or tilted? Falsely accusing someone of cheating is worse than allowing some cheaters to get away with it longer. 

[u/Ema_non → u/JimFive]

He posted examples of 2000 rating drops that chess.com failed to detect. Hundreds of games in a row with quick resigns. It's nothing but sandbagging that chess.com failed to detect.

The too far from a recent peak before tournaments is also buggy. He posted many examples were they are allowed in tournaments.

[u/JimFive → u/Ema_non]

None of which addresses the issue of false positives. Writing a detection system that catches sandbagging without flagging slumps is going to be very difficult. 

[u/goodguyLTBB → u/JimFive]

You don’t need it to be perfect, but there needs to be at least a very minimum number of blatancy that mustn’t be ignored

[u/Yadin__ → u/goodguyLTBB]

Imagine playing while drunk or tilted and being banned for literally being too bad lol

[u/goodguyLTBB → u/Yadin__]

There are many documented cases where lichess actually does do something similar (albeit it’s usually a warning first). I do think that everything needs a limit but if you resign in like 10 games in a row within 15 moves, I am sorry, I don’t think you are trying to win.

[u/-n-e- → u/goodguyLTBB]

I did several blitz binges where I lost 200 points in an evening, including games where I resigned after a few moves after stupid blunders or misclicks, I didn’t even get the warning.

[u/Ema_non → u/JimFive]

What could 100 games in a row resigned on move 1 or 2 be other than sandbagging? What false negative are you talking about? Do you think it needs a human review? Do you think a 2000 rating drop in a day from an established rating peak needs human review? What false positive could it be?

The OP in Cheating Forum keeps posting blatant examples.

The too far from a recent peak check is not to ban the player, but stop the player to enter a tournament.

[u/Away-Neck1843 → u/Ema_non]

I came across a bot network the other day. Game history was full of repeated fool's mate losses to other bots. Seemed like they were distribution points to other bots before the system would ban them.

If they can't detect something as obvious and trivial as that...

(edit: I'm talking about strings of 3-move losses to the same players at the 2300+ level)

[u/Rushhhhhhh]

Cheating in chess is hard to find, bottom line. I think it’s pretty obvious that chess.com anti cheat is probably ok, but nothing spectacular or count on. I’ve cheated on chess.com and lichess. Both fail to detect it.

[u/hdhkakakyzy]

Yeah. Because chess.com's cheating detection is voodo. It's made up.

[u/Creepy_Future7209 → u/hdhkakakyzy]

Can we at least be honest lol? Chesscom definitely hammers down on cheating. Just not perfectly. I report consistently and I do get points refunded. So do many others.

[u/Ok-Rabbit8455 → u/Creepy_Future7209]

Wow, we can criticize the website and it does have its shortcomings, the real blame falls on the users. They’re just too too many people cheating and doing harmful things in chess.

[u/Ema_non → u/Ok-Rabbit8455]

You cannot only blame users/cheaters. Chess.com did know about issues for years without fixing them, so we should blame chess.com too.

[u/KevinCubano → u/hdhkakakyzy]

What do you mean by this? I’ve gotten numerous messages saying my opponent cheated and my rating points were returned. It obviously works to some extent, if a bit delayed

[u/Ok-Rabbit8455 → u/KevinCubano]

That’s correct. Largely it’s a matter of how someone cheats. So if they’re using in browser extension, they’re likely going to be caught. However, using secondary device makes it very hard to be caught, especially if they’re savvy enough to not play the number one move over and over.

[u/Positive-Wear-9537]

Some time ago I used a primitive bot slopping stockfish first line moves and chesscom could not detect it, while lichess was detecting after a coule of games. I doubt anything changed since and I wouldn't take seriously anything issued by chesscom pr department.

[u/Ema_non → u/Positive-Wear-9537]

I don't trust anything they say. Not anymore.

[u/bulovalunar → u/Positive-Wear-9537]

Then again chesscom uses IP bans while lichess doesnt

[u/placeRing → u/bulovalunar]

Io band are useless

[u/Positive-Wear-9537 → u/bulovalunar]

Lichess bans digital fingerprint which is more effective method than just ip bans

[u/n1000]

This isn't chess.com customer support.

[u/Ema_non → u/n1000]

It's not the purpose. The purpose is to show how chess.com handles known issues in their cheat detection.

They known about the issues for years without taking action.