7 tips to spot a cheater

Every so often someone will post a "new" item to the chess forum about chess cheaters.  The thread will grow in a very typical way with people bemoaning the cheaters and others advising us all to just get over it.  Once you've read one, you've read them all.

But what we really need are tips and tricks to identify a cheater and techniques for dealing with a chess cheat. 

So to inspire others to share their insights, I'll kick off with my own list of seven signs that you may well be playing against a cheater on chess.com.

I will be most interested to read fellow chess.commer posts on useful cheat indicators as well as any clever techniques for dealing with a cheat:

1. Impatience with opponents: cheaters push their opponents to make a move, to hurry up, when the game is set to '3 days a move.'
   
   
2. Demands for a trophy: cheaters hassle you to give them a trophy for "their' great effort. It's not enough to just rack up an unbelievable rating. 
   
   
3. The personality of a software engine: it stands to reason that someone who is using a chess gaming engine to make their moves will have no personality. There is no sense with a chess cheat that they experience any real emotion about the game or have real things going on in their off-line lives that impacts their online chess play.
   
   
4. They have a higher rating than you: Well... what could be a bigger clue than this?  How can anyone explain being beaten by an opponent with a higher rating and better game play other than by the fact that they are a big, dirty cheat.  It's just so obvious...
   
   
5. Someone else has accused them of being a cheat:  it's difficult to ignore an independent claim that the person you are playing might be crooked.  After all, we all know there can't be smoke without fire.  So, for these cases, all we need to do is get the rope and find a suitable branch...
   
   
6. Their knight is always wrecking your game: I don't about you, but only a chess engine can come up with those tricky manourvres with a knight.  Only a cheat can feign such a display of virtuousity with a knight and seemingly not needing the clearly superior powers of the the queen, the rooks and the bishops. 
   
   
7. Cheats don't want to appear to be cheats: Think 'Jim Baker', think the executives of Enron.  These are the people that are just too squeaky clean for their own good.  That is, until that day arrives when everything about them explodes. Yeah!  Anyway, what this means is a person who just seems too perfect to be true, probably is.  If you can't spot some kind of natural kinks in their presentation, play or participation, then be extremely suspicious indeed!!