My view on cheating & smurfing

Hello, I am ChessBadger360.

After reflecting on my previous post I had a follow up thought.

Cheating & Smurfing are reasonably common in the chess community, and, whereas I am not an expert, and whereas I have done no in depth analysis as to why this is, I have an idea about why it might be so.

Because it is encouraged, unintentionally, but actively encouraged.

Consider this; back before we had computers lots of people played OTB chess, and they did it, oftentimes at their own expense in the form of club memberships or fees. They didn't cheat, they played for either the love of the game, or, for a very small percentage, for money.

It was an exceptionally small overall percentage because chess, back in the day, didn't pay very much, even at the highest levels. If you were not an internationally recognized GM (and the Russians had a near lock on that), then you just didn't make alot of money from chess.

Still, people played it, loved it, and created memorable and meaningful moments in their lives.

However, in recent years, by which I mean the past ten years, things seem to be changing.

Back in the pre-computer era, if you found yourself in a clearly lost position you would just resign and start a new game. I am certain many players, including myself, still do. 

You didn't play clearly lost positions until the bitter end, you didn't burn up your time clock out of spite, you just started a new game.

Because winning wasn't the ultimate goal you were trying to achieve (unless you were part of that small elite group that were trying to make a career out of chess), you were trying to enjoy a fun game within your social circle.

As a general rule of thumb, playing a lost position to the bitter end isn't precisely what I would call fun so, in my circle at least, nobody did it without cause.

Nowadays, however, a strong trend as begun that encourages players of the lower ratings to not resign, but to play until the bitter end, even if the only hope is that their opponent will blunder.

What, in my mind, this philosophy teaches, is that winning is the most important thing.

In fact, winning is so important, increasing your rating is so important, that all the streamers and online coaches stress that low rated players should never resign no matter how clearly, in the player's pov, a position is lost.

This means that low rated players will agonize and struggle through terrible positions hoping for a win. They will spend a good chunk of time staring at lost positions pushing themselves to the limit trying to find something that might not even exist.

Now lets reflect on what this means.

 My interpretation, flawed though it may very well be, is that this "never-resign" philosophy puts players of unexceptional talent in a bind. They want to enjoy chess, but the philosophy emphasizes winning or fun; but they cannot win except through lots of time and effort. Time and effort which still will not guarantee success, it will just guarantee consistently more challenging games.

Now some players will thrive in this; but I daresay those players would thrive anyway because they already have the killer instincts and the innate talent and the internal drive to thrive in a highly competitive environment.

For those that don't, it will be a frustrating battle.

Personally, I enjoy games between 1100 - 1300. After that, I enjoy the games less and less. My wins work against me by insuring the next game is incrementally more difficult than the last.

I believe, for a casual non-competitive player, both smurfing and cheating are attempts to solve this problem. If winning is, indeed, the most important thing - so much so that players are taught to endure the frustration and aggravation of fighting until the bitter end,  then it makes sense to cheat. It makes sense to smurf.

Smurfing drops your rating to a level you can start consistently winning at.

Cheating also makes logical sense as it allows you to keep winning even against ever increasing and superior competition.

Now, cheating is wrong, m'kay. Please do not cheat. Not because its wrong because of the TOS, but because I, personally, hate playing against engines. I do not even like playing the 800 rated bots on this site. I didn't do anything mean to you so please don't be mean to me.

Smurfing is absurd, and shouldn't even be a thing. Unless someone wants to get into some kind of low rated matchups on a live stream, and then it is unethical and borderline cheating. Kinda like a professional athlete joining a high school football team.

However, while I have, in fact, peaked in the 1500's on some of my accounts on this site, my true skill level is probably only 1300 or so. Which would explain why I enjoy casual games rated 1100 - 1300. My opponents still have winning chances, and I usually don't have to strain my brain for me to have winning chances.

In that case, smurfing is just an absurd solution to an absurd problem. As a casual player who has no intention of "gitting gud", then it would be nice to have my rating capped within a certain range.

As far as cheating; what would you expect if, on one hand players are taught winning is the most important outcome, while at the same time promising the players ever-increasing and more difficult challenges.

Maybe something should be done that allows players to select their own, personal, level of growth and the level of challenges they want to play against, rather than putting a player in a position where things just keep getting harder.

Some players, maybe even most players, love the current system and never want it to change.

But the chess community, and even the game itself with all the new variants, is growing and evolving. Maybe new ways to evaluate a player's desired rating needs to evolve with it.

Will my thoughts on this help combat cheating online? I dunno. I just believe that, while policing is vitally necessary, if the root causes of cheating can be addressed perhaps it can be prevented before it even begins.

The same applies to smurfing; I can't speak for every smurf out there, but I can make my case for why I smurf. 

Naturally, all my thoughts and ideas are not applicable to the professional circuit. That is a whole different ball of wax.

Anywho, best wishes and cheers and all that.

Why would it be locked? Open and honest discussion is the best method for resolving complex issues.

at least write a tldr

Because discussions of cheating, potential cheating, or cheat detection are not allowed in the general forums.

If you would like to discuss, you can do that in the following club.

https://www.chess.com/club/cheating-forum