Is this cheating?

You were not cheating if it said the general concept. If it said about the exact position you have then it would be. If it said about philidor position, and you happened to be in that position, it would be less seriously cheating, but still cheating.

I totally agree- not cheating. Do not grand masters have the benefit from a team of analysist during breaks?

Take things 'out of theory' with a novel move, opening explorer will find no matching games, and they will be forced to wonder what you are planning.
Maybe :)

Everyone has an opinion on what is allowed and not allowed, or what is cheating or not cheating, the Circle of Trust plays by its own rules and principles, and anything you cannot do when you are playing "face to face" is not allowed when playing Group games, to Google after you have accepted the draw is OK (so you will know next time), and to advance your own knowledge, but to Google before accepting the draw is something you could not do if playing "face to face," and could be looked on as outside help in making your decision.

roundtuit wrote:

Everyone has an opinion on what is allowed and not allowed, or what is cheating or not cheating, the Circle of Trust plays by its own rules and principles, and anything you cannot do when you are playing "face to face" is not allowed when playing Group games, to Google after you have accepted the draw is OK (so you will know next time), and to advance your own knowledge, but to Google before accepting the draw is something you could not do if playing "face to face," and could be looked on as outside help in making your decision.

 Although everybody may have an opinion on what is cheating and what isn't, the rules of chess.com are quite clearly laid out and are unambiguous. These rules seem to me to be more along the lines of correspondence play rather than OTB play. So, for example, looking at databases and books on opening theory during play is allowed and is not cheating. That's not an opinion - it's quite clearly stated in the rules of chess.com as has been opinted out earlier in this thread. However, there is nothing to stop groups of people - such as circle of trust - agreeing to play by some variant of the chess.com rules. But the default chess.com position is quite clear that consulting books and databases during play (including game explorer) is allowed.

I agree with you, and that is why we have a group within a group, so there is a choice, even some of our members will play outside the group when they want to use the chess.com rules, but to test what they have learned against another player, they return to the Circle for a man to man game ( not book to book)

Is it ok to play an unrated game with computer assistance where both opponents agree?

ozzie, yes... we didn't quote the last line of the rules...

"EXCEPTION: If both players agree for the use of a chess engine in an UNRATED game then it can be allowed."

There is even a Centaur group here.  :)

But it is important to clarify that according to the rules of chess.com it was not cheating - since the rules are along the lines of correspondence chess rather than OTB tournament play. Since it is within the rules it categorically is not cheating.

wildcard wrote:

I played a game a few days ago where the following pieces were left on the board. I was white and sadly, I haven't studied the game enough to know if this was a game I could still win or not excluding a huge blunder on blacks part. I googled 'queen king rook king' and got my answer. Yes you can win if you are the queen, but since I had used google I decided to accept blacks offer for a draw. (Partly thanks to the movie Searching for Bobbie Fischer, that Oginshcille forced me to watch about offering a way out.) I honestly did not look at how to win the game but whether it was possible to win. Does it still mean I would have been cheating if I had continued the game?

PS... Thanks for all the comments and this is where white needs to put black to win. Notice that wherever black goes on it's next move, white will move the queen to mate.

 I think it is on your own consideration, if you know HOW can you win, then it would be a cheat, if you did not know before HOW to win, but if you only know that you simply CAN win somehow, it would not be such a cheat.

Dear Ethric,

I am afraid you are wrong. This is not an issue about what people think is right or wrong or about morals. The rules of chess.com are very clearly laid out and it is quite clear that consulting books or databases is allowed. So if you find yourself in an endgame (rook and pawn v rook for example) and you want to know what the principles are for winning such an ending (nevermind where it is winnable) then it is perfectly without the rules and ethos of chess.com to do so. But since so many people keep posting to this thread without reading the whole thread (resulting in us going round in cricles) here are the rules of this site:

Chess.com Rules: "You may NOT get any help from any person or any chess engine throughout the course of a game, including tablebases. You MAY use books, magazines, or other articles. You may also use computer databases (including Chess.com's Game Explorer)."

I am very glad to see that a number of Chess Players here are interested in the ethics of the play.

Wish some of our world leaders would spend more time in this area.

As to the use of material during the play of a game it is my personal opinion that I am playing the individual at on the other side of the table. Not the book or database. If you have a question you should finish the game with the knowlege you have inside your head. Then go on a learning quest to discover what you want to know.

Since there is seldom a life or death situation in chess ,it seems to me that part of the process is learning through play and often through loss.

I enjoy playing the game but would be saddened to know that players I respect for their game play are resorting to any outside input to control the outcome in any way.

If you dont know the answer to your question look it up after the game. Otherwise we might as well just play against the computer.

Is looking up the possibilities of the outcome cheating? Technically not. Buy it can and often does affect the way you move next, and that while not technically wrong, doesnt make for an honest game.

Looking up the exact moves is of course wrong.

Again I appaud all of you for looking honestly at the ethical questions surrounding the game.

Thanks and Good Luck to you all.

Ron

Any chance of dynamically linking the word cheating whenever it occurs in the forums so that it links to the section of the FAQ dealing with the rules for playing on chess.com i.e.  http://support.chess.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=17&nav=0,6 - or would that spoil the fun?

If some of this information was ALSO sent in a message to new members, at the same time as the information is displayed in the message box of the ‘greeter games’, that would be helpful too. Perhaps along the lines of:

rattusrex wrote:

I am very glad to see that a number of Chess Players here are interested in the ethics of the play.

Wish some of our world leaders would spend more time in this area.

As to the use of material during the play of a game it is my personal opinion that I am playing the individual at on the other side of the table. Not the book or database. If you have a question you should finish the game with the knowlege you have inside your head. Then go on a learning quest to discover what you want to know.

Since there is seldom a life or death situation in chess ,it seems to me that part of the process is learning through play and often through loss.

I enjoy playing the game but would be saddened to know that players I respect for their game play are resorting to any outside input to control the outcome in any way.

If you dont know the answer to your question look it up after the game. Otherwise we might as well just play against the computer.

Is looking up the possibilities of the outcome cheating? Technically not. Buy it can and often does affect the way you move next, and that while not technically wrong, doesnt make for an honest game.

Looking up the exact moves is of course wrong.

Again I appaud all of you for looking honestly at the ethical questions surrounding the game.

Thanks and Good Luck to you all.

Ron

I agree with you up to a point Ron, I think you missed the question that I had. I was torn between whether to drag the game out for another 20 or 40 moves not having any idea whether the game was actually over or not excluding one of us making a terrible blunder. I made a move, left the game to see if it was worth it to continue, not how to win, and then came back after I got my answer. In the time that it took me to find the answer my opponent had offered a draw. If I hadn't been out looking for the answer then I might have continued it thinking I could win it and say it was a rook and king vs a rook and king. It is not winnable unless one player makes a blunder.

The rules are verry clear , as is the answer . It's cheating , you did the right thing accepting the draw , now you know , next time try to win  ,it still isn't easy  to do .

i think you should have looked it up until after u had either won on your own or resigned or accetped a draw.  I think people should try to treat a game as an over the board game.

How would it be if chess.com had a Tips Window - (a bit like pop-up ads). This feature could be enabled by default for new members, but could be switched off (or restarted) at any time.

It could offer snippets from the site Help, such as: why using books and DataBases during Turn-Based Chess is not cheating - and these could appear during posting in the Forums, during game play, etc. If they could be made relevant to the current activity, that would be fantastic (but virtually impossible!)

For example,

For maximum impact, only ONE of these rules should be displayed at a time.

Maybe it isn't cheating cause the Queen can corner the opponents king. The rook is not easy to checkmate with since it can't go diagonal. 

I had a game like this.  In order to win, I practiced endgames on Fritz (not my exact game, but with queen vs. rook), using Fritz as a punching bag.  Having a very difficult time with this, I looked up an endgame study on the internet (like consulting a book), and figured out how to force this kind of endgame.  It can always be a win for the player with the queen, but it's very hard to do.

I never had Fritz play my position or think up my next move for me, nor did I have any person play my moves, therefore it wasn't cheating.  I just got a lot of help from chess literature and from sparring with an opponent.

With that being said, it's always a good idea to practice classical endgame positions and learn how to do it.  You never know what might come up.