Does anyone know how to detect chess cheats?

Does anyone know how to detect chess cheats?

I detected one in a Swiss blitz tournament about a week ago. And those are the places you'll typically find them.

The first step is look at the rating. Unless people are just full on speed chess addicts, they will typically play a good amount of rapid. So the ratings might be 100-200 points way. But my opponent had a low elo and was somehow beating everyone at the tournament even people 300 points above him.

The second step is to look at the win rate. If I had been playing someone who was like that but really skilled with a reasonable win rate, I would have just let it go. But this dude was winning 75% of the games he had ever played. And that looked extremely suspicious considering that even some top masters only win about 60% percent. He had a 60-15 record and a 45-11 record in rapid and blitz respectfully.

By this time, I was suspecting. But I wanted to play the game first. So, I did.

The third step is tricky. You have to just watch how they play, their move speed, and the quality of moves. I've played against a lot of 800s and this guy was the odd one out. He played each move between 5-9 seconds and the second he got a little advantage, he just started obliterating me. The mate was some ridiculous checkmate in 4.

After the game, I was sending him good game and then I thought about step 4 reviewing the game and then check accuracy. I saw the accuracy of a lot of his games. 90%+. For my game, and the past 5 tournament games. That's when I knew he was cheating.

I was honestly kind of pissed because that cheater cost me a medal in the arena. Nevertheless, I reported him soon after and he was banned about 30 minutes later.

The perception of cheating levels is orders of magnitude more than the actual amount.

https://support.chess.com/article/648-what-do-i-need-to-know-about-fair-play-on-chess-com

https://www.chess.com/article/view/online-chess-cheating

https://www.chess.com/article/view/chesscom-update-november-2024#FairPlay

The site closed more than 70,000 accounts in September for fair play violations and has a full team of staff working on reports along with some automated systems for detection.

https://www.chess.com/article/view/fair-play

That said, discussions of cheating, potential cheating, or cheat detection are not allowed in the general forums. If you want to discuss join the following club

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