Subtle way of cheating in live chess

In an OTB game, the main purpose is to determine who is the better player, and award prizes based on that. Players pay money to enter tournaments. If you are a professional, your rating could determine your income. These games are absolutely serious. In short, these games are a test to measure your playing strength.

In an online game, the main purpose is to learn. The outcome of the game will have absolutely no impact on anything except our pride. You won't win $1000; you won't increase your income; you won't get a GM norm. In fact, if you are using a nickname, nobody knows who you are. So why play live chess if winning a game has so little impact? My answer: to learn. The exclusion of books/articles from live chess decreases its effectiveness as a tool for improvement.

No, the purpose of an exam is to measure or test your knowledge. The main purpose of online games is to learn. Note this concept of testing versus learning.

If chess.com really wanted to use live chess as a measurement tool, rather than a learning tool, then that's up to them. But I believe the entire site is mainly devoted to learning. If you really wanted to test your skills, there are tons of tournaments out there. There are FIDE, USCF, CFC ratings and more. We don't need another online rating that's probably inaccurate anyways.

What "benefit" are you referring to? I've just explained that winning online games gives us no benefit -- we don't win prizes, we don't get IM/GM norms, we don't increase our OTB ratings, nothing. Just a meaningless rating attached to our online nickname.

Think about it: there's a reason why you learn much more from correspondance games.

You like to distort what I say don't you? Of course you won't learn much if you just copy blindly. Who said anything about copying blindly? I'm talking about real learning. Perhaps someone wrote an article on chess.com that you remember contains advice concerning a specific type of position -- would you ignore that and play on, and wait for your next opportunity to practice those ideas? Or would you reinforce those ideas on the spot right now?

Imagine this scenario: you are playing a live game of chess. You reach a position that can be very instructive. You'd like to practice this position with ideas presented from an article you read on chess.com, but you can't recall the details. You'd like to reinforce those ideas. You could either:

1) Play the game as usual, and come back to look over it later after consulting the article. Of course, now you've lost the opportunity to practice the CORRECT ideas against a real opponent. You'll have to wait for the next opportunity, whenever it arises, hoping that you can recall the details next time.

2) Consult the article, and take the opportunity to practice and reinforce the ideas right now. You could STILL go over the game afterwards. This way, you reinforce concepts as they arise.

My first point: To improve, we need a combination of practice and study. Roughly speaking, choice 1) allows you to study, while choice 2) allows you to practice AND study.

My second point: Prohibiting the use of resources allows you only choice 1). However, allowing the use of articles/books allows you to CHOOSE between 1) and 2), depending on what you feel would better suit your learning style and other factors.

What is your opinion after considering these two points above?

If chess.com rules allowed for such resources, then he/she obviously wouldn't assume so. Obviously, you shouldn't lie to your opponent, but if it's understood that everyone is trying to learn, and use of articles is a possibility, then really I see no moral issues.

SukerPuncher333> What is your opinion after considering these two points above?

My opinion of anyone who does the above is very low, since they violated the rules we agreed to when we began the game.

SukerPuncher333> if it's understood that everyone is trying to learn, and use of articles is a possibility, then really I see no moral issues.

If the rules allowed it there would be no moral issues. However, I suspect fewer people would want to play live chess with those terms.

"In an online game, the main purpose is to learn"

Says who?

If you want to use reference material, play those arenas where such is permitted.  If you play live chess, whether it's blitz of standard, it's you your mind alone playing against your opponent and (hopefully) his mind.  Period. There's no room for bartering.

So you do agree that the current rules don't favour learning?

If you decide that the primary reason for this site should NOT be learning chess, then that's another story, and what you said above would make sense. But I'm saying: if you want to benefit the most from live chess, then consulting resources would greatly help. Are we on the same page now?

Please take my comments into context. I never encouraged anyone to violate any rules. You are going on a tangent and ignoring my central point, which is: if resources like articles aren't allowed, then the effectiveness of live chess as a learning medium becomes reduced.

While every game of chess can be a learning experience, I couldn't disagree more that the Main Purpose of online chess is to learn.  The main purpose is to simply play a game, especially in live chess.  While maybe in theory it's true, in all practicality it's really not ultimately up to chess.com whether "live" chess permits use of reference material.  The rules are pretty much dictated.  We could say it's ultimately up to chess.com whether or not to allow draws, but in all practicality, not allowing draws wouldn't fly.

Correspondence, or in this case, turn-based, chess has rules of it's own that traditionally differ from live or OTB chess and which are pretty much part of its appeal for many of the players. Use of reference material is part of this tradition, and not to allow reference material in turn-based games wouldn't fly in practice.

yeah

That's a very good point. I didn't think of that. Thank you

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I think it depends on how you view the game you're playing. Either it’s a case of honor and respect between players, or it's a learning experience. If these views are in contrast between white and black (get it?) then you better hope your opponent doesn’t find out.

 That's why the best exams are open book ;)

btw, I agree about it being unlikely to help.

I don't think cheating is very prevailant here at least at the common score levels.   I can attest to the fact that I haven't had any problems with cheaters because I keep on winning somehow.  If they are cheating I would be losing.  Certainly it probably happens but thank goodness it doesn't appear, to my limited time here, to be wide spread.

If someone want to cheat they will cheat.  Nothing you can do really to stop it, I don't think.  I haven't cheated so it seems like I could just get my moves from a computer chess game.

Ch

eating in chess is an issue that Chess.com takes seriously. That said, it has minimal impact on the site and shouldn't be a concern for 99.9% of players. Unfortunately, there is much more paranoia about the topic than it actually deserves. Also, having several constant and redundant threads on the topic that circulate with the same questions and comments over and over again isn't helpful, and instead causes people to worry more than they need to. We have posted FAQs below that should address all questions on the topic. We have posted the Chess.com FAQs and policies here:http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/chesscom-policy-on-cheating
 
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