Are Tournaments full of cheaters?

Just played 4 games in a Rapid 10/0 Arena Tournament.

2 out of the 4 games I faced opponents who played almost all of their moves in between 6 and 15 seconds, regardless of the position. They both had an accuracy of 95% despite only being rated 1000-1050 in Rapid.

Is it normal for Tournaments to be full of cheaters or am I just unlucky meeting 2 in 4 games.

For context, my opponent played 21 best moves, 6 excellent moves 3 good and 6 book moves. (and yes 0 inaccuracies, mistakes, misses, or blunders)

Update: one of them already got banned, within 10 minutes of the game :')

Unfortunately YES... this is very common....and sad indeed. On a good day in a tournament you only get 1 cheater out of 5 games. It really discourages one from playing in a tournament. And still....I keep returning to the 10 min rapid tournaments with a hope to play on equal terms.

I actually don't think cheaters are that common at all; granted, more of them will be attracted to playing in specific tournaments due to possible prizes or recognition etc. but most players play fairly. What you can do to help deter encountering these cheater-filled events, is enter chess.com events less likely for cheaters to join. Events with real prizes of some kind obviously attract people to be unfair. Events with some qualifications to join (like account must be 6 months old, or have a certain number of games played already) help deter cheaters because they usually don't have time to fairly meet those requirements as cheaters tend to be recurring members who get banned and try to create a new account.

Cheating discussion isn't allowed in the general forums though. Instead, you can discuss freely in this chess.com club for this purpose:

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

If you want advice on how to spot cheaters, this video I recently made might help:

I was discussing tournaments, because if they are full of cheaters that means I will avoid playing them in the future.

Its common knowledge that tournaments are full of cheaters. Not sure what Kaiba is talking about.

Also, not so fast Kaiba!

"Not so fast Kaiba" means you know Yugioh references xD

As for the cheaters situation, I do know what I'm talking about because I've played in many chess.com tournaments. Yes, I've occasionally run into account closed for fair play, but I've also had the majority be fair events. With all due respect, how would you know what this is like @RatkoGavrilo ? Your account is literally 4 hours old Not to call you out, but sounds like this isn't your first account

While there have been cases of chess tournament cheating, it is inaccurate to argue that they are rife with them. Most participants follow the rules and play honorably, and organizers take precautions to avoid cheating, such as monitoring players and their equipment with technology. Cheating is an issue in every competitive activity, but it does not define the game or its participants. However, in my experience, cheaters only cheat THEMSELVES. (i cheat btw jk jk).

I had a foul mouth and trying my best to not do the same mistake, man. Just anger management issues, really. I closed my old account for a clean slate thats all.

Yugioh is love.

All right, fair enough. Best of luck with the clean slate.

As for Yugioh, yes it was a good show

I think some tournaments on Chess.com attract more cheaters than others, just because the time controls make it possible. I play more 10 minute tournements than others because I find the time-frame allows me to better evaluate. The pairing of players has changed in the past couple of months, so I don't come across so many lower rated players playing unbelievable moves. I generally reported them, and in many cases got my points back.
If you want to fully avoid cheaters then you could try 5 minute, or better yet 3 minute, time controls. Otherwise, I suggest reporting them and hope they get bored with the cheating and move on to somewhere else.

This is why you should play over the board tournaments and not online tournaments.

Over the board, you have possession of a phone or your phone rings and it's an automatic forfeiture! Rules are a lot stiffer in person than online.

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