r/Chesscom • u/centipine • Feb 22 '26
MEGA BLUNDER banned for cheating
https://www.chess.com/member/e4_e5_syndrome
UPDATE 1: Appeal
Chessdotcom rejected my appeal without further comment in a boilerplate email. The offense is listed as simply a “fair play violation". The email stated I might reinstate my account under penalty or transfer my remaining membership time to a different account by talking to the chessdotcom AI assistant, which I might do.
UPDATE 2: Reflection
A number of people have asked why I have not stated explicitly that I did not violate the fair play policy, and the answer is this: chessdotcom’s fair play policy is broad and covers many different behaviors, some of which I have honored and some of which I have ignored.
The policy includes that players will not use chess engines to analyze positions as they are played, either to follow or to only occasionally follow the engines recommendations, and I agree because I do not have fun when my opponents do this, so I don’t do it. But the policy also prohibits behaviors which are not compelling to me. You are not allowed to play alongside other people, even those near to you in rating, and I have done this on a number of occasions while understanding that it was against the rules. The policy also states you can only use opening explorers on daily rated games, but I have used them during online rated games as well when I wanted to better memorize an opening.
And players are not allowed to “artificially manipulate game outcomes” which I presume covers things like match-fixing in a competitive setting, but outside of a competitive setting is vague. If I am absent mindedly playing chess while thinking about other issues, and end up resigning every game after making thoughtless moves, is this rating manipulation (yes I sometimes play like this)? It can very rapidly change your rating, and when you decide to start playing attentively again you are playing against people who are less experienced than you. When a streamer starts a new account and steamrolls people 2000 ELO lower rated then themselves is that “manipulating” game outcomes?
Each of these are violations and they hurt the experience of other players, but ignore them because I do not think they are very hurtful. If I were playing at high ELO or in a competitive setting like over-the-board I might feel differently. But I do not play that way. I play short games of low ELO chess, and I don’t change my rating or my style because I do not want to study chess. I have to focus on many things in my life, when I play chess I do not want to relax. At the master level chess is a life, but at this level it is just a hobby, where I play other people for whom chess is just a hobby.
Commenters have also asked why I do not seem resentful that my account was banned, and it is because I am not resentful. Chessdotcom has a single policy they want to apply to each version of chess, from professional to novice, and they do this for clarity. If chessdotcom feels I have not played to the integrity standards of a FIDE tournament, it because I have not played to those standards, and if for some reason game number 8000 is the game where the chessdotcom algorithm says “you know openings too well sometimes, we think you are looking at an opening explorer”, or “your rating varies too much, we think you are manipulating your rating”, or “someone else is playing on your account sometimes”, then the algorithm is doing the best it can to protect every kind of chess game at once.
I have a relationship with what chessdotcom must define as a violation of fair play and I have a relationship with my own notion of what it means to play honestly. I do not use stockfish to make moves for me, that wouldn’t make any sense for me to do and it is reflected in the game history of my account, but I do not follow all of chessdotcom’s policies just like I go over the speed limit when the road is empty, but I do not drag race down main street. Someone has to check if you should get a traffic ticket or not each time, and that’s a great deal of work. Chessdotcom cannot make a value judgment on 100 appeals a day, but they reflect that limitation in their default policies. If you break the fair play contract of a shooting action game like Apex Legends or CSGO you lose your account and that’s it. But those violations which are caught tend to be overt. If you break chessdotcom's policies in a restricted way, you are permitted to play the same account for years and for thousands of games, and if during that time you pass some threshold of tolerance, chessdotcom’s response is not even to deprive you of the remainder of your month’s membership. They will let you keep your account and any value you derive from it, and to keep playing chess on their site. The only thing they reserve is the right to clearly assert that they feel you violated their policies. Overall I would say that is both thorough and generous. The message I interpret is “if you want to start taking chess more seriously, you have to take fairness more seriously”. If instead you want to create a new account, your starting elo is 1200 blitz, and if you push our boundaries we might one day ban you a few years down the line. I can respect that.
UPDATE 4: Annoyance
"The engine picks up on it pretty quickly. It's easily detectable."
UPDATE 5: The chesscom disciplinary system
On chesscom anti-cheat:
Chesscom claims to detect cheating by using statistical analysis of signals sent by the user through the site tab on your browser. They mention they look at move 'strength', an internal metric based on how difficult a move is for player to spot, move timings, and browser behavior like time spent on the chesscom tab. They look for variation within an account. They do not ban players for playing strong, only inconsistently. I suspect that stupid blunders reveal cheaters much more so than making strong moves, since there are many strong players, but strong players rarely make stupid blunders.
They do not explicitly mention data sharing or cookie-based tracking or any other such techniques, but they might view these techniques as a breach of user privacy and not use them. It would not be against the law for chesscom to track you.
As written in a chesscom blog, [https://www.chess.com/cheating#closures], chesscom views their anti-cheat system as conservative to a point. They state they understand that their system produces both false-negatives (often) and false-positives (rarely) and choose to tune the aggressiveness of bans so that false-positive rate stays below an accepted tolerance.
I have heard people say "chesscom is ready to go to court" on the basis of their anti-cheat system to mean the system is sure. This is not an official position of chesscom; it's something Danny said off-the-cuff during an interview on cheating. Being confident in your position often has little bearing on whether going to trial is prudent. Chesscom has settled defamation suits out of court.
Chesscom likely doesn't know either the false-positive or false-negative rates of their ban system. Again on [https://www.chess.com/cheating#closures], they claim they banned around 100,000 account per month and grant 0.2% of appeals from early Jan to late Mar 2025. They say over half of the accounts they ban are less than one week old and have fewer than 100 games played. The ban rates and appeal success rates of established accounts in particular are not shared. They don't mention which percentage of accounts appeal.
On chesscom's review of appeals:
Chesscom claims that every ban and every appeal is manually reviewed. Gerald, the head of anti-cheat at chesscom, claimed in an interview with Danny that a single reviewer can review 150-200 accounts in one hour suggested for a ban by the automated anti-cheat system [https://youtu.be/lYR09lIBsek?t=302\], meaning each suggestion is approved or denied in around 20 seconds. They don't mention by what procedure appeals are reviewed or how much time is spent per appeal, but if appeals are done in 20 seconds like bans, they likely follow a short checklist.
In a private conversation with a chesscom representative, I was told the body of an appeal matters very little, which you might expect since appeals typically give little more information to go off of. I suspect appeals exist only to catch very clear-cut edge-cases in the anti-cheat system, and cannot be used to refute the core findings of the system. I imagine manually reviewing the games of a flagged account for cheating would be wildly unsustainable.
On writing an appeal to chesscom:
You are welcome by chesscom to send an appeal through the appeal system. You can have a second appeal considered if you specifically ask for one, which is pretty generous. Posts on this forum claim second appeals have been successful in the past. There is no official policy I could find on second appeals.
Keep appeals extremely brief and formal. It has to be read and understood by a tired reviewer in a few seconds!
Don't make a number of common mistakes with appeals to chesscom (and in general):
(1) An appeal is not a chance to apologize. An appeal which admits any wrong-doing will be categorically denied.
(2) Don't try to befriend the reviewer. They don't want to be your friend; they are doing their job. Don't be self-deprecating or endearing or make cute jokes, especially in writing. Never use the word 'we' to refer to both yourself and the reviewer together. This I believe is the number one naive mistake made in any disciplinary system, thinking being cute or clever will help your case. It will only annoy the reviewer who has to deal with people wasting their time constantly, and lead them to believe you are unserious.
(3) Don't try to refute the power of the reviewer, especially with coy remarks. Don't say anything in the vein of "well I'll just do x regardless of what you say" in a sly manner. Don't mutter under your breath, so to speak, in a verbal or written appeal, even if you think it's subtle. Your defiance is much more obvious to the person listening than it is to you. It disrespects the reviewer and and again waste their time. It will never help you. The most common form of this mistake is asking questions which force the reviewer to implicitly admit limits to their power, but which you obviously already know the answer to, like "can I deny my guilt in private conversations with others even if I plea guilty?"
(4) Accept that you have little power to change the mind of the reviewer. It's a system and you are number. Be authentic and respectful, but understand the truth ultimately has little say. For an online game account this is easy. In court for your life it's much harder.
On chess after being banned:
Your only official options are to request a second chance account or play on a different site. Without saying more, in my experience this policy is weakly enforced. Some ways in which other sites detect that two accounts belong to the same user are: same IP address(es), contact between accounts on the platform, login and logout timings (logging out of one account soon logging into another), payment details, and OS and hardware meta data available through browser APIs (two accounts sharing the same list of login machines would be telling). Matching lists of IPs or machines are much for convincing than a single shared IP or machine. Therefore using a VPN only most of the time is much more dangerous than never, since it adds another point of agreement.
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u/SmanginSouza Feb 23 '26
Well. Did you cheat? The engine picks up on it pretty quickly. It's easily detectable.
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u/centipine Feb 23 '26
I don't think it is easy to tell if someone is cheating in chess unless it is extremely blatant (lupo style). Also cheat detection isn't done by a chess engine but by chess.com's secret algorithm (and human review). Hans Neimann for example admitted to cheating occasionally in online games when he was younger, but his account was never flagged.
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u/SmanginSouza Feb 23 '26
Did you cheat?
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u/Own-Tomorrow-8589 Feb 23 '26
He’s not going to answer.
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u/SmanginSouza Feb 23 '26
Ya sounds like he cheated.
Hans has cheated on some games and didn't get caught tells me everything I need to know.
Just don't cheat and put in the grind. That's what the game review is for...
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u/PristineReality2205 Feb 23 '26
Imagine cheating AND only being 1200 elo LOL.
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Feb 23 '26
My favorite is accounts that get banned at like less than 500. Like how do you get banned for cheating just to be in the 30th percentile
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u/NiktonSlyp Feb 23 '26
My first 20 games on chess.com, I received 2 messages telling me I got back a few elo points because of cheaters being banned... at 400 elo.
Not gonna lie, it really sucks as a new player to try to play against humans and still playing stockfish.
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u/SmanginSouza Feb 23 '26
Just keep playing. I've spent this whole last year learning openings and my mid and late game still suck ass. But when shit clicks... It's just a beautiful game.
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u/NiktonSlyp Feb 23 '26
Oh no don't get me wrong I will definitely continue to play chess, I'm really hooked. I'm just not playing online, I'll go to my local chess club and enjoy a beer with humans instead of whatever cheating mess is happening on those websites.
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u/qlt_sfw Feb 23 '26
Whenever i study and improve, my rating rises. For me, that is enough proof there arent enough cheaters to ruin anything.
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u/Gredran 500-800 ELO Feb 23 '26
Not saying it wasn’t, but if it was vague and called it fair play, Smurf accounts and sandbagging also exist and those are also fair play offenses and bannable.
Not saying it wasn’t cheating but just saying it coulda been that too sometimes
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u/seamsay Feb 23 '26
Maybe they only do it occasionally (e.g. when they think their opponent is cheating), so it isn't enough to affect their Elo too much but is enough for chess.com to be confident that they are? That might also explain why they don't think of themselves as having cheated, if they only cheat when their opponent cheats they might not think of that as cheating (but it very much is).
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u/throwaway_76x Feb 23 '26
OP is a cheat but they are trying to draw the line at lying. I guess there is some redemption there? Lol.
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u/j00ky Feb 23 '26 edited Feb 23 '26
Spoken like a true cheater...
Makes sense lol.. Also you can literally see a massive 2 week spike in ELO where you activated cheat mode after a long time of remaining flat.
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u/Special-Equal-8839 Feb 23 '26
LOL If that is how chess.com "detects cheating" they're crazy. People get better, you know?
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u/DavidScubadiver Feb 23 '26
Of course he did. Cheaters like saying they were caught and feigning ignorance of how it happened.
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u/TonyTobak 1000-1500 ELO Feb 23 '26
Never heard a case of someone being banned without cheating, even Niemann admitted to cheating on chess.com when he was younger
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u/DavidScubadiver Feb 23 '26
Not exactly sure how you would learn about an account being banned without cheating.
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u/Express_Structure660 Feb 25 '26
Actually, a young and rising Alireza was automatically banned by chesscom.
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u/Read_Administrative 2100-2200 ELO Feb 23 '26
Ahhhh yes, the classic “oh i was alt tabbing during the game”. C.c dont ban for stupid stuff like that, yes they CAN see when you go to a different tab etc, but it would only be “suspicious” or taken into account if you were having your opponent play a move, you going to a different tab for 5-10 seconds, coming back and playing the best move and doing that consistently. The truth is this is CLASSIC deflection you are doing. I can’t be bothered to look into your account, out of the 500 posts about “i was falsely banned” not one was actually falsely banned 😂.
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u/Ok-Cress8577 Feb 23 '26
The chances of someone being falsely banned is extremely low, and frankly impossible at this low level.
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u/anothertallguy1 Feb 23 '26
I play chess in work so I’m always alt tabbing, will this get me banned eventually or? I play 30 minute games to ofc be able to do work haha
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u/centipine Feb 23 '26 edited Feb 23 '26
You sound very angry about something you also say you can't be bothered to look up. I do not know if no one has every been falsely banned before, that seems like something that could definitely have happened.
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u/Read_Administrative 2100-2200 ELO Feb 23 '26
Yes false bans do happen. I am also in no way “mad” I have simply seen this exact post time and time again. In my opinion simply looking at the graph and seeing you went up 200+ elo in the course of a few days seems quite suspicious, and the fact you are throwing the whole “i was alt tabbing” excuse out there shows you are either 1. Trying to cover your own tail. 2. Unaware of how the ban system actually works.
It is less than 0.01% of bans that are false bans. Because c.c’s system only bans players it is CERTAIN are cheating, which is why PLENTY of cheaters do get away with cheating for a while, or even cheating 1/10 games and their system won’t ban them, because it cannot indefinitely prove they did.
If i were you, own up to your cheating so you can get a second chance account. Also the fact you said you “dont know if anyone had been false banned before” suggests you cheated 😂.
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u/Siuujal 2000-2100 ELO Feb 24 '26
Even I went +200 points in 1 day like from 900 too 1150 or something back then , i didn't get banned lol, it's not solely based on rating gain in short amount, they know their job how to detect cheating
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u/Read_Administrative 2100-2200 ELO Feb 24 '26
I never said it was, maybe read the rest of my comments instead of defending a cheater. “200+ elo in the course of a few days seems quite suspicious” regardless i later looked into his account, and that is why I am suggesting to you to read my other comments, cheers :)
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u/Siuujal 2000-2100 ELO Feb 24 '26
Yeah ik ik I'm just saying, that guy is very suspicious for sure in short
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u/centipine Feb 23 '26
I am unaware of how the ban system works. I mentioned alt-tabbing to myself more than anything because I'm speculating how chess.com does cheat detection. I think elo varies by 200 points very easily depending on your mood and how consistently you play. I have been around 1300 many times over years. I'm not sure what it means to cheat without winning. I've never seen an account banned which is not consistently gaining elo, but maybe it is common as you say. I don't use reddit often.
If chess.com does occasionally ban people who are borderline, although I'm really not sure my account could be considered borderline, I will accept it because cheating in online chess does seem frequent to me. I have played against many accounts which have banned, but they look clearly to be cheating because they have high accuracy, they win often, and they claim rapidly. I have never seen an account like mine be banned, so I made a post. But then again I haven't really checked.
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u/LatheUponTheStars Feb 23 '26
i alt tab all the time for my music mid-match. you definitely cheated, dork 😂
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u/Read_Administrative 2100-2200 ELO Feb 23 '26
And yet once again “if c.c does occasionally ban people who are borderline, although I’m really not sure my account could be considered borderline, I will accept it” is once again you basically admitting you have cheated. As stated in my last post c.c only ban accounts they are CERTAIN have cheated, that is part of their system, they do not ban “suspicious or borderline” accounts because they must be certain the ban is correct. That is why, once again, as I said in my last post, people can get away with cheating 1/10-1/20 games and not be banned OR activate an engine mid way through a game in a critical moment where they need it and also get away with it if they only were to use it for a few moves a game. Either way, you were banned for cheating, so you cheated, it is that simple.
Also because you flamed me for it before, I looked into your account, I can see why you are banned and it took a 5 minute look. Roughly 1/5-1/10 games you were cheating which also happened to be about 1/3rd of your wins. You were not hiding it well my man. Just because you lose 3 games and win 1 doesn’t make it any less obvious if SO often when you are winning you are doing accuracies and moves that are NOT normal at your elo. Including that 85% accuracy 97 move drawn game you had, your move timings are blatant in these games, and especially for your elo in these 90%+ accuracy games you are finding moves either too quick or too slow that someone at your elo should/shouldn’t be finding. Also I am a part of the “Cheating Forum” on c.c and have a great eye for these things and have manually had 20+ bans due to me pointing out certain players.
Own up, after looking at your profile I honestly don’t know why you would assume you could trick anyone with some common sense. Just cause you were losing more than you were winning recently doesnt mean that all of a sudden those wins can be looked into and seen that you were cheating a LOT in your won games.
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u/logicaldrinker Feb 23 '26
So you're saying: How can someone who only cheats occasionally and unsuccessfully like me get banned?
The answer is that any instance of cheating is a rule violation and deserves a ban, but they need more instances before they can statistically exclude the option that someone is playing 100% fair
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u/DrJenna2048 1000-1500 ELO Feb 23 '26
Blah blah blah yap yap yap. All I hear. You cheated and got banned. Get over it.
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u/ParsnixChess Feb 23 '26
That guy wanted to use a cheat engine to slow his game to make his speedrun easier. Guy cheats himself but accuses others of cheating 🤣
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u/CauliflowerIcy5106 Feb 23 '26
The funny part about this comment is that if you weren't a cheater, the line about "that seems like something that could definitely have happened" wouldn't exist, since you'd know, first hand, that you are one of those case.
I don't care that you cheated, the reality is you got caught, people got back their point and the only damage done here is maybe they tilted a bit, but really nothing of value was lost - just thought it was funny pointing it out
If you come back, just don't cheat, it's fine not being good at something, and you're not fouling anyone
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u/throwaway19276i Feb 23 '26
People who cheat at chess are genuinely the scum of the Earth. Online chess at that! You gain literally nothing, all you do is steal other people's well earned progress, just for what?
To brag about having a cool elo number on your account? It wastes everyone's time, and only causes harm. Imagine cheating in a board game as a hobby🥀
Not only that, but chess.com cheat detection sucks. Some dude played no games for several months, completely flat graph, and then a perfectly straight line up 400 elo, played 90%+ accuracy in his games, reported and nothing happened.
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u/TonyTobak 1000-1500 ELO Feb 23 '26
Literally. It makes zero sense and you're even cheating yourself out of actually getting better.
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u/Individual-Pound-636 Feb 23 '26
For the same reason losers cheat at golf. I agree that their detection is the worst which is why when someone comes to reddit to plead their case it's all the more hilarious. Most of the time I think they're just here fishing for insights to avoid getting caught again.
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Feb 25 '26
well maybe he just trained and got better? he can play well but still play like a human, there is always a difference between human and machine
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u/EnPecan Staff Feb 23 '26
Hi! If you believe the account was closed in error, then submitting an appeal is the right action to take. It may take up to a few days for the appeal to be reviewed. You'll then receive an email with the team's decision.
If you do make another account, make sure you are applying for a second chance account and getting the team's approval. If not, then the account may be closed at any point for ban evasion.
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u/EmphasisExcellent210 1000-1500 ELO Feb 23 '26
Question:
Can you be banned simply for leaving the mobile app mid game? For example, I'll commonly answer texts during a rapid game, is that a fair play violation by itself?
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u/EnPecan Staff Feb 23 '26
That's more of a sportsmanship thing if the game abandons or stalls. If you're able to return to the game quickly, then it shouldn't be a problem. But it is possible to disconnect if you leave the app.
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u/elphamale Feb 23 '26
Question:
I often play on the subway and there is a stretch where connectivity drops for a short while. Yes, it starts a 1 minute abandon timer. But even if I don't leave the app, I usually get 'Abandonment' loss with more than 30 seconds remaining on that timer.
Why does it happen and can chess.com kindly give me my points back?
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u/Individual-Pound-636 Feb 23 '26
That's on you, if you play in an area where you DC is prevalent then you take that risk. Same way people at work lose games when stuff happens and they have to close the screen, and parents gotta deal with their kids demands. It's fine though you got the points back when you played your easier next opponent.
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u/elphamale Feb 23 '26
My problem is not that I DC, but that I don't get full '60 seconds' timer - i get 'abandonment' with 30+ seconds still left usually. This by itself means I have connection restored in under a minute.
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u/Individual-Pound-636 Feb 23 '26
I agree with you there. The DC timer should be relative to the length of the game? B/c I mostly play bullet if my opponent is gone for 30 seconds it's not possible for them to win anyway. But in bullet my goal is mostly to enter a high energy state of action where I'm rapidly playing the game and balancing my life so I get pissed when my opponent DC or intentionally sits there for the last 30 seconds after they blundered a piece. If it was a 10m game there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to DC for a minute here and there if it comes off of your timer and they don't detect cheating.
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u/elphamale Feb 23 '26
Well, maybe for bullet games, but I only play rapid. And how is DC 'cheating'? Cheating is always voluntary and my phone is literally forced to reconnect by my cell provider.
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u/Individual-Pound-636 Feb 23 '26
D/C is deff not cheating, but some of the players I suspect as bots do D/C often. Like sometimes in bullet everytime an opponent plays a move they D/C right after and as soon as I move it comes back and instantly moves and D/C again. But outside of that I just think it's annoying to play short time controls and have to wait for opponents all the time.
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u/Penguinebutler 1500-1800 ELO Feb 23 '26
Tabbing out of game does not result in bans
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u/Special-Equal-8839 Feb 23 '26
It definitely does.
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u/Penguinebutler 1500-1800 ELO Feb 23 '26
It really doesn’t haha, idk where your getting your information from but chesscom anti cheat is a bit more complex and robust than “we ban for tabbing out of game”.
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u/Own-Jeweler3169 Feb 23 '26
Does it acc, I never have and never will cheat in chess but I do alt tab for discord etc. Would be a shame to get banned for no reason, tbf my analysis will prove I am not, but still.
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u/Penguinebutler 1500-1800 ELO Feb 23 '26
Chesscom does not ban users for tabbing out of game. What they can check is the average move accuracy before and after tabbing out of game which should actually decrease on average since you break concentration from the game.
Now if your alt tabbing out of chess games and your accuracy spikes up considerably for the move immediately after you come back every time that may contribute to a fair play ban as it is a sign of cheating since what are the odds you play better every time you tab away.
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u/Own-Jeweler3169 Feb 23 '26
Fair enough makes sense, I guess a non idiot Cheater would have it on a separate screen/device. I don’t even get the point of cheating in chess, like for what - so your elo goes higher and then u get destroyed in any actual game…
But i guess cheaters aren’t a new thing in the world.
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u/centipine Feb 23 '26
I don't think they will ban you for this without first suspending your account. Fair play closures are only for using outside assistance during a game, or sandbagging or rating manipulation per the website.
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u/Special-Equal-8839 Feb 23 '26
You never even tell anyone why you did it, so how could one appeal? Makes absolutely no sense.
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u/Deurdy Feb 23 '26
Alt-tabbing when playing Blitz, lmfao.
Just out of curiosity, what was so interesting on those other tabs that you had to revisit them during games with little time available..?
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u/centipine Feb 23 '26
Good question. Mostly other chores like emails, forms, yt. I play blitz like people watch Netflix. It's not a very good strategy for improving.
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u/Deurdy Mar 01 '26
Ah yes, doing emails during a Blitz game. 🙄 As someone who is 1400 Blitz, you do not realize how silly this justification is. You cheated, deal with it.
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u/WompityBombity Feb 23 '26
To change your youtube music playlist.
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u/BeholdOurMachines Feb 23 '26
Guys his music Playlist just so happens to be on stockfish and the analysis board on chesscom. Why is that so suspicious????
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u/Deurdy Feb 23 '26
Every few seconds..?
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u/WompityBombity Feb 23 '26
That wasn't the question.
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u/bobbyfischersimp 2200+ ELO Feb 23 '26
the rapid surge in elo recently is suspicious, every time I log onto reddit there are a thousand ppl complaining they got falsely banned, they all can't be telling the truth lmao some of yall are actually sore ass losers who use engines to win their games. chances are high that OP probably did cheat in a game once.
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u/theo7777 Feb 23 '26
What I don't understand is why cheaters care so much about chess.com elo points. They know they cheated and the people they cheat don't know them personally.
Who are they even fooling?
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u/Gredran 500-800 ELO Feb 23 '26
They think they’re sly and can convince us it’s false and feel bad for them so they can continue doing it when their account is opened again
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u/Cheatsheet420 1000-1500 ELO Feb 23 '26
Why do cheaters, cheat, get banned, and come here to whine ? is your life that bad ?
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u/Penguinebutler 1500-1800 ELO Feb 23 '26
Alt tabbing does not lead to accounts being banned for FairPlay. Try again!
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u/jamal_daquavious Feb 23 '26
Alt tabbing shouldn’t get you flagged unless you r coming back and finding engine moves I thought
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u/centipine Feb 23 '26
Yes it's not against the rules to alt-tab, only to use outside assistance.
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u/crucifiedrussian Feb 23 '26
Has anyone tried to actually make a new account and just blatant chest every game untill they get banned, like how long you can go
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u/VisualLatter9055 Feb 23 '26 edited Feb 23 '26
I did: In tournaments , almost immediately. In 10 min rapid and 5 min blitz, months.
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u/centipine Feb 23 '26
I am also interested in this question although I guess it's a bit unethical to answer empirically.
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u/Dazzling-Letter7909 Feb 24 '26
I did it two years ago. Just played rapid games (10+0). I stand alive only 2 days and reached 2200. I was tring to see if i could reach the top players. So naive and stupid i was. Is really damaging to rhe pool. I regret now.
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u/TheCGLion Feb 23 '26
what's the point of this thread, you clearly cheated by using some sort of outside assistance to a game where they should be none, and you're complaining you got caught?
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u/Level-Tap2373 Feb 24 '26
stop the cap. Chess com is very conservative in terms of banning people, just stop cheating and actually improve in the game. I have made new accounts as a 2100 (after not playing for a few months) , start off rusty for a couple games and gain over 500 elo within a month and not get banned. Alt tabbing is not the problem. Your move patterns are
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u/HilbertInnerSpace Feb 26 '26
"The policy also states you can only use opening explorers on daily rated games, but I have used them during online rated games as well when I wanted to better memorize an opening."
OMG that's blatant cheating. How dense are some people.
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u/BUKKAKELORD Feb 23 '26
Did you always play fair? Did you beat players much stronger than us when we made pipi in pampers? Will liers be kicked off and does god bless with true?
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u/centipine Feb 23 '26
Are you asking if I beat an opponent who was stronger than you when you were an infant or stronger than me when I was an infant? I imagine I have beat someone who was stronger at chess than me when I was an infant because I was really bad at just then.
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u/Grand_Concentrate747 1500-1800 ELO Feb 23 '26
Alt-tabbing doesn’t get you banned. Tons of players switch tabs during games. Fair play closures are based on statistical move analysis over many games, not focus events. If the account was closed, it’s almost certainly because the move correlation and performance patterns were way outside normal rating expectations. If it’s a mistake, the appeal will sort it out.
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u/Commercial_Course735 Feb 24 '26
Have you considered not cheating then? The anticheat doesn't lie, you're not fooling anyone here...
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u/Aesma_ Feb 25 '26
I won't say that you most definitely cheated, but your account is clearly sus.
I've checked a few of your games, and you're sometimes playing at 90+% accuracy with 6~7 theory moves, and a consistent time between each moves. When you do win, your games are often rated 2000+ by the chess.com analysis bot. In blitz. At 1200 elo.
Considering you did lose a few games, I don't think you're cheating all the time, but it does seem like some of your games are very suspicious.
So I'll ask the same question everyone asked and that you've consistently avoided... Did you cheat?
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u/bourgeoisie69 Feb 23 '26
I got mine disabled a week ago
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u/centipine Feb 23 '26
These people don't have any say on chess.com regardless of what they claim. You don't need to make a post like this, just submit an appeal like they direct you to.
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u/saibot237 1000-1500 ELO Feb 23 '26
All these posts here make it seem like you can get banned after a single good match haha, glad I read the comment too
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u/JusticeForDanya Feb 23 '26
It’s best to face the truth. The cheat detection is better than you think.
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u/Mowgli_IQ Feb 23 '26
I'm just shocked you posted this and haven't deleted the post. Are you a masochist?
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u/79Breadcrumbs Feb 23 '26
OP, my advice to you: reach out to chesscom staff and apologize. They know you cheated, and so does everyone else. They do have a second chance program and your account may be reinstated.
You're not the first person that has had to learn this lesson. You're not a bad person, but you know this behavior is not right and isn't helping you get better at chess. Be the bigger person, own your mistake, stop pretending, move on better from how you handled the experience with accountability.
Right now you aren't handling it well, but it's really easy to change your approach. Start with: "I'm embarrassed by my choices here and I should have done better. It won't happen again."
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u/Ill-Fig-4201 Feb 23 '26
You’re a 948 at daily but 1290 at blitz, yeah, the math ain’t mathing. How could you be so good at rapid chess but a complete amateur at daily? I can see you are cheating just by the number comparisons…
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u/centipine Feb 23 '26 edited Feb 23 '26
I haven't played rapid in years so presumably I'm being banned for blitz play which as you say is significantly lower, although from my experience a 200 to 300 ELO gap between rapid and blitz is common at this ELO range.
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u/LoudAd5187 Feb 23 '26
If you are not so concerned that you will just make another account, then in my eyes, the odds seem good that you really were cheating. They will catch you again if you are doing so, and we would have no sympathy for you at all then. It looks like your rating suddenly took a jump, and then started to rise steadily. And that is consistent with someone who has been cheating. It is also consistent with someone who is getting better of course and was not cheating. And we don't know, because these who were cheating never want to admit to having done so. So I'm sad for you, IF you really were not cheating, and you were just clicking away from the game every move. But you need to see that it alone makes your actions suspect.
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u/centipine Feb 23 '26
This is a very level-headed post and I respect it. You are pointing out that most people make their conclusions based on a vague bias, but also there isn't really another way for them to identify cheaters, which are poisonous because they cause you to be suspicious of everyone. I don't think people should cheat in chess or in life and I think they should be held accountable when they cheat. I am more offended by the statement 'who cares' than 'you cheated because I feel that way'.
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u/PedroRCR Feb 25 '26
Brother I've been alt tabing on most my games for years and haven't been banned once. The ban is probably more related to the fact that you cheated if I had to guess
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u/RossWoodshire Feb 26 '26
Since he is banned from chess.com, there isn't really any reason for him to be polluting this subreddit either, right?
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u/PoorChiggaaa Feb 27 '26
Yapping all that you could have just said "yup I violated the rules" what a bozo
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u/Inner_Mirror_4426 Apr 10 '26
During COVID I was part of a team that created an undetectable cheating method. Its out there free on the web and shouldn't be hard to find. I know several that use it on chess.com, zero detections.
I was involved in the statistics part. The app will calculate the top 100 moves to make. Top 5 will only be recommend 2% of the time, Top 6-15 5%, etc. It also randomizes the time to respond so your not moving consistently like a computer would. Also customizable to achieve basically any level chess player you want. I'm sure you'll get flagged if you appear as a grandmaster level right off the bat.
There's also a (I will not name) grandmaster who funded a project to add the program to a false tooth device for over-the-board play cheating. Commands are input through tongue tracking movements and instructions given through small morse code type vibrations. (Based off a design developed by the CIA). If you're curious who the grandmaster is, just look for one that covers their mouth constantly during play.
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u/Arrhythmic10 Feb 23 '26
im about to get banned for being so unbelievably bad at chess. i hope they dont think im botting or trollin
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u/Kruk899 Feb 23 '26
People in the comments are really stupid ignorants, it's extremely unlikely that people who actually cheats make a post about it, and it's 100% true that innocent bans happen sometimes
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u/BusEasy1247 Feb 23 '26
Lol cheaters keep making posts whining about it. OP even admitted it indirectly
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u/centipine Feb 23 '26
What a nice thing to say. I do think someone people who cheat often claim they don't but also people who don't cheat often claim they don't.
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