This is the thread for a discussion of online cheating in CFC events.
This is the thread for a discussion of online cheating in CFC events.
Just a few thoughts to start the ball rolling.
I've organized about 10 tournaments online over the past 18 months.
Never offer cash prizes. Limit the prizes to trophies, books or chess lessons. This has the added benefit of keeping entry fees low.
Never give in to requests to rate online games as Regular rated events. Quick ratings are less formal and more like fun ratings. Not to be confused with serious chess.
The use of Zoom as an oversight method needs to be backed up by enough assistant arbiters to monitor the cameras. Furthermore, a suspicion of cheating obtained from a camera image is not definitive unless unusually blatant. This leads to the need for a panel of strong players who investigate suspicious behaviour, unusual results and complaints. This is very time consuming and expensive.
Furthermore, the use of Zoom adds technical complexity due to connectivity issues and discourages some players from playing for various privacy and technical reasons.
Are some players cheating? Probably a few. Over-the-board chess will eventually come back and as Warren Buffett said: "when the tide goes out we will see who is not wearing bathing trunks".
Paul Leblanc
Treasurer, Chess Foundation of Canada
CFC Voting Member
I think the online CYCC is a model for how you can return to rated play even online but you do need to do almost everything Paul Leblanc mentioned. In addition you need double cameras, zoom recordings, plenty of arbiters, a fair play team and computer analysis of all of the games.
What's to discuss? This thread about cheating online keeps repeating every meeting with little variation. Could you make public any information about how much cheating has happened in CFC events, CYCC? I would be curious to see the numbers. I would be curious to see names too, I would propose that a list of confirmed cheaters should be available for all to see, with juniors under a certain age having a second chance policy to not make the list on the first offence.
Putting in public a list of confirmed cheaters could expose the CFC to a lawsuit. If a cheater is from Quebec, it is illegal to post his name publicly as a cheater, this is an attain to his honour and reputation. If the cheater is refused at a job interview because his name is on the list, he could sue the CFC. Under Quebec Law, in order to avoid a defamation lawsuit, it is not sufficient to tell the Truth: there must be a public interest in the information that had been made public. Although both of us would agree that there is a public interest, the FQE lawyer told the FQE to never publish publicly the name of a cheater because the tribunal definition of public interest is not our definition.
We have already heard this horror story several times at previous CFC meetings. Since Quebec Law is so dramatic, may be let's leave cheaters from Quebec alone. But there are few other provinces and territories in Canada. What Federal Law and/or other provinces' Laws say about putting a list of confirmed cheaters in public?
There was no cheating at online CYCC. The kids were good. Ken Regan's analysis showed nothing of concern. Those that were flagged with superior results in the games in question, their opponents made very obvious errors which they pounced on.
There have been some cheating incidents which have been dealt with. Where the child confessed we reduced the sentence. In every case we are talking about young children.
There were some accusations of cheating which we could not substantiate in other events. If a high rated player plays very badly can we really be surprised that a lower rated player accepts the obvious gifts?
Last edited by Vladimir Drkulec; 08-24-2021 at 09:48 PM.
If we had a list of confirmed cheaters you could number it on the fingers of one hand. All were young children. A few organizers have scrubbed events before submitting them to the CFC. I can't tell you how many times that has happened. I usually hear of those only after some time.
Bob maintains a list of players who have received a suspension from Online CFC play. Most were young juniors. I would guess there are a dozen names. I think in almost every case the player has been "kicked" off of the server.
My personal experience is 2 players caught for cheating out of 400-450 player participations in my online events.
Although the list of cheaters cannot be public, the organisers and the arbiters must have access to the list in order to enforce the suspension.
Making a list public in Ontario and hoping that it will never be transmitted to Quebec would be wishful thinking.