Am I cheating?

All right, except that OP does not need to prove he is innocent. The burden of proof is on the accuser.

Originally posted by FishHead111
lol "moved more like a 1200 player"

😵

Deep thought. I think your analysis although interesting misses the heart of the allegation.
The allegation is playing like a 1200 not like an engine. I can only think he meant that the OP had been sandbagging to deliberately lower his rating before pulling out all the stops to resort to his natural 1200 rating. In late November he had about his lowest rating so had clearly been deliberately enticing in this opponent who he started playing in November culminating in beating this particular opponent three times in one night (the real cause of the suspicion?)

Do I get an award for this conspiracy theory?

Originally posted by Habeascorp
Deep thought. I think your analysis although interesting misses the heart of the allegation.
The allegation is playing like a 1200 not like an engine. I can only think he meant that the OP had been sandbagging to deliberately lower his rating before pulling out all the stops to resort to his natural 1200 rating. In late November he had about his lowes ...[text shortened]... in one night (the real cause of the suspicion?)

Do I get an award for this conspiracy theory?

Then why worry about whether dive had done a google search? Anyway I don't think accusations of sandbagging hold water either, dive hasn't had a rating much above 1100 in the last five years. Also it was 2-1 on the night as RudySA won this one: Game 11538194.

Is sandbagging even an issue outside tournament play?

Lowering your rating to get a chance to increase your rating more. I doubt this is an effective strategy to increase once rating. And what else are you playing for outside tournament play? Wins and losses against a particular opponent are not at all affected by that abstract number.

Originally posted by tvochess
Is sandbagging even an issue outside tournament play?

Lowering your rating to get a chance to increase your rating more. I doubt this is an effective strategy to increase once rating. And what else are you playing for outside tournament play? Wins and losses against a particular opponent are not at all affected by that abstract number.

It was a clan game, so if someone is seriously underrated it makes it easier for the clan to win - but people's ratings bounce up and down like yoyos. A player would have to be at least 200 points off their "true" rating for a sandbagging attempt to have either a reasonable chance of success or be likely to be distinguishable from ratings noise.

I had missed that. Yes, sandbagging would make sense for clan games.

But such an accusation can only be taken serious with at least a large rating drop, caused by resignation/time-out or deliberate bad moves.

What is sandbagging?

Originally posted by Forest9
What is sandbagging?

A player with a normal rating of 2,000 say. wants to win a tournament, so they drop their rating by throwing relatively unimportant games, and then enter a tournament for under 1,600 players which they win easily. This is known as sandbagging. In order to prevent the practice this site has a minimum tournament entry rating, which you can find on players' profiles. In 'real life' it makes more sense because often there are cash prizes, but despite the absence of any incentive other than vanity people used to enter banded tournaments they were too strong for.

Originally posted by DeepThought
According to the Terms of Service the last time I looked at it books and so forth are allowed. What would comprise cheating is engine data,

What if you print off your engine data and have it professionally bound ? Then it becomes a book.

Originally posted by thaughbaer
What if you print off your engine data and have it professionally bound ? Then it becomes a book.

But to put one's engine data into a book one has to analyse an in progress game, which means that they'll obtain the book (with the date of publishing) after the game has finished and too late to use for cheating (except on the really long time limits) and they'll need to have a book published for each move - so I don't think it's the quick and cheap option.

Originally posted by thaughbaer
What if you print off your engine data and have it professionally bound ? Then it becomes a book.

I know this was a facetious comment, but it makes a very relevant point.

Practically every chess opening book published nowadays is chock full of computer analysis, so the conventional rules on the site (the ability to use books and other printed sources) have been under siege for some time.

Nowadays I just assume my opponent is using a new book, and I don't get too excited about it if the lines in the book happen to have been computer-generated. As long as we have theoretical access to the same books, it seems fair enough.

Out of curiosity, is there anything on the site that says you can't read or google? I'm not saying do it, I'm asking if it's actually against the TOS?

Originally posted by jcandance
Out of curiosity, is there anything on the site that says you can't read or google? I'm not saying do it, I'm asking if it's actually against the TOS?

The terms of service allow opening books, opening databases and online databases of games between human players. So any online resource which differs from a book only be being online is fine. The terms of service rule out asking another person for advice. They also rule out using an engine to find moves during a game as well as the use of end game tablebases as they are constructed using computation. Essentially you can do research, but the only computation you can do is in your own head.

my guess is people will often follow guides for openings, and mostly that's it. Will some people cheat every move, of course, but that's what happens with anonymous games on the internet. If somebody is sandbagging so they can beat you, then who cares, move on. They aren't getting far in life anyway .