This is just disgusting to me - cheaters and liars are so useless! They just drain on everyone else's good efforts! I wrote an article on how technology is affecting chess, and it addresses this issue.

Sad.

Is Technology Wrecking Chess? - Associated Content

Good article, Skwerly.

I’ve always lived where OTB chess was difficult so for the most part played CC. Unfortunately in the early 70’s my employer was demanding 60 hrs. a week of my time and chess fell by the wayside until about 4 years ago. That’s when I returned to postal and server play only to discover things had changed in my absence…and not for the better.

I quickly discovered most players over 2000-2200 were using engines. It was no fun playing them so I decided if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Just to be fair I entered a couple tournaments on a site that allows engine use…talk about boring. So despite claims by top CC players that computers “enhance” play and the fact that it makes studying easier and more efficient I think they have hurt the game, both CC and apparently OTB is starting to feel the effects. Enough so that I’m seriously thinking of giving it up again.

I enjoyed reading your article Skwerly.

I think that the view expressed paints a wonderful picture of the Romantic Period.

I had a dear friend that I used to play music with in the early 90's. We played and recorded only original music, from Folk to Hard Rock, one of these songs made it onto a "Lynch Mob" album. (Another story for another time.)

Though when we played Chess, it was Earl Grey tea with honey, and Classical Music. Those Chess days are still my favorite.

Now days winning at all costs, seems to be more important than the wonderful journey that once existed...

Someone wiser than me once said: "It's not the Prey, but the Hunt that truly matters." Seems like computers do alot of the hunting for us...

It's easy if you catch someone red-handed. But what would you say about a situation where a FM scores several flawless wins in a row, defeating a few GMs - an incredible performance well over his rating - and upon the examination of his games it turns out that 100 out of 102 moves he played were Rybka's recommendations?

It happened in Poland in 2007 (but I read about it just recently)

Polgar Chess Daily News and Information: Cheating incident in Poland - here's an entry on Susan Polgar's blog

However, they did not have other evidence apart from that "100 out of 102" coincidence, and even though he was banned from that particular tournament (he didn't finish it), the disciplinary commission of the domestic chess association eventually declared him not guilty of cheating, because they reckoned there was not enough proof

He wasn't caught communicating with any third party during the game, and it's not against the law to play like Rybka

It obviously raised lots of controversy, but indeed, is such statistics an evidence by itself? But if so, where would we draw the line exactly? What is the "maximum" percentage of Rybka's or Fritz's moves that one could legally play. 98%? 95%? 89.5%?

There is no reason you can't get 100% if you stop to think about it. If there is no evidence you can't take action against someone just for making moves someone/something else would in my opinion.
In some cases it would be a good idea to keep an eye on suspicious performances and players, but I believe analysis showing a computer would've moved the same way is purely circumstantial and not enough to put aside reasonable doubt.

One of the first server sites I played on routinely bans players for engine use. They won’t give the details but apparently they have a committee that examines a bunch of the suspect’s games and if there is a high match up rate that player gets banned. Apparently they don’t count opening book moves and moves where there is a forced sequence. I think something like 80-85% will get you banned if it happens over the course on several games. One or two games isn’t enough proof.

Just as an experiment I submitted a CC game that I had drawn against a 2500+ rated GM to one of the game moderators and asked him to id the engine user. I did it because of the obvious fact many would have accused me of cheating and I was curious what they would find. The game back “clean.” It should have because it was played before computers.

On the other hand one of their top players who had been banned for cheating challenged me to a game and I lost badly. I was suspicious during the game and when I checked it afterwards with Fritz his match rate was 100%. Does their system work? I don’t know especially since they banned some 1200’s. On the other hand…?

Playing on a server site that allows engine use and where everybody uses one is not much fun. That’s not to say you can’t win; my record there is something like +6 –3 =7, but you have to spend a lot of time trying to steer the game into positions where engines aren’t much help. It’s a whole different kind of chess. Some like it but it wasn’t for me.

this is getting common. engines are now so strong that makes these kind of cheating possible using even a not so strong home PC.

ChessBase.com - Chess News - Wesley So wins Dubai Open, player disqualified for cheating