So i have taken part in many blitz and classical arenas over the past months, was active in the forums, gave and took advice, and considered myself a productive member of the lichess community. Originally I had come here after a long chess break because i had been looking for an alternative to the ICCF. But on Lichess i rediscovered how much fun blitz and rapid chess are.
As intended I played correspondence chess here like i did for 20+years, even with postcards in the beginning (yes, there were times when there was no Internet). While Lichess correspondence is stuffed with engine users who wouldnt talk about it i told my opponents that i will use assistance and would very much prefer if they did so as well. I have been actively looking for opponents who are good at chess and tried to avoid those who just make the first engine move. Those, while hard to beat, are pointless to play. Especially since i like dicussing theory/strategy with my opponents during the games and did so with many nice, competent people. Thank you for that, guys.
Now my actual correspondence background and my honesty got me marked as a cheater. Congratulations.
I don't know the site's policy but I think in correspodence chess engine usage is allowed, so if he used enγine only in these kinds of games and his opponents were aware of that maybe the group rsponsible in Lichess for these kinds of decisions should consider recalling
The fact that the OP referred to the cheat detectors as "The Inquisition" and put up a thread rather than explaining courteously to a mod what the situation was makes me feel suspicious.
If he/she can produce evidence to the mods that the opponents knew about engine use and that it was in unrated/correspondence only, there shouldn't be a problem. If not, I'm glad the user is labelled a cheat.
Yeah, "inquisition" is harsh. But while cheating is a problem, so is, especially in OTB play, the fact that people sense cheaters left and right and tend to overdo it.
In this case it referred to the guy making a thread in the "Cheaters investigation team" triumphingly telling people that i just made him aware that i would use engine assistance in our correspondence game.
I was not aware there are mods neither would i know how to contact them?! "Lichess fedback" looked like the right place.
The evidence is there, no need to produce it. Just check the chats in my correspondence games. Or check my forum history, i have even been discussing the engine/correspondence thing in the forum actively.
Wooooah! You've been a member since December and have made 61 posts in the forums, but 'was not aware there are mods'?
It's quite easy to find out who they are. If you find it difficult, please message me and I'll look some out for you.
C.I.A. is not official - it's a bunch of people who think they can do the team's work better than the team.
If you really are innocent, good luck...
I think the whole thing is just a misunderstanding
The guy obviously is not using engine in his blitz games (i reviewed some), I mean he is way too positional to be considered an engine :) .
So the only thing that remains is using engine in correspondence chess which he admits and also protects his oppponents by telling them before hand.
Eventually the decription in his profile "this player is using chess software assistance" is correct , but the thing is that this is usually associated with people who cheat, and this person does not cheat so , maybe you have to find another description, if you do not trust that this person will always tell before a correspondence game that he will use engine to his opponent, something like " this player uses chess software assistance in correspodence chess" with not a red color maybe a pink or a blue would be fine :). And eventually everyone should be happy
#6 Is that a good thing, being "too positional"? ;)
Ok, so i have found a list of moderators and asked TonyRo to review my case.
As far as I'm aware, the use of an opening book is tolerated in correspondence games, but engine use is not accepted unless both parties both A: Agree and are aware of the assistance and B: The game is casual.
#8 You are right. I was surprised to find out about that after weeks of play. At that point it was already obvious to me that Lichess correspondence at the higher levels is full of engines since the games are not checked. And there are some people who can actually play and combine human chess understanding with engine tactics. Playing those i enjoy a lot, while grinding down pure engine players is somewhat tiring. The machines are not very good at chess understanding yet but they do defend inferior positions incredibly well.
Originally correspondence chess was played in order to find chess truth or at least come close to it. It may be an unfortunate incident that chess sites now offer a game of the same name which is in fact not correspondence as it is played in correspondence chess federations. Also i may have been naive to tell people (and encourage them) while dozens (hundreds?) of lone engines continue to play silently.
I don't understand the issue here.
Many months ago Lichess has taken away the top 10 standings and the Lichess Master title option for correspondence chess because Lichess cannot reliably measure whether someone is cheating at correspondence chess.
That is a bit of a sad thing, but I fully understand the difficulty in detecting cheaters in correspondence chess.
Moreover, if you look worldwide : the international corr. chess society allows chess engine usage.
The dutch corr. chess society even recommends a fast computer and chess engine usage.
There's a reason for that : Those corr. chess societies are also unable to reliably detect cheaters in corr. chess games.
So, now on Lichess someone would have been labeled as cheater because of cheating *only* in correspondence chess ?
Sounds a bit weird to me.
Just my 2 cents.