budfit

There are enough on-line servers in the world that enable the possibility to play the member / guest or occasional rival chess games. Generally, they all have a great front page sites promising everything – even those things which can not be met. The main purpose is to get paying members of different categories. Many servers also provide the option of correspondence chess, which is a special category because it is not played online.

Today everybody knows the pre-computer age era when player’s support was possible only from books or libraries of own games. Today is another era, days when every teenager is equipped with notebook with engines and databases.

Mainly younger populations, which don’t really yet know what chess is sometimes, exploit these amenities to achieve their "victories". Therefore, the chess servers naturally prevent and detect such practices eliminate these "operators" engines from the community, which wants to play chess with regular conditions. So far everything is O.K.

Well, but the coin comes second page when the server should be considered for businesses with the performance and costs. Some over exceed their costs by giving space / video tutorials and other learning material for FM, IM, GM FIDE (ICCF probably does not exist?) All this should be paid by “membership”, i.e. income. While everything is happening in Fair Play, we are still OK

But what if the chess servers begin to practice what one can call "crap service". This is how it works e.g. on Play Chess Online - Free Chess Games at Chess.com. When I actually started playing it in the correspondence chess around 12.12.2010, the web site if I remember correctly had more than 280 thousand players. Now it is 220 thousands… What has happened? I have played 90 matches with 7 unfinished with 2735 Chess.com ELO. It's no coincidence or working engine, because I have 2492 ELO in ICCF, hold Senior International Master title, and I practiced WS/GMN/030 ICCF tournament to reach second GM standard. I had no interest to train the engines, but myself. The tournament has started recently.

I increased the membership from Golden to Diamond = + 100 USD last 2 weeks and I now I was disqualified for using illegal practices in the "live" games which I never played on this portal. (funny huh?) After the emails shootout occurred between me and the senior representative Mr.Kohai from chess.com, the result was still the same - nothing came out from him, because Mr. Kohai DOES NOT have the single argument, evidence, the claim for the cheating. The refund discussion was not possible because of violation of terms on conditions according to their policies Therefore I gained this impression:

Mr. Kohai is consciously behaving this way as direct order from the top management or owners to reduce the costs and maximize profits, or is poor in providing evidences which he doesn’t have, or doesn’t know what to write? The A variant is more likely. To illustrate I am attaching their whole correspondence, which is an evidence of full-scale poorness or planned "crap" against their valued members.

I am writing this article to all main chess forums of the world to remind all of you about practices of Chess.com and what can happen if you pay / upgrade / membership and after the payment you are no longer interesting for the server.


It all makes me sick and I think about the misery of other people, robbing the money of other chess players with “cheating practices”. Several chess players told me that this was not a single case, but all the programmed action.

If you have the same experience we can take class action for the damages caused (loss of money) Or at least you all know how chess.com operates. Please share your experience with others about chess.com or other chess portal practices. Glad to hear from you. And maybe once we have enough discussions, the owners or management of these portals will start to listen to the members more carefully and especially care about them as clients and not as “products”

Alexander Horvath, ICCF SIM, member of the winning ICCF European Chess Team Championship 2011

============= answers from chess.com =====

We checked all games not just live chess. You were found to be cheating in your games on chess.com and as per sites terms of conditions which you agreed to abide by ;

Refunds Legal - Chess.com

Refunds will NOT be given to subscribers who are banned from the site due to violating the Terms and Conditions of site use (abusive behavior, cheating, etc).
kohai

Site Experience Manager
Customer Support Manager

=====================================

Mosur

We have received your message about the closing of your Chess.com
account. We are dedicated to combating cheating on our site and we never
close accounts lightly - accounts are closed only when we are 100%
certain of cheating.

I understand that you want to see the evidence upon which your account
was closed. However, to safeguard the effectiveness of our methods, we
cannot reveal details about how we detect cheating. Please see the site
Terms of Service if you have further questions about your account
closure: Legal - Chess.com.

We regret having to close your account, but it is critical that we keep
Chess.com a safe and fun place for everyone to play. We hope you
understand our position and wish you all the best.


kohai

Site Experience Manager
Customer Support Manager

================================

Mosur
>
> Your Chess.com account has been closed due to cheating.
>
> If you have questions about our cheating policies, please see these
> pages:
>
> -
>
Cheaters & Cheating: What you Need to Know
>
> - Chess.com FAQs and Discussion on Cheating - Chess.com
>
*> Please note: You cannot use ANY outside assistance (including books
> and databases) on Live Chess games. Fixing games results (through
> intentional loss or multiple accounts) is also cheating.
>*
> We hope that you will continue to enjoy the game of chess elsewhere,
> without feeling the need to cheat.
>
> As per terms of service you agreed to abide by when you joined the site
>
> Refunds will NOT be given to subscribers who are banned from the site
> due to violating the Terms and Conditions of site use (abusive
> behavior, cheating, etc).
>
> Legal - Chess.com
>
>
> kohai
>
> Site Experience Manager
> Customer Support Manager

==================================

Mosur

Your Chess.com account has been closed due to cheating.

If you have questions about our cheating policies, please see these pages:

-
Cheaters & Cheating: What you Need to Know

- Chess.com FAQs and Discussion on Cheating - Chess.com

Please note: You cannot use ANY outside assistance (including books and
databases) on Live Chess games. Fixing games results (through
intentional loss or multiple accounts) is also cheating.

We hope that you will continue to enjoy the game of chess elsewhere,
without feeling the need to cheat.

As per terms of service you agreed to abide by when you joined the site

Refunds will NOT be given to subscribers who are banned from the site
due to violating the Terms and Conditions of site use (abusive behavior,
cheating, etc).

Legal - Chess.com