I've been thinking about this for maybe a year now and this is the only reason I can imagine.
Computer games have made the culture so different from what it was, say, 20 years ago. Chess is seen as just another online game, and using mods and cheats is therefore OK. Someone who just starts chess after playing - for example - Skyrim gets frustrated by not progressing fast enough and doesn't completely - on the emotional level - get to grips with having to actually learn something to be better at it.
In other words people are not initially worse than we used to be but the gaming world has shaped them a bit differently.
I don't imagine this is a stroke of psychological genius but I've been asking the question in several tournaments here and nobody has answered yet, other than "ego" - this just explains it a bit further
...and obviously jokes are ahead of me there: "Why am I so bad at chess???" "You'll have to buy the upgrade"
People in general like to do the best they can - but if they feel they aren’t good enough they probably start cheating
Maybe you are right,
@dorkomplet. I always said the fear of cheating is highly being exaggerated because, come on, who thinks it's fun to move a bishop to a square that has been calculated by some software? I'd never do that, not because I am a good person but because I'd see no point in that. But indeed, probably there are people who just want to climb "leverl by level"?
@PolishEngland said in #4:
> People in general like to do the best they can - but if they feel they aren’t good enough they probably start cheating
Well - those who genuinely want to do the best they can will not cheat no matter what
Like the OP I have played other on-line games and have wondered why people cheat when the gain is moreorless worthless.
I came to the conclusion that people cheat because they easily can and lack the wisdom to see the long term consequences.
For example, consider chess: you cheat so your rating increases, you play tougher opponents so you have too cheat more, you play even tougher opponents so you cheat more and more, eventually you get binned. QED.
Or consider taxation: you bend things a little and get away with it, so you bend more and still succeed, then you become an 'expert' in fiddling you taxes, eventually you get a knock on your door.
Or you accidently fail to swipe an item at a checkout and with no consequence, so you do it again deliberately and again no consequence and again and again, eventually you trigger 'something' and you're stuffed.
People have to learn the moral consequences of their actions. Some are quick learners, some slow, some never learn.
At the end of the day I sometimes think moral learning in a virtual environment where the consequences are minor is no bad thing for society as a whole.
@AlexiHarvey said in #7:
> I came to the conclusion that people cheat because they easily can and lack the wisdom to see the long term consequences.
I still don't understand it considering SHORT time consequences! Your arguments are again all moral; man is weak and can't resist the temptation etc. - but the question is: why is there a temptation at all that lures some people to cheating? That's what I can't understand. Even if there were no danger of being discovered and if cheating wouldn't be considered inhonest: I could see no reason why I should do it - let a machine calculate moves and enter them in the Lichess GUI. How can that be fun?
But obviously it IS fun for some people, because I am aware that cheating exists. That's what I found interesting about
@dorkomplet's original question.
People cheat in chess because of ego. Under specific circumstances they cannot stand the idea that there very self is losing the way it does, or they believe their rating is not what it "should be".
Ego is central to chess and won't go away. I think the chess world needs better etiquette and sensible education to address this problem the best it possibly could.
I already read the "ego" answer elsewhere a few times and I didn't feel it was enough, hence the claim in my initial post.
You're right about the education bit: kids should understand this is not Fortnite or Skyrim. This is about their brain, skills, character - and so forth - not about getting to level 50 by tomorrow evening.
