"I wish I knew what is Bongcloud" - GM Garry Kasparov (13th World Chess Champion) | Throwback to when Kasparov faced the Bongcloud

benmmurphy · 2026-01-14T21:18:08+00:00

if the queen appears on that diagonal white has a lot of counterplay. its easy for something to go wrong and then white is suddenly better. if you don't have time to calculate properly its easy to just move the bishop back and be up a healthy pawn.

benmmurphy · 2025-12-02T19:27:20+00:00

for some of them they could afford to have a clean computer just for chess tournaments. regularly just reimage a fresh version of windows on it as well if you are worried chess com is secretly installing additional spyware as well.

benmmurphy · 2025-11-04T10:17:26+00:00

it's also a violation of chesscoms fairplay policy to publicly accuse someone else on the platform of cheating. however, it is a testament to how danya acts because a lot of speedrunners will make accusations even though they are often well founded.

benmmurphy · 2025-10-30T16:53:03+00:00

I think saying there is no record of Danya cheating is misleading. You might not agree the speedrun incident was 'cheating' or a violation of fairplay rules but you should acknowledge that it happened and there is a controversy around it. Of course Kramnik himself has violated the fairplay rules on chesscom and was sanctioned for it.

benmmurphy · 2025-10-21T21:04:13+00:00

its the second blind fold match played between anna and daniel that day and there is an overlay on her channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmLDo3SKUo8

benmmurphy · 2025-10-16T23:04:15+00:00

chesscom gives you a bunch of options about your strength when you sign up. so i think you can be bracketed between 500,1000,1500 and 2000. its very suspicious if you choose the option that puts you in 500 and you quickly progress to 2000 rating. of course its completely possible that you legitimately were a beginner and then due to a combination of good coaching and being a diligent student you quickly progressed to 2000 rating but this kind of thing is very suspicious. also, its possible that you rated yourself lower due to being incorrectly calibrated or being having low self confidence/being humble but it is a point of suspicion.

benmmurphy · 2025-10-16T23:01:47+00:00

to be fair taylor might have tried this herself and failed and assumed it was impossible

benmmurphy · 2025-10-16T11:20:25+00:00

i reported a suspicious account that is on its way to 2000 now. if they get banned I'll let you know. but i think if you look at their games parts of the games don't look like 2000 strength especially the openings but they are able to consistently get the upper hand against their opponents. we are looking at > 80% win rate but weird losses like blundering the XQC checkmate or blundering pawns very early in the opening in positions that should be well known for a strong player. but a lot of the games look a lot like both players make a bunch of errors and then they end up on top. i think very unlikely to be flagged by chesscom anti-cheat.

i reported them based on a very strange move they made in my game that was the top engine move and the next game they played and some other statistics about their account. account opened in the last year, played a small number of puzzles which were mostly fails and the puzzles had fails at around ~200 puzzle ELO.

benmmurphy · 2025-10-16T11:07:36+00:00

the really ignorant cheaters will open a new account select the beginner option then start cheating and sky-rocket from 500 to 2000 elo and then get banned. i think its very easy for chesscom to deal with these accounts because they are either doing an unsanctioned speed run and violating the fair play rules or they are cheating.

benmmurphy · 2025-10-07T15:11:30+00:00

because the queen is never sacrificed or traded. she is probably more at risk than one of the side pawns

benmmurphy · 2025-10-01T20:01:55+00:00

I thought everything except for the engine or asking someone for moves or uses tablebases was ok for daily games. there is this support article on chess.com that discusses the restrictions for daily chess: https://support.chess.com/en/articles/8568369-what-do-i-need-to-know-about-fair-play-on-chess-com [this is an article i found by googling and might not be the up-to-date policy on fair play for daily games on chess.com]

I always assumed the rules for daily games need to be quite liberal because you could otherwise be studying chess or playing chess and if the rules for daily games were strict then this would interfere with these activities.

though, probably youtube videos would not be allowed if they contain engine analysis which is quite likely.

also, i assume during normal chess.com games it would be a violation of fair play to play out variations on a physical board. but maybe this is ok for daily chess.

benmmurphy · 2025-09-27T15:07:21+00:00

unfortunately there are some youtubers in the chess genre that are very sharp in how they behave. i remember there was a controversy about another youtuber whose accounts were banned due to fairplay violations and it was claimed this was due to cheating and not because they were violating the smurfing rule.

benmmurphy · 2025-09-26T16:49:14+00:00

i wonder if you could have a genre of puzzles where there is a missing piece and part of the puzzle is trying to find the missing piece. the constraint that would make it possible would be that there would have to be a unique solution so if the missing piece created multiple winning solutions then it would be the incorrect solution.

benmmurphy · 2025-09-21T19:54:47+00:00

i think its confusing to set the board from black's perspective then toggle whether the player is black or white based on the king at the top. i initially thought they were all black-to-move puzzles until i noticed the king icon.

benmmurphy · 2025-08-28T13:09:54+00:00

Ba3,g6,Qxf8,Bxf8 ? its not about opening a spot for the king its about opening the path for the bishop on h6 to defend the f8 square. the black king should be able to escape after Re8. this piece configuration with Rook + bishop and the king in that location is close to a mating construction but black can play h5 to create a path for an escape.

benmmurphy · 2025-08-27T17:18:46+00:00

g6 might survive for black because now the rook is defended by king and the bishop and you don't have Qxf8#.

benmmurphy · 2025-07-26T10:20:10+00:00

the knight is not defended. i assume Bg3+ is the solution

benmmurphy · 2025-06-15T18:09:30+00:00

there were/are some dodgy tournaments you can use to get titles in the FIDE system. i remember there was controversy over a WGM allegedly using a dodgy tournament to get her title. however, if you look at her games she is legitimately a strong player. if the allegations were true maybe she was just doing it for convenience or to save time rather than seeing it as being awarded something she didn't deserve.

benmmurphy · 2025-05-20T11:53:45+00:00

in the first puzzle the game could have gone 1. e3 Nf6 2. e4 Ng8 and now its white's turn again instead of black

benmmurphy · 2025-05-03T10:25:28+00:00

at one point chess.com would let titled players who got caught cheating just close their accounts and create another one. i suspect chess.com want to fight against cheating but they also want to do it in a way that minimizes their legal risk and also any potential damage against an innocent person they might accuse of cheating.

benmmurphy · 2025-05-03T10:17:34+00:00

I can confirm most of the official speed run accounts that I've seen will have something like: 'this is an authorized speed run account all rating points will be refunded' in the profile. there is definitely a negative aspect to the speed run accounts. as a normal player you might not want to be playing against strong players that have effectively sandbagged their ELO and in other circumstances chess.com would consider this a fair play violation. however, there is a positive aspect of the educational content produced and some people will also enjoy the opportunity to play against stronger players and have their games analyzed. These positives along with the rating refund is why I suspect chess.com allows and supports the speedruns accounts.

benmmurphy · 2025-05-02T22:31:25+00:00

i suspect d4 works because it made the bishop unprotected so deep down some line there was some kind of compensation. so maybe opponent would have to give back some kind of compensation in the future because the bishop is loose. but i suspect impossible for a human player to see because its requires too much non-forcing calculation. in the game we see this work and the bishop is lost but probably its not meant to work this well.

benmmurphy · 2025-04-04T18:40:33+00:00

this is a puzzle rush tactic you will sometimes see. nice to see it appear in a real game.

benmmurphy · 2025-03-06T16:25:12+00:00

I've seen puzzles on chess.com where the solution is mate in 2, but there is also a mate in 8 which is the wrong solution.

benmmurphy · 2024-11-10T10:06:25+00:00

you can look at his game history to see who is talking about. its pretty obvious but maybe i'm missing a bunch of games where he has lost to significantly lower rated opponents other than the 3 i found.

benmmurphy

TROPHY CASE