nabla: Forms of cheating are probably more widespread than we realize too!

I think you would hear more of an outcry over what you have uncovered if other people were not doing the same thing themselves, even if maybe to a lessor degree.

For example, I was recently involved in a couple of games with a certain player, and we were both making moves consistently one evening, and in one game I offered them a double. I was able to see that they were viewing this game, but they never made a move, and then they were off the site, with their last action of "viewing this game".

Now, coupled with this recent claim of cheating fresh in my mind, I wonder if this person has taken this game to a program to determine if accepting a double is the right move or not? It seems quite obvious to me that is what has happened.

So, I am sure in my mind that even if people are not cheating by playing every move by the aid of a program, that many people are surly using these aids to assist in certain tough move situations or like the one I just described

Puckish: I think that cheating is far from obvious in the case you described (compared with the evidence nabla was able to provide).  You probably wouldn't like to play against me--I often take a lot of time to evaluate tough double offers, or when deciding to make such offers.  I spent nearly an hour on one this morning, and would hate to think that anyone would conclude that I'm obviously cheating.  Some of us just work hard.

Puckish:I think it's a little paranoid to assume that's the only possible explanation. I will often put a game aside when there is a difficult decision to make.  That's frequently the occasion for me to go to bed and think about it when I'm fresh.

puckish: I agree completely with wetware and alanback. Getting a bot's-eye view of a position only takes a few minutes, if that, so the longer someone takes the more likely they are to be having a personal ponder. I've sometimes visited and revisited a game several times over a few days (DailyGammon time controls permit this), each time deciding to defer the decision until it becomes clearer (or rather for me to become clearer, lol. It's amazing how one day's foolish "Yeah, I'll get the rolls" optimism becomes another day's "That would be madness!" rational thinking. )