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crosseyed: I'm a skeptical person. I don't take everything at face value. I've just seen this happen a few times already where a new handle appears out of nowhere and wipes everyone off the board without so much as a loss. Yes, I find that a little weird. I tend to think it's an advanced player who has concealed their known handle and their abilities in order to attract fresh meat. As far as cheating, it's already known that people do use software. I know on one site where there are bots that are programmed to play games.
JerNYC: I just don't see the benefit. Do people actually turn down a lot of games with higher rated players? It's not like you can get hurt too badly by playing players rated much higher than you - it's usually to your benefit to do so. If you lose, you lose very little (or nothing) in rating points, and if you win, the gain can be huge.
The only thing I've seen on this site that I've considered at all suspicious is some of the pond games; they would be easy games to cheat by having players privately agree on their points for each round, and I've seen some odd results that made me wonder. But that could just be paranoia on my part, so I'm not losing sleep over it.
Bots and software? Definitely a potential problem, and not one that there's really any answer for. I doubt there's much of that in most games, but I wouldn't be even remotely surprised if some players are using software for games like chess and go. But even if they are and their software is very good, they'll end up with a suitable rating, and so will us human opponents. :)
JerNYC: bots and software is always a problem on a game site ... not just for new players .. for example i could start using some chess software as well, and just claim i got more time to think about my moves to clarify my raise in ranking (if i would ever raise :))
for new players something else might happen: some people tend to finish winning games first, beore they finish the games in which they seem to lose .. this tends to a higher ranking for new players and a high win/loss ratio at first
(also games which you are winning usually require less effort and will be finished faster from your side, than games which you might be losing in which you have to think about every move several times)