Have you ever cheated at go?

[daal]

I have.

It is so easy and except for feeling ashamed there are no consequences. I admit that in a weak moment, I have on occasion succumbed to temptation and opened smart go during an opening in an online game to check a joseki. Nowadays, it is obviously just as easy to consult a pro-level program while playing, and I wonder how prevalent it is. Since there is no way to check, I thought I'd just ask.

[nasdaq]

Confession time.

i did.

It was about 10 years ago in an important online game.

I looked up a joseki because I couldn't remember the line, and I wasn't confident in reading it out.

The joseki turned out ok but the game i lost.

Karma...

[BlindGroup]

My sense is that this sort of thing is very common. I played a game today in which my opponent paused twice for a suspiciously long time in the middle of a joseki. Was he or she looking them up? Who knows. And honestly, I for one do not care. As long as people are consistent in their actions, the ranking system should sort all of this out. I'm bothered more by people who actively manipulate their rank and subvert the ranking system.

I also noticed someone on OGS post the following comment with his game request "Please do not use AI to fight me!". I've been wondering about this. I've had a few games where, after a pause, my opponent showed surprisingly strong fighting skills or found exactly the right moves to kill a very complicated shape. In fairness, some people are just better at one aspect of the game than others. So, this could have been legit, but it definitely made me wonder.

As for me, I have been able to resist the temptation thus far, but I can honestly say that the thought has crossed my mind more than once. So, I understand the urge. And if you believe the priest who ran my middle school I'm as guilty as everyone else -- thinking of doing something wrong can be just as sinful as doing it!

[Pio2001]

I have never cheated. If we put aside all moral and ethics considerations, I still see three practical reasons not to.

First, if I was winning after having cheated, I would feel that it is rather the book/software has won the game and I have lost it.
I also collect mechanical puzzles, and with puzzles, to "look at the solution" means "to resign". I would feel the same about a game of go : not finding the right move and looking for help in the book would be the same thing as to resign the game : ok, I lost, now tell me what was the solution.

Second, to cheat means to lie. Lying to my opponent, pretending I was playing the game without help. I can't stand that. Lying puts a lot of pressure : the stress about being found. I much prefer being square and relaxed, than living in the fear of being discovered.

Third, it would jeopardize all my activity as a go player. As an active member of the french federation. If I would cheat and someone finds out, I would certainly be banned from official competitions, and nobody at the club would like to play against me anymore.

For the record, I must say that I'm not a very good player (12 kyu in the federation, 5 kyu on KGS), and I am no more making progress. Therefore I feel no urge to win at all costs.

[daal]

My experience was that a lack of self-confidence (I'm losing 51% of my games!) combined with some lousy excuses (probably everybody does it!) the easiness (smartgo was already opened anyway) and the anonymity of the internet led me to cross the line. Not such uncommon circumstances. On the other hand, I stopped doing it because succumbing to temptation made me feel even worse that I already did about my go, and I imagine that's not so uncommon either. My guesstimatior says it happens in 2-5% of online games. There are a few ways of avoiding it: playing blitz and playing against actual computers for example. When playing slow games online, there seems to be nothing to do but hope that one's opponent isn't being a jerk, and accept the fact that sometimes they are.

[Bonobo]

Does using an online Joseki dictionary in a correspondence game count as cheating?

If it does, then … yes.

[BlindGroup]

My experience was that a lack of self-confidence (I'm losing 51% of my games!) combined with some lousy excuses (probably everybody does it!) the easiness (smartgo was already opened anyway) and the anonymity of the internet led me to cross the line. Not such uncommon circumstances. On the other hand, I stopped doing it because succumbing to temptation made me feel even worse that I already did about my go, and I imagine that's not so uncommon either. My guesstimatior says it happens in 2-5% of online games. There are a few ways of avoiding it: playing blitz and playing against actual computers for example. When playing slow games online, there seems to be nothing to do but hope that one's opponent isn't being a jerk, and accept the fact that sometimes they are.

I think you are too hard on yourself. And honestly, if you are in a position where you are stuck and not sure where you need to focus, playing "assisted" games might even be a viable strategy for figuring out what to study. For example, you could create an new account, and for games played on that account, allow yourself to look up joseki. If that improves your play beyond your unassisted account, then it might be worth putting in some time studying joseki. If not, then you should focus elsewhere. With AI, you could even restrict your assistance to other aspects of the game -- like tsumego.

Another point that might be important is that psychologically, we are MUCH more likely to remember things when we expose ourselves within the context of actual application. So, having an account in which you allow yourself to look up joseki could be a good way to learn them. Try to play the joseki on your own and if you get to appoint where you don't remember, look it up.

IMO the key is that you have a different account and that you play consistently on that account. And to be clear, I'm referring to just regular online games. I think playing with this kind of assistance in a tournament would be problematic. That said, this is just a thought, and others may disagree.

[Fedya]

In addition to agreeing with Bonobo's comment, I'll also during DGS correspondence games play positions out (without computer assistance) and save the SGF to have that line of play for reference. But I've always thought that was part of the point of correspondence as opposed to real-time play.

If things are going badly when I'm playing against the computer, I'll undo a move and try something else, but that's training so it's different too. I don't ask for undos in real-time games.

[nasdaq]

In correspondence games I think its 'normal' to look up joseki and play out sequences on a board etc. though using an AI bot would be crossing my moral line.

Doing undo's against a bot is something i've done when there was a chance i could win. It's not something I like doing though. I guess it comes from not doing undo's on servers and in real life games.

I quite like playing on a real goban now against an AI and relaying moves back and forth on the laptop. I know I'm going to lose because they're so strong. But I give the AI sensei respect for teaching me and play as if its a real life game.

Who doesn't like to win, and can see it being tempting to cheat. I guess with an older perspective on things now, I'm just happy to get schooled, or mybe my soul has been crushed by our AI overlords

[Tryss]

Guilty ! In the past, I have looked at joseki sequence a couple of time.

I think this kind of cheating is quite harmless in your average online game (tournaments are another beast)

[Knotwilg]

I don't recall having cheated and I seriously doubt the benefit of occasionally looking up a joseki. It reduces the mistake rate with 1 or 2. When the opponent deviates from the joseki, you still need to know how to "punish" it and what the punishment is actually worth (many think their opponent should lose when deviating from joseki, while it often is just a 2 point difference)

I'm from before the time when bots were useful. I would find it very interesting to play a game with the help of a bot. I think it may give a Hikaru-Sai-like experience, which makes you a better player. But I'd never do it without consent of my opponent.

Obviously, there is no point in carrying an online rank under a pseudonym which actually reflects Leela's strength. You must have a very low self esteem to go down that path.

[Ian Butler]

I don't think I'd feel good about my game if I cheated. But I can see why it would be tempting sometimes, especially to look up joseki or something.
I've never cheated at Go, though, and I don't think I will. It kind of goes against what Go is about, for me.

But I think there are many different types of cheating. Looking up a joseki or using Leela are two very different things.

It reminds me of Hikaru No Go, where that one guy uses his Joseki book during a tournament

[Kirby]

This is an interesting question, because it seems that the way someone answers whether they have "cheated at go" will depend on their moral line for cheating.

I don't know if all of the people that responded to this thread voted, but by my count, 5 or 6 people (including the OP) admitted in the comments to looking up a joseki and/or playing out sequences off of the board. Some seem to suggest that it's natural to play sequences off of the board and/or look up joseki in a correspondence game. Some players would certainly agree that both of these actions are cheating. Yet only 3 votes indicate any form of cheating. My suspicion is that his question is interpreted as, "Have you ever crossed your personal moral boundary in playing go", because by some definitions of cheating, all users who have commented that they have looked up joseki, for example, should have indicated that they've cheated.

I suppose this comes down to the difference between cheating in an ethical sense (i.e. doing something that you believe to be wrong) and cheating by some objective standard (which wasn't explicitly given in the OP).

If the goal is to identify the latter, a more precise definition of what constitutes cheating should be specified.

[gowan]

Thirty years ago or so, when play over the internet became possible, there were debates within the administration of the AGA regarding whether games played on line should be rated. The negative side was that it would require referees to make sure no "cheating" took place. AFAIK the AGA rating system still does not allow unrefereed on line games, though informal club games can be submitted with the consent of both players. At one time in some tournaments laptop computers and, later, pads or cell phones would not be allowed at tournaments to make game records by the players themselves because of the possibility of "cheating". If I recall correctly there was a notorious case some time ago when a prominent Chinese (Yu Bin?) pro played on line in place of an amateur in a tournament.

Chess has had cheating cases continually, even with grandmasters getting help from others when they went to the restroom.

[BaghwanB]

Similar to above responses, I've never done what I'd consider "cheating", but I did decide to publicly post in my DGS listing that I will use reference materials and such (but not consultation with other players) in those games just so there wouldn't be any confusion about that.