Cheating in chess is cheating – even if it’s an online game

It isn’t just the super grandmasters who get annoyed about people cheating online, it’s every single one of us who plays online and doesn’t cheat, no matter how much we struggle, no matter how lost the game looks.

Those of us who are keen enough to learn in the honest and proper fashion use a chess engine only after our games to better understand where we went wrong and the pickles we got ourselves into. I’m sure Stephen Moss, who admits using a chess engine for the first 15 moves during online games, could try this (Confessions of a serial chess cheat: I’m quite enjoying the Carlsen v Niemann fallout, 8 October).

Whether you are playing every move that the engine suggests or a single move per game, it is all regarded by the chess community as the same thing. That is why feelings are running so high over the Carlsen-Niemann case, and opinion is so hotly divided over whether Hans Niemann should be allowed to play in tournaments.

You cannot excuse cheating online simply because it isn’t the same as cheating over the board. People like Moss, unrepentant and persistent offenders, are spoiling the game for us all.Martha LeaSt Leonards on Sea, East Sussex

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