How Chess Fights Cheating, Online and Over the Board

Engines now play far better than any human, and they run on a phone. That makes cheating a problem with no final fix. Online platforms and FIDE both work on it constantly, with different tools, because the two settings pose different problems.

Online, the computer is already in front of the player. Chess.com says its system checks games against more than 100 factors and flags results that are statistically very unlikely for a human. Its own figures for January to March 2025 cover about 20 million games a day.

In those three months it closed about 314,000 accounts for fair play violations, roughly 3,500 a day. 34 were titled players, including three grandmasters. About 85% of closures were automatic, and it granted 0.2% of some 28,000 appeals.

Those numbers show the scale of the problem rather than its solution. Blatant engine use is the easiest to catch. The harder case is a strong player taking help only at a few key moments, which leaves far less of a statistical trace. For prize events, Chess.com now requires its Proctor software, with two cameras and room checks.

Over the board, the challenge is getting the engine into the playing hall. FIDE’s Laws forbid a player from having a phone or any device that can suggest moves on them during a game. A player found with one loses the game.

Top events add their own measures: metal detectors and scanners, fair play officers watching the hall, and in some events a 15-minute delay on live broadcasts, so outside helpers can’t relay moves in real time. FIDE’s Fair Play Commission investigates suspected cases at any FIDE-rated event.

Statistical analysis often plays a part too. In 2019, grandmaster Igors Rausis was caught using a phone in the toilet at the Strasbourg Open. He had already been under suspicion after statistical analysis of his results. He admitted it, received a six-year ban, and lost his grandmaster title.

Proven cases at the top level are rare, and most games are clean. But the tools are not perfect either, and they keep changing as the methods of cheating change. Any of these systems is better read as an ongoing effort than as a settled solution.