Tournament Integrity and Empathy

March 31, 2021 5 Comments

Someone has been cheating in our tournaments.

This wasn’t completely unexpected. Online chess is riddled with people who think they’re clever by using existing chess programs to give them their next moves. The anti-cheat system we employ caught this player within hours of their first infraction and gave us all the time we needed to act on it. The question was, what now?

If you’re new to the CEA, we run video game tournaments (yes, chess is a video game now) for more than 200 companies around the world. Each Saturday, more than three thousand working professionals challenge each other in their favorite game for nothing more than glory. The Microsoft vs. Google Rocket League match is a seasonal tradition. Amazon is opening with the Sicilian against Walmart. We joke often that the difference between CEA and the Superbowl is that nobody wants to win the Superbowl this badly.

So naturally, cheating is taken very seriously. We do the basic stuff: The cheater’s team loses the match by default, and all matches including the cheater are retroactively set to losses.

But then what? What if a player has a question about why they won a game they thought they lost? What if somebody demands to know the cheater’s name? Why shouldn’t we default to transparency?

The answer is empathy. The CEA is a unique environment. When everything you do is literally underlined by the company you work for, scrutiny and pressure to succeed are at an all time high – for yourself, for your team, and for your company. And we understand that many companies participating in the CEA would not look kindly on an employee representing them deciding to take dishonest means to victory.

We don’t want to be the reason that somebody's career hit a ceiling, or worse, a wall. We don't want to let one bad decision dictate years of somebody's future. If CEA is going to be the force for good that we claim to be, public naming and shaming of cheaters isn't punishment - it's a destruction of our values as much as that individual's career.

So now we arrive at a policy.

  • First and most importantly, no anti-cheat algorithm is perfect. Any game that was played all season long involving a cheater is marked as a loss.
  • Victims deserve justice. We do our best to edit tournament matchups and standings to properly reflect the new situation.
  • We don't allow repeat offenders. They are removed from the tournament going forward. Each case is reviewed on a case-by-case basis. In some cases, they may be allowed to register for the next season under strict scrutiny.
  • Finally, let it go. Move forward down a better path.

So that's our solution. How do you think we did? Tell us in our socials below.



5 Responses

James Ferrigno
James Ferrigno

April 01, 2021

@Melvin this isn’t the forum for hashing out the details, banning names and throwing mud. They wanted feedback from players so I delivered it. Let’s keep this page open for that purpose.

Michael Flores
Michael Flores

April 01, 2021

I’ve consistently had great experiences playing and organizing teams for CEA, as have any colleagues that I’ve gotten involved in the league. I appreciate the level of thought that went into this new policy and CEA’s transparency in sharing the whole process.

In my experience over the years, CEA has always done an incredible job addressing cheating any and every time it’s occurred. The tournament staff go out of their way to be approachable which makes it easy to voice concerns, and they are transparent in their rulings—which helps maintain the integrity necessary for a corporate charity tournament.

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March 31, 2021

Melvin, it’s quite obvious that there have been cheaters. Evidence has been presented — and unfortunately dismissed — on numerous occasions.

Melvin Hillsman
Melvin Hillsman

March 31, 2021

@JIM FERRIGNO

I think if someone is cheating it should be called out and evidence presented; do you have actual proof? Stating that all three of your teams faced cheating means that at least three teams have at least one person cheating. I am not saying you are wrong but I personally would like to see the evidence so a) I do not run any games with them until anyone cheating has been addressed and b) anyone else has the option to do or not do the same.

Jim Ferrigno
Jim Ferrigno

March 31, 2021

I think it’s nice that you guys take cheating seriously in Chess. It would be really cool if they would follow the same standard for the COD tournament. All three of our teams faced cheaters this week, one of them incredibly flagrant and clearly intentional, and they’re all being brushed under the rug and treated as “well you can have a rematch or take the loss” – this is not justice for the team that was cheated on, and it does not make one want to participate in next seasons event. Please get with all your teams to make sure that each game is actually following this standard, because right now the integrity in the Call of Duty tournament is nonexistent.

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