Chess and Mental Illness



Morphy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)





A Culture of Cheating


Typical classroom in Br. Andrew Gonzales Hall

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It is interesting to ask a college or university class what they believe about cheating on tests or papers. When I have asked this question in my undergraduate general ethics classes, there are few students who say that one should be honest, but most students admit that if they could get away with it they would cheat.

Another instance in which I have encountered cheating directly is online chess. Some chess servers have been hacked by “chess players” (and I use the term loosely) who manipulate the program so that their opponents cannot move their pieces where they would like. This usually happens when a player is about to make a winning move. The piece moves to the wrong place, the cheating player takes the piece and “wins” the game, and sometimes makes offensive comments such as “I won, [a string of expletives follows]. There is no sense of personal integrity in a cheater, but rather a childish believe that “I’m going to get what I want no matter what it takes.”

Some sports figures use illegal performance enhancing drugs. Such cheating has a cost in early onset heart disease and other complications of using steroids. “Whatever it takes to succeed” becomes the motto of professional (and often college and university) athletes, even if that ephemeral success comes at the cost of their health, life, and worst of all, their integrity.

More and more individuals are claiming fake credentials in their job applications, and the market for fake online degrees is growing. Sadly, this problem is a significant one for Christian ministers, especially in Fundamentalist groups, who somehow justify their fake degrees at degree mills as “deserved due to my life experience,” or “deserved because I did have to turn in a dissertation”–but a “dissertation” that will automatically be accepted if the price is right. “Whatever it takes…..”

However, “Whatever it takes….”, when it includes cheating, destroys what is most important in a person–character, integrity, honesty, trustworthiness. If a person is willing to lie on a job application, that person is more likely to lie on the job and hurt the business for which he works. Such an individual cannot be trusted in personal relationships since he sees life in strictly egoistic terms of self-absorption, “what is good for me.” Multiple generations of spoiled children, beginning with some of the baby boom generation, children left to fend for themselves, severely dysfunctional families, societal values that promote material success and “celebrities” over real achievement–all these have helped to spread “the cheating culture.”

I wish there was a magic bullet, something I could tell my students to encourage them to think through their values so that those who think cheating is morally acceptable can reconsider their position. If the attitude has been internalized at the level of a person’s character, that is difficult to change, although it is theoretically possible for all but sociopaths and psychopaths. The Founding Fathers of the United States feared that rabid individualism would ruin the character of the nation’s citizens–and to a large extent this has happened. Can this society survive when the dominant culture is a “cheating culture”?

Of Entitlement Culture and Chess Clocks


Digital chess clock

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Americans have become notorious whiners, especially in this age of entitlement. Instead of working on their weaknesses in order to overcome them (something that builds character), many Americans try to get a break that costs them nothing. As a chess player and long time member of the United States Federation, I have seen such attitudes seep into participants in chess tournaments.

When I played in tournaments in the 1970s, the rounds would start on time–anyone who arrived late was penalized time off their clock, and therefore had less time in which to make all their moves in the game. They thus had a greater danger of losing. Now some tournaments routinely start ten, fifteen, or even thirty minutes late. Those who arrive on time end up staying later than they had planned due to delays in the later rounds. Those who arrive late are not punished for their late behavior. Now there are some tournament directors, such as Tennessee’s Harry Sabine, who do an excellent job of starting rounds on time. But they are becoming fewer by the day.

One of the worst developments, in my opinion, in the contemporary chess tournament is the five-second delay in many chess clocks. On this setting, a player’s clock does not start until five seconds after his opponent hits the button on the clock. Thus, a player may have one second left on his time, but if he moves within five seconds, he will have a potentially unlimited moves left.

Players who have good time management skills will not be harmed by the five-second delay. I have only lost one tournament game on time in thirty-three years of tournament play. But players who have not learned good time management skills benefit from the five-second delay. Instead of learning such skills, they now can move quickly and avoid losing on time. Most of these players are higher-rated players, and a lower-rated player would sometimes win on time. This greater chance of an upset added to the excitement of a tournament and was good for the morale of the lower-rated players. Now, since by the time a higher-rated player gets into time trouble, it is usually during the endgame, most of the time that player can easily make moves during the five second delay period. There are fewer upsets as a result.

The USCF default is to use the five-second delay setting. That is, if a player prefers that setting and the other player protests, that does not matter–the five-second delay is forced on the protesting player. Thus whiny players with poor time control skills have gotten their way with the five-second delay instead of taking the time and effort to improve their time management. The USCF has become a participant in the entitlement culture. How sad.