General reminder that many changes cannot be easily datamined, such as functionality changes or bugfixes, and are not always final.
 

Champions

Ornn

• a bit ago it was brought up that Ornn's passive was unsustainable due to the demand to create copypasted versions of his item upgrades and also have to make sure to keep them updated with any changes from the base items
• the passive upgrades have now been overhauled
• however this is clearly unfinished and buggy so it's not entirely clear what the final vision is supposed to be (the tooltip is currently unchanged from live)
• regardless, this is how it can now currently be observed to function:
  • Ornn can now upgrade every completed item except for unstacked Tear items and Support Quest items
    • this includes a couple oddities like Mejai's and Vigilant Wardstone
  • Ornn's upgrades now grant a mostly-fixed 1000 gold value to the following stats that the item possesses (split mostly-evenly):
    • AD:  +1/35g  (same as Long Sword)
    • AP:  +1/20g  (same as Amplifying Tome)
    • HP:  +1/2.66g  (same as Ruby Crystal)
    • Armor:  +1/20g  (same as Cloth Armor)
    • MR:  +1/18g  (same as Null-Magic Mantle)
    • AH:  +1/31.25g  (not sure what this is coming from, but we know that Riot does not actually value Ability Haste based on Glowing Mote like the wiki implies, possible that they took an average across multiple epic items?)
    • AS:  +1/30g  (same as Dagger post-14.10)
    • all other stats do not count (i.e. no Lethality, which would have been cool to see an official stance on its gold value)
  • for example:
    • Kraken Slayer post-14.10 grants 50 AD, 40% AS, and 7% MS on the base item
    • of these, Ornn only upgrades AD and AS, so the 1000 gold value will be split between those, leaving the MS untouched
    • 500g of AD and AS comes out to +14.3 AD and +16.7% AS
    • as a result, the Masterwork Kraken Slayer now grants +64 AD, +56% AS, and +7% MS (it's not entirely clear if it's actually rounding or if it's tooltip only)
  • Health seems to have a unique property to it that diminishes its value when joined by other upgradeable stats (this behavior doesn't exist in the data so I'm not entirely sure about it, it might also just be a math bug)
    • 1 stat (such as Warmog's or Heartsteel):  +375 health (valued at 1000g, which is full value)
    • 2 stats:  +175 health (valued at 465g, instead of 500g, which would grant +188 health)
    • 3 stats:  +125 health (valued at 333g, which is full value)
    • 4 stats:  +75 health (valued at 200g instead of 250g, which would grant +94 health, and suspiciously matches a would-be 5 stat value)
    • 5 stats:  pretty sure there is no such item unless Nexus Blitz Spatula comes back
  • upgrades still apply to only your first slotted item
    • there does not seem to have been anything added yet to better disambiguate where you want your upgrade to go beyond having to coordinate your slots with your Ornn (or in Ornn's case, making sure to have a specific item slotted first before you hit level 13)
    • this could potentially be solved by having the upgrade instead give you the Ornn crafting UI and picking which item to upgrade from there
    • also once you have an item upgraded, that is the only item that will be upgraded for the rest of the game (for example, if you upgraded Randuin's Omen, you cannot sell it to try to upgrade your Jak'Sho, for the rest of the game you will only be able to get upgraded Randuin's Omen)
    • for current testing purposes, the Reset Game cheat does let you pick a new item to upgrade, however it's pretty annoying to have to do that every time
  • upgrades no longer have unique names
    • for example, Black Cleaver now just becomes "Black Cleaver (Masterwork)" instead of Obsidian Cleaver
    • fortunately, the way they have this set up seems like it would be somewhat easy to keep the unique names in the future if they were willing to do so
    • the name gets changed by using an Item Modifier, and currently there is only one Item Modifier for all Ornn items, so the modifier has been told to simply append the masterwork label
    • however, Item Modifiers also support replacing names entirely, so if they wanted to they could create unique modifiers for each item's Ornn name
    • while this would still result in some future maintenance required whenever new items are added, and would now require every completed item to be given an upgrade name instead of just a handful, it's something you'd only have to do once and never come back to, instead of needing constant upkeep like the live Ornn upgrade system
• overall this is a very promising solution and its current shortcomings have some pretty good opportunities for improvement

 

ARAM

• Homestart speed duration:  10s 20s
  • this is the speed boost you get on game start as well as whenever you respawn before 5:00
  • this doesn't really matter much for game start since it takes 15s for spawn gates to drop + 3s for portal travel time
  • also it currently only grants ~1 speed? there's a data value that implies it should be 50% speed but maybe they divided by 100?

Im seeing a lot of people posting that Chronos is too op. People suggesting methods of nerfing him or adjusting. But as someone who is beating him over and over fairly easily on high fear i have this to say, learn his moves in god mode. His moves are punishing, dealing large amounts of damage in a single hit as a titan should. To really master him you need to learn him enough to do large sections hitless, learning where his blind spots are and the tells for his moves. If you keep failing at that he doesn't need to be weaker, you just need to learn.
Its situations like this that god mode was made for. A flat damage reduction is not cheating. The mode is there for a reason. It will give you the leeway to lean his moves to the point you don't need it and can then beat him without it. Mel and Zag after all are gods, there is no reason they cant use that birth right.
https://preview.redd.it/7wdldbu9s50d1.png?width=1014&format=png&auto=webp&s=b405015546991404f661961d828eafe12ccbc8f8
For my first few runs of underworld and Olympus i used god mode. Turning it off when i stopped loosing or struggling. It's a great tool for learning movesets and mechanics and if you are ignoring it out of pride i implore you to give it a try. The point of games after all is to have fun and if you are having such a bad time you are begging the devs to make the game easier in reddit, make it easier yourself first with the tools they already gave you.
That to the side, strategies i use to get easy wins. These fall under two categories, add management and burst damage.
Add Management
You need a quick mana efficient way to kill the satyrs, hourglasses and other adds he brings to the fight. This is also the reason i always choose the hades boon that kills half of them for you. (though the darkness boon he offers is also amazing, 10 seconds of invulnerability after hitting one of Chronos's orbs is really OP)
The only henchman you need to divert your attention to are the banners, use your main attack to kill them as soon as you see them in phase one, or they will create barriers over the adds that makes them tougher to ignore, but there is a large gap between the banners appearing and them casting their first barrier.
For all other mobs i like to ignore them and focus on Chronos, while i passively kill them.
To do this you want your passive damage to do around 300 hp of damage. This is your aoe cast or your dash.
There are multiple casts that can do it but i recommend Hestia and Demeter.
https://preview.redd.it/kfqerlfcr50d1.png?width=1204&format=png&auto=webp&s=7b09ef75b00b87b60362eaeb2c75db53fd416a6e
https://preview.redd.it/yhe9isefr50d1.png?width=1195&format=png&auto=webp&s=66ec3e8cdd10011f7f167f840764537808e30427
https://preview.redd.it/pngxfu93s50d1.png?width=1002&format=png&auto=webp&s=c8a5380ad2eabaaed9653d35376a87a712fcbd96
As their basic cast deals the damage over time not their omega cast. Combined with Zeus or Hestia's casting boon, which either fires a fireball or lightning bolt and lets you target your cast. Aiming at the adds without needing to move near them.
https://preview.redd.it/midkkvsjr50d1.png?width=1196&format=png&auto=webp&s=f6028a6ecbb5fb6e8218f518ae1a151727db5ff8
https://preview.redd.it/a9epj6tmr50d1.png?width=1209&format=png&auto=webp&s=08bb13adaf7bee52b768585e6592c5a3c56f61b5
For this you get a burst (fireball or bolt) of damage and sustained dps by just tapping cast allowing you to focus your attention on chronos. Both dont waste your time charging your attack which is deadly in this encounter as the titan of time is immune to the omega attack charge time slowing.
The second method of dealing with adds passively is a high dps dash attack. The best for this is posidon. Getting his dash to heroic makes it deal 200 plus damage and has knockback cc. Allowing you to dodge chronos and move in to attack him while killing his adds in the process without thinking about it.
https://preview.redd.it/un3obwirr50d1.png?width=1201&format=png&auto=webp&s=900c8f4b2ae1cc838f208565b143541b42e5b418
Heroic Breaker Sprint does 200+ damage with no poms, but this one i got as a trade for another sprint has enough damage to kill all the adds in two hits for just 10 mana This sprint was doing 360 damage per hit.
Chronos himself, burst damage and placement
Every weapon has a way to deal reliable burst damage, to beat Chronos you want one of your attacks, special or main, to be able to deal a combo of around 1k damage in a few second, the gap you have to punish him when he uses his boomerang or scythe slice attack - but if you are struggling the highest single attack damage belong to the Argent Skull and the Moonstone Axe. Both can very easily get over 300 damage per attack,
The best axe strategy i learnt from a chaos trial in the pitch black stone. The hammer ability Hell Chop which turns your basic attack into a 300+ damage chop is amazing vs bosses with the Mel aspect Axe, as it allows you to dive, do a large burst attack and then dash right out, hopefully dealing some damage in the same time. The basic strategy is to have a good damage skill, like Nova Attack on the axe, lay your cast on top of Chronos for the bonus damage and attack with the axe, using this method ive gotten the axe to 1300 damage per attack with a very wide AOE range. allowing you to take your chance, attack once for a big burst and then bug out of his range.
If you arent lucky enough to get this specific hammer, the axe is a slow but reliable way to deal 5% of Chronos's health in a single attack. Just hit him with its full combo while he uses the two punishable moves, use Mels aspect as it allows the axe to attack fast enough. The spin omega attack is great for dps and picking off adds and is how i got my first win.
The Skull is good in that it deals its damage from a range, doing 80-100 damage with a decent attack boon you can blast chronos with 300 damage per reload, much more if he is in your cast or you have extra damage boons like Hestia, Zeus or Hephestus, then move into one of his safe zones. There are two must have hammers that boost this to the next level. The one which adds two skulls, giving you 500 base damage per wave, and the one which creates the omega attack effect when you collect the skull creating a combo where you hit him for 300, dash into him, then blast him for 300 damage per skull, so another 900 burst, this is a simple 1300 damage combo that keeps you at range and mobile most of the time and will burn the titans health in no time.
https://preview.redd.it/c2naaiwx760d1.png?width=1235&format=png&auto=webp&s=5a5498752237320c01f508e52882f0d994c64b8b
Any weapon can have reliable burst added by using Hephaestus's explosion boon, which is a long cool down 300-400 burst, around 5% of his HP, that can be boosted with furnace blast to double the damage- if you are lucky with Poms you can get the cooldown of volcanic strike as low as 2 seconds, which makes this very reliable.
https://preview.redd.it/xn88yrsm360d1.png?width=1192&format=png&auto=webp&s=3ee0e7a5e5b945cc67d8e4a684e97c534934a7eb
Through the Poseidon and Hestia duo boon which creates high damage DPS on slipped and burned enemies (Which you may have from the two quick attack methods above)
As well as through Zeus blitz effect, on fast weapons like the sister blades, for example Blitz on the special could be triggered by Hephaestus's attack causing the combo to trigger for 100 damage blitz+200-300 volcanic strike and 300 furnace strike, creating a 600 damage combo by pressing 2 buttons using 3 common boons. The Zeus/Aphrodite duo boon also allows you to instant trigger blitz turning these into very reliable burst damage boons.
There are too many of these combos to mention and part of the fun will be finding ones that work for you
Placement
For phase one Chronos is pretty simple to avoid.
His scythe whirlwind attack is slower than your dash, if you are using the dash method to passively kills adds this is a good time to run into them and kill them. Dropping your cast on the big guy as you are behind him
Boomerang scythe move is easy to avoid, its blind spot is right in front of Chronos allowing you to hit with your slowest highest dps moves easily.
His wide swing and dash attack both leave a black scar in the ground, these are the only places that are hit by the attack, you can continue attacking him close up through the swing, as the blind spot is again right in front of him, for the dash, he curls his back and shakes, your signal to dodge to the side
Golden Balls/ Bullet hell attacks, at some point Chronos will start teleporting, and generating a round shield of balls, as well as leaving a time stop barrier where he was, this is clearly signposted by a gold magic circle at his feet so easy to dodge the time freeze and these balls are low DPS for him (dealing just 13 damage for me), and can be soaked if you want, but the best way to deal with them is stand near a wall, when he next teleports the balls will hit the wall and burst. However if you have revenge attacks like Zeus's bolt, maybe 13 damage is worth taking those hits for the revenge effects. a 100 damage bolt in return for a 13 damage ball seems fair to me, though ive not done this strategy it occurred to me while recording the damage it took for this post. He also creates a vortex of balls around him. These, just ignore, they have a low range, dash out of it near the styx, take a moment to recover your mana if you have a wait to regen skill or kill some of his adds.
Thats phase one, dodge around ball and vortex attack, punish his boomerang and scythe swing attack by standing in front of him in the blind spot damaging him. Looking for the arched back and shake that indicates is is about to dash.
Phase 2 - Instant death effects and you
The first attack is an instant death or damn near it, whole field wipe. One of the clock numbers will glow, that is your safe zone, you have enough time to get from the other side of the arena if you dash but the second you see a glowing number go for it.
Ticking Clock: A clock hand appears that moves around in order, if hit by the golden hand it will stun you for a second as well as damage you, but this is easy enough to dodge.
Closing circle: If the middle of the clock glows, a circle of damage is about to come, you need to dash outside of the magic circle as it closes in. Sometimes there are two circles.
Time grasp: He will reach at you and slow your time, this is pretty ok, you cant do anything about it but he doesnt do anything to hurt you while slow, just avoid hitting one of the AOE effects already on field. When testing he only ever did this once to me each battle so feels more like a flex than a real attack.
His second instant death attack is creating a black circle on the outside and middle with a range of no colour
Notes provided by Microsoft snipping tool
Time bubbles, he creates many gold circles on the ground, getting caught in one when it goes off punishes you by freezing you. For me this catches me when im escaping the closing circle and he goes right in for the freeze, but otherwise easy to dodge
https://preview.redd.it/6b323wjsz50d1.png?width=1209&format=png&auto=webp&s=50c9f00c2e504881cd301dbfa3db1c724c77a72c
Bullet hell rings, he creates three rings of low damage golden balls, easy to dodge and position so they dont hurt you. I find my little froggy buddy usually negates an entire ring just sitting there. The warning for this is red circles on the ground. The 3rd ring is too far out to ever damage you, the inner ring is a shield and will probably need to be soaked, the middle ring is far enough away you can wait in the gap and hit him with ranged attacks and still be close enough to dodge boomerang and slice.
https://preview.redd.it/2fyvphlw160d1.png?width=1582&format=png&auto=webp&s=9b88cb489e7e10e5708f266ad8c2c243b854bdfd
At half health he summons hourglasses and puts a shield around himself, you dont need to kill the glasses, but since hes shielded and bullet covered himself may as well until he moves back to a normal pattern.
The whole time he is using his three core attacks, the dash, the slice and the boomerang, All three have wider arcs meaning a bigger safe zone for the boomerang and the slice.
After 50% health there is less of a delay between all his attacks, but it stays much the same with golden balls added to the rotation more,
Just keep dodging the AOEs, stay in front of him when hes not casting those and hit hard and often.
https://preview.redd.it/8hekgdn8260d1.png?width=1615&format=png&auto=webp&s=52e6462a71ba9df580cd3ff3276b7dcb8093085a
Finally General run advice
Boon rarity, heroic boons are an amazing investment, an increase from 80 to 200 damage on posidons dash attack? insane, there are 3 methods i use.
Rare crop from Demeter, considering that this is the most reliable way taking Demeter's keepsake at the start of a run is a good call. Will take 1-3 of your boons and make them heroic over the next 12 encounters, so if you are going to take it take it early, it also helps to do that so it chooses the core boons you want to boost. Getting this as my 4th boon in order to make my main attack cast and dash heroic is something i will happily waste my hammers onThis can be supplemented by switching to Narcissus's keepsake after first boss to turn one more of your early boons heroic, just make sure to change keepsake before drinking from the fountain.
https://preview.redd.it/d2ztqte4660d1.png?width=1087&format=png&auto=webp&s=e5af945426eb7027b70e37da2b7276c79f14ead9
The opposite of this is Heras skill Bridal Glow, which makes all your boons heroic but slowly downgrades them. Only safe to take right before the final boss, but i did once get it in the final Charon shop and had fun. If not willing to take the risk on this Hera has one of the most powerful skills in the game IMO, Proper Upbringing infusion which makes all your boons rare
https://preview.redd.it/aeqkwoai660d1.png?width=1256&format=png&auto=webp&s=9e95b879774cb458b7136c71baaa8bcd1176c81c
And then combos of another of her boons for a flat damage increase to everything
https://preview.redd.it/ceexx3wl660d1.png?width=1186&format=png&auto=webp&s=2a99e6cad714c2e47cd64e19f6683eb2f60f98e0
Hera and Hestia both offer means to trade offerings for higher versions also, so running either of these goddesses will leave you with more rare and heroic than not.
Hope this has helped if anyone has a 1k plus combo not mentioned here let me know :) And before you complain the game is too hard, use god mode.
Update: For fun after this i went back to 34 fear and tried using my least favourite weapon, the torches, i wound up getting 3 hammers this run which boosted my special, an echo double and 2 normal, so my blitz special became my burst damage and my passive damage, as the circling yellow orbs took out the adds, and as i surmised above, having two vengeance effects and soaking the golden balls was an effective way to damage Chronos. I wasnt quite doing enough damage to hurt chronos, but my hex ability came in clutch for bursts of DPSFor more fun the vows i used :)
https://preview.redd.it/flganyf4w70d1.png?width=1333&format=png&auto=webp&s=f69e5ee492134889e967c2a1d5a3eee21f3be196
https://preview.redd.it/uuxeqbz8w70d1.png?width=408&format=png&auto=webp&s=cf4461ef438ce9891ae46790d846a1f437aa2924
https://preview.redd.it/ltsqsg0ts70d1.png?width=696&format=png&auto=webp&s=0649f1024d0803a6b71e2de78de72950e33101ef
Vow of blood and dominance - Opponents having more health and damage is standard of increased difficulty
Vow of fury - Honestly a buff, enemies being faster means they move into my attacks faster
Vow of commotion - More mobs isnt a problem as you can see i build up AOE damage for the end battle adds, rather than single target damage
Vow of wandering - never really feel the impact of this one, its three vow points for nothing, am i the only one who finds the zone 1 mobs harder than the zone 2 and 3?
Vow of scars, no healing, this hurts, honestly a run ender - not one to choose lightly
Vow of destitution, this seems bad, but not really, the vow of commotion adds enough mobs that you get enough gold to counter it.
Vow of panic - i leave this on for my low heat runs, it changes the way you play a little 0 mana at start of a round makes you think about and use your gain boons more effectively.
Vow of bitterness - I hate it i hate it i hate it. I lost a Hera boon when i chose her keepsake to get it! I lost a boss Zeus boon! Ah i hate this one. But in the end 3 less boons isnt that bad of a cost.
Vow of arrogance - this costs you primed mana for rare boons, but since i used rare crop and narcissus's keepsake to boost my boons to heroic it didnt have much impact at all on this run.
Vows i hate and will never use -
Rebuke - Just annoying having to chip all enemies before hurting them, it forces fast weapon styles and just annoys me enough to avoid
Haunting - maybe i suck, but battles just go forever and ever with this one
Forsaking - The FOMO of loosing a boon you wanted upsets me a lot so dont pick this one
Desperation - look i think i made good time sub 20 min here, but ive never won a game with this (or the hades equivalent on)
Abandon - 5 fear is a lot, but loosing my arcana cards is way too big a cost.
I think i could have activated vow of suffering and gone for 38 fear here, might try that one some time.

I'm trying to blitz out getting through Spanish on Duolingo. My trial for Duolingo Max is coming to an end, but it seems best to leave it in place with a subscription. My goal is to get through the 230 units in Spanish and see where that takes me in learning Spanish.
I've seen earlier posts about people trying to set a pace of a unit a day. I was using the free Duolingo when I started, but I quickly discovered that the ads just slow things down too much. Plus fighting for hearts was annoying. Somewhere with either Super or Max, I picked up the ability to drill with the little barbell icon. This is very valuable to me.
I've seen posts from people talking about people cheating in leagues. Some of the posts talked about how fast someone was making XP. To give away my secret, here we go. This last week, I hit over 20,000 XP during the week. In the week, I knocked out my unit-a-day goal. I'm on day 18 and on Unit 10 in Section 2. Moving through the lessons rapidly causes the opportunities for the x2 XP period of time, which is 15 minutes. Once I get in the x2 XP period, I move directly to drilling. The "biggest bang for the buck" in drilling is "Speak." It's actually wonderful that this is the best pick, because there are many that believe that the weakness of an online app is not getting to speak.
When drilling when not in the x2 XP period, I listen to what is said, and try again and again to get my speech correct using my own ear for feedback. I try to imitate even the tone of the character (e.g., I drone on like Lilly, I try to be a little kid, I talk really fast, I try to sound pompous, etc.). But during the x2 XP period, I take off immediately and read the sentence. If I'm moving, I can get through the 10 sentences in as low as 32 seconds, but mostly a bit higher (e.g., into the 40s and 50s). There is some turnaround overhead in getting going to the next round of speaking (perhaps 15 seconds), so if I am moving, in a 15 minute period, I can crank out over 1,000 XP, probably approaching 1,500 XP. If there was a real battle to win the league, I can spend 100 gems to get the 15 minute period extended. I have accidentally pressed this button to extend, only because the software on my iPad has this at right about the same spot as the Continue button. So, getting to 20,000 XP for the week is a pretty doable thing--no cheating required.
The voice recognition software is a little weak at times, so when drilling, I know I missed the pronunciation, but the system gives me credit anyway.
The little three-star games off to the side of the lesson trail helps me work on fast-matching my vocabulary. The software is set up just perfect for me to fail at the very end. The company wants be to spend 450 gems or buy a package of 1-minute extensions, but I'm not going that far. My gems would be all gone too quickly, causing a need to actually thrown down real money beyond the subscription to get that extra time boost.
So that's my league strategy. This website is about gamification, and gamification is going to be something I hope causes me to actively engage in a big way in order to compete at a high level. But the unit-a-day thing is just a whole other thing. People talk about immersion as the fastest way to learn a language, but I'm not leaving home anytime soon, so immersion is going to be more of a trick than a travel plan.
So, here is my immersion plan. No, I changed my mind. That will be some other post. I'll just keep this as the post about setting the challenge for doing a unit a day for my Spanish learning. It's likely I could fall off the path rather quickly. After all, Section 1 gives the student a false sense that progress won't be that difficult. Like doing something like the Pacific Crest Trail, there are many that sign their names up at the start, but a lot fewer that make it to the end.
So, if you want in on this challenge with me, send me a friend request in Duolingo. My handle is the same. Start from wherever you are, meaning if you are on 43 units in, and think you can take the challenge from there, you are committing to being at unit 50 a week later. Maybe we will all fail to reach this goal, but maybe just shooting for the stars will get us to the moon!

Y'all I've been cheated!
I had 200 rat shillings, went to Crow-Crease Cryptics and tried to buy 200 maniac's prayers for my 200 rat shillings. My rat shillings are gone and I never got my maniac's prayers! Has this happened to anyone else? Maybe this is a bug in the new rat market system?
I am trying to get correspondence plaques for bejeweled lenses (who else is on the Zub train?). I'm a new PoSI just trying to make it in this dark city.
- Fela Kismet

Rating manipulation has been at the heart of a lot of controversies in chess lately, often resulting in cheating accusations. What if we could better control how rating is gained so as to dis-incentivize activities that lead to controversy? I propose an adaptive k-factor scaling in Elo computation so that the seriousness of a chess game directly affects how much rating can be gained or lost.
Here's a few recent examples of rating manipulation that led to controversy:

• young Hans boosting his rating with engines while trying to get paired against strong players for the experience of it (let's not side-track into what everyone thinks really happened or not)
• Alireza farming his way to the Candidates
• Hikaru's "interesting" win streaks while farming 2700s-2900s
• Brandon Jacobson fooling around with his mates during Covid and boosting each other's ratings (again, I'm going to just take him at his word regarding his temporary suspension from chess.com)

So what's my solution? Let's scale the k-factor of each game proportional to the number of participants in the event. Casual online blitz? There's only the two players involved, so very small k-factor. If they play enough games together you can still gain some decent rating after a while, but you can't just boost your friend willy nilly. Titled Tuesday? Quite a high k-factor since there's a lot of people playing, which indicates that it's a serious event. Viewer arena organized by a streamer? Moderately sized k-factors in most cases with a few dozen participants; large streamers would probably be able to organize large events with large k-factors. Random Open tournament in Spain that happens to occur just before FIDE calculates ratings for the last Candidates spot? Moderately high k-factor because it's a serious established tournament, but just not a very big one. Grand Swiss? Hella big k-factor because that's very serious business with lots of players. A 4-player "tournament" where it's mostly 1 guy playing the rest in succession? Yeah, that gets the same tiny k-factor used for casual 1v1 games. Not a viable way to boost your Elo very much.
In short, the k-factor should be scaled by something like (# participants in the event / 100). There should be a cap on how big the scaling factor can be, probably around 2.0. I'm also flexible on what exactly that divisor should be. Maybe more like 20, maybe more like 200, I'm not sure.
What are the ramifications of all this?
All the weird things that I've mentioned above would be disincentivized and less likely to occur.

• By making it very hard to gain rating in casual games, there would be less incentive to cheat in "meaningless" games. "Meaningless" in quotes because currently any casual game on chess.com has the same meaning as a Titled Tuesday game in terms of rating.
• By making small- and medium-sized tournaments have smaller k-factors, they wouldn't be as viable a path for farming Elo
• Hikaru using "dark arts" in matches outside of tournaments wouldn't be so lucrative for farming Elo, so he probably wouldn't do it as much, and it would give the likes of Kramnik less to complain about.

The most interesting ramification is what happens to open tournaments vs invitationals. Invitationals are generally very small, and would end up with moderate k-factors at best. That means top players who participate in them won't be able to change their ratings very much by just playing each other. But in the meantime, every big open tournament is going to have a big k-factor, and its winner will probably gaing a lot of rating. As such, I think this might give more people outside the top-20 more chances to break into the top-20 at least for a short time just because their rating would be more volatile. I think this would be great for chess.
So, yeah. Let's scale the k-factor by some measure of seriousness of each game. We can get sensible scaling ratios by just looking at the number of participants in the event. This would disincentivize a lot of rating manipulation behaviors that have led to controversy, and it would simultaneously incentivize a bit playing opens vs small invitationals. Adaptive k-factor scaling could improve chess quite a bit both online and in person.
What do you think?

For context, this is all relating to playing on chess.com. Background will be at the beginning, the meaty part will be at the end if you want to skip straight to it.
TL:DR I’ve been losing a lot of games to lower level players lately and I’m suspicious that cheating is becoming more prevalent.
Background: I joke around with my friends and tell them I have only three hobbies: drinking beer, reading books, and playing chess. But I’ve started having an issue with that last one.
According to chess.com, I was at the peak of my game at the beginning of 2022. I was rated 1898 in rapid (January 2022) and 1388 in blitz (February 2022). As of today, I’m 1572 in rapid (I rarely play rapid on chess.com these days) and 997 (?!) in blitz. I’m going to explain how I perceive this, and hopefully you guys can tell me why I’m wrong.
For starters, this is my daily schedule. Wake up, go for a run, get ready, play chess, go to work, come home, play chess, cook dinner, study chess while eating, read, go to bed. Chess obviously takes up a big part of my life. I play both online and over the board. For reference, my OTB ratings are 1534 for clasival, 1499 for quick, and 1419 for blitz. All of these are USCF ratings. Not the best, but it’s the top 1/3 of USCF players.
Today, I fell below 1000 on blitz. This came after 6 blitz games, of which I only won one. My opponent in my last game had a 90.5 accuracy and I had 77.3 (this is average for me on chess.com). I plugged the PGN into Stockfish 12.1 (I’m too lazy to upgrade) and frankly, I couldn’t find any faults in my opponent’s play. They weren’t choosing the best moves 100% of the time, but they were about 60% of the time, and the worst move they made all game was the fifth best, according to my engine.
The meaty part: I don’t normally evaluate chess.com games as in depth as this last one, but I’ve lost to sub-1000s on a fairly regular basis recently. Losing to people who are 400+ points lower than my OTB rating seems absurd. At first, I thought I only made foolish mistakes or blunders online, maybe because I never put the same thought and effort into it as I did OTB. But after diligently reviewing every OTB game lately, both rated and casual alike, I find that the mistakes are the same OTB as they are on chess.com, albeit equally foolish.
When I joined chess.com 8 years ago, my chess rating online was significantly higher than it was OTB. Has this changed? Is chess.com now lowballing the hell out of us?
The questions I’d rather get the answer to are these: is cheating running rampant on online chess right now? Or did I just turn idiot in the last two years? Should I give up? Is this happening because I don’t pay for the $100 version of chess.com? Should I move over to lichess? Should I just give up playing online altogether and just stick to my Sunday games in the park? Should I hang up the pieces and move to checkers or backgammon?
So many questions, such little answers. Honestly, I haven’t decided if I’d rather just be a poor sport about losing or if I’d rather chess.com be inundated with cheating. Let me know what you think and please tell me I’m wrong.

I'm writing this here because Samay Raina is the reason I got into chess.
I started playing chess in June 2023. But in January 2024, I watched one of Samay's old streams, which piqued my interest in chess. I understood that this game has so much depth and is fun. I started playing it with some seriousness and reached a 1500 rating in Blitz. (before that I have played 1000+ bullets games on mobile without pre-move)
However, my rating wasn't rising after 1500 because I struggled with the mid-game and end-game. To address this, I started playing 10-minute Rapid Games, where I experimented with mid-games and end-games against lower-rated players(my rating was 800 then). I only played Rapid for two months until my account on Chess()com was banned for "CHEATING" i.e. Fair Play on May 2nd.
During this period, I also played on Lichess()org, where I have a rating of 1700 in Rapid, with my highest rating on Chess()com being 1500.
The question arises: Why would I cheat against players rated 1300?
I appealed the ban, but they denied it, accusing me of cheating without presenting any evidence. (Maybe I cheated in my sleep, who knows?) I decided to let bygones be bygones when they offered me a chance to retain my old username and email to create a "2nd account," which I made on May 8th.
Additionally, I created another account during the appeal process, where I reached almost a 1500 rating in four days. Butttt that account also got banned for "ABUSE." Let me explain what kind of abuse they accused me of: I wrote 'bye' to my opponent when they were losing or had lost, just to tease them, which I did most of the time. Apparently, this is considered abuse. I know full well that I haven't written a single bad word in any chat.
In the past on Lichess, I did engage in actual abuse towards an opponent who stalled the whole game after reaching a losing position for the entire 8 minutes. For this, I received a warning not an account closure. Since then, I haven't said a single bad word to anyone in the game chat.
To be honest, I feel like chess is a closed gated society where if they don't like you, they'll kick you out for no apparent reason. CHESS IS NOT A SPORT, and people wonder why such a fun game like chess is not popular. Just go to the Gotham Chess channel; he made a video of a GM who got banned because he defeated Danny with some bullshit opening. If Chess()com, the biggest and most well-known platform, does these things, maybe people will just stop playing chess.
(I AM ADDING MY ACCOUNT's IN THE REPLY)

Hello, I'd like to preface this post by saying no I do not cheat and I have never cheated in league. YES I use Porofessor and Blitz but I believe both are acceptable under riots terms and service. I am very desperate for a solution and from my experience I don't believe the support team will be able to help me. I have spend a couple hundred dollars on this account and it's the first account I have ever played on.
To start a few months ago I created a new account. I got that account up to level 19 only playing against bots I played two aram games and on the second game it got banned. I fought with support for about three messages of back and forth and every single one said the suspension was place correctly and I needed to deal with it. I told the support I could accept the bans but to please tell me what got my account flagged and what third party tool got me banned. Support refused and ended the ticket.
Now I play on multiple different accounts I have been playing on two recently and switched to play on that account to play arena with my friends. I haven't played on this account for probably 6 months and I return with a ban message for third party tools. I don't want to lose this account can anyone help me recover and get my account unbanned. I've just received a response from support saying that my account was correctly banned and that their was no unauthorized access to my account
I don't want to lose anymore accounts If it's possible could anyone tell me what's getting me flagged and banned. I'm really at a loss for what to do I want to keep playing the game but it's really frustrating to lose everything for no reason.
Edit I will also include the op.gg of the account that has been banned
https://www.op.gg/summoners/na/ColormeinKindnes-5407

Hey guys, Brandon here again, just wanted to give a bit of an update since my original post: (https://www.reddit.com/chess/s/X4k3LC8cHq)
Firstly, I’d like to thank everyone for the incredible support. I certainly did not expect such positive feedback, and it absolutely means the world to me.
As the situation has blown up in the last few days among all platforms, I’ve been eagerly awaiting some sort of statement from chess.com. Privately, publicly, anything. Refreshing my email every few minutes. Complete dead silence.
While I’m still banned with my reputation on the line, they have time to joke around and make tweets about Magnus playing the opening in Titled Tuesday, yet somehow mysteriously doesn’t have time to give me a response? Not even a statement claiming that they were justified in their ban. Nothing.
What could take 5 days? Some new investigation of my games? One that was NOT done prior to my ban? Desperately trying to find any “evidence” against me they can? Clearly this is trying to be swept under the rug until the drama dies down, hoping people move on, forgetting about what they have done, but I refuse to stay silent, and I will never back down. I am owed an explanation, which they can’t seem to give as my ban was entirely unjustified, and it doesn’t seem that I’m ever going to get one.
Additionally, these last few days I’ve been working with some colleagues of mine and gathering countless examples of chess.com’s clear lack of competency when it comes to their cheat detection team, which I will be happy to share in due time.
Finally, please follow my new X account where I will be posting updates and more as they appear: https://www.x.com/gmbrandonj
Thanks again for all your support, and I certainly hope we get some answers soon.
EDIT: Okay so a lot of you guys are asking about my previous account history, I had planned to post about it on my personal X account which I will do as well, but to explain ASAP:
No, I have never cheated or been banned for cheating on any account.
https://www.chess.com/membeiamastraw is my account many people have referred to, and indeed it is shadow banned. If you scroll back a few pages of my games, you will see plenty of games against some troll accounts made by some of my friends in which we were messing around during COVID. The result of that led to a lot of boosting/sandbagging of my blitz rating, which was pointless and immature, but of course not remotely the same as using an engine. Attached in the screenshots are emails showing that it was indeed a closure for “rating manipulation” and nothing else- As you can see, the date in which the emails were sent was September 2020, and my last login to iamastraw was in May.
In between this time, I had created a similar troll account chess.com/membeimastraw. Not understanding the process which was necessary to create another title verified account, I had messaged the staff member involved with titled verifications privately on Facebook, in hopes of a quick verification for the upcoming titled Tuesday at the time, and attached is a screenshot of this as well. I was immediately banned, as I had drawn attention to the account, one which I was not supposed to have in view of the previous ban, which had gone under their radar previously. I then understood the necessary procedure of apologizing for rating manipulation before opening my new account, BrandonJacobson.
Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/TuIbIV6
A bit of a mess caused by stupidly messing around as a teenager, which of course was unnecessary, but again, I have never cheated nor have I been banned for cheating.
Finally, I see a lot of you guys don’t use twitteX, so I’ll be happy to post major updates on Reddit as well if need be.
Hope this helps clarify things!

Blitz rating around 1250s though rapid much higher because I mostly play rapid and I SUCK at blitz because of time management issue (both in chess and in life). So after hearing about the whole Vii_Shou scandal/banned, it got me interested in exploring what happened and of course their games and the post. And then a a few minutes ago I thought, actually why not try the opening and see if it actually works? It's not like I care about my blitz rating, I only care about rapid. Also I have some studying to do so I just want to do this for fun (basically too lazy to study so tricking my brain that playing chess is productive)
I don't even remember what's the exact opening sequence, all I remember is only a4 and Ra3 (are you supposed to take with knight or pawn? Have no idea). But now after I tried it for about 5 games and I somehow win all of them??
I know 5 games are not a big sample size so I will probably try to play more and update later but it just felt weird and insane to me that this really really bad opening could even allow me to win, let alone 5 games. I don't think I play that good too.
No opinion on the whether he cheated but I might actually have this as my opening for all my future blitz games. Until of course if people start noticing.
Also Chess.com if you see this please don't ban me 🙏

I finally went in on these, including the TOS figures that I was missing. I know Flynn said the TNG stuff across the board hasn't performed the way they'd like and I thought I'd give feedback as someone who has both the TNG set and the TOS set from the Funko days.
First, while I appreciate the economical body reuse, the TNG torsos look puffy and the arms look noodle like with that rounded elbow bend. The Borg and Guinan are winners, relatively, and the women and Q are okay but it hurts to have a soft torso get reused 5 times. The more a sculpt gets reused, the more it will be scrutinized.
I don't want to harp on that because I know things will go a different direction going forward. So I'll focus on constructive ideas.

1. I think the TOS buyers are still sore over the lack of a Chekov so I think a Chekov is an excellent place to start in terms of planning anything going forward, especially as Walter Koenig is getting a bit more love with his little media blitz for his final acting role and his minor Picard S3 cameo.
   
2. Trek fandom is so splintered that it's pretty difficult to put all your eggs in any one basket. But I can see a way forward centering on TOS branding and sculpts that has a bit of fun and spreads the love around more.
   

With that in mind, I'd like to suggest the following figures:
Captain Kirk (Green wraparound)
Dr. Leonard McCoy (Short Sleeve)
Chekov (TOS)
Dr. M'Benga (TOS, Short Sleeve)
Nurse Chapel (TOS)
Yeoman Rand (TOS)
Lt. Marla McGivers (TOS)
Bashir (TOS Uniform, Trials and Tribble-ations)
O'Brien (TOS Uniform, Trials and Tribble-ations)
Dax (TOS Uniform, Trials and Tribble-ations)
Sisko (TOS Uniform, Trials and Tribble-ations)
Mirror Universe Archer (Green wraparound, In A Mirror Darkly)
Mirror Universe T'Pol (TOS Uniform variant, In A Mirror Darkly)
Captain Pike (Green wraparound, Strange New Worlds)
Those can all be done with largely the same three bodies. I'd propose the following as companions:
Khan Noonien Singh (TOS)
Worf (Trials and Tribble-ations)
Odo (Trials and Tribble-ations)
Cyrano Jones (TOS, he and Worf and Odo have identical jacket construction)
Mirror Hoshi Sato (In a Mirror Darkly, Midriff Jumpsuit)
Mirror T'Pol (Might as well get a second use of the Mirror Midriff Jumpsuit)
Spock (Strange New Worlds)
Una Chin-Riley (Strange New Worlds)
Pike, Hemmer, Sam Kirk, M'Benga, Scotty, Lt. Kirk (Strange New Worlds, Might as well reuse Spock's body)
Uhura (Strange New Worlds, literally the only female main character who also wears Una's skirt/pants combo in S2 aside from Carol Kane's Pelis, although Pelia and Uhura might warrant shorter legs)
Beckett Mariner (Strange New Worlds, Those Old Scientists)
Bradward Boimler (Strange New Worlds, Those Old Scientists)
Pike in Chair (The Cage)
Arex
M'Ress
Taking a cue from G.I. Joe ReAction, they could have "Army Builders" of varying ranks and ethnicities.
Now, taking all of this into account and looking to maximize goodwill, excitement, and fan enthusiasm while diversifying colors and looks, I'd suggest the following as a first 1-2 waves, again mostly in TOS uniforms:
Chekov
Bashir
O'Brien
Odo
Hemmer
Mirror T'Pol
Arex
Khan
Just laying out my strategy:
You're getting 2 of each division color (red/yellow/blue), a staple of the iconography.
You're getting two characters (Odo and Khan) out of uniform, essential to showing people there can be worldbuilding.
You're representing 5 different shows. (TOS, DS9, SNW, ENT, TAS)
You're getting 2 non-human skintones, establishing a sci-fi look. (Hemmer and Arex)
You're getting 6 different bodies in 8 figures, frontloading tooling that can be reused later. Essential to sparking imagination with a line.
These all inspire strong and DIFFERENT emotions. Chekov - Completion of the old line, reverence for Koenig. Bashir and O'Brien - Comedy, friendship. Odo - Comedy and nostalgia for Auberjonois. Hemmer - Sadness, nostalgia. T'Pol - Ambition, defiance, the well documented love of Jolene Blalock in a skirt. Arex - Wonder, whimsy, absurdity. Khan - Nostalgia, menace, a sense the line can have great villains.
Centering the line roughly on TOS with the ability to cheat back to Discovery and forward through Wrath of Khan era gives you the most crossover potential between shows, spreading the love. It's visually TOS based but not TOS centric AT ALL. TOS era, not actually that many TOS characters and those I have chosen have very deep ties elsewhere. There's 60s Trek as a play environment (which can have playsets) but not a sole focus on 60s nostalgia (because that's an older demo than the prime collecting demo). It's essentially TOS because everyone visits TOS and it's adjacent to SNW, not because there are lots of 70 year old toy collectors. Instead of thinking about crews, think of emotional sub-units like O'Brien/Bashir, Uhura/Hemmer, La'an/Kirk, Dax/Sisko. They don't need to share waves but the overall vibe is that there are all these great scene partners in the line but also characters who have never met.
I'd also suggest if S7 does go back to the TOS well that actual TOS versions of actual TOS characters be specific to performances.
Do Kirk with that demented Enemy Within scream, McCoy with that City on the Edge of Forever drugged paranoia or a look of post-surgery relief. Resist doing more definitive versions of the TOS main 7. First because these are characters you can keep revisiting and selling because everyone knows them (whereas Mariner or Arex get one shot). But also because the Funko/S7 line did them AND the main TOS guys are overexposed characters that we can be numb to and so giving them "performance choices" (even just skepticism from Spock or amusement from Kirk) humanizes them.
That's my $.02 and change, anyway!!!

Hello people of Reddit, this is going to be a long, comprehensive post so forgive me in advance but I think it’s crucial I don’t leave out any information so here goes:
To catch everyone up to speed, The other day I seem to have shaken up the chess world after defeating Daniel Naroditsky in a long blitz match on chess.com playing under my anonymous chess.com account Viih_Sou (chess.com/membeViih_Sou) starting every game with 1 a4 2 Ra3 with white, and 1 a5 2 Ra6 with black. Speculations have run wild about who could be behind this mysterious account, Could it be Magnus trolling? Hikaru? A young Indian prodigy? A Brazilian Grandmaster? Stockfish? Who would be strong enough to pull such a stunt, defeating such an amazing online blitz player, certainly one of the strongest in the world in peak form, with rook odds? Well, chess.com soon closed the account for a fair play violation, supposedly solving this mystery..
Well it’s me, hi, I’m the problem it’s me. GM Brandon Jacobson, but you can call me Brandon.
Before I get into what happened and how this all started, I’d like to share a little bit about myself.
Part 1: Who am I?
Ever since learning the game at the age of 5 wanting to imitate my older brother who learned from an after school program, I’ve always been fascinated with chess, being an extremely intuitive person and an over thinker combined with being extremely competitive, I’ve always found my purpose and comfort in chess. Coming from a family who didn’t even know the rules, as early as I can remember, being around 8 years old I would compile notebooks upon notebooks of openings I would attempt to teach myself using my Houdini program which I was absolutely enamored with. Playing at my local club every weekend was the highlight of my week. Slowly I kept improving and improving, and throughout the years I would be inspired time and time again by reading the classics (for example My System by Nimzowich). During difficult times in my childhood, chess would always be my escape, something with endless room to learn and become better at, and when I would analyze chess, nothing else in the world mattered. My approach to learning chess always made me stand out from other talented children I was surrounded by, who were all extremely tactically sharp from consuming puzzles prescribed by their coaches, meanwhile I always shocked coaches and grandmasters with my intuition and understanding for the game at such a young age. I can still vividly remember being 10 years old rated around 2100, attending a US Chess School camp, graciously run by IM Greg Shahade giving talented American kids an opportunity for a few days of free training. I was by far the youngest and the lowest rated player, there were many FMs and IMs attending as well. During the camp, we were given an “intuition test”: the idea being that we would have to look at a lot of positions of strategic nature in little time and write down our first instinct move, and in general the strongest players would perform the best, as it tests understanding more so than tactical patterns one can internalize. In the end, I had scored the highest of all the students, and gave me a huge confidence boost going forward, realizing I had what it took.
Fast forward a little while, and I was invited to the Kasparov Chess Foundation program, giving young American talents an opportunity to meet and work with none other than Garry Kasparov for a few days, and this is also where I had met, now a strong grandmaster in addition to being my best friend, Andrew Hong who you’ll hear more about shortly. As we were presenting our games to Kasparov, he quickly noticed my incredible chess understanding but carefree attitude, fooling around and causing trouble while the others would try to solve endgame studies, as difficult calculation never appealed to me the way it did others, and I could never bring myself to focus. At the end of the session, Kasparov had talked to my mother, telling her what was already clear: that I’m extremely talented but lazy, and I’m going to need to start working hard.
Well, I didn’t end up taking his advice, having fun through my teen years with my completely relaxed attitude at every tournament. Always being a streaky player, being unstoppable when I’m in form, but also having tilt streaks, one of my most memorable tournament experiences was being 15 years old, missing a round being hospitalized overnight during a tournament, sleeping maybe an hour with IV tubes stuck to me, going to play that same day, ending with a 2700 performance, and laughing about the whole experience. I’ve always performed my best enjoying doing what I loved, without any expectations or pressure.
Knowing how difficult professional chess life is, trying to make ends meet if you’re not an absolute top player, I had never planned a career in chess. I started attending University at the age of 15, and my improvement/motivation to study had stagnated. I became a grandmaster at 16, and for a while decided to focus partly on school partly on chess. Classical chess started to feel different than it used to. I would let my nerves get to me, get in my own head, start doubting myself, feeling guilty for taking time away from developing another career, and getting frustrated that I wasn’t achieving the results I had wanted despite knowing I was improving as a player.
Throughout these struggles, online blitz was always a huge confidence booster for me, being able to rely on my intuition and not having the pressure of over the board chess, I was able to show what I was capable of. It’s where I always felt at home. Improving over the years, and being competitive with top level players at times, I had started to realize that I have real potential that would be such a shame to waste, even though I was always overshadowed by juniors who have had more over the board success than I.
So finally, this past fall, I had taken the decision to take some time off school and give myself a fair shot at making it to the top, and committed to myself to working hard on chess. During this time, I had also played a lot of blitz online on my main account (chess.com/membebrandonjacobson), achieving 3100+ for multiple stretches, defeating many strong players in matches. Nevertheless, I would needlessly get in my own head as soon as I see Hikaru or Danya’s name pop up on my screen, always having awful results against them relative to my level against other opponents.
In any case, toward the end of 2023 I had travelled to Europe to play a few tournaments and see once and for all if I had it in me or I was just another hopeless dreamer. In the end, I did indeed gain some rating, having great experiences along the way, for example scoring 8/10 in the Sunway Sitges open, defeating the Russian prodigy Volodar Murzin in a blitz playoff, picking up 17 rating points for my efforts. I returned home to my current rating of 2575, and although the results were great on paper for me, I can’t say I was entirely happy with the outcome, knowing how my losses were entirely self inflicted with similar nerve issues I had previously been experiencing for years, realizing it’s the one thing holding me back.
So I return back home and make a commitment to myself that I’m going to reset and get my head together. After recovering from the string of tournaments, I finally decide to play a day of serious blitz where I’m totally focused, beginning with defeating Parham Maghsoodloo with a score of 10.5-2.5. Soon after I receive a challenge from Hikaru, and for the first time, I felt free. Completely free from nerves and expectations, allowing myself to just enjoy the opportunity to play. The score ended 8.5-4.5 in his favor, with every game being super close and competitive. Naturally I couldn’t help myself and watch the VOD of his stream afterwards, and I started laughing hysterically as he kept repeating (maybe slightly paraphrased) “I don’t know what’s going on today you guys, Brando normally sort of just rolls over and dies but today he’s really fighting hard and it irks me, I don’t know why he’s so motivated and playing well today!”. His assessment was completely true, only that I was not doing anything special, but simply allowing myself to play at my normal level rather than freezing up and shaking at the idea of playing a match against him.
Little did I know this high would be the last day I’d be able to seriously play chess in months. After I had finally made serious improvement and felt more motivated than ever, I was facing some serious health issues, which until now I hadn’t opened up about publicly, only explaining “burnout” to most of my friends/colleagues as a reason for disappearing from the chess world. During this difficult time, I would continue to work as hard as I could toward improving my ability for classical chess, but being advised not to play, with my body not being well equipped to handle any additional stress.
Part 2: the backstory
There for me to every step of the way throughout this slow recovery process was the above mentioned best friend/training partner GM Andrew Hong. Trying to give me a laugh, he had showed me some of his analysis on 1 a4 2 Ra3 (and 1a5 2 Ra6 for black). My immediate response was that of any sane person, telling him, using some colorful language, to please stop wasting my time and to talk to me about something else. Andrew insisted, telling me to play some logical moves against it, and if I can comfortably refute it he’d shut up about it. Well, sure enough not only was I unable to put him away, but I was struggling to survive against it, over and over and over again. I could not believe my eyes. He was prepared to every possible setup, and had such a wide array of ideas against all of them. He even joked to me that a chessable course on it might be on the way!
I joined team rook odds. We continued to analyze more ideas, seeing the power of the coordination of the 2 bishops, realizing that this could become a powerful blitz weapon.
This lasted a few weeks, until I urged him to try it in some blitz games of his own. He tested it on his anonymous account (chess.com/membePastaaontwitch) and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, winning game after game against WFAFAF. Did he find a truly brilliant weapon, one which no one can take seriously?
Part 3: Viih_Sou
I had created my anonymous account, chess.com/membeViih_Sou many years ago, inspired by an inside joke I had with some Brazilian friends at the time as a way to fool around, test openings, etc. Ironically, as my rating had dropped a bunch on my main account due to trying to play while mitigating some of my focus in an unsuccessful attempt to keep my heart rate down, I had decided to play a few games here and there to ease myself back into blitz and avoid the pressure of potential cheating accusations due to the difference in level. This is the reality of the modern world of chess if you’re not a 2700+ player, being accused by everyone to your face and behind your back every time a good result is achieved. I’ve even had one prominent, well respected grandmaster write an entire article praising my talent as a teenager only to accuse me of cheating behind my back. Well, clearly this was no exception..
Finally beginning to feel myself again, and inspired my Andrew’s success with the opening, I dove right in, beginning on April 30. After a few warmup games, I decided to test my luck too. Having 0 expectations, in complete shock I soon realized what an incredible weapon this truly was. Feeling myself again, with pure confidence and totally in the zone, I went on many hour farming sessions as I always enjoyed in the past. How could I be crushing people with these ridiculous odds?
It soon started to click that I was barely giving odds at all. In online 3+0, all that matters is reaching familiar positions where you have the ability to play quick moves and continuously keep the pressure on your opponent, and in every single game that is exactly what was happening. Winning games left and right with similar themes and tricks, and although playing totally unsound throughout the whole game according to stockfish, having opponents eventually collapse under the pressure.
Soon enough, I get paired with none other than Daniel Naroditsky. Sure, I had gained confidence and was back to peak form, but how could I possibly get away with such utter stupidity against Danya?
Well, there was only one way to find out, and I was not going to back out now. With absolutely 0 pressure on me, and all of it on him to prove he can put me away, I had nothing to lose. Absolute madness ensued, with insanely wild games played from both of us throughout our nearly 70 game match through the night, I couldn’t believe I was pulling it off. With so many creative ideas from the both of us, for example this double exchange sacrifice which later turned out to be +7 for white but with outposts for my pieces and the queenside pawns marching down long term, my king slowly ran to the queen and won in incredible fashion: https://www.chess.com/game/live/108391163433?username=viih_sou
But of course, more often than not I would find tactical tricks from lost positions for example this game which was featured on one of the original Reddit posts about this match, and in Gotham chess’ video: https://www.chess.com/game/live/108382226803?username=viih_sou
Throughout the match, Danya undoubtedly had some streaks of tilt, and it can clearly be seen that the quality of his play he showed was far lower than his normal level and what he’s capable of, obviously annoyed and flabbergasted by what was happening, as anyone would be. But nevertheless, overall I thought it was an incredibly fun match for the both of us, and was elated to be winning by a score of (forgive me if I’m wrong) around 40-29 if I’m not mistaken: an unusual feat against him, who has historically gotten the better of me, but at the same time certainly not the first time I’d won a match. Completely unbeknownst to me at the time of course, this was going viral on Reddit, theories about who this anonymous GM could possibly be.
I could not believe what I was seeing next, as I was suddenly forced to resign by the server in the opening, and kicked out of live chess. Some type of glitch? Unsure of what had happened, I had logged on again soon after with a seemingly normal interface, so I had emailed support and asked what happened. I received a response the next day, stating that I was banned for a fair play violation with absolutely 0 explanation.
My jaw dropped, I could not believe what I was seeing. Confusion turned to anxiety turned to anger. I quickly submitted an appeal to which I still haven’t heard a response to.
Had I really played so well the algorithm flagged me for cheating? Well sure enough, I got my ego in check when I went through the games and saw just how low the quality of games actually were, with us both swinging the evaluation so much in almost every game. But this made the ban all the more confusing, what can even be seen as suspicious in any way?
And then the frustration ensued. Is the only way someone could defeat Daniel Naroditsky in a match being 2750+, and otherwise you must be a cheater? Firstly, our difference in strength in classical chess is negligible, if at all. It is well established, and for good reason, that he is among the best online blitz players in the world, despite his relatively low classical rating, but the same can’t be true about anyone else? Hikaru on his stream earlier that morning had thought it could have been Wesley So, as it seems he would pull off such a troll. If he played these games it would be all fun and games I suppose, but because it was me, it’s in no way possible. And of course we are discounting the fact that a little over a year ago I had beaten Wesley 9 games in a row on his anonymous account (that has been made public by Hikaru and others) dogsofwar. Or was I cheating then too, or any time I’ve performed well?
People were also speculating that it could be a young Indian prodigy, and jokingly suggested Gukesh. But again, blitz chess, especially without increment, and classical chess are extremely different and require different skill sets. I’ve always been gifted at making quick intuitive decisions, and if I were to play a classical match against Gukesh, I’d have a close to 0 chance of winning, however I think I’d be the heavy favorite in online 3+0, given that he doesn’t have much online chess experience.
Not only this, the day after our match, Andrew had played against none other than Hikaru himself in his viewer arena, winning in the exact same fashion! https://www.chess.com/game/live/108421876919?username=pastaaontwitch So I suppose he was cheating this game as well?
I apologize if I’m coming across as arrogant, and I’m in no way intending to, I’m trying my best to simply share as much information as possible, and as you can imagine I’m beyond confused and angry, and it goes to show the bigger problem with online chess as a whole.
When Jose Martinez Alcantara (Jospem) performs exceptionally well in some online events, the entire world accuses him of cheating behind his back like middle school children, until he’s backed into a corner and scores second place in titled Tuesday in front of a camera crew, and it still didn’t stop the accusations? Or of course we simply move past the mass harassment of the 17 year old Denis Lazavik. The chess world: the only place where it’s socially accepted for grown “men” to continuously attack a teenager and attempt ruin his career over being upset from losing a game, and nobody does or says anything about it.
I would assume the chess.com staff had simply seen Brandon Jacobson? Beating our Danya with “rook odds”? No way! And hit the ban button, that would explain their radio silence in response to my appeal. Who knows for sure, guess we never will. What’s also funny to me is the fact that Danya himself has pet lines he has played against me for years that are objectively equally as bad! Pircs with c6, Bg4, certain King’s Indian lines, and the list goes on.
I’m tired of it all, I’m tired of being assumed guilty until you’re proven innocent. I’m tired of being anxious every time I’m performing well that people will start harassing me too. And unfortunately, I don’t think any of us know what the true extent of the cheating problem in chess is, and I don’t even see a great solution to this. I hate cheaters as much as everyone else, and I believe it ruins the integrity of the game for hard working people.
These last few days have been a nightmare for me, countless people messaging me calling me a cheater among other names that I will not repeat, and as we stand right now I am also shadow banned (does not officially show the account is closed for privacy purposes but cannot log in) on my main account as well. Who knows what will happen going forward, but I knew I needed to share my story, obviously to properly defend myself, but also to bring attention to what I believe could be the real downfall of online chess: false accusations.
And for some final remarks, if you don’t believe a word I’ve written:

1. Who would be stupid enough to cheat against Daniel Naroditsky and risk their reputation, my future, over meaningless blitz games.
2. I could decide to stay anonymous forever, had I truly been a cheater, but I’m sharing my story publicly, without care how this may damage my reputation. The truth always prevails in the end.

I apologize again for the length of this post, but I really wanted to paint a full picture of not just this unfortunate event, but my story as a chess player as well.
I will be happy to reply to questions/comments and add any clarification to anything I’ve said.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

What is the most money that you've made in story mode, without cheating, across all 3 characters? If you've ever done a max money run, let me know how much you made in the comments! I just made about $20.8 billion combined. That is not a typo... Michael ~$9.4B, Trevor ~$5.8B, Franklin ~$5.6B
This post is a guide on how to maximize your money at the end of the game. I know there's other guides out there sharing the same info, but I haven't seen one complete list. I've went through all the various guides and compiled every detail that was perhaps missed in one guide or another. Is it necessary to have infinite money? Absolutely not, but if you want to do it anyways, here's what you need to do:

• First, turn off autosave. You don't want the game accidentally saving if you need to reset and load a save.
• Second, don't spend ANY cash throughout the game until you've completed the the last stock market investment. If you die or get busted by the cops, reload your file to save that $5,000. Don't buy any properties (with one exception), vehicles, weapons, etc. You can get through the story on the bare minimum. For weapons and ammo, just loot people throughout missions and events.
• Third, get gold medals on all shooting range challenges across all 3 characters. The 25% discount comes in handy especially if you ignored my last point about not buying weapons and ammo lol. Regardless, some missions require you to stop at the gun store, so best to get the shooting range out of the way ASAP. For Franklin, do it BEFORE The Long Stretch, for Trevor do it BEFORE Nervous Ron (I was able to loot what I needed and didn't need to spend any cash for the mission), and for Michael do it BEFORE Boiler Suits heist setup (I don't think these are discounted which means Michael doesn't have any missions that require him to stop at the gun range).
• Fourth, later on when I'm talking about investments, you need to save scum. By that I mean, using multiple save slots to save and/or reload the game to manipulate the stock market. This is especially important on the LCN. The LCN fluctuates and there's no telling what it'll do next. You want to invest in every stock at its minimum and sell at its maximum. Sounds obvious, right? But most people don't save scum before the investment and just buy the stock as-is. I was able to get higher returns on the LCN market than advertised by being patient and investing at the low point.
  • In order to save scum, take one of the characters to their safehouse, check the price of the stock you're about to invest/sell, quick save the game (on your phone), and then go to sleep (but DO NOT SAVE... if you save during the sleep, the save file is in the advanced time... Michael sleeps for 6 hours, Franklin 8 hours, and Trevor 12 hours). Once you wake up, check the stock again. If the stock price has moved up or down in the right direction, quick save again in a new time slot (ALWAYS keep a backup save in case you mess up), sleep and repeat this process until you find the high or low point. If the stock price did not move in the right direction, either sleep again or reload a previous save. However, when you reload a save, please note there is no guarantee the stock will be at its same relative price since the LCN is completely unpredictable. The goal here is to sleep multiple times until you find the relative peak/valley and then invest/sell with all 3 characters when you get to the point.
  • BAWSAQ is controlled by GTA Online and sleep advancing time in-game doesn't affect the market. There's no need to save scum before the investment if the stock is on the BAWSAQ network.
  • At some point, you will have more money in the stock market than the game allows each character to carry ($2,147,483,647). When you get to this point, DON'T hit the 'SELL ALL' button. Either the game won't let you sell that much or it glitches and you lose your excess money over the money cap. What you need to do is hit the 'Plus' button until you reach the money cap, sell off $2.1B, and then reinvest that money in a random stock at its low point. Sort stocks by their change in value, find one doing poorly and eventually it'll rebound and you'll earn a little extra profit on top. (NEVER invest in LifeInvader, Richards Majestic, or Merryweather). Then repeat this process in $2.1B increments until all your money is out of the stock that was manipulated by the mission. When you need to reinvest all that money, you'll need to buy in $2.1B increments, sell off the random stock in $2.1B increments, and buy again until all your money is in the stock.
• The goal of this guide is to penny pinch. You want to earn every last dollar possible while spending the bare minimum that the game requires to progress the story. You want to exhaust the game of all its money possible BEFORE EACH investment. For the mathematically challenged, your money will increase much faster if you collect all that you can before the investments. Every dollar that you earn now, will multiply and become about $750 later. For example, if you skip a $100,000 opportunity early in the game, you missed out on a potential $75 million(!) depending when you later collect that $100k.

Here is the exhaustive list of missions and events that earn you money and when you need to complete them by throughout the story. If a random event is available to all 3 characters, Michael won't need it as he ends up with the most money. You'll want to purchase the Sonar Collections Dock with either Franklin or Trevor (I chose Trevor), and whomever doesn't purchase this property will be the one that should collect the rest of random choice money. It's easier to earn money by targeting security vans (and you should hit all 10 at least once… and anytime when they appear) but if you're doing a completionist run like me, might as well collect the smaller money earnings too before The Hotel Assassination. Also, if something can be purchased to progress the story with any of the characters then choose Michael.

• AFTER Daddy's Little Girl
  • Complete The Good Husband optional mission to avoid a $5,000 loss from Amanda
• BEFORE Casing the Jewel Store Job
  • Complete the Getaway Driver random event to unlock Packie McReary as a heist member
  • Wait for Rickie Lukens to call Michael AFTER Friend Request to unlock as a heist member
• Casing the Jewel Store Job
  • Smart Approach
  • Crew: Karim Denz (driver), Packie McReary (gunman), Rickie Lukens (hacker)
  • Take: Michael $1,223,073, Franklin $293,539 (paid out AFTER Fame or Shame)
• BEFORE The Jewel Store Job
  • Kill Simeon Yetarian (missable random event)
  • Chaos (optional Dr. Friedlander mission... missable content)
    • Costs $500 but Michael has plenty of money
• BEFORE Did Somebody Say Yoga?
  • Complete the Epsilon Program's (8) missions and steal the $2.1M (net $2,009,500 profit)
    • If you die during the betrayal, my game glitched and gave me the $50,000 back
  • AFTER completing the Epsilon Program, invest all of Michael's money in a random stock to avoid a $3,000 loss from Jimmy
• AFTER Did Somebody Say Yoga?
  • Sell all of the money in the random stock (always save scum for profit, never take a loss)
• BEFORE The Hotel Assassination
  • Trevor
    • Drop 4 people off at the Altruist Cult ($3,000) and pickup 4 briefcases after shootout ($100,000 profit)
    • Drug Shootout (~$60,000+)
    • (4) Maude Bail Bonds Missions (net $40,00) (Complete Abandoned Vehicle 1 and use Trevor’s special to obtain a stun gun)
    • Complete Vinewood Souvenirs - The Last Act and release Al once he offers $10,000
    • Complete all Hunting activities
    • Win a game of Tennis ($14, $25, or $36)
  • Franklin
    • Complete (5) Hao street races (net $15,075 profit)
    • Complete Paparazzo Reality Check (~$2,000 in money drops)
  • Any (recommend Trevor or Franklin)
    • Purchase the Sonar Collections Dock and collect all (30) nuclear wastes (net $690,000 profit)
    • Collect (11) underwater briefcases worth $143,500 total (I know these are glitched but I only collected each one once)
    • Bike Thief City 1 (wait until email and then sell stock immediately for $100,000)
    • Burial ($60,000 plus another ~$4,000 in money drops)
    • Deal Gone Wrong ($25,000)
    • Countryside Robbery ($10,000)
    • Security Van 1 (respawns)
    • Security Van 2 (respawns)
    • Security Van 3 (respawns)
    • Security Van 4 (respawns)
    • Security Van 5 (respawns)
    • Security Van 6 (respawns)
    • Security Van 7 (respawns)
    • Security Van 8 (respawns)
    • Security Van 9 (respawns)
    • Security Van 10 (respawns)
    • (6) Off Road Races ($3,000 total)
    • Chase Thieves City 1 ($2,000)
    • Mugging 3 ($2,000)
    • Shop Robbery 1 ($2,000)
    • Shop Robbery 2 ($2,000)
    • Robbery 10 - Limited LTD Gasoline (~$1,200) (respawns)
    • Robbery 7 - 24/7 Supermarket (~$1,100) (respawns)
    • Robbery 12 - 24/7 Supermarket (~$1,050) (respawns)
    • Countryside Gang Fight ($1,000)
    • Gang Intimidation (~$1,000 in money drops)
    • Robbery 1 - 24/7 Supermarket (~$950) (respawns)
    • Robbery 13 - Limited LTD Gasoline (~$880) (respawns)
    • Robbery 19 - Limited LTD Gasoline (~$880) (respawns)
    • Robbery 16 - Limited LTD Gasoline (~$800) (respawns)
    • Escape Paparazzi ($750)
    • Border Patrol 1 (~$700 in money drops)
    • Border Patrol 2 (~$700 in money drops)
    • Border Patrol 3 (~$700 in money drops)
    • Robbery 8 - 24/7 Supermarket (~$700) (respawns)
    • Robbery 17 - Rob's Liquor (~$700) (respawns)
    • Robbery 4 - 24/7 Supermarket (~$600) (respawns)
    • Robbery 11 - 24/7 Supermarket (~$600) (respawns)
    • Robbery 14 - Rob's Liquor (~$600) (respawns)
    • Robbery 15 - Rob's Liquor (~$600) (respawns)
    • ATM Robberies ($500) (respawns)
    • Robbery 2 - Limited LTD Gasoline (~$500) (respawns)
    • Chase Thieves City 2 ($500)
    • Robbery 5 - Scoops Liquor Barn (~$350) (respawns)
    • Robbery 18 - 24/7 Supermarket (~$300) (respawns)
    • Arrest 1 ($250)
    • Arrest 2 ($250)
    • Chase Thieves Country 1 ($250)
    • Mugging 1 ($200)
    • Robbery 3 - 24/7 Supermarket (~$200) (respawns)
    • Robbery 6 - 24/7 Supermarket (~$200) (respawns)
    • Chase Thieves Country 2 ($120)
    • Robbery 9 - Rob's Liquor (~$100) (respawns)
    • Robbery 20 - Trevor’s meth lab (~$100) (respawns)
    • Drunk Driver 1 ($80 then beat up and loot the guy)
    • Domestic ($80)
    • Rogue Altruists ($80)
    • Luring Girl Into Alley (~$25 in money drops)
  • AFTER collecting all the money, invest in Betta Pharmaceuticals
    • Michael should have around $3.3M, Trevor ~$1M, and Franklin ~$700k (swap Trevor and Franklin depending who purchased the Sonar Collections Dock)
• AFTER The Hotel Assassination
  • Sell Betta Pharmaceuticals (50% return)
  • Invest in Bilkington Research
  • Sell Bilkington Research (100 - 110% return)
• AFTER completing the investments, buy Boiler Suits and Masks (Blitz Play setup) with Michael
• BEFORE Mr. Richards
  • Evil (optional Dr. Friedlander mission... missable content)
    • Costs $1,000 but Michael has plenty of money
• BEFORE Caida Libre
  • Complete What Lies Beneath after collecting all (30) submarine parts ($10 profit)
  • Lastly, invest in Vangelico with Michael and Trevor (they become unavailable so need to invest now)
• BEFORE Minor Turbulence
  • Invest in Vangelico with Franklin
• AFTER Minor Turbulence
  • Sell Vangelico (42.57% return)
• The Paleto Score Setup
  • Crew: Norm Richards (gunman). Note: he will die, so be sure to pickup his money drop
  • Take: ~$455,577 each for Michael, Trevor, and Franklin
• BEFORE Derailed
  • Negativity (optional Dr. Friedlander mission... missable content)
    • Costs $1,500 but Michael has plenty of money
• BEFORE Bury the Hatchet
  • Invest in Gruppe Sechs with Michael (he will become unavailable so need to invest now)
• BEFORE Fresh Meat
  • Complete all (13) parachute jumps ($4,500 profit)
  • Complete Uncalculated Risk ($5,000 in money drops)
  • Complete An American Welcome ($1,000 total from first two CBP missions)
  • Lastly, invest in Gruppe Sechs with Trevor and Franklin
• AFTER Fresh Meat
  • Sell Gruppe Sechs (15 - 20% return)
• BEFORE Architect's Plans
  • Complete Crash Rescue to unlock Taliana Martinez as a heist member
• Architect's Plans
  • Roof Entry
  • Crew: Rickie Lukens (hacker), Daryl Johns (gunman), Taliana Martinez (driver)
  • Take: Franklin $242,346
• BEFORE Reuniting the Family
  • Fucked Up (optional Dr. Friedlander mission... missable content)
    • Costs $1,500 but Michael has plenty of money
• BEFORE Meltdown
  • Abandonment Issues - kill Dr. Friedlander and pickup ~$2,000 in money drops
  • Lastly, invest in FlyUS
• AFTER Meltdown
  • Sell FlyUS (100% return)
• Planning the Big Score
  • Obvious Approach
  • Crew: Taliana Martinez (driver 1), Karim Denz (driver 2), Daryl Johns (gunman 1), Hugh Welsh (gunman 2)
  • Take: $41,664,000 each for Michael, Trevor, and Franklin
• BEFORE The Third Way
  • Invest In Augury Insurance
• The Third Way
  • Make sure it is dawn when you start this mission. There's a cutscene at 8pm and if you finish the mission later, it will advance time to the next day and you will miss out on a bigger return.
• AFTER The Third Way
  • IMMEDIATELY invest The Big Score earning into Augury Insurance (it's too late if the stock jumped more than a few percentage points)
  • Sell Augury Insurance (100% return)
• BEFORE The Multi Target Assassination
  • Invest in Debonaire
• AFTER The Multi Target Assassination
  • Sell Debonaire (~50% return)
  • Invest in Redwood
  • Sell Redwood (~300% return)
• BEFORE The Vice Assassination
  • Invest in Fruit
• AFTER The Vice Assassination
  • Sell Fruit (25% return)
  • Invest in Facade
  • Sell Facade (33.3% return)
• AFTER The Bus Assassination
  • Invest in Vapid
  • Sell Vapid (100% return)
  • This is the point I reached the money cap, so be sure to keep your excess money in random stocks
• BEFORE The Construction Assassination
  • Invest In GoldCoast
• AFTER The Construction Assassination
  • Sell GoldCoast (~40% return)
• BEFORE Hitch Lift 1
  • Invest In Tinkle
  • You earn more money saving this for after the assassination missions
• AFTER Hitch Lift 1
  • Sell Tinkle (33% return)

And that's it! Please note that the investment return percentages are approximate and reported from various max money guides. I actually received a higher percentage on some of the investments on the LCN market. No one knows how the stock market truly works, but by save scumming here are the return percentages I got (if not noted, I got the reported percentage listed above):

• Bilkington: 106.3%
• Vangelico: 53.6%
• Gruppe Sechs: 35.7%
• FlyUS: 117.6%
• Augury Insurance: 101.2%
• Debonaire 64.5%
• Redwood: 337.9%
• GoldCoast: 57.6%

I love my NFL Blitz cabinet (I modded it by selling the coin doors, removing the booster, built support raising it up to arcade height and using painted fiber board to give it a clean look).
Anyway, the NFL Blitz games are obviously not arcade ROMS as the NFL banned any sort of post-play tackles and I believe that there is a bug in the logic for the 99 and 2000 games. When you play the Green Bay Packers (can be anytime during the season), the difficulty goes from pretty easy to absolute insane. You'll be sacked everytime, fumble frequently, have receivers taken out, etc even on easiest settings. This doesn't happen in the original version just the 99/2000.
Has anyone found a way around this? It really makes the game not fun at all. I'm not some competitive player, I want to enjoy it. I know there are "cheats" but they are really 2-sided cheats and benefit the CPU as much as you do.

Cosmetics and the grind are just fronts for how lacking this game is in the content department. Palworld has really enlightened me on what a indie dev team with a small group of people can do. Just like LoM, Palworld got a huge injection of cash and they immediately went to work on updates and new mechanics, with a eniterly new map and more pals coming in summer. LoM got a pretty big injection of cash on its release, mind you not as big as Palworld, but a decent amount regardless and it took them well over a year to release their first expansion ToS, which was basically 30 mins of story and the rest just cosmetic farm. No one had a reason to even farm sewers other than they just wanted a change of scenery.
Next comes tros, which again took them over a year to do. Ill give credit where credit is dew here tho and say Tros was a pretty good expansion. The story was whatever, but blitz mode was a good addition for the game and we have more of a reason to farm the new area. That being said, there is still ALOT of unresolved issues.
First and foremost is the gear grind for gear that has gone untouched for the last 5 years now... its kind of ridiculous that a action RPG can go on this long without adding new weapons, gear, and combat systems. I DO NOT count corrupting gear as a update or change to the gear system. This is because corrupted gear only helps against enemies in tros and no where else. This also means that your newly upgraded gear will be worthless anyway in the next expansion. If the monsters are power crept like they were in tros then corrupted gear wont help you at all towards farming for new gear in this hypothetical expansion, IF there is new gear at all. Again, its been 5 years and not even a T4 set of gear, so one is led to believe the next expansion wont have gear either. Its kinda weird.
You guys nerfed gear farm by locking them behind these stupid boss crates. As a reminder, on release of this game we got DOUBLE gear drop from strong hold bosses. Then it was ninja nerfed to one, and now we get 0 gear drops from a boss except from these crates which requires two keys to open. It would be fine if you could farm blitz mode for keys, except you are limited to doing it once an hour, and if you fail ur just fucked and locked out for an hour. Good addition, HORRIBLE implementation. Its a single player game, why lock people out for 1 hour???? Same with world bosses, why are you time gating this shit in a single player game? Atleast let stronghold bosses drop gear again like before so you can get 1 piece of gear from the boss and another from the box. Please play your own game and you will realize how mundane and masochistic it is to farm for anything in this game.
On the subject of single player, its clear you guys have abandoned the idea of multi-player. Id say 95% of your initial player base wanted and expected that while 5% didnt care either way. Well now you are left with the 5%. The 95% already quit (although i say denuvo had a large part in that too) So since this game is not multi-player, why do you still have toxic multi-player restrictions in place aswell as a server at all? You guys added denuvo, which UNDOUBTEDLY nuked your player base, for a single player game. For what reason is it still here? Who cares who cheats in single player? Get rid of it and atleast get SOME of the players back. Turn off the servers too, you dont need it. Just make the outfits DLC and be done with it. Stop teasing or pretending that this game is or will be multi-player when you already said it will never be.
With all that being said, the absolute best suggestion i can give for LoMs success, ASSUMING they are serious about the game, is INVEST more into developers and actual development... in particular speeding up development to get this damn game out of pre alpha. There is zero reason this game should still be in pre alpha!! Its been 5 years since launch and this game has been in development for far longer than even that, Thats embarrassing! Like i said at the very start of my post, Palworld enlightened me to what indie devs SHOULD be doing for a successful game. The devs straight up said that they went all in on palworld. If it failed then they bust. But it was because they went all in that it succeeded at all. They paid a stupid amount for server fees and said they would keep it online at all costs. Where is that kind of commitment with LoM? You guys were scared of multi-player failing so you just didnt even TRY?
Above all else in this game that is what im most pissed about. its not the lack of content, its not the mundane grind, its not even the slow pace of development. Im most pissed that over these 5 years ive dropped hundreds of $$$ on this game to "Support " this project and the potential for multi-player and you guys didn't even fucking TRY. That is what im most pissed about. atleast if you tried you could have said "hey look guys, we tried out multi-player but server costs are just too high vs income, so we will have to take LoM back to singleplyer mode. Maybe in the future with a growing player base and more support we can bring it back". But we didnt get that. The globe was the ONLY real form of "multi-playepvp" this game had. It was legit fun trying to take over Russia and china as a collective group on NA in chat and it was hilarious seeing china fight back the blue with red. But you guys disabled it and never brought it back. It wasnt real multi-player, and honestly it was just a playtime counter, but nevertheless you took it away anyway.
Its quite sad. FFS they cant even give us a roadmap because they are not confident with there schedule.

But I did not win.
I will never forget him. The man in the bronze, suede jacket, sitting on a grey wedge in St. John’s Square at midnight. Revealed by the murky glow of a Victorian lamppost, the solitary figure leaned against the black, wrought iron pole. He tickled his chin thoughtfully, whilst boring his keen eyes into a chessboard.
As I staggered through the deserted London square, tipsy from a night out, I started grinning. The stranger was moving both the white and black pieces. There was something both amusing and bemusing about watching him play against himself. No, it wasn’t that. It was the fact that he was playing against himself in the middle of London at midnight.
Still, if I’d been sober, I would’ve likely left the stranger alone and walked back to my inner-city apartment. I certainly would’ve taken note of the goosebumps which flooded my flesh. But on that particular night, my senses had been dampened by whiskey.
“You lonely?” I called to the man.
The dapper stranger paused, pinching a bishop between his thumb and index finger. He softly lifted his head, casting his gaze towards me, and then he smiled. Smiled in a way that was neither warm nor cold. It was mimicry. A learned expression, devoid of intent.
“You’ve had a filling night, Declan,” The stranger responded.
The night was still, but a sudden breeze tickled my neck, chilling my core. And the yellow hue of the sole street light seemed to darken.
“How… d’you know my… name?” I slurred.
The man nodded silently at my chequered shirt, before returning his attention to the game he was playing.
When I looked down, I released a sigh of relief. There, on my sweaty, unironed shirt, was a white sticker. A name-tag with my name scrawled barely legibly on the front. I remembered that my friends and I had started the night at a speed dating event. A humorous idea that ended in rejection and sparked the decision to spend the rest of the night drowning our heartache.
“Oh… Right…” I laughed. “So, are you winning?”
He smiled. “Very witty.”
“I try,” I smugly replied.
And then I sat at the other side of the board, swaying drunkenly as I studied the board. The man should’ve been frustrated by my intrusion, and that may well have been so, but he did not show any sign of exasperation. He simply examined me with analytical eyes.
“You play chess,” The stranger said.
“Yes,” I nodded.
“It wasn’t a question,” The man replied with a serrated edge.
“Ah…” I said.
“Behind your blitzed eyes, I see a glimmer of understanding,” He continued. “I always recognise a fellow player.”
I shrugged. “I joined the chess club at university. It’s a fun game.”
“If you say so,” The strange man replied.
“Okay… D’you want to play against me?” I asked.
The man shook his head, refusing to peel his sharp eyes away from my face as he moved a chess piece.
I frowned. “Why not?”
“You’re not in a fit state,” He answered.
I snorted, placing an index finger on my nose and lifting a leg. “I swear I’ve not had too much to drink, Officer! Look, I’m… I’ll do a dance.”
“I wasn’t talking about liquor,” The man whispered. “But you’re not a child. I won’t stop you. Do you really want to play?”
“I do,” I nodded, rubbing my hands.
“You think that,” He said, resetting the board. “But we shouldn’t tempt fate, Declan.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Cato,” He replied. “Feel free to start.”
“Are you sure you want me to be White?” I asked. “It’ll give me an advantage.”
“I’m sure,” Cato said.
“All right… Have you got a timer?” I hiccupped.
The man shook his head. “No. I wasn’t rushing you, Declan. I like a long game. Don’t you?”
I shrugged.
Cato smiled. “Let’s say we each have… 365 days per turn.”
I laughed hysterically. “Untimed chess? Sure. I like a casual game.”
“No. One year. That’s the time limit per turn,” The man insisted.
If I hadn’t been so tipsy, I might’ve noted the sincerity of his tone, but I saw Cato as a typical British man — loaded to the brim with deadpan humour. Offering unwavering politeness towards an inebriated fool.
“Okay, Cato,” I hiccupped again. “A timed game. I don’t play on using a year per turn though… I’ve got work in the morning.”
I opened with the move that most chess players make when playing as White. Pawn to E4.
Control the centre of the board, my drunken brain told me.
Cato responded with a pawn to E5, which I had expected, and I moved my knight to F3.
“Steady, Declan,” The man warned. “You have so much time. Is this a race to you?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Huh? I… We’re in the opening stages… What is there to consider?”
“There’s no harm in contemplation,” The man replied. “Why squander opportunities? You might miss something.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, man… I want to go home before sunrise.”
Cato nodded, and he replied with a pawn to D6. Though he seemed to be handing the centre of the board on a platter, he was still playing defensively. I inhaled and carefully inspected his position. I remembered an old chess friend telling me that one should expect defeat when approaching a stranger with a chessboard.
But liquor fuelled my hubris. I moved a pawn to D4, preparing to sacrifice my first piece.
Cato sighed. “Oh, Declan.”
He responded with a bishop to G4, which surprised me. Again, if I’d been sober, then I’d have known that he wouldn’t accept such an obvious bait. And I faced my first predicament. If I were to move my knight to safety, I’d lose my queen. I knew which piece I’d rather lose.
So, I moved my pawn to E5, taking Cato’s pawn. And the man shook his head, replying in the obvious way. He moved his bishop to F3, taking my knight. That didn’t faze me — I was about to take his bishop. In my eyes, that was a strong trade. I seized the crown of my queen between my fingers and prepared to drag her across the board, but Cato’s hand shot forwards at an inhuman pace.
Horror filled my mind as his deceptively strong fingers snatched my wrist, paralysing me before I made my move.
“Let’s take a break, Declan,” The man said.
I grinned. “D’you resign already, Cato?”
He shook his head. “No, but we should take a second to heal.”
“It’s already late, pal,” I said. “I don’t want to be playing for hours. I just want to–”
“– Declan!” A voice shouted.
I twisted my head and saw two figures stumbling into the square. Matty and Franklin, my two closest friends. Fellow drunkards in arms from that evening’s pub crawl.
“Where the heck did you go, Dec?” Franklin asked, laughing.
“Home,” I answered.
“I hate to tell you this, but you didn't make it,” Matty snorted.
“You said you were going for a leak,” Franklin said. “How did you end up here?”
I realised I had said that. In my intoxicated stupor, however, I’d somehow forgotten that and ended up wandering off.
I pointed at the chessboard. “Found a guy. Started a game of chess.”
Matty and Franklin both put their hands on their knees and started wheezing uncontrollably.
“This is why, Declan…” Matty spluttered, wiping tears from his eyes. “This type of antic is why we didn’t get lucky at speed dating…”
“Let’s get you home,” Franklin said, wandering over to me.
“But I’m playing chess,” I insisted.
“You should listen to your friends,” Cato warned. “I will be here tomorrow. And every night after that. I’m always here from the mid point of the night.”
“So, I win?” I smirked, as Franklin hoisted me up.
Cato shook his head. “I’m not resigning, Declan. I’ll see you tomorrow. Or any other day within the next year. You need time to think about your next move.”
“Whatever,” I snorted, believing that would be the last time I’d ever see the man.
“Come on,” Franklin sighed, leading me over to Matty. “Let’s get you two home.”
Franklin had always been the level-headed member of the trio — the sturdy beam that balanced us. The three of us had been friends since childhood. Matty and I turned to Franklin whenever we needed help. Guidance. Insight. Even on such a boisterous night, the man remained calm and discerning. The saviour who rescued me from the strange man in St. John’s Square.
If only he’d arrived before I agreed to play that game.
“Which way… is my house, guys…?” Matty mumbled as we reached a junction.
“That way,” I confidently said, pointing right.
Franklin sighed, grabbing my arm and pointing it to the left.
“Right, I meant that way,” I slurred.
Matty laughed. “Hey, Franklin… I love you, man.”
“Yeah, I sometimes love you guys too,” Franklin replied, rolling his eyes. “I’m just trying to get you both home in one piece. So, let’s–”
“– I love you, Franklin,” I added.
“Are you parrots or something?” He laughed.
I drunkenly wrapped my arm around Franklin’s shoulder. “Seriously, man… That guy might’ve sold my kidneys on the black market by now if you hadn’t stepped into the fray.”
Matty giggled. “He looked really sad to see you go, Dec. You’ve pulled.”
“He had a weird energy,” Franklin said. “You’d think, at twenty-eight, that you’d be old enough to know not to talk to strangers, Dec. You know, it…”
A hooded figure suddenly charged into us, bumping into Franklin’s back, and my friend stopped mid-sentence. The assaulter and his hooded accomplice fled, whilst Matty and I drunkenly yelled at them, but Franklin said nothing.
“What is wrong with kids?” I asked. “Franklin, are you…”
My friend’s eyes welled with tears, and he turned to face me. When Franklin opened his mouth to speak, it was not words that tumbled free, but pouring blood. I screamed as the liquid drenched the chin of my terrified friend, who was choking as he fought to speak. And then Matty screamed, eyeing Franklin’s back.
“The kid stuck him with something…” He cried hoarsely.
The two of us quickly sobered up, supporting Franklin as his legs buckled. When I caught him, I grabbed the back of his coat and felt the tool protruding from his lower back. Not a kitchen knife or a sizeable blade, but a stone hatchet. A medieval instrument of torture that did not put my friend out of his misery swiftly. Instead, we endured the horror of Franklin’s agonisingly-slow death, whilst I called the ambulance.
He passed before paramedics arrived.
The following year was hellish. Franklin was gone. A boy we’d known for more than twenty years. Matty and I had each other, but we were aimless without our compass. Our voice of reason. And I dreamt often of his ghastly, dying face — the fading eyes of the boy who always spoke words of wisdom. Reduced, in his final moments, to a frightened lamb, whose mouth offered nothing but a pool of blood.
And towards the end of the year, tragedy struck again. My mother developed lung cancer. Years of smoking had caught her. She had tried to kick the habit, but addiction is a plague.
“There is a way forwards,” Doctor Brown told me. “A pneumonectomy. That would involve removing your mother’s cancerous lung. If the condition hasn’t spread, then surgery might significantly lengthen her life.”
“Brilliant. So, why don’t we do that?” I asked.
Doctor Brown sighed. “Your mother doesn’t want surgery, Declan. I’ve tried to convince her. Not to toot my own horn, but I’m the best in the business. I’ve told her that. She doesn’t care.”
“She doesn’t care about much anymore,” I said. “But I’ll talk to her. Thank you, Doctor. You’ve been amazing over the past few weeks.”
“And so have you,” Doctor Brown said, patting my back as we walked to Mum’s room. “She’s lucky to have you… I’m sure your mother will wake from her afternoon nap soon. You should sit with her for a little while.”
And I did. Sat for so long that I shed every drop of water from my tear ducts.
“She’s getting worse,” A man said.
I jolted as a wave of air washed across my neck, and when I twisted around, my jaw dropped. In the doorway to the hospital room, the man with the suede jacket stood — a briefcase hugging his side.
“What are… Get out of my room,” I ordered.
“Don’t you remember me?” Cato asked.
“Yes,” I snapped. “That was… months ago. Are you following me?”
“No,” He answered. “I was just wondering whether you were planning on making your move.”
“I… What?” I gasped. “As you might be able to see, I’m a little preoccupied.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Cato replied. “You may ignore the game, but it continues. It cannot be stopped until it ends.”
“Leave before I call security,” I warned. “I won’t ask again.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” The man nodded, turning to leave.
“Loss?” I barked tearfully. “My mother isn’t dead. She’s just sick.”
“I wasn’t talking about her,” Cato whispered, turning to face me again.
And his eyes were suddenly clear. Clearer than they had been on that first night — finally visible to my sober gaze. Eyes without colour or humanity. Eyes without any physicality, if such a thing makes sense. Dread lit my own eyes like a set of high beams.
“What do you mean?” I whispered fearfully.
“You know what I mean,” Cato smiled. “I’m sorry about your friend, Declan.”
The overhead light burst, leaving only the side lamp to illuminate that cramped hospital room. I didn’t have the courage to be furious at the man for his insensitive comments. I was too frightened of his aura. Cato didn’t know Franklin. He didn’t know me. But his comments suggested otherwise.
Who was he?
“She doesn’t have long,” The stranger continued. “But you want to fix her, don’t you?”
My eyes filled with tears, and I spoke — shared my soul with the man for some reason that I didn’t quite understand.
“Doctor Brown told me that a surgery would prolong her life,” I croaked. “Cancer has taken her left lung.”
“And what’s the real issue, Declan?” Cato pressed.
“Mum doesn’t want the treatment… She hasn’t wanted to live for a long time.”
“No, she hasn’t,” The man whispered. “But we always have options, Declan.”
The man finally crossed the threshold, entering Mum’s room, and I didn’t protest. I wasn’t worried about her waking to see a strange man in the room. I had the awful feeling that things would always go as the stranger had planned.
Cato opened the briefcase, and it revealed a chessboard with the pieces of our game from ten months earlier. He placed the board neatly on the coffee table and sat opposite me. I stared blankly at the pieces. Pieces that had inexplicably remained in perfect positions whilst the briefcase was closed. But I was too horrified and riddled with grief to question that. My mind was always incapacitated, to some degree, whenever I faced the terrifying man with the chessboard.
“It’s your turn, Declan,” Cato said. “You still have forty-eight days to make your move, of course, but time really does seem to be of the essence, doesn’t it?”
My colour drained as I eyed the petrifying face of my opponent. A man who no longer looked human to my eyes. Part of me knew that I had to keep playing. It was inescapable. And I made the move that I’d planned many months earlier. Queen to F3. I took Cato’s bishop.
“Still not learnt the value of patience, I see?” Cato asked. “Decisions require thought, Declan.”
The man moved his pawn to E5 and took mine.
I paused, planning my next move and striving only to end the game as quickly as possible. End the game and rid myself of Cato forever. After several minutes of consideration, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
“Aren’t you going to take a look?” The man asked, offering a grin of pure malice.
I shook my head. “You keep making it clear that you want me to focus on the game.”
“I keep making it clear that you must be patient,” He said. “You have time. Look at your phone, Declan.”
I huffed and picked my phone out of my pocket. But my jaw fell when I opened the message. It was from Matty. His sister had been hit by a car.
“There was no other way, Declan,” Cato said. “You had to lose the pawn. Sacrifices must always be made.”
“Leave…” I whimpered.
This time, Cato did not protest as he had done in St. John’s Square. He nodded and stood.
“You know where to find me,” He said. “Hopefully, next time, you will be smart enough to not make me come looking for you.”
Less than a minute after Cato left the room, whilst I messaged Matty, a feeble voice sounded from behind me.
“I love you, Declan,” My mum wheezed.
I looked up and smiled feebly. “Had a good sleep?”
She nodded. “Beauty sleep. How do I look?”
“Better than ever,” I chuckled, sliding over to her and holding her hand.
“I’ve been thinking, Declan… It’s not my time,” She said. “I’ll tell the doctor that I want to do it.”
My eyes widened. “You mean…”
She nodded. “Yes. I’ll do the surgery.”
We tightly embraced. And the surgery, which took place less than a week later, was successful. The cancerous lung was removed.
I thanked Doctor Brown. The hero who had given my mother another chance at life. To this day, I view his charisma as the driving force behind convincing my mum to accept surgery, though a frightened part of me knows that more sinister forces were at work.
As to whether it had bought my mother any more time, that would remain to be seen. But I felt better. Perhaps I’d simply been happy to see Mum express any will to live.
Several weeks later, I was wandering past St. John’s Square on a Saturday afternoon. It was the middle of the day, and the square was packed with eager chess players. No Cato in sight, but I was reminded of him. Black thoughts infected my head as I recalled the strange series of coincidences I’d witnessed over the past year.
But I dismissed it. I was ready to move on with my life. Move on from him. Every time that man was out of sight, he was out of mind.
And I didn’t see Cato until the end of the following year, after the doctor revealed that Mother’s cancer had spread to her remaining lung. The specialists missed it, and they were running out of options. Chemotherapy was Doctor Brown’s next suggestion, but my mother was adamantly opposed to that. I didn’t blame her, of course. Chemotherapy is an unpleasant thought, regardless of a person’s mental state. I didn’t want to push my mother to accept the treatment, but a selfish part of me hoped she’d agree. I wasn't ready for her to go.
We’d made huge strides in terms of her depression — dealing with the grief of losing Dad five years earlier. Mum and I had been seeing Rebecca Lowe, a psychiatrist who helped both of us. It seemed I also had hurdles to overcome. Lowe helped us to accept that, whilst we did not know how much time my mother had left, we knew that we had the present. And we should cherish that.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” Cato hissed.
I didn’t jump in fright — I sank in fright. I’d expected to hear his voice in the doorway to the hospital room, of course, but that didn’t make it any less terrifying. No matter how many foreboding signs I saw, and tried to ignore, the sensation of that spectral presence always induced terror.
“I’ll play,” I said, unprompted.
The man smiled. “You’re starting to understand.”
Cato unloaded the chessboard, and I prepared to make my move. But for the first time in two years, I really thought. This was no longer a game. I no longer felt able to dismiss the horrible events as coincidences. I had buried my head for another year, like a fool. Refusing to believe in the impossible.
The fates of my loved ones were tied to the game.
I tentatively moved my bishop to C4, bracing for another painful loss. Cato responded by moving his knight to F6, and I calmed my breathing. We then sat for several hours in silence. I considered my options. Daylight approached, and my mother stirred. The horrifying man understood that he should leave before she woke.
“Very good, Declan. Patience. I’ll be in the square,” Cato said, packing up his board. “At the mid point.”
I nodded, and I barely moved for the rest of the day. My employer allowed me to take the time off, but I spent hours thinking only of my position in the game. Barely present as my mum chattered away. And then I slipped out of the hospital when she fell asleep.
When I arrived at St. John’s Square around ten in the evening, it took a while for the late-night party-goers to disperse. They reminded me of my friendship group two years prior. I thought of how much had changed in such a short time.
Around midnight, Cato arrived and silently unpacked his board, before sitting opposite me on the grey bench. I immediately moved my queen to B3.
“Interesting,” The man said.
“Make your move,” I snarled.
The man’s eyes glistened for a moment, as if a cloud of rage had descended upon his mind, clouding any politeness or compassion that may have resided there. And he firmly pushed his queen to E7. My heart pumped in my throat, as I started to dread the horror and havoc that his strongest piece might wreak. But I didn’t need time to think. I saw what I believed to be a good move.
I pushed my knight to C3, and Cato replied with a pawn to C6, biding his time. The sickness in my body eased, but the fearful flutter in my chest persisted. Still, Black’s position looked weak to my eyes.
What am I missing? Is he toying with me? I wondered.
Cato's poker face felt so sturdy. So conniving. I was terrified by the prospect of what his cursed game might take from me. I had to strike the jugular.
I moved my bishop to G5, setting my sights on the king. It was time to stop thinking of what I might lose. Instead, I sought to win. And I’d trapped his knight. If he were to move it, his queen would be vulnerable. His options were limited.
“Quite good,” Cato nodded.
“Not for you,” I said.
“No, not for me,” He admitted. “But not as good for you as you believe.”
Cato moved a pawn to B5, threatening my bishop, and the terror of the situation gnawed at my mind once more. I realised, even if I were to win, I would have to lose more pieces. And I wouldn’t just be losing ivory figurines.
“So impatient,” Cato sighed. “Take your time. Assess your position. Think.”
“The longer I take to think, the longer you have to think,” I said.
“You don’t know how I work,” He whispered, smiling horribly.
I hardly wanted to move, but I had to move. There was no avoiding the game. It had to be played. I only had control over how I was going to play it.
I moved my knight to B5, taking Cato’s pawn, and I fearfully eyed the pawn that threatened my knight.
“Sacrifice, Declan,” Cato whispered. “It is inevitable.”
The stranger took my knight by moving his pawn to B5. I felt a pang of pain in my gut, and I knew what was coming. We waited for an hour. I trembled, and Cato smiled — a sinister statue, viewing me with haunting eyes.
I suspected the nature of the call before I answered.
“Declan?” My mother sniffled.
“Are you okay, Mum?” I whispered.
“Yes, I… Oh, Declan… It’s awful,” She sobbed. “A nurse just told me that Doctor Brown died on the hospital floor. A heart attack, she said.”
“I’m so sorry, Mum,” I whimpered. “I’ll… be right there.”
“Franklin, Matty’s sister, and now this… What a dreadful time,” My mum said.
Cato did not speak as I left, and I did not summon the courage to return to the square for six months.
“I was worried,” The man said, as I joined him under the lamppost.
“About what?” I asked.
“That you might not, in fact, understand,” Cato answered.
“I don’t understand,” I shuddered. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“There is no rhyme or reason to my will,” He smiled wickedly. “The sooner you surrender yourself to that fact, the sooner you will enjoy the remainder of your journey.”
My will.
Those two words told me what I had suspected for two and a half years. The awful truth of the situation.
“What are you?” I queried in fright.
“Time is ticking, Declan,” Cato replied.
I quickly moved my bishop to B5, taking the man's threatening pawn. And the God-like horror responded by moving his knight to D7. At that point, far later than I had planned, I finally castled. I had a suspicion that I was my king. I had to protect him.
Cato, on the other hand, could not castle in his position, but he did the closest thing. He moved his rook to D8. His king was well-defended at all sides, and I realised that winning would require an excruciating journey.
Sacrifice.
A pathway had formed in my mind. I just wasn’t ready to take it.
“If I stop playing…” I started. “What happens?”
Cato raised an eyebrow. “You run out of time.”
“Yes,” I nodded. “In a year. But what would… happen? Would my loved ones die anyway? Those near and dear to me? Or would I die instead, sparing them?”
Cato smiled. “You haven’t learnt, have you? You still hope to cheat fate.”
“JUST TELL ME!” I shouted.
In response, the lights of London disappeared. I choked in terror, my voice abandoning me as I was left in a soundless state of stillness. And the man eyed me with that ever-terrible smile.
“The game does not stop until it ends,” He said.
“You’ve said that before. What does it mean?” I cried.
“Win, lose, or draw,” Cato whispered. “Those are the only options.”
“What happens if I resign?” I asked. “Do I die?”
“Yes,” The man answered.
The first blunt answer he had given.
“Think, Declan,” He continued, before I had the opportunity to end the game. “What happens to an army without its king? Well, that is for the opposing side to decide. And I’m not sure that I would let a single piece survive… There are no shortcuts in this game.”
Hand shaking, realising that sacrificing myself would achieve nothing, I made the only move I saw. The only move that I hoped would open a passage to victory. I slid my rook to D7, taking Cato’s knight. And the man responded, as I had expected, by moving his rook to D7, taking mine.
I whimpered in fear, not knowing what horror awaited me.
“Take the night off,” Cato whispered.
He packed up, and then he walked into the blackness. As the lights of London resurrected, no sign of the man remained.
I did not receive immediate news, but that only led to a steadily-growing sense of dread. An awful anticipation. And when Matty didn’t show for our weekly session at the pub, a few days later, anticipation turned into a horrifying realisation.
I rushed to my friend’s apartment and banged on the door viciously. Repeatedly. But there came no response. It was the middle-aged neighbour who eventually emerged in a pink dressing gown, miniature dachshund yapping at her heels.
“You a friend of Matthew?” The woman grumbled.
“Yeah,” I nervously replied, knocking for the twentieth time in two minutes.
“Rent was due on Friday,” She huffed. “It’s Monday. He isn’t answering his phone or opening the door… I’m tempted to go inside.”
Tears started to sting my eyes, and I found myself saying something I really didn’t want to say.
“Get the keys,” I said.
The woman’s eyes widened. “Well, I… I’m the landlady, but I… It’s not really appropriate…”
“– Please,” I said. “Something’s happened to him. We need to get inside.”
After a little bit of hesitation, the woman eventually buckled under the pressure of my agitated disposition. She was likely grateful for any excuse to enter the home of her tenant and hopefully retrieve her owed money.
But neither of us found what we wanted.
Matty’s bare body lay in the bathroom, dry blood staining the toilet seat and his bludgeoned temple. His legs were draped over the edge of the bath, and the shower curtain had fallen from its hooks. I cradled my friend’s body and sobbed whilst the landlady dialled 999.
The official investigation produced an uncontested explanation. It was an accident. Matthew slipped and fell. It happens, I was coldly told.
It happened far too often to the ones I loved.
“The problem, Declan, is that you’re trying to control the world,” Rebecca told me in a therapy session. “I am so sorry for the pain you feel. You have faced too many tragedies for one person, but you will never be able to stop bad things from happening. There is only one thing you can control. How you react to these things. How you choose to move forwards.”
When I finally returned to St. John’s Square, ten months later, I knew exactly what moves I still had to make. I just didn’t know whether I had sufficient courage.
Either sacrifice a few or sacrifice them all, I reminded myself. There is no other way.
I moved my remaining rook to D1. Cato slipped his queen to E6, and I took a deep breath as I moved my bishop to D7. The dreaded D7. A square that seemed to be the source of such horror.
“Is this becoming easy for you, Declan?” The man asked, chuckling. “Sacrificing pieces for the greater good?”
“Make your move,” I tearfully demanded.
Cato smiled, moving his knight to D7 and taking my bishop.
I’ll spare you the terrifying wait. I didn’t take time to recover. I sat and waited for the revelation. Six hours later, after the sun had risen and people had filled St. John’s Square, Mum called.
“I don’t know how to say this,” She bawled. “What is happening, Declan? These past few years have been… Oh, it’s just awful… A patient became violent, and he… Rebecca Lowe passed away earlier this morning, Declan.”
I was silent for a minute or so whilst my mum calmed down.
“Are you okay?” She eventually asked, weeping softly.
“I’ll be over soon, Mum,” I whispered. “I just have to… finish something.”
“What? Declan, I–”
I hung up the phone before she finished her sentence.
“Always in a rush,” Cato tutted.
“You are a monster,” I said. “And I hope you rot in Hell.”
“There is no Heaven or Hell for the wind,” He said. “I am the natural passage of things. And I pray you have learnt to stop fighting me. I’m hoping you’ve seen–”
“– I’ve seen it,” I hissed, breaking into tears.
I saw a way of putting a cap on the nightmare. All I had to do was move my queen to B8. It would be check, and if Cato were to take my queen, I would move my rook to D8. It would be checkmate.
If he were to take my queen.
“You have escaped fate for years,” The man said. “It is time.”
“I won’t do it,” I replied.
I got up and fled into the crowd, hearing Cato’s booming voice atop the raucous early-morning commuters.
“You can’t run forever,” He laughed horribly.
No. But I could run for a while, and that was what I did. I devoted my time and love to the one person I had left. Mum. I drained the clock down to the last few days. Spent a year by her side.
“I’m in so much pain…” She whimpered.
“I… I love you, Mum,” I sobbed.
“I love you too,” My mother replied, grabbing my hand. “I’m sorry these past few years have been so… awful.”
“It’s okay,” I cried. “I just don’t want to lose you too.”
“We’ve known this day was coming for years,” She croaked, coughing.
“I can… delay it a little longer…” I whispered.
“I’ve seen him in the doorway,” Mum whispered frightfully. “Death. Not with a black cloak and a sceptre, but a brown jacket and a case. That thing has been waiting for me. Waiting a long time. I wonder… whether you’ve been holding on too tightly, Declan.”
My heart plummeted, and my mum smiled.
“Don’t cry,” She continued. “You’re allowed to let go, Dec… And I say this for you, not me. I’m ready to see whatever lies beyond this world, though that may be nothing at all. I don’t want to see you living in pain any longer. Will you do it? Will you finally say goodbye?”
I lowered my head, and we sobbed together. It took a long while for me to nod.
“Goodbye, Mum,” I bawled. “I love you.”
When I arrived at St. John’s Square, around two in the morning, the man was patiently awaiting my arrival. He did not quip. Did not smile. Did not even look at me. His eyes were fixed upon the board. The game that was panning out as he had always planned. Some part of my terrified soul understood that.
I seated myself and stared at my queen. Stared until the sun rose. Stared until the square filled with people. Some gathered around us.
“I will leave soon,” Cato whispered. “At the mid point of the day. Should we reconvene at–”
“– No,” I blubbered. “Just give me… I need… Why did you take the others, Cato? I knew Mum didn’t have long, but I… The others had full lives ahead of them. They–”
“– There is no rhyme or reason to my will,” He chuckled maliciously, before repeating what I’d said many times. “Make the move, Declan.”
I pushed my queen to B8.
“Check,” I croaked.
An onlooker started to chatter excitably with his friend, seeing what I’d seen, but he was unaware of the situation’s ghastly gravity. Unaware of the petrifying consequence which approached. And Cato made, of course, the only move he could make in that situation. Knight to B8.
He took my queen.
Tears trickling down my cheeks, much to the alarm of the onlookers, I shakily waddled my rook across the board, placing it on D8.
“Checkmate…” I wailed.
The onlookers offered a round of applause, and Cato extended a hand.
“Congratulations, Declan,” He said, still smiling malevolently. “Live your life well. Do not fight it. It takes what it wants.”
The man laughed erratically as he stood up, and the onlookers became increasingly concerned as I sobbed profusely.
The mysterious stranger disappeared into the crowd, but I still fear that he may return. He may wait for me to rebuild my life, before suggesting another game of chess. And he was right. What would I be able to do in such a situation? There is no stopping a game with Cato.
Not until it ends.

Who is the mystery, ultra-strong GM, ArcticBear64, identifying as from Greenland, on Chess.com?
The anonymous GM holds a whopping blitz rating of 3220, the 3rd highest blitz rating on the site, marginally behind one Magnus Carlsen, who has a blitz rating of 3231, and clearly higher than many top players such as Firouzja, Dubov, Nepo, Nodirbek, MVL, Caruana etc, most of whom play very regularly on the site.
A quick glance at their game history shows surprisingly impressive results - 5 days ago, this anonymous GM crushed Dubov, world blitz number 4, in a blitz session by 6.5-1.5. Earlier than that, ArcticBear64 smashed Parham Magsoodloo 10-4 on April 18th. The account also records strongly positive records against top players like Hans Niemann or Yan Nepomniachtchi. Evidently, this mystery GM is an incredibly good player.
Suffice to say, whoever runs this account is almost certainly a super-GM, to be able to obtain a rating almost as high as Magnus on Chess.com and beat down other super GMs in blitz sessions. Therefore, it's hard to see how many people this could really be, as it is a very limited number of players that could be this strong - possibly no more than 20 at most (even this is stretching it, as I would be surprised if the Chess.com beast Hikaru himself managed to beat Dubov that bad over 8 games).
Posts online about ArcticBear64
As the account was recently created in November 2023, there is very little information online about who this account could be - although, there are some posts I will discuss here.
https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/who-is-gm-arcticbear64
A post on Chess.com forums suggests the account could be run by either Garry Kasparov or Yan Nepomniachtchi. Nepo, as world number 4, and world blitz number 6, has the strength to match up with the level of the player behind this account - however, on the claim of the account being Yan, the account has played Yan's official account (lachesisq) on Chess.com, once again, recording a dominant total victory of 11.5-4.5 across 16 games played on the 4th of March 2024. Unless Yan specifically lost to himself 11 times to throw others off the scent, it is unlikely to be him, in spite of the fact that his general strength makes him one of the only players possibly running this account.
Kasparov is an interesting claim - whilst the former World Chess champion may once have had the skills to display such a strong level, at 58, it is highly unlikely that he continues to play so strongly, especially considering he returned to the board during the Zagreb round of the 2021 Grand Chess Tour and recorded a incredibly poor set of results. Therefore this is probably an unfounded claim. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/16/chess-garry-kasparov-loses-in-seven-moves-as-comeback-proves-a-disaster
The comments are equally as bewildered - one poster identifies Joel Benjamin, an old American grandmaster, as the potential owner of the account, given his birth date of 1964. Clearly, this is a joke, however, given the fact Joel Benjamin is 60 years old and long retired from chess.
https://www.reddit.com/chess/comments/193b85p/this_account_gained_689_points_in_the_last_90/
A months old post here on chess asks who ArcticBear64 is, pointing out they gained almost 700 points in the last 3 months at the time of posting.
The poster also observes the account beat Daniel Naroditsky 13.5-10.5 in a blitz session. Once again, it is hard to see who could win so dominantly against the likes of Dubov, Nepo, and Naroditsky, three of the best online and offline blitz players in the world.
A comment gives us our first piece of real information - a poster claims Bortnyk, a perennial top contender in Titled Tuesday and a strong blitz GM, particularly online, said that he believed the account was either Alireza Firouzja or Nihal Sarin, leaning towards the account being Firouzja. Unfortunately, the poster doesn't further indicate why Bortnyk believed this, but the info is significant for a number of reasons :
1 - Other top GMs don't know who it is ; or if they do, only a select few do
2 - Top online GMs like Bortnyk are trying to figure out who it is ; he reduced it down to two possible candidates, showing he has thought about who it could be
The case for it being either Nihal or Alireza - and a deeper dive
I'm going to refrain from analysing the dates of games played too closely as unfortunately much of it is not very useful without real timestamps, whilst Chess.com is only giving the date games were played. If there is a way to get this, please write it in the comments.
ArcticBear64 was active during the Candidates, but Alireza was also, so it's hard to tell if that means anything without proper timestamps.
Nihal
One of the main reasons this could be Nihal Sarin, in my view, is the use of the Greenland flag. Nihal Sarin is known for using flags of random and obscure countries, like Tanzania, Chile, or most recently Barbados, and obviously, this anonymous GM is not really from Greenland.
Other than that, the openings both accounts use are somewhat similar, but not similar enough where there is a direct correlation ; that can be found here https://www.chessmonitor.comg928yPRo9yGar7FGW9I5/openings https://www.chessmonitor.comEzamRVGoAxneHBZ8SHsV/openings
Like ArcticBear64, Nihal has a very good recent record online against Dubov, Nepo and Parham, indicating a possible similarity of styles. However, ArcticBear64's results are potentially even better than Nihal is, even if only slightly ; Chessmonitor puts the estimated elo of Arctic Bear at around 2760, which, whilst only an estimate, would actually be better than Nihal is himself. Of course, we must consider Nihal is especially skilled at quick time controls.
Alireza
Alireza plays a lot of online chess, and it's not hard to believe he could have alt accounts. Like Nihal's, there is not much info to be gleaned from analysing their openings.
The one thing to say about Alireza in this situation is the fact he is one of the few GMs that talented to be able to display such a level online, and equally, one of the few top GMs who regularly play online that could potentially be this person.
Bortnyk claims he is relatively sure it is him.
Level of ArcticBear
Arctic Bear has heavily positive records against the likes of Nepo, Dubov, Hans, Parham, and positive records against the likes of Grischuk. The only negative record I found (slightly negative) over a large set of games was against Fedoseev.
Therefore, it is obvious to state this player is one of the best in the world at blitz, or at the least, online blitz.
They also play with a very high accuracy that is usually in the high 80s or 90s, whereas players like Firouzja or Nepo can show much lower accuracy at times whilst complicating their positions.
I think it is unlikely this player is outside of the world blitz top 20. If they are, it is going to be an online specialist like Nihal whose rating has not caught up over the board.
Cheating? Probably not
Chess.com have this player's identity and are seemingly satisfied that this is a real player who doesn't cheat, therefore their real life perception must somewhat match the ability on this account.
Conclusion (post to be updated later)
Given the only real piece of information we have, from Bortnyk, says it is either Alireza or Nihal, and more likely Alireza, naturally we should suspect this more to be Alireza, especially given he is one of the only players with the talent to play like this account does, and plays a huge amount of online chess. However, it could also be Nihal, given the weirdness with the Greenland flag, and the fact he is also an online specialist.
As the account plays more games and I can follow potentially in real time, I will update this thread further.
​

I remember playing this game on my PC in the mid 2000s to early 2010s before they came out with an app for a game with the same name.
From what I remember, there are stacks of blocks and you try to match your block by either sliding it under placed blocks or knocking other blocks out of the way. There are different block types that do different things, including bombs...
The POV is similar to that of Otto's Magic Block, and I remember an Aztec kind of theme to the levels. The blocks were jelly-ish consistency and sometimes you could slide your block and hit a bomb, blowing up the stacks you've made.
I don't know much more than that, it's been a long time since I've played but I also remember playing along with Bejeweled Blitz, so it might have came out around the same time as that game?
Any help is appreciated, thank you!

Hello there, as the title says, i just woke up and wanted to boot a quick valorant match and i got hit with the "account suspended for using 3rd party programs". I have never used cheats or programs like blitz.gg or any other app which could interfere with vanguard, is there any way i can get my acc back? I saw somewhere that i can send my vanguard and client logs but i do not know where to send them or how can i even get them.. is there anybody with the same issue that got their account unsuspended? my tracker: https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/Iuliqe%239197/overview I know i am a shit player but i still enjoy the game... kinda sucks to be banned for no reason to be honest

Previously: https://www.reddit.com/MasakoX/s/ZEfP6OR08d
Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/MasakoX/s/8pVXzWhnE1
7 years have passed since Cell's defeat. Goku, still treating Super Saiyan Grade 4 as base, has continued his training. Alongside him still live wife Chi-Chi, honorary family members 17 and 18, and even Krillin and Marron. 18 and Chi-Chi have formed something of a rivalry over the years because, while it's not romantic on 18's part, they both want to be the most special person in Goku's life in their own way. So when Goku and 17 come back from sparring to find Krillin trying to break up an argument from the women over what to make for dinner, groceries from the city in-hand, it's nothing new.
But while they were doing their grocery shopping, they actually heard that the Tenkaichi Budokai would be starting up soon. 18 wants herself and Krillin to enter so they can buy their own place with the prize money, 17 wants to buy a nature preserve, Chi-Chi wants to call it a second honeymoon, and Goku just wants to fight everyone. Everyone goes out to inform the other Dragon Team members of the tournament, and everyone begins training. One month later, the Dragon Team reassembles for the tournament... And they are put off by the chances Mr. Satan has made to it.
Mr. Satan may not be this world's savior, but he IS still this world's World Champ. So the youth division, the new ring layout, televised atmosphere, his spot in the finals being automatic, and the punching machine are still in effect. That said, one old trope is coming back into play, that being Chaozu and Tenshinhan. Chaozu messes with the lottery to arrange the matches as he and Tenshinhan see fit. So this is going to lead to some differing matches and a different structure. The 16 finalists this time around are Goku, Piccolo, Tenshinhan, Chaozu, Yamcha, Krillin, Chi-Chi, 17, 18, Mr. Satan, Yamu, Spopovich, Shin, Kibito, Videl, and Mighty Mask.
Also, to blitz through the youth division, the finals boil down to a battle between this what-if's version of Trunks, the son of Bulma and Yamcha, and an OC I shall call Canzao, the daughter of Tenshinhan and Lunch whose name is a rearranging of the Mandarin word for "breakfast". Trunks wins this match and goes on to effortlessly beat Mr. Satan in an exhibition, which Mr. Satan spins as if it was on-purpose. There are gags with blue Lunch being proud of her daughter and blonde Lunch being mad that she gets no prize money out of this. It's standard, but cute. Back to the finals.
Piccolo vs. Shin still occurs, but it's match one this time because Ten wants to see what this mysterious floating fighter who claims to know Goku is capable of. Borrowing from their fight in the Destined Rivals what-if in BT2, Piccolo doesn't piece together Shin's identity right away, so an actual fight happens. Shin fights impressively, dealing legitimate damage, but Piccolo is the victor. Shin, Kibito, Yamu, and Spopovich, are in awe about how someone on Earth could be this powerful, and Tenshinhan wonders if Shin wasn't someone to worry about after all.
Match 2 pits Yamcha against Videl, a joke on Tenshinhan's part because Yamcha's fear of women still lingers. But when Bulma chews him out, he effortlessly beats Videl. The entire crowd is shocked because of Videl's reputation, and while Mr. Satan tries to spin it like Yamcha cheated or Videl let her guard down, reality is sinking in. The old guard of the tournament is back. But Yamcha is now slightly nervous because his next opponent is now Piccolo.
Next time: https://www.reddit.com/MasakoX/s/2mSc1oY4ES

Hey guys. I want to share my new build for survival difficulty. I want something strong but not op like power armor guns build or stealth blitz cheat mode. Sry for my bad english as it's not my native lang.
Special goes like: S4 P1 E10 C1 I10 A1 L1 S.P.E.C.I.A.L book goes to charisma(we need to put another point there later for "lone wanderer").
Perks needed for this build(* is most important perks from begining): -Big Leagues (dmg boost but we take this perk later as we have huge STR in power armor and dmg is enough for first 15-20 levlels) -Armorer (for power armor upgrades) -Blacksmith (for sweet weapon mods) -Life Giver (for even more HP and regen) -Chem Resistant (optional-you don't get chems addicted) -Aquaboy (optional-you don't drown in water with PA) -*Solar Powered (+2 boost to STR and END, but what really matter is second perk that allows you to heal radiation whitch is so preciuous on survival because of many bad things that "radaway" cause to our body) -Science (for PA upgrades) -*Chemist (for better chems along with refreshing beverage, antibiotics and longer chems duration) -*Nuclear Physicist (for longer working fusion cores) -*Nerd Rage (for avoid unexpected deaths - this thing save my butt many times) -Lone Wanderer (after book and puting other one point into charisma) -Lady KilleBlack Widow (optional dmg boost) -Hacker (optional for hacking terminals - still useful as many power armors is locked behind terminal gates)
Other perks really doesn't matter here so feel free to distribute points anywhere you want. You are very tanky thanks to power armor with huge HP pool and regen, even on survival. You have strong chem buffs for tough times. Still you have to watch out explosions like missles and mines or nasty poison bugs so take care - you're not immortal. Plan your fights and use enviroment to more tactical approach. Damage should be very high because high STR from power armor and boost from solar power(+2), military paintings(+1/+2-depends of PA set) and chems and alcohol that even 20 STR is relatively easy to obtain here. After you have jet-pack mod on your power armor you can act like true barbarian - jump/fly on enemies to stun-stomp them and smash with hammer! Enjoy!
For the end I show you some starting tips and how to start this build working. As we exit vault 111 and take book and some grenades from sanctuary, we go directly to Robotic Disposal Ground on east for fusion cores. One is in the box - grab it and start that sentry bot working with terminal. Wait for molerats come and slay them with sentry(or let him do it alone). After molerats all die you can set robot to self destruction procedure(TIP: you could throw grenade on him first for grant a hit and then close door and activate destruction setting to get EXP for killing him). We need lvl 2 asap for "nuclear physicist" perk to lower our cores consumption but with that high INT its very easy to obtain. We have now 3 fusion cores. Go little bit east from there for crashed vertibird and that power armor staying there (randomly pieces on it, but still it's possible to have full set there - I've got chest,head,and one leg and arm in my run). Now we have power armor and need only good weapon to smash. Go little bit south to Thicket Excavations. Near the water pump and Sully Mathias you find sledgehammer - our weapon goal for long while. That's the basics for our build to start working. Proceed normally at your choice. I usually clear all locations in starting zone before go Concord. At lvl 9-10 you could finally rescue Preston and proceed further. Clear that square of the map where Corvega is most southeast corner of it. You should be lvl 19-20 now and after clearing Corvega you have many choices where to go. Just avoid going too far south as we want that enemies to spawn when you reach high enough lvl to get max exp. Good way to explore is east as zones there are level 15 or so. Try to be at level 30 before go Diamond City and lvl 40 before you go souther Boston. When you finally reach Diamond City buy supersledge as the best basic weapon game offers. Remember to sell all that ammo you found - you don't need anything besides fusion cores. Thats all. Happy hunting legendaries!
FAQ Q: Is "Lead Belly" perk is worth taking on survival? A: No. You have plenty of meat from killing animal for cooking purposes. Don't bother taking pre-war food. Better hunt and cooking for exp gain. Q: Is endurance is worth pump so high? A: Usually no because many builds goes with 1 END. Still I want something new here and END is working so well with power armor amking you very tanky even on survival. "Solar Powered" perk is so powerful for survival as I mention before. Q: Is Pain Train perk worth taking STR higher? A: I guess no. Later on you could pump STR for that, but this perk is somewhat cheat to me and waste points for STR that we have set at 11 with power armor already. Q: Where to find more fusion cores? A: For example go to Cambridge Police Station where you first meed Paladin Danse - there is 3-4 fusion cores in police station garage. Q: If I dont build settlement where can I find purified water? A: Grab all empty bottles you find and fill them with dirty water. Cook them for purified water 3to1. Also you can take that empty bottles to water pump existing in some settlement or even vault 111 sink and fill them with purified water 1to1. Q: My power armor is broken so fast! How to manage it? A: This is main enemy for this kind of build - you have huge dmg resistance but for maintaining armor durability. Sometime is very difficult when it's broken in middle of nowhere. I guess it's part of challenge. Later on with better power armor sets it becomes stronger and lasts longer before need rapairs.

I have read the chess.com cheating report and in my opinion it is deeply flawed. This is understandable to me since chess.com benefits from people thinking cheating online (where they have a lions share of market share) is a smaller problem than it is. I will call out the problems I have with the report and point out easy to fulfill options for chess.com to either correct their report or make data available for all of us so that we can peer review and or do some research that is independent on chess.com. Independent research would be great anyway since chess.com clearly has a conflict of interests in this topic. I know that chess.com would have to undergo a risk assessment as huge companies normally do before taking risks of that measure but if chess.com really cares as much about chess as they claim to do, then it would be a worthwhile risk to take even though it could cost the investors money in the short run. Benefitting chess is beneficial to them in the long run for sure.
Disclaimer:
I do not care about chess.com or fide I just care about chess. Furthermore I am not a statistics guy nor a mathematics guy so correct me if I'm wrong but I believe I understand enough to be qualified to do this post. Please forgive me bad spelling and grammar. I'm German and English is not my mother tongue.
Point of criticism 1: Datasets
As I first read the report I saw they compared ~160 000 TT games. I thought they used all TT games since time X and liked their dataset. Then in the same presentation you can see that they have a much larger dataset of >300 000 TT games that they use for another graphic. That lets me question how the ~160 000 games got selected. Furthermore a TT has roughly 500 players which equals to >2500 games each TT (500/2*10). That means on Tuesday >5000 games get play which means their dataset contains the games of ~32 weeks if the games are not filtered before the "research". Where the dataset of OTB blitz games comes from is disclosed but it does not state whether it contains games of only master players. It is also not verifiable that those games are not filtered before selection for the "research". Dear chess.com please add to your report where all of the games stem from. Show the exact dates of the first and last TT you took for your dataset so that we can verify you didn't exclude any games played by players that your cheat detection caught cheating for example. Please make the blitz dataset you used open source and explain why you chose exactly those two datasets. If you don't the "research" you do is scientifically worthless since we have to expect the data is manipulated and selected.
Point of criticism 2: ELO data flaws
The ELO rating system is based on a formula that gives you a winning probability based on the ELO value that player A and player B has. Given a 200 difference of the players (as stated in the report) that would mean player a has a predicted win % of 24% (1min Google search). The dataset used in the report seems to include ELO data that supports that a 200 ELO difference gives a win % of 32% which means there is a discrepancy that would indicate that either the dataset contains a lot of games where underrated players win more than they are predicted to or that is flawed in another sense. I would assume it is a combination of underrated players + players not playing enough OTB blitz events to adjust their ratings to their real playing strength. 24% -> 32% makes a difference of over 50 ELO points in the expectation which indicates that the average 200 ELO underdog is >50 ELO underrated. That is mostly caused by few events played and rising players. Old data from rising players compared to new data of such players doesn't make sense because they tend to get better over time which their ELO doesn't reflect. I know it's nitpicking but take FM Leonardo Costa from Germany as an example. He is allowed to compete in tilted Tuesday. He is on the rise and he has played 1 OTB blitz event in the last 30 weeks where he gained over 140 ELO. He has played 20 rated OTB blitz games vs. other master players in his entire career. Therefore he and a lot of players of it's caliber are not correctly represented in the OTB dataset while they are or might be in the TT set. Neither of those discrepancies gets addressed in the slightest in the report and that is poor work. On top chess.com has a category in there graphics which features >2750 players. I thought ok they mean the hikarus and such but in reality there are only 11 of them which seems like a very low sample size for any useful conclusions on the data. Well and now we get to the biggest problem. Comparing rated events and unrated events that might even be correlated. The entire point of ELO systems is that if you play a game your rating changes but when you take fide unrated games on chess.com into consideration where players performance has no influence on the rating and fide games with fluctuating ratings but only take the fide ELO than this surely has an influence on the probabilities which chess.com again ingnores. I would suggest chess.com could use the set of data their glicko 1 algorithm (chess.com rating is not ELO but glicko 1) gives and compares it mathematically to the win probabilities in TT and shares this data. Even then I'm not sure that this is useful therefore I believe the entire method is flawed in so many ways which makes the entire process quite useless. I know they have to find a way to compare stuff but comparing these sets in the way they did seems useless. Sadly I have no easy solution for this problem.
Point of criticism 3: statistics
As I said I'm not a statistics guy but I find it weird that however big the % difference is they state it's not significant without ever giving a p-value (I hope I got that correctly back in the day in university, please correct me). +-5% seems significant to me because that means a difference of roughly 50 ELO points. Please use statistics next time or link a real scientific study you did in your report.
Point of criticism 4: reasons for cheating
As humans are selfish and sometimes hateful creatures I see 3 reasons to cheat in such an event: - bragging rights because you beat XYZ player. Smart bragging cheaters could beat the player of their liking and than loosing on purpose (you can use engines to lose too) while playing good so that their win % stays according to their expectated value by the glicko algorithm. This would stay undetected while still influencing money events. - getting into the price money range. Smart players could boost their win rate by 1 or 2% to get closer to the price money range. Not blatantly win by force but get closer. This could explain why there is the -5% discrepancy in games of 2600 vs 2400 players in the report. - making someone else lose. Pretty simple, you hate XYZ player or want XYZ player to win. Just cheat in 1 game by letting the engine just tell you 3 moves e.g. so that XYZ player loses and the other wins the rest of the games you fix your win rate on the probabilities you had before by looking for +-0 glicko 1 point in the process. In my opinion a) not addressing how you could cheat and not get detected by this "research" and then saying there is no cheating is completely arrogant and bad work. Please address stuff like this and not just go over the points you mentioned in your report and then just ignore them 2 sentences later (online vs. offline etc.)
Conclusions:
The report is flawed in many ways and is has 0 scientific value and the entire work put into it would have been used way better elsewhere. It is more of a statement of a company that states that their company is great and that there is nothing of interest. I still don't think chess.com is guilty of anything. In my opinion they should just say: ok sorry for that mistake we will do a good scientific report and no one should be mad or making fun of them because addressing mistakes is a sign of true greatness. I still believe that their risk management will not agree with my beliefs but still one can hope ;-)
I hope we get the datasets open sourced and can do our own research but that won't happen I guess. I still wish all of you that made it so far a great day.