Is it possible that someone might excel more in online chess than over the board?

Why Some Play Better Chess Online Than Face-to-Face

The issue of cheating in chess is not entirely new, harking back to Topalov’s accusations against Kramnik in 2006—one can refer to GothamChess’s video on the “bathroom scandal” for a recap.

More recently, the debate has centered around two points: Hans Moke Niemann and the games played on online platforms like Chess.com or Lichess.org.

This article will focus on the phenomenon of cheating in online chess, as opposed to over-the-board play.

There are two well-known cases that illustrate the difficulty in discerning the guilt of those who perform extraordinarily well online.

The first involves Alireza Firouzja. The Iranian-French prodigy began playing on Chess.com around the age of eleven.

At that time, he was a complete unknown, and the exceptional quality of his games raised suspicions within the community. He was briefly banned, but after thorough analysis, it was concluded that he was simply a burgeoning talent. This incident is detailed in the @chesscomclips video, How Alireza Firouzja Got Auto-Banned On Chess.com .

The other example comes from Fabiano Caruana, as recounted in the C-Squared podcast episode The Norway Story, Hans Is Back, & More Caruana ponders why some players excel only in online play*.

He recounts a game he played in one of Chess.com’s Titled Tuesday tournaments, where he was losing positionally but managed to salvage a draw.

Caruana was convinced his opponent was cheating, citing how the player consistently chose the best moves and took exactly five seconds per move, even in the endgame when time was running low. Caruana implies that his opponent was using illicit assistance between moves.

Rather than delving into the various methods of online cheating, we propose examining Caruana’s rhetorical question: Why are some players only good at online chess?

Caruana is skeptical of the notion, clearly believing his opponent was cheating.

While this is a possibility, we will explore some arguments supporting why someone might perform better online than in person.

We believe it is possible for players to excel more in one format than the other, and our general argument is that each player is unique, with different backgrounds, development paths, and cognitive preferences in chess.

The world of a professional chess player is vastly different from that of many other players, talented or not. Even within the realm of professional chess, the landscape has significantly changed with media intervention and, before that, with the advent of computers. And players adapt to these conditions in their own ways.

Reduction of Anxiety, Pressure, and Fatigue

Let’s talk about some factors that can affect performance: cognitive anxiety, pressure, travel fatigue, the reduction of physical cues, and visual perception.

One element that can impact performance is cognitive anxiety.

Cognitive anxiety is a state in which the subject experiences distressing and negative thoughts that significantly affect performance and attention.

Studies have examined the relationship between anxiety, pressure, and performance.

For example, in Lew Hardy’s academic article Stress, anxiety and performance , it is mentioned that the presence of cognitive anxiety demands greater effort. In situations of cognitive anxiety, performance can be maintained or even improved, but only at a physiological cost.

Regarding pressure, Roy Baumeister’s scientific article Choking under pressure: Self-consciousness and paradoxical effects of incentives on skillful performance notes that performance declines when an individual’s attention shifts towards the internal process of their performance and towards a tendency for self-consciousness.

The disposition towards self-consciousness is an individual’s tendency to reflect on their internal experiences and relationships with others.

In the context of competition, this is a pressure situation, whose components (rivalry, the presence of an audience, and the presence of coactors) can cause agitation in the player.

However, to be fair, it should be mentioned that this tendency towards self-consciousness can play both a positive and negative role. Some individuals do not care much about reflecting on their context, while others struggle to deal with cameras and audiences.

Indeed, another study by Changrun Huang and Rongjun Yu, Making mistakes in public: Being observed magnifies physiological responses to errors , suggests that the presence of observers can increase neural activity related to monitoring one’s errors.

Applied to chess, this means that the presence of others could be positive because the player will strive not to make mistakes in order to maintain their public image and gain social reputation.

On the other hand, how many of you have experienced fatigue during a tournament due to long travel to the venue? Many of these players travel even a day before, with little or no rest, and on top of that, they intend to play two classical games a day because that’s how the tournament is organized.

Well, this travel fatigue can also affect a player’s performance, at least indirectly, by increasing the perception of stress and fatigue, reducing alertness, motivation, and mood. This has been documented in sports research, such as in Managing Travel Fatigue and Jet Lag in Athletes: A Review and Consensus Statement .

Since there are no specific studies on how each of these elements affects chess players, we can only speak in very general terms.

We can start from the idea that online games reduce anxiety, fatigue, and pressure because players are not facing an audience or other coactors but are playing from the comfort of their homes.

Anxiety might increase for those streaming live with their cameras on. However, this is only done by the most famous or elite players; everyone else does not have to turn on their cameras and has nothing to lose.

Reduction of Physical Signals

Chess is not a contact sport like boxing or football, but the physical presence of an in-person match is a unique experience.

Many talk about the expressiveness of players like Hikaru Nakamura or Ian Nepomniachtchi, but perhaps Garry Kasparov is the clearest example of a presence that imposes itself before an opponent: the battle begins before the clock starts ticking.

It’s also a psychological game, and postures and attitudes at the board carry weight; it seems Garry was convinced that looks could kill, that mental disposition translated into physicality, and that one should use all available resources. In response, the opponent might think, “What’s with Garry?” or “Calm down, Garry, it’s just a game.”

Anyone who has played in-person chess tournaments knows that you can encounter various types of players and personalities, and those personalities reflect in their play, they are palpable.

There are quiet players, but there are also provocateurs: they make noises to distract you, they sit as if they’re your boss, they eat something and chew insolently.

Anything unrelated to the game on the board is fair game, as long as the referees allow it: they distract their opponent, look them in the eye to glimpse their thoughts; slam pieces on the board; get up suddenly and make the chair creak on purpose, etc.

All those things that happen when playing a tournament in person, all that doesn’t exist in an online game. Online players can use headphones to listen to music while playing. They cannot feel the presence of their opponent; they can only see them in a small box in a corner of the screen.

Visual Perception, Depth Perception, and Peripheral Vision

In a publication titled Chess & Perception: How visual crowding can hide what’s right in front of you , by someone with the pseudonym NDPatzer, it is discussed how eye deviation or strabismus can be a limitation for good depth perception (3D), also called stereopsis or stereoscopic vision.

Stereoscopic vision is crucial, for example, to react to a ball being thrown at us, but also to move a physical piece on the board.

More importantly, visual acuity, if it fails, also detracts from peripheral vision, that is, when we look toward the edges of the visual field. That could be the reason, NDPatzer continues, that while we are looking at the center of the board, we might not distinguish that instead of a pawn, there is a bishop on one of the board’s edges.

According to the article, there is also visual crowding, which refers to how the brain perceives objects in the periphery. Visual crowding occurs when an object is difficult to recognize due to the close presence of surrounding objects.

In this case, it can be understood why a bishop might be left hanging in one of the corners, camouflaged among pawns. And don’t worry too much, we’re not the only ones it happens to: there are countless examples of grandmasters making huge errors, even though their mistakes are less frequent.

If I have brought up these visual issues mentioned by NDPatzer, it is because I believe they contribute to our discussion.

For instance, we should ask whether players’ performance is better or worse when playing online due to better or worse peripheral vision; or, conversely, whether performance in a face-to-face match is better or worse due to better or worse depth perception.

On Chess.com forums , some users expressed that after a long time of only playing in one of the two possible modes, whether online or face-to-face, they found it difficult to return to the other mode, struggled to adapt.

And surely more than one reader here has experienced the same. No one will be surprised if we say that, due to the nature of both game modes, playing face-to-face at the board reinforces 3D spatial memory, while playing online improves 2D spatial memory and pattern recognition skills on a screen.

Responding to Caruana’s question of why some players are only good at playing online, we would say that each player, whether professional or not, has their own playing preferences with which they feel better, and therefore their performance improves.

Some, given their particular characteristics, evade pressure and cognitive anxiety; some handle fatigue better; others surpass their opponents in peripheral vision, etc.

All of this undoubtedly plays a role. And we are not denying those essential characteristics of a good chess player, such as technique that develops regardless of whether it is online or face-to-face, experience, chess knowledge, and inherent capabilities.

We simply believe it is not easy to doubt someone’s performance just because they do not show the same level in both modes of play.