If nothing else, the time issue is a huge one. Cheaters have very consistent seconds-per-move while actual masters make obvious moves instantly and pause on tougher moves.
I suppose that only completely newbie cheaters would think of taking the same amount of time to make each move. It’s like the first rule of pretending to be a human: add a random delay to all of your actions.
And yet time and time again, chess streamers and content producers run across people with newly formed accounts and perfect win records playing the best engine move at regular measured intervals.
If you are cunning enough to hold off on the best move for a few extra seconds to appear unaided by an engine, or if you blunder X% moves in your game (or simply play the 3rd or 4th rated move which still probably wins against most humans), chances are you'd do fine learning some chess strategy and playing the game unaided.
People keep asking why one would cheat at chess. I'm sure there are some bad actors who aim to disrupt the game, in a manner consistent with cheater motivations in other games. I'd imagine many cheaters are simply looking for some quick dopamine after being frustrated by a plateau in their skill.
A random delay is also a tell, though. An obvious move shouldn't take 15 seconds, but if that's what the random delay for that move is, that looks suspicious. A more difficult move shouldn't take only 3 seconds, but if that's what the random delay for that move is, that also looks suspicious.
Definitely, random time is adding no correlation where it would count. Move time is an easily captured psychometric observation, the clever bit is that it’s intermingled with automated chess analysis.
Feels like there could be a lot of surprising inferences to think about here … just a few quick thoughts - how long does someone pause after a blunder, how does one react to unpredictable moves. Can definitely imagine AI being of significant utility here.
In general you’re right, but there are some tells because humans don’t have a random delay. It’s connected with the complexity (from the perspective of how humans think, which is different from engine calculation) of the position. One of the things that makes cheaters stand out is they will have a random weird delay on various obvious moves.
If nothing else, the time issue is a huge one. Cheaters have very consistent seconds-per-move while actual masters make obvious moves instantly and pause on tougher moves.