I am gutter to hear that my DS is..........

[OssomMummy1]

My teenage son had keen interest in chess. He joined in 2017 and took part in most of the regional tournaments although never won. I never bothered and I always told him it is important to participate and let the best person win it and there can only one winner. As a child, he learned chess form his dad and he encouraged him to take part in every opportunity and give his best.
Then came the pandemic when these weekly practise games turned into an online game. He used to play for hours with his friends online and mastered the game. The he started winning the tournament after tournament. Now, there are at least 10 trophies in his room, which were won between March 2020 and March 2022. I was elated with his achievement and which mum won't be happy?

I was shocked when his tutor told me that he has been accused to cheating in a national tournament where he beat a opponent from Isle of Man in the finals. I wasn't aware of "bots" in online games, was in total disbelief and defended my son. When the face to face games have restarted now, he is back to his competency of amateur days. But he still manages to win any game if he plays online.

His tutor spoke to me and told me about bots and how they can be used to gain victory unfairly over others. Upon reviewing his online activities during the pandemic and speaking to his teachers, he has been playing games online during online lectures, in the class room and at break time.

I am heartbroken and shouted at my DH for putting pressuring on him to excel. He says he has no knowledge of bots and only pays board games face to face. This seems like bad company in school.

I don't know what to do. I am worried that today it is online games, tomorrow it could be anything online. Please help/guide

Most children are more competent online than face to face these days my son can read write punctuate and spell way better on a computer than by hand in person are you certain he has been using bots? There should be a way to check this

Seriously? Have you read the thread? It is the OP who is being dramatic, and we are suggesting that she calm down and recognise that this is not the end of the world. It isn't even the beginning of the end of the world. Whatever the OP meant to say, it is a vast inflation and overly dramatic response to a situation that needs addressing but not by humiliating, blaming or yelling at others. But I am not going to assume anything about what was meant, because either reaction is extreme. Why on earth would a father "hand himself in" to anyone if their child cheated, and to whom would they hand themselves in? But actually I think you are wrong, and I do think the work was supposed to be hang - extreme reactions to family shame are not all that uncommon, even if the reality of what someone might do is different.

Sigh. I hate being taken for a mug. The OP's son is a cheat and her husband is ashamed. In October 2020 she was a single mother of three beautiful daughters (no sons) - and her daughters will be on the streets if she dies after having the Covid vaccine because her parents and in-laws have disowned her.

So much drama in that family.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/coronavirus/4060938-COVID-vaccine

Using bots for chess has been a HUGE thing over the pandemic and has pretty much destroyed the online game. From what my chess-playing OH says, a lot of tournaments now require cameras to track your eye movement, mouse movement, etc. because the cheating has been rampant. Mass cheating has also affected games like online bridge, etc., and adjudicators have been required to review matches as relative strangers with no history of excelling at the game leap to the top of the tables.

Of course, in face to face games the truth quickly becomes apparent - which your son has only just discovered. Does he even enjoy playing chess? Or is he just addicted to winning at any cost? I'd encourage him to only play the game face to face from now on, and it will become clear if he has an actual interest and appreciation for the game or just a penchant for gloryseeking.

Last year, DH's subordinate's snows expelled by University of Bristol for plagiarising on application form. DH used to say, "i will hand myself if something like that happens in my household"

Do you mean hang? If so then that is an awful and abusive thing for somebody to say, for a parent to suggest their life is held in the actions of their children is incredibly manipulative. Your poor son, if he is cheating I can only think it is because he has raised to think he is responsible for his parents’ happiness and felt pressured to try and succeed for fear of disappointing his father.

Can you imagine how traumatising it must be to feel like if you do something wrong your Dad will hang himself? That is too much for any child to have to bear. If all your son is doing as a result of that pressure is cheating at online chess then if I’m honest I think you’ve got off lightly, living in that kind of household with that kind of pressure could have caused your son to do far worse.

Your husband sounds cruel, manipulative, narcissistic and abusive and in your shoes I would be leaving him and protecting my son.

Just on the off change that this is a genuine post (see Jalisco's comment above), I play chess online and cheating is endemic. Just like with academics, there is specialist software that is used to try to identify cheating.

It's rarely wrong. It's definitely not wrong if there is a marked and consistent discrepancy between a player's over the board and online performance.

If he cheated at chess or didn’t cheat at chess is not what you should be concentrating on and questioning him about during his exams. Choose your battles, and more importantly , choose when you have them.

Good sleuthing!

anyone for jubilee popcorn*:while we await the inevitable?

(*someone, somewhere will have made it.)

Good sleuthing!

It wasn't intentional. I thought the OP might have previously made some reference to their ethnicity that might help me understand why they were acting in such an extreme way (and definitely not suggesting that "foreigners" are overly dramatic, but some of the comments resonated with things I'd heard before from some ethnic minority parents). I thought it might help to unpack the problem for them. But there have only been three threads before from this username - this one, the one about being the single parent of three daughters, and one about recommendations for airfryers as her partner likes to reheat his chicken wings (it didn't mention if the son and daughters reheated food or not 😀).