Before making a move, I'd like to know if the players are cheaters. I've taken to resigning immediately against cheaters. Not only do I not want to play them, but if we make it easy enough for them, maybe they'll get bored.

Anyway, is kuskus (id 18708) an instance of Mahmod? I have only a little reason to suspect so. I don't want people to assume that s/he is just because I'm asking. But if anyone knows, I'd like the info.

And is Sibirian (id 20186) a cheater? S/he has a truly remarkable record so far.

therethese players, the title was supposed to say.

On kuskus' chess games page, the lines that stand out most are the following:

1105167 Ye_L_o 1729 chess.mc.2009.jun.2.4 1 win

1105164 EcNaL 1837 chess.mc.2009.jun.2.4 1 win

EcNaL being the new name for chess_game, thus both of them are members of the Jamaican posse. Mahmouds used to swarm in their dozens, so I doubt it's a mahmoud.

On the Sibirian list, the only thing I noticed was this:

1105140 mk5 1794 chess.mc.2009.jun.2.3 0 win

mk5 also being a member of the Jamaican posse.

After sniffing around a whole bunch of matches, I'm pretty convinced that there are 3 separate 'mahmoud'-themed groups with sizes at least 15, 4, and 12. The mahmoud gangs of size 15 and 4 are long retired, the slightly more loose-knit gang of size 12 (which is almost certainly a homage to the original mahmoud, and not the same person/people at all), is still very much active.

kuskus repeatedly appeared very close to the action, but with over 30 loonies running around the same's true for a lot of people, and I certainly couldn't tie him to any one of the groups. The number of draws against people known to collaborate by tournament stuffing was suspicious, but they were normally long draws rather that grandmaster draws.