Hello, I just now noticed that in the middle of a live match, users have the ability to analyze the current board position and test out different variations. I understand that anyone could cheat this way just by using any online goban separate from OGS, but I still wonder why the feature is there in the first place? Doesn’t it just make cheating too easy and convenient for some people? I kinda feel like it would be better if it was removed altogether.
This is an old chestnut of a question - is the in-game analysis feature cheating or not.
The concensus is that it is not cheating, but many people think it’s not a good idea either.
You can set up games with it disabled if you want.
My own preference would be that this should be the default, but not enough people agree with that for it to have been changed… so far.
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Analyzing during live match is frowned upon. However people who use it are only cheating themselves. If they use analysis consistently during live games, their rating reflects it.
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Ah I didn’t realize it could be disabled, my bad. Thanks a lot!!
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Being able to use the anal. (<-- really? this is the abbreviation you went with? ٩◔̯◔۶) tool in the middle of the game is useful, if you’re playing more like a teaching game or a game between friends, so that you can share variations while playing.
You can disable it if you want, but that doesn’t stop cheaters from finding ways to cheat. If anything, it will induce some people to feed their moves to leela in order of “just checking one little variation,” that they could actually do on OGS otherwise.
(and it’s not cheating to use a tool, that is provided for both players equally)
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I’m never going to be able to think of that tool in the same way again…
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And just to make the list complete note that you can disable analysis in ALL YOUR (not for your opponent) games in your settings if you want. Just if you want to rid yourself of the possibility and force yourself to read 
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It’s not cheating if it’s allowed by the rules. For correspondence games, especially, the use of an analysis board is very much in the spirit of things, and has a long history.
That being said, I think it should be disabled by default for live games, possibly along with the score estimator. I’d settle for it being disabled for automatch games, at the very least.
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I don’t think that it is cheating, especially in an unranked game since it is equally available. I could see an argument for making the the default change to off when the game is ranked. Tight(er) time controls can make it less of an option or riskier to use too-often.
If it really is a friendly game, any tool that helps a person learn isn’t entirely bad. For example, I always accept undos without remark in a friendly game. I wouldn’t criticize someone using a joseki book either, for that matter.
For a while, I’d estimate my score every single move. Now I hardly ever need to. It helps show how moves affect the score, especially under an unfamiliar scoring method.
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Just to note that this is specifically ruled out for live games:
GaJ
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if you say using analysis is cheating, where do you draw the line?
Mental is definitely good.
How about using paper and pencil?
How about using peanuts and gummy bear?
How about using a physical Goban?
To me, any move that you derive by yourself, is good.
Outside help like joseki book, computer go program, or asking your brother, is not.
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