I sometimes play online and for some reason I frequently stumble upon users who cheat in all kinds of ways. From using a computer (it's easy to tell when all moves regardless of difficulty take exactly the same time to make) to baiting me to play a 3-min game and then changing it to 30-min right before I accept the game. The only reasonable explanation is that they are trying to harvest ranking to "transfer" it to another account. Regardless of the motivation is does suck out the joy for me.
I play only anonymous games not rated in lichess.org as. I like that it takes virtually one second to find an opponent match in my time control (5m+0).
My play level is around 1800-1900 FIDE (last Classic game played some 10 years ago though), and it is true that I win a lot more than I lose (so I guess that the crowd in Anonymous mode must be somewhere 1400-1900 FIDE), but I still enjoy the games. You can tell by the moves that opponents are more often than not club-level players, and I like not having any idea of what level my opponent has, so I focus on what happens on the board.
What I do not like is that, at least in anonymous mode, some players abandon the game without resigning, sometimes just a few moves still in the opening if they get a slightly worse position. Also for some reason some players play deliberately bad in the opening. Maybe they like the idea of a comeback, but I don't like it when it happens.
>and I like not having any idea of what level my opponent has, so I focus on what happens on the board.
You might like lichess's 'zen mode' in non-anonymous play, which hides everything except the board (inc. opponent name and rating) while you are playing.
I play on lichess and in the last 6 months I've had at least 5 different games annulled because the opponent was banned for cheating. It certainly happens.
