9 ms·

I think the simplest answer to all of this is a cage match. Specifically, a Faraday Cage. Magnus believes that Niemann is cheating via communication with a co

• ninepoints 4y ago
  Fyi communication is not needed to cheat. Modern chess engines capable of high level play and assistance can be extremely small and concealable.
  • mabbo 4y ago
    Yeah, we'll need them to don tight spandex clothing and walk through a sensitive metal detector on the way to their chairs.
    • mikkergp 4y ago
      Bend over and cough?
      • anonu 4y ago
        Not to spread rumors or anything, but this has gone over the top: > A chess grandmaster has become the victim of an online rumor that he used a sex toy to defeat the world champion. https://www.insider.com/chess-feud-hans-niemann-magnus-carlsen-anal-beads-rumor-explained-2022-9 https://www.insider.com/chess-feud-hans-niemann-magnus-carls...
        • ncmncm 4y ago
          Satire is dead.
          • thatguy0900 4y ago
            It was satire. It was originally suggested on a streamers chat as a joke that the streamer laughed at. Noone took it seriously
    • onychomys 4y ago
      Just make them walk through a really big electromagnet and hope that neither has a pacemaker.
      • linspace 4y ago
        What if the pacemaker is the cheating device?
        • mburee 4y ago
          Stop the heartbeat in morse code of the next move. Communicate with the device via blood pressure
        • kazinator 4y ago
          A pacemaker is cheating death already, so what is chess.
    • hacym 4y ago
      They use metal detectors on them already.
    • checkyoursudo 4y ago
      Surely competitive nude chess is a thing?
  • Victerius 4y ago
    There still needs to be a way for the cheater to communicate input about the moves in the game to the Arduino. The players should be required to strip down to their underwear and wear elegant tournament-provided kimonos and slippers.
    • googlryas 4y ago
      Communication could be done entirely invisibly from an outsiders perspective. For example, embedded electrodes sensing when one clenched their jaw muscles. My brother and I did this magic trick and convinced our grade school we had ESP... the mark tells brother a secret number. I put my hands on brothers head and without communicating I tell what the secret number was. It was just the number of times he clenched his jaw.
      • lairv 4y ago
        Put them in a room without window or any exterior interactions, 4 cameras in each corner, wifi/radio signal jammer, 10 minutes delay with livestream, I would honestly pay respect to Hans if he can still cheat in those conditions
        • googlryas 4y ago
          Is wifi even necessary? Could one embed a chip which does chess inference somewhere in one's body?
    • awb 4y ago
      At GM levels the matches are typically broadcast live and/or have an audience, so it would only require an observer to input the moves.
      • chongli 4y ago
        This can be counteracted by broadcasting with a delay, something I believe they already do. It may be the case that the delay needs to be increased.
  • perihelions 4y ago
    How many milliwatts would you need to run Stockfish at ~2900 strength under classical time controls, and what's the smallest extant gadget in that power range? (I'm assuming the I/O power would be negligible compared to compute, since it'd run at very low duty cycle).
    • sitkack 4y ago
      We all know this is embedded in his glass eye. 500Gflops/watt gets you pretty far on battery power.
      • irrational 4y ago
        Wait, does he really have a glass eye?!
    • grumple 4y ago
      I saw this recently, so not only is it possible, but it's fairly simple: https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/sockfish.html https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/sockfish.html
      • zimpenfish 4y ago
        I'm pretty sure they'd notice the large box and powerbank in your pockets on the way in if you tried that.
        • grumple 4y ago
          Fitting both into your shoes would be easy... which I actually know from experience, having put batteries into shoes for other purposes.
  • permo-w 4y ago
    it's absolutely doable, especially for someone with the commitment of a chess grandmaster, but the main here issue wouldn't be having the processing power to calculate the moves, it'd be the input bandwidth to update the computer with the moves. yes a cheater could have - for example - a subdermal implant that vibrates to update them with a killer mid-game line to go down, but, without the internet, it would be a huge uphill struggle to update the board with the moves. certainly not impossible, especially if you were very dedicated, but very, very hard to get right, especially without getting caught under such scrutinous circumstances
    • mrguyorama 4y ago
      The set up of the board at the start is static, so even a very naive approach of "piece at square (nibble, nibble) moves to square (nibble, nibble)" only requires two bytes per turn. I would expect there to be IMMENSELY better ways to encode this state update if I wasn't a dunce, and the people making cheating hardware are very good at that style of compression.
      • squeaky-clean 4y ago
        > piece at square (nibble, nibble) moves to square (nibble, nibble) Chess notation is very compact, you don't even need to say where the starting piece was in most cases because it's implied by the move. If you have 2 rooks on A1 and H1, and the move says rh4, only one of your rooks can legally make that move. However if the move was rc1, both rooks could make that move so you do need to disambiguate.
        • permo-w 4y ago
          presuming that the cheater communicates with the system through some form of physical pressure, they could probably use a modified Morse code re-optimised for the frequency of letters in chess notation. according to wikipedia[1] this already exists and was developed for telegraph and radio transmission of chess games, although I have no idea how well optimised it is [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_notation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_notation
  • bluecalm 4y ago
    In tournaments that have broadcast without delay you don't even need a computer. You can have a script reading the game and calculating at home. You just need to receive signals which is a way easier task. As you don't need to do input nor the actual computation.
• InCityDreams 4y ago
  How much of all this could be just building-up the hype that'll end with a bigger payday for both? You may gladly pay, and I'll bet they'll happily take the money you'll now pay.
  • gkoberger 4y ago
    I think both of their reputations are forever tainted (at a minimum), so if that's the goal they've misplayed their hand significantly.
    • JohnBooty 4y ago
      How is Carlsen's reputation tainted? Honest question. I would have thought that chess fans would have seen this as a brave and perhaps even virtuous move?
      • jfengel 4y ago
        It's unclear how, or even if, Niemann cheated. The evidence is, at best, circumstantial: a win by a slightly weaker player, playing black, in a line that should have been impossible to prepare for. So some see him as throwing a tantrum after an unexpected loss, and blaming it (implicitly) on cheating. We can't know if he's right, and we may never actually know. In the absence of confirmation, some people will think less of him for that.
      • faeriechangling 4y ago
        Carlsen is seen as having drawn unwilling participants into his drama (he withdrew from a Swiss style tourney this forfeiting several games), he is seen as passive-aggressive for not making any direct allegations, and there is an arrogance around Magnus believing he knows better than the chess community and organizers about how to deal with former cheaters when they have quite obviously chosen to forgive and trust Hans. I’m sure some people think Magnus is very brave and courageous for what he’s doing but my general impression is most people don’t approve of Magnus’s methods.
        • 4y ago
• seydor 4y ago
  Some porn site suggested a naked match
• PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  The funny thing is that at this level, if a player is told they are losing or winning in a very complex position, they are often capable of figuring out how they are losing or winning precisely. The bits of information a top player needs to cheat are so few that for the average viewer it is inconceivable.
  • rowanG077 4y ago
    Definitely don'forget that even a single bit of extra information halves the space space.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• oldstrangers 4y ago
  You joke, but the only tournaments Hans has performed well in (2700+) are coincidentally the ones where the boards are sharing the moves live online. He performs at a 2400 level when the games aren't available online.
  • bluecalm 4y ago
    The same happend at Sinquefield cup: 3050+ performance with no delay in broadcast. About 2640 performance once security measures were introduced (and he was very very lucky to score 2/6 as he was completely lost in 2 of drawn games but his opponents has unusual mental lapses allowing him to escape). It's a small sample size of course but it's a pattern, not an exception.
  • roflyear 4y ago
    What do you have to back this up? A comment on a Twitch stream? Don't be a joker.
• aqme28 4y ago
  > If Magnus destroys Niemann, he'll be able to pretty handily claim that Niemann can't win without communication to computers. If Niemann is competitive, or wins, it will be hard for Carlsen to make any more such claims. I don't think that's very conclusive. The thing is, there's still an element of luck[1] in chess. A lower-rated player can beat a higher-rated player, and a higher-rated player can dominate an even match. [1] luck, not chance.
  • MomoXenosaga 4y ago
    They are human beings. People underestimate the human factor in chess. Someone can simply have a bad day or fall apart under the pressure. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1972 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_197...
    • Hublium 4y ago
      a more recent example of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlsen_versus_Nepomniachtchi,_World_Chess_Championship_2021,_Game_6#Impact_and_aftermath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlsen_versus_Nepomniachtchi,...
• pxtail 4y ago
  Match in swimming briefs inside Faraday Cage would have absolutely record viewership
• serf 4y ago
  >Heck, for fun lets have them play in tight sporting outfits so it's very clear what they are carrying and doing. >And also, the sport will have a spectacle like we've never seen before. Tell me you wouldn't pay to watch that match! Magnus wearing one of those Speedo swimmer speed-suits would be worth the price of admission without the chess just for the sake of absurdity.
  • JohnBooty 4y ago
    Some of the cheating rumors/theories involve devices inserted or implanted into the body, so tight body-suits wouldn't even suffice.
• awill 4y ago
  >If Niemann is competitive, or wins, it will be hard for Carlsen to make any more such claims. Niemann might be cheating, but still capable of playing 2700+ without cheating. They can both be true.
• radiator 4y ago
  I think the answer is not that difficult really. All Hans Niemann's moves, all his games, are public information. People can analyze them and form their own opinions about whether he has been cheating or not. The question "how" need not even be considered. Carlsen has of course already looked at the games, with the experience of having preiviously looked at millions of games between humans, and millions of analyses from computer engines. And he must have realised that Niemann has achieved something unique, he has conducted many absolute masterpieces, sometimes one after the other in the same tournament, while being rated 2400-2500. Performances so perfect, that no other human has ever accomplished.
  • Overtonwindow 4y ago
    Hypothetically speaking, why doesn’t someone make a proof of concept. Cheat. Have an exhibition and try to get away with cheating. Best way to tackle cheating is to invite people to give it your best shot.
    • sjs382 4y ago
      Someone has. It was posted here recently [0]. Different stakes to be sure, though. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32729105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32729105
      • Overtonwindow 4y ago
        Thanks for the link! I agree there needs to be many more safeguards from cheating but I'm really not behind Magnuson on this one. Poor sportsmanship at the very least going on.
  • dkarras 4y ago
    Also from a game theory point of view, it doesn't make much sense. Magnus would have nothing to win from such an encounter but a lot to lose. In his position I would never take such a deal. Whether he is cheating or not, it doesn't make much sense for Hans either. Only one and unlikely outcome would be in his favor. Cheater or not, he is A LOT more likely to lose to the current best player in the world. He won't gain anything from it. If he is a cheater odds are even lower. If he is honest and loses it would be devastating. If he is a cheater, it is a lot better for him to not take the deal and deny any wrongdoing. With chess, at that level of play, you can't decide which player is better or worse by judging from a single game. Only the aggregate between many players playing between each other can tell you that - ELO system achieves that. So them sitting in a faraday cage naked after an X-ray and playing a single match would not tell much. If they played a whole lot of games against each other, it would more or less work but that is impractical and ridiculous.
• jagrsw 4y ago
  I attended the EM wave propagation lectures years ago at my Uni, so my knowledge is rusty, and the following might not be something that is true in practice. The faraday cage tries to equalize electrical field potential over space. It does so by allowing electrons to move more or less freely, typically inside a metal mesh. But a). metals (unless we use superconductors) have electrical resistance b). electrons themselves have rest masses (i.e. don't accelerate infinitely quickly in response to force). So, the movement of electrons is not instantaneous, therefore the electrical field cannot be equalized ideally. in effect we achieve attenuation of the signal, and not its complete blockage. Secondly, the mesh must have some relation to the signal frequency (the wave-length), probably at 1:1 or 1:2 ratio. At some frequencies (terahertz, infra-red, visible, xray) you'll need pretty much a solid box to attenuate those. And there's obviously tech which you cannot block/attenuate, like neutrinos. Producing and receiving such signals is however non-trivial and requires particle accelerators and large cavities filled with mineral oil and bulky detectors, so we can probably skip this :). Gravity waves belong to the same category. You can also probably try to send and receive particles, like electrons or alpha particles if you use non-solid meshes.
  • aqme28 4y ago
    > At some frequencies (terahertz, infra-red, visible, xray) you'll need pretty much a solid box to attenuate those. The width of the walls scales relative to the wavelength of the frequency you're trying to stop. So it doesn't take much to block all useful signals. You should realize that aluminum foil blocks visible light signals.
    • jagrsw 4y ago
      > You should realize that aluminum foil blocks visible light signals. Yup, I mentioned the solid box earlier - a non-mesh metal container. Reading through some more material, it seems that there are ways around it - one can use a static electric field to send signals, e.g. switching it on/off or changing its intensity. I suppose the differing el. charge of the opposing walls of such a cage/box would create en electrical field gradient within such box, which is easy to detect, if one's goal is sending some low-bitrate signals. It's detectable (i.e. the fact of using it), but the communication scheme itself can be encrypted or encoded, so plausible deniability can be employed.
• Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  Why not just let him play and run analyses on the moves? Surely they can, for example, input all the moves into known chess engines and see if there's a match with the alledged cheater's moves. Then the match will be annulled and the guy ousted.
  • archi42 4y ago
    That'd be really funny. Chess then became all about making a good move, but not too good, lest it may accidentially match with a chess engine and get you disqualified. The meta would then to put the opponent in a spot with only one viable move option: They either get disqualified on the spot, or slowly suffer because they now lost an important piece. I was never really good at chess, but even when playing async games with friends over gameknot(?) I'd often used the "if opponent does X, do Y" feature because some moves were just obvious. Also, from what I gathered, you can instruct most chess engines to supply you with a list of moves for the current board state. So instead of picking the best move all the time, pick another good enough move to avoid your suggestion.
  • huhtenberg 4y ago
    That's pretty clever actually.
  • sebzim4500 4y ago
    It's much harder than it sounds. Firstly a top level player will match the top engine move 65+% of the time when playing legit, so it isn't that unusual to have a run of quite a few engine moves in a row (especially since they aren't independent, some positions are easier to play than others). Second, as Magnus has said in the past, if he has the ability to consult an engine at a single point in the game (of his choosing) he would be unstoppable. The reason is that in each game there are relatively few 'critical points' at which the result is decided.
• systemvoltage 4y ago
  This is a terrible mythbusters way to test a hypothesis. What’s the variance and how many samples are needed for say 95% confidence in disproving null hypothesis? WCC is a dozen+ rounds. Even then if you were watching it in the 9th game, it may appear the one player is stronger than the eventual champion.
• asddubs 4y ago
  a chess cagematch in leotards would be pretty funny, I'm in favor of this idea
• EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
  Faraday cages don't block many types of communication, for example visible light, sound or low freq magnetic fields. And there are organic non metal receivers for that (eye, ear, bird magnetic navigation)