8 ms·

Checkmate: Cheating Detection

tobr 4y ago
The HN title is wrong, this is not about cheating detection.
- jrmg 4y ago
  It’s a fascinating article though!
- CapitalistCartr 4y ago
  It's what Bruce Schneier called it because of the part about sprinting. And the one-word title was clickbait.
incomingpain 4y ago
To me this Hans Niemann thing looked more like a fake publicity stunt. I guess he admitted to cheating a few years ago. Whatever, didn't mean in the game he cheated. Yes he outright lied saying he had prepped for magnus but magnus has never played an early move. Hans is probably hitting stride right now having been going fulltime on chess for about 8 years. Cheating likely not necessary, flipside, streamers having to think and deal with the stream which usually results in streamers being underrated. Levon's game changed my mind. This is exactly what computers do sometimes. Some odd move that is unexplainable and then they blow you off the board. This is blowing levon off the board in a njadorf... he's the njadorf expert. No I'm now in the boat he's cheating now.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Whatever happened it's certainly brought publicity to chess on HN heh.
- roflyear 4y ago
  He didn't lie, Magnus played a game like that before? Levon blundered, mate. Clearly so. Quote from Levon about this event: "So far I am playing so badly that any points that I get are kind of a miracle"
  - incomingpain 4y ago
    >He didn't lie, Magnus played a game like that before? Hans certainly lied by a significant amount. There was a theory that someone on Magnus' team leaked their prep to Hans. Something along those lines may make the comment not a lie but I await evidence. To prove an admitted cheater isn't cheating takes extra effort. >Levon blundered, mate. Clearly so. Definitely a blunder, :snirk: When playing against an engine every human eventually blunders. If you're a supergm you blunder in an unusual way. Like moving a center pawn 1 square. :snirk: >Quote from Levon about this event: "So far I am playing so badly that any points that I get are kind of a miracle" Levon who is currently in 8th place isn't doing that badly. Carlsen whose only loss is hans and he either drew or crushed everyone else...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - roflyear 4y ago
      You think... what? That a rumor leaking him prep makes him a liar? What are you talking about? > To prove an admitted cheater isn't cheating takes extra effort. What logic is this? If you commit one crime, now forever you must prove your innocence? That's dumb. It is very obvious that e6 in the game with Levon was a huge blunder. It is not remarkable that a super GM found this. If any other 2700 found this, would you take it as evidence they were cheating? > Levon who is currently in 8th place isn't doing that badly. The point is he admits he was doing poorly. And Hans is in 7th, so clearly having a better tournament. > Carlsen whose only loss is hans and he either drew or crushed everyone else... You know Hans didn't "win" that game, right? Carlsen resigned during the first move. Are you following the events at all or just parroting talking points and making shit up?
      - throwaway81523 4y ago
        > What logic is this? If you commit one crime, now forever you must prove your innocence? That's dumb. You are typically not given an opportunity to prove your innocence, once you have a criminal record. If you apply for a job or apartment and fail the background check, it is usually kthxbye. This is unfortunate in many ways, but it is how the world works.
mellosouls 4y ago
Last couple of days: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32901249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32901249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32909106 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32909106
darepublic 4y ago
There was recently a big 'open chess tourney' (actually https://www.chess.com/article/view/chesscom-global-championship-2022 https://www.chess.com/article/view/chesscom-global-champions...) to be conducted online. A lot of prize money and you could get to play against the top GMs. I laughed at it because of this very reason -- although touted as 'completely open' as an amateur you would never expect to win, and if by some miracle, like playing the lottery you happened to select all the correct moves, you will still be disqualified as a cheater. There is no point have a prize money tournament where amateur can fight GM (except for the PR) because amateur simply cannot win, but even if God possessed them for one game they would not be able to get away with winning.
- pkulak 4y ago
  You're underestimating cheat detection. It absolutely is not as simple as "this person played above their rating, therefor they cheated."
  - sooyoo 4y ago
    Ironically, that's what I expected the article to be about. Discussing cheating detection. Like it's f**ing title suggests.
- throwaway81523 4y ago
  To play the GM's in that event, you have to qualify through some earlier events. And open tournaments are nothing new. They are usually played by the Swiss system, which means you play each round against an opponent whose current score in the tournament is the same as yours. That means the most suspenseful games are in the last round, between the players with the highest scores. That tends to mean GM vs GM, since to be at that scoring level you first have to beat a string of regular masters, IM's, and so on. It's not that simple. (This explanation though is slightly simplified vs the real world details).
darepublic 4y ago
I find this article confusing since the way it is written it seems like Carlsen lost to Niemann twice in the same tournament, which I do not think is the case.
- textadventure 4y ago
  It's not the case. And the two different tournaments used very different time controls, which essentially makes a different "kind" of chess. One was rapid (and played online with computers, but sitting across from each other), the second one was classical chess (much longer and considered to be far more serious chess), played over the board the old fashioned way.
georgyo 4y ago
I don't play chess, and this story doesn't particularly interest me, but since it keeps coming up and I've now read several articles on it... It seems to me that the entire chess community is absolutely ruining this guy's life on an accusation without any proof. This chess champ had clout to burry this guy with a tweet. Carlsen won't play in future tournaments where this guy is also there and won't do a rematch. It seems like he is just sulking. From an outsider of the game, without any proof and without a rematch, everyone is destroying Niemann unjustly. Comedians ripping into him. This scandal has removed any interest I may have had in competitive chess not because of the possible cheating, but how the chess world handled it.
- googlryas 4y ago
  He's already admitted to cheating in online tournaments. Someone saying "Yeah I cheat in chess online but no way I would ever cheat in chess in real life" doesn't hold much water in my book. It's also weird that if someone is good enough to beat one of the best chess players in the world, that they would also resort to cheating against much weaker opponents.
  - pizza234 4y ago
    > He's already admitted to cheating in online tournaments. He did when he was 12 and 16. It's impossible to assess whether that holds value (particularly difficult because Niemann is 19). I wouldn't be surprised if other professional chess players cheated as young teenagers.
    - Grim-444 4y ago
      To be fair, that's only according to what he himself has admitted, which doesn't rule out more cheating than that.
      - isitmadeofglass 4y ago
        And chess.com, the site that banned him from playing for cheating has suggested that he’s not telling the whole truth.
rgoulter 4y ago
"Only here’s the problem: As far as I know, there is not one shred of evidence that Niemann cheated — not only that, nobody even knows how he COULD have cheated. This was, after all, an over-the-board game, in person, he wasn’t allowed any communication devices." There's no concrete, hard evidence of Niemann cheating. I don't think you can go as far as "it's unfair to suspect him without hard evidence, or without figuring out how he could have cheated". There are things which are suspicious about Niemann. (e.g. His history of cheating in online games, including where prize money is involved. During the recent brouhaha, chess.com banned his account, and stated that his cheating has gone beyond what he publicly stated).
- roflyear 4y ago
  chess.com is garbage and has done worse in the past. Don't take their actions as adding to suspicion. They also have a financial relationship with Magnus... See: https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/xjeuwt/a_few_cases_most_of_the_community_doesnt_know/ https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/xjeuwt/a_few_cases_m...
  - heartbreak 4y ago
    Chess.com also has attorneys and has had to fight lawsuits over their cheating accusations before. They wouldn’t issue that statement if they couldn’t back it up.
    - roflyear 4y ago
      Source?
      - heartbreak 4y ago
        This case was notable: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nyedce/2:2013cv06212/348953 https://dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nyedce/2:2013cv06...
        4y ago
permo-w 4y ago
well this was a waste of 5 minutes. what part of the article was about cheating detection? this is just a short summary of the Carlson-Niemann cheating accusation, with a tiny rant about technology in sport
permo-w 4y ago
how accurate the study was, I don’t know, but I saw a persuasive post claiming that Niemann performs significantly better in games with live broadcasting of the moves. I can try to find it if anyone is interested
- refulgentis 4y ago
  Please! Ive been very unconvinced by the stuff I've seen so far that used statistics. Ex. the deepest post I saw was still pretty shallow and either I'm missing an implication, or they didn't say anything helpful. Iirc it left off at "if he's 'actually' the player before his rise, he's 1 in a 1000, if he's actually the player he is after the rise, he's been playing poorly"
  - rogerb 4y ago
    Have a look at this: https://en.chessbase.com/post/is-hans-niemann-cheating-world-renowned-expert-ken-regan-analyzes https://en.chessbase.com/post/is-hans-niemann-cheating-world...
    - permo-w 4y ago
      in this article he specifically states that he did not take into account whether games were broadcast live or not here's the link I was talking about https://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=80630&start=100 https://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=80630&start... at the bottom of the page in the DrCliche post
  - roflyear 4y ago
    Good luck getting a link. It doesn't exist beyond some offhand Twitch comments.
    - permo-w 4y ago
      try not to assume the worst of a comment. why would I lie?
  - 4y ago
tromp 4y ago
> World Athletics has determined that it is not possible for someone to push off the block within a tenth of a second of the gun without false starting. > Besides, do you know what Devon Allen’s reaction time was? It was 0.99 seconds. One thousandth of a second too fast, according to World Athletics’ science. They’re THAT sure that .01 seconds That should read 0.099 seconds and 0.001 seconds respectively.
textadventure 4y ago
> We’re talking about a sport — or game, depending on your point of view — where you or I could beat Magnus Carlsen, probably the best chess player in history, if we simply mimicked the moves of the best chess engine. Except not at all, or not anymore than anyone could "beat" the world's foremost martial artist, with a gun. For an absolute novice to mimick 100% or even a large amount of chess engine moves, it would be exceedingly obvious that they are cheating, even by the most cursory and rudimentary of cheating detection measures and mildly versed (in chess) observers. The serious problem of cheating in chess, is not at all that a John Doe with zero chess knowledge would rise up the ranks and become the world champion cheating. The scary prospect is when cheating is done by strong chess players, because they only need two or three tips from an engine a game, to have a massive advantage over everybody else. Carlsen himself discussed this topic last year: https://youtu.be/VcbHmHHwlUQ https://youtu.be/VcbHmHHwlUQ
ShivShankaran 4y ago
>Kasparov did win the overall match 4-2, but he lost a couple of games, which was pretty astonishing at the time. I think this might be slightly wrong. The original battle was lost by deep blue but the "real" deep blue- kasparov match, the well publicized one in 1997, in which Kasparov accused IBM of having humans behind it was lost by kasparov. The last game was the shortest ever game in which Kasparov had ever lost. I think it lasted around 19 moves. What's ironic is that in the current St Louis match the organizers were checking if Kasparov had a computer to assist him and in the deep blue match the organizers were checking if Deep Blue had a human to assist it.
xh-dude 4y ago
An undercurrent here is how FIDE, steeped and mired in tradition, shepherds the sport alongside technological disruption, both in how the game is played and how it is enjoyed. Magnus Carlsen would not be the first world champion to go to war with FIDE, and it’s surprising how recent stories don’t mention the surprising withdrawal-but-not-retirement of Carlsen from championship play here. Put together with the other puzzle pieces, ot feels like Magnus is trying to play a game that’s not on the board. The last candidates tournaments and championship matches have IMHO been boring, over-prepared, extremely risk-averse, uninspiring stuff, and it’s not fun to watch Carlsen/Caruana/Nepo loaded like Atlas or Sysiphus. More enjoyable things happen in looser formats. So some disruption sounds good to me.
m3kw9 4y ago
Has anyone analyzed the cadence of the moves, any patterns there?
- roflyear 4y ago
  Yes. Consensus is that everything looks like normal play.
fictionfuture 4y ago
I'd be checking his shoes... https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/sockfish.html https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/sockfish.html

tobr 4y ago

The HN title is wrong, this is not about cheating detection.

jrmg 4y ago
It’s a fascinating article though!
CapitalistCartr 4y ago
It's what Bruce Schneier called it because of the part about sprinting. And the one-word title was clickbait.

To me this Hans Niemann thing looked more like a fake publicity stunt. I guess he admitted to cheating a few years ago. Whatever, didn't mean in the game he cheated. Yes he outright lied saying he had prepped for magnus but magnus has never played an early move. Hans is probably hitting stride right now having been going fulltime on chess for about 8 years. Cheating likely not necessary, flipside, streamers having to think and deal with the stream which usually results in streamers being underrated. Levon's game changed my mind. This is exactly what computers do sometimes. Some odd move that is unexplainable and then they blow you off the board. This is blowing levon off the board in a njadorf... he's the njadorf expert. No I'm now in the boat he's cheating now.

bombcar 4y ago
Whatever happened it's certainly brought publicity to chess on HN heh.
roflyear 4y ago
He didn't lie, Magnus played a game like that before? Levon blundered, mate. Clearly so. Quote from Levon about this event: "So far I am playing so badly that any points that I get are kind of a miracle"
- incomingpain 4y ago
  >He didn't lie, Magnus played a game like that before? Hans certainly lied by a significant amount. There was a theory that someone on Magnus' team leaked their prep to Hans. Something along those lines may make the comment not a lie but I await evidence. To prove an admitted cheater isn't cheating takes extra effort. >Levon blundered, mate. Clearly so. Definitely a blunder, :snirk: When playing against an engine every human eventually blunders. If you're a supergm you blunder in an unusual way. Like moving a center pawn 1 square. :snirk: >Quote from Levon about this event: "So far I am playing so badly that any points that I get are kind of a miracle" Levon who is currently in 8th place isn't doing that badly. Carlsen whose only loss is hans and he either drew or crushed everyone else...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - roflyear 4y ago
    You think... what? That a rumor leaking him prep makes him a liar? What are you talking about? > To prove an admitted cheater isn't cheating takes extra effort. What logic is this? If you commit one crime, now forever you must prove your innocence? That's dumb. It is very obvious that e6 in the game with Levon was a huge blunder. It is not remarkable that a super GM found this. If any other 2700 found this, would you take it as evidence they were cheating? > Levon who is currently in 8th place isn't doing that badly. The point is he admits he was doing poorly. And Hans is in 7th, so clearly having a better tournament. > Carlsen whose only loss is hans and he either drew or crushed everyone else... You know Hans didn't "win" that game, right? Carlsen resigned during the first move. Are you following the events at all or just parroting talking points and making shit up?
    - throwaway81523 4y ago
      > What logic is this? If you commit one crime, now forever you must prove your innocence? That's dumb. You are typically not given an opportunity to prove your innocence, once you have a criminal record. If you apply for a job or apartment and fail the background check, it is usually kthxbye. This is unfortunate in many ways, but it is how the world works.

mellosouls 4y ago

Last couple of days: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32901249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32901249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32909106 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32909106

darepublic 4y ago

There was recently a big 'open chess tourney' (actually https://www.chess.com/article/view/chesscom-global-championship-2022 https://www.chess.com/article/view/chesscom-global-champions...) to be conducted online. A lot of prize money and you could get to play against the top GMs. I laughed at it because of this very reason -- although touted as 'completely open' as an amateur you would never expect to win, and if by some miracle, like playing the lottery you happened to select all the correct moves, you will still be disqualified as a cheater. There is no point have a prize money tournament where amateur can fight GM (except for the PR) because amateur simply cannot win, but even if God possessed them for one game they would not be able to get away with winning.

pkulak 4y ago
You're underestimating cheat detection. It absolutely is not as simple as "this person played above their rating, therefor they cheated."
- sooyoo 4y ago
  Ironically, that's what I expected the article to be about. Discussing cheating detection. Like it's f**ing title suggests.
throwaway81523 4y ago
To play the GM's in that event, you have to qualify through some earlier events. And open tournaments are nothing new. They are usually played by the Swiss system, which means you play each round against an opponent whose current score in the tournament is the same as yours. That means the most suspenseful games are in the last round, between the players with the highest scores. That tends to mean GM vs GM, since to be at that scoring level you first have to beat a string of regular masters, IM's, and so on. It's not that simple. (This explanation though is slightly simplified vs the real world details).

darepublic 4y ago

I find this article confusing since the way it is written it seems like Carlsen lost to Niemann twice in the same tournament, which I do not think is the case.

textadventure 4y ago
It's not the case. And the two different tournaments used very different time controls, which essentially makes a different "kind" of chess. One was rapid (and played online with computers, but sitting across from each other), the second one was classical chess (much longer and considered to be far more serious chess), played over the board the old fashioned way.

georgyo 4y ago

I don't play chess, and this story doesn't particularly interest me, but since it keeps coming up and I've now read several articles on it... It seems to me that the entire chess community is absolutely ruining this guy's life on an accusation without any proof. This chess champ had clout to burry this guy with a tweet. Carlsen won't play in future tournaments where this guy is also there and won't do a rematch. It seems like he is just sulking. From an outsider of the game, without any proof and without a rematch, everyone is destroying Niemann unjustly. Comedians ripping into him. This scandal has removed any interest I may have had in competitive chess not because of the possible cheating, but how the chess world handled it.

googlryas 4y ago
He's already admitted to cheating in online tournaments. Someone saying "Yeah I cheat in chess online but no way I would ever cheat in chess in real life" doesn't hold much water in my book. It's also weird that if someone is good enough to beat one of the best chess players in the world, that they would also resort to cheating against much weaker opponents.
- pizza234 4y ago
  > He's already admitted to cheating in online tournaments. He did when he was 12 and 16. It's impossible to assess whether that holds value (particularly difficult because Niemann is 19). I wouldn't be surprised if other professional chess players cheated as young teenagers.
  - Grim-444 4y ago
    To be fair, that's only according to what he himself has admitted, which doesn't rule out more cheating than that.
    - isitmadeofglass 4y ago
      And chess.com, the site that banned him from playing for cheating has suggested that he’s not telling the whole truth.

rgoulter 4y ago

"Only here’s the problem: As far as I know, there is not one shred of evidence that Niemann cheated — not only that, nobody even knows how he COULD have cheated. This was, after all, an over-the-board game, in person, he wasn’t allowed any communication devices." There's no concrete, hard evidence of Niemann cheating. I don't think you can go as far as "it's unfair to suspect him without hard evidence, or without figuring out how he could have cheated". There are things which are suspicious about Niemann. (e.g. His history of cheating in online games, including where prize money is involved. During the recent brouhaha, chess.com banned his account, and stated that his cheating has gone beyond what he publicly stated).

roflyear 4y ago
chess.com is garbage and has done worse in the past. Don't take their actions as adding to suspicion. They also have a financial relationship with Magnus... See: https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/xjeuwt/a_few_cases_most_of_the_community_doesnt_know/ https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/xjeuwt/a_few_cases_m...
- heartbreak 4y ago
  Chess.com also has attorneys and has had to fight lawsuits over their cheating accusations before. They wouldn’t issue that statement if they couldn’t back it up.
  - roflyear 4y ago
    Source?
    - heartbreak 4y ago
      This case was notable: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nyedce/2:2013cv06212/348953 https://dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nyedce/2:2013cv06...
      - 4y ago

permo-w 4y ago

well this was a waste of 5 minutes. what part of the article was about cheating detection? this is just a short summary of the Carlson-Niemann cheating accusation, with a tiny rant about technology in sport

permo-w 4y ago

how accurate the study was, I don’t know, but I saw a persuasive post claiming that Niemann performs significantly better in games with live broadcasting of the moves. I can try to find it if anyone is interested

refulgentis 4y ago
Please! Ive been very unconvinced by the stuff I've seen so far that used statistics. Ex. the deepest post I saw was still pretty shallow and either I'm missing an implication, or they didn't say anything helpful. Iirc it left off at "if he's 'actually' the player before his rise, he's 1 in a 1000, if he's actually the player he is after the rise, he's been playing poorly"
- rogerb 4y ago
  Have a look at this: https://en.chessbase.com/post/is-hans-niemann-cheating-world-renowned-expert-ken-regan-analyzes https://en.chessbase.com/post/is-hans-niemann-cheating-world...
  - permo-w 4y ago
    in this article he specifically states that he did not take into account whether games were broadcast live or not here's the link I was talking about https://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=80630&start=100 https://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=80630&start... at the bottom of the page in the DrCliche post
- roflyear 4y ago
  Good luck getting a link. It doesn't exist beyond some offhand Twitch comments.
  - permo-w 4y ago
    try not to assume the worst of a comment. why would I lie?
- 4y ago

tromp 4y ago

> World Athletics has determined that it is not possible for someone to push off the block within a tenth of a second of the gun without false starting. > Besides, do you know what Devon Allen’s reaction time was? It was 0.99 seconds. One thousandth of a second too fast, according to World Athletics’ science. They’re THAT sure that .01 seconds That should read 0.099 seconds and 0.001 seconds respectively.

textadventure 4y ago

> We’re talking about a sport — or game, depending on your point of view — where you or I could beat Magnus Carlsen, probably the best chess player in history, if we simply mimicked the moves of the best chess engine. Except not at all, or not anymore than anyone could "beat" the world's foremost martial artist, with a gun. For an absolute novice to mimick 100% or even a large amount of chess engine moves, it would be exceedingly obvious that they are cheating, even by the most cursory and rudimentary of cheating detection measures and mildly versed (in chess) observers. The serious problem of cheating in chess, is not at all that a John Doe with zero chess knowledge would rise up the ranks and become the world champion cheating. The scary prospect is when cheating is done by strong chess players, because they only need two or three tips from an engine a game, to have a massive advantage over everybody else. Carlsen himself discussed this topic last year: https://youtu.be/VcbHmHHwlUQ https://youtu.be/VcbHmHHwlUQ

ShivShankaran 4y ago

>Kasparov did win the overall match 4-2, but he lost a couple of games, which was pretty astonishing at the time. I think this might be slightly wrong. The original battle was lost by deep blue but the "real" deep blue- kasparov match, the well publicized one in 1997, in which Kasparov accused IBM of having humans behind it was lost by kasparov. The last game was the shortest ever game in which Kasparov had ever lost. I think it lasted around 19 moves. What's ironic is that in the current St Louis match the organizers were checking if Kasparov had a computer to assist him and in the deep blue match the organizers were checking if Deep Blue had a human to assist it.

xh-dude 4y ago

An undercurrent here is how FIDE, steeped and mired in tradition, shepherds the sport alongside technological disruption, both in how the game is played and how it is enjoyed. Magnus Carlsen would not be the first world champion to go to war with FIDE, and it’s surprising how recent stories don’t mention the surprising withdrawal-but-not-retirement of Carlsen from championship play here. Put together with the other puzzle pieces, ot feels like Magnus is trying to play a game that’s not on the board. The last candidates tournaments and championship matches have IMHO been boring, over-prepared, extremely risk-averse, uninspiring stuff, and it’s not fun to watch Carlsen/Caruana/Nepo loaded like Atlas or Sysiphus. More enjoyable things happen in looser formats. So some disruption sounds good to me.

m3kw9 4y ago

Has anyone analyzed the cadence of the moves, any patterns there?

roflyear 4y ago
Yes. Consensus is that everything looks like normal play.

fictionfuture 4y ago

I'd be checking his shoes... https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/sockfish.html https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/sockfish.html