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The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

• deleted 4y ago
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• Valgrim 4y ago
  Will chess.com provide an automated tool that uses the same methodology to analyse every player that uses it's platform? If not it seems unfair to other high profile players. But imagine they do, will those players get automatically banned from the website? Will tournaments require a proof of your online score and "non-cheater" certificate? A part of me seems to see this kind of automated analysis dangerously intrusive. Another part of me sees a big monetization potential for the platform.
  • StanislavPetrov 4y ago
    If you play in tournaments for cash prizes your level of play demands a higher level of scrutiny.
  • crystaln 4y ago
    Seems like an almost unsolvable problem long term as in online poker.
  • slenk 4y ago
    Most players using their platform aren't making money from it?
  • burnished 4y ago
    It is a very manual process involving human experts. It is not an automatic process, which you would know if you read a couple pages of TFA
  • davidblowie 4y ago
    Totally agree. They only show baselines for the metrics that don't matter, like "Strength gained during first 2.75 years after receiving 2465 ELO" or "Time Between Achieving 2500 Elo and 2700 Elo or Peak Rating". The most important metric is "Number of games flagged by our cheat detection system", and they don't show the baseline for that.
• deleted 4y ago
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• maegul 4y ago
  So page 9 from the last paragraph is interesting. Chess.com basically indicate that apart from Hans, a number of highly rated players (including higher than Hans) have been caught and admitted to cheating. I haven't gone over the report thoroughly, but it's clearly focused on Hans's conduct and not so much on the state of play regarding online cheating, which is, even by Magnus's statement, the chief focus of all of this. As an outsider to the chess world, this revelation of rampant online cheating is the main story. First, not surprising, right? Using a computer engine is part of learning and preparing in chess (AFAICT). What other sport has a similar issue where an extremely useful and essential and highly available tool in the sport is considered cheating based entirely on using it within the narrow window of a game? Of course it was going to leak into play in online games where you only have the data feed of moves and nothing else connecting the players. Second, that it's common amongst the elite of the sport is huge. Either online chess is somewhat dead on arrival as a sport and was never taken seriously by many players (which makes sense to me given how integrated computer engines are in the sport) ... or the chess world needs to go through some sort of cultural revolution here. Third, chess.com have a conflict of interest in this meta-discussion, I presume, as they have commercial interests in the survival of online chess. Fourth, the OTB cheating question still seems open and it seems plausible to me that a good chess player would cheat online for followers and income and entrance to tournaments and then use OTB as the real testing ground. My bias here is that I suspect cheating in OTB is just crazy by comparison as you'd have to carry some sort of device that would stand as hard evidence of cheating while in online play the proof is always circumstantial and so easier for a cheater to convince themselves they won't get caught. Which gets back to my second and third points about how online chess maybe doesn't make much sense and chess.com aren't quite seeing the forest for the trees on this.
  • karpierz 4y ago
    > Using a computer engine is part of learning and preparing in chess (AFAICT). What other sport has a similar issue where an extremely useful and essential and highly available tool in the sport is considered cheating based entirely on using it within the narrow window of a game? Of course it was going to leak into play in online games where you only have the data feed of moves and nothing else connecting the players. Pretty much every e-sport with hidden information has this issue. CS:GO, DotA2, SC2. They all have replay analyzers to reveal the map and let you look back to figure out how to play better. But if there was a way to use them in game (map hacks), it'd invalidate the game.
• jsnell 4y ago
  Releasing Exhibit C seems like a huge lapse in judgement from chess.com; they've supposedly redacted it, but there's so much information there that it has to be completely trivial to deanonymize. Like, just how many of the people with a 2700+ rating played in chess.com money tournaments until suddenly creating a new account in July 2020 and then didn't play in such tournaments for a year. If that still doesn't narrow it down to one person, then the widths of the redaction black bars will finish the job. Edit: Not sure where the downvotes are coming from, but just to be clear, Exhibit C is some totally unrelated bystander with nothing to do with the Niemann case. These emails, and by proxy the person's identity, are being published for no other reason than for chess.com to fluff up their cheating etection credentials. How is this acceptable?
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • Orothrim 4y ago
    How is this not acceptable? The person cheated, chess.com said they would keep it confidential, circumstances changed. They didn't swear on their mother's graves.
  • dfreire 4y ago
    I've not gone through it myself, but believing someone's investigation on Twitter, it does narrow it down to one person.
• crystaln 4y ago
  Seems like a pretty easy solution would be to have some games played without third party viewers in real time.
  • wsc981 4y ago
    People can still cheat with some hidden hardware I guess [0]. A full body inspection of each player would be required as well. —— [0]: https://github.com/RonSijm/ButtFish https://github.com/RonSijm/ButtFish
    • nevinera 4y ago
      Most of the _plausible_ systems involve a one-way link, where an observer is running the engine and supplying information to the player through some system that is perceptible to the player and nobody else. Forcing the player to pass information about the board state _outward_ certainly doesn't make cheating impossible, but it makes it a whole lot harder - input devices that can't be observed are much more difficult.
      • lwansbrough 4y ago
        Not if it’s tied to the live game state available on any number of websites or broadcasts. And the harder the game gets, the more delay you’d need to prevent timely feedback in such a system, as thinking about moves for considerable periods of time is commonplace.
      • chrisshroba 4y ago
        I personally think the stakes are plenty high enough that people would try any convoluted mechanisms that they could sneak past security.
      • bombcar 4y ago
        Maybe Neimann’s a cyborg - more machine than man now. But yeah, no spectators and a delay should be pretty effective OTB.
      • pdc56 4y ago
• lysp 4y ago
  > The conventional wisdom is that if you are not a GM by age 14, it is unlikely that you can reach the top levels of chess. > While that statement may seem discouraging, it has been borne out in modern chess. > Greats like Fischer, Kasparov, Carlsen, and almost all of the modern GMs who have been established as top five players, were notable GMs by age 15 at the latest Wow.
  • htrqball 4y ago
    Aronian was a late bloomer. No evidence here at all.
    • glenstein 4y ago
      How representative is Aronian as an example of skill trajectories in chess?
      • JadeNB 4y ago
        > How representative is Aronian as an example of skill trajectories in chess? It doesn't really matter, does it? There's a big difference between telling someone "if you're not a GM by age 14 [but actually I mean 15], then don't bother, it's hopeless" and "a typical top-level player reaches GM by age 14, but it is possible to reach that level even if you are a relatively 'late bloomer'." I'd prefer not to err on the side of telling people not to try.
        • deleted 4y ago
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        • a-dub 4y ago
          as a rule it is decidedly uncouth in our society to use population statistics when speaking in terms of ability or potential, as the act of making those statements can bias real world abilities and potentials by setting expectations of limits.
        • dhikapow 4y ago
• crystaln 4y ago
  Seems to be happening in the poker world as well. https://twitter.com/dexerto/status/1575867098328289280 https://twitter.com/dexerto/status/1575867098328289280
  • mellosouls 4y ago
    Discussed here the other day. There was no evidence but seemed to be lots of butthurt and bullying there as well.
  • JshWright 4y ago
    What next, competitive fishing?
    • pks016 4y ago
      Only in Ohio.
    • the_only_law 4y ago
      Oddly I saw a conversation about exactly this a few days ago.
      • JshWright 4y ago
        Yeah, that was the (perhaps slightly too obscure) reference.
        • the_only_law 4y ago
          I see. I wasn’t too familiar with the specifics, I just happened to walk into a convo about it. I thought they were all talking about local people at the time, not a national news item.
    • gammarator 4y ago
      … actually yes, if you haven’t seen it: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/03/1126570725/fish-weights-walleye-competition https://www.npr.org/2022/10/03/1126570725/fish-weights-walle...
• bethly 4y ago
  Is anyone else only able to see the first page of the PDF?
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • bombcar 4y ago
    I was able to open it in a Google hosted thing.
• a-dub 4y ago
  doing the statistical analysis and all is pretty cool, but honestly, can't they just challenge him to play at his rating in a secure environment? his learning curve is a little steeper than the others... that doesn't convince me the otb games were fraudulent.
  • jfghi 4y ago
    That would be interesting. Have a chess bunker somewhere with 100s of games against a variety of opponents. I think at first there would be some nerves but over time the statistics would become clear. Perhaps there could be a 10 game burn-in.
    • a-dub 4y ago
      i don't know how chess ratings work, but i suspect it could be done with a secured and monitored computer in a secure facility where some small number of games could produce a rating with decent confidence interval on it?
    • tedunangst 4y ago
      And as a competing grand master, I want to be a test subject in this bunker why?
      • monocasa 4y ago
        Stream it and make money?
        • fastball 4y ago
          If you're streaming it, it's not exactly a secure chess bunker is it?
          • frogpelt 4y ago
            If information can only go out and not in, maybe?
• erdevs 4y ago
  This report provides a detailed background of Hans' potential cheating, and detailed breakdowns of certain aspects of chess.com's cheat-detection methodology, including previously unknown (or little known) methods such as window focus change event monitoring and post-focus-change move analysis.[1] The report also reveals Niemann's engine move correlations alongside over two dozen chess Grandmasters who have admitted to cheating on chess.com. The fact that online cheating is so widespread even among top chess players is certainly news to many, including me. Perhaps it is a good thing that this scandal is highlighting the issue, and given how widespread cheating may be, perhaps chess tournaments both online and physical need to take cheating much more seriously than they apparently have been. There is also an interesting analysis of Hans' rating improvement history, his over the board tournament performance and key game analysis, and a rundown of key moments in his game against Carlsen in the Sinquefield cup. Each raises concerns. Chess.com's report also makes it clear that Niemann lied outright about his history of cheating in post-Sinquefield interviews, as he admits in communications with chess.com Fairplay staff to much broader cheating. All in all, the report raises many concerns and it seems reasonable for the chess community to demand much higher standards of cheat prevention and detection across competitive venues. How long might cheating issues have gone on merely rumored vs fully investigated or acted upon, had this intrigue not developed due to Carlsen's withdrawal from Sinquefield '22? [1]Tangentially, this induces an obvious concern about cheat and cheat-detection arms races. A clever cheater might scrutinize this report and refine their cheating plan. For example, they might recognize the need to use a second device (such as a phone) to cheat. They might use the data corpus presented in this report to establish limits on how often they use chess engine moves per game, and they might manage their ratings progress over time carefully, so as to stay in acceptable ranges of engine move correlation, rate of improvement, etc.
  • sigmaml 4y ago
    > Tangentially, this induces an obvious concern about cheat and cheat-detection arms races. This exists in every domain, and is - perhaps - inevitable. Look at what SEO has done to web search.
    • 72deluxe 4y ago
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• mellosouls 4y ago
  I've only really looked at the WSJ version but I'm scratching my head at what the big reveal is here - we already know - by Hans admission - he cheated online when he was 12 and 16. I think anybody who knows how online chess tournaments work assumed those two times would cover multiple games and dates. Other statistical analyses have been published that indicate no evidence for OTB cheating. The negative against Niemann is the cheating is beefier than he indicated, and given the spotlight he needs to be more thorough. Chess.com has a dog in the fight though, and it's bark seems worse than its bite here...
  • erdevs 4y ago
    The full report is worth reading, if you're interested. It reveals a great deal of additional information, not just about Hans' history of cheating and his misrepresentations, but of wider spread cheating (or suspected cheating) by high level chess elites online.
    • mellosouls 4y ago
      I've now gone through the full report and note that the vast bulk of it has little to do with the accusations themselves (or evidence) but ELI5 type stuff about the context including analysis, and - as you say - indications of a wider problem. That's fine, but gives the surface impression of being heavyweight while the important stuff is only a few pages and adds little that is new and nothing that delivers a knockout blow that justifies the onslaught against Niemann led by Carlsen's antics that kicked the whole thing off.
      • fastball 4y ago
        No, the kicker here is that Niemann claimed that at no point did he "cheat in a tournament with prize money.” Chess.com says this is not the case by their analysis. Cheating when you're 12 in matches that don't matter is one thing. Cheating in your late teens in tournaments with money is an entirely different one.
  • shawabawa3 4y ago
• deleted 4y ago
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• altairprime 4y ago
  Previously (today) on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33085649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33085649
• noncoml 4y ago
  “Our investigation has revealed that while there has been some noteworthy online play that has caught our attention as suspicious since August 2020, we are unaware of any evidence that Hans has engaged in online cheating since then.” So he was re-banned for absolutely no reason. He kept his side of the deal, i.e. not cheat again on chess.com platform. Chess.com didn’t keep theirs.
  • NotYourLawyer 4y ago
    An admitted cheater has been playing suspiciously. “No reason” lol.
    • noncoml 4y ago
      They could have chosen to ban him for life when they caught him cheating. I would have no sympathy for him in that case. But the document paints a different picture. He cheated, and they agreed to re-enable his account if he promised to not cheat again. According to chess.com he kept his promise. So why the sudden new ban? I would agree with you that the initial cheating was enough for lifetime ban. But chess.com decided against it at the time. Reconsidering their decision 2 years later without new evidence, is kind of shitty.
      • currenciessfe 4y ago
        Because of the public uproar? Happens all the time in all kinds of fields.
      • erdevs 4y ago
        The report outlines the rationale in some detail. The removal of Hans' ban was controversial among chess.com's Fairplay staff. In recent months, suspicions grew about Hans' tournament performance among both elite chess players and chess.com staff. Simultaneously, chess.com is readying to host its largest ever (by cash prize pool) tournament, and Hans recently qualified for it. Then the Sinquefield incident happened, resulting in both Hans' play specifically, and the potential for cheating in chess tournaments generally, being called into question with a great deal of attention. All of this led chess.com Fairplay staff to request that leadership re-review Hans' account, with updated analysis they provided, and to reconsider the removal of Hans' ban.
• hirundo 4y ago
  The best humans play at an Elo rating of 2800. “Stockfish,” the most powerful chess engine, has an estimated rating of more than 3500. This may be the most terrifying statement I've read all year. From parity to ovewhelming dominance in two decades. And it may just be approaching the base of the S curve. I for one welcome ... There used to be this fantasy that the best player would be a human augmented by a computer, optimally blending their respective gifts into the best moves. Ha. Nowadays it would be like a baby in a crib helping a heavyweight champ.
  • systemvoltage 4y ago
    Checkout Alpha Zero chess which has no other information other than the chess rules. No opening books or repetoires. It sometimes beats Stockfish like a python strangling and squeeing a prey. It makes moves that no one understands. > In a 1000-game match, AlphaZero won with a score of 155 wins, 6 losses, and 839 draws. DeepMind also played a series of games using the TCEC opening positions; AlphaZero also won convincingly. Stockfish needed 10-to-1 time odds to match AlphaZero. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaZero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaZero It is savage.
    • awuji 4y ago
      It played Stockfish 8, which was already a year old when they played, and the match was under arguably unbalanced circumstances. The current version of Stockfish is Stockfish 15, and although it hasn't played AlphaZero (because AlphaZero doesn't compete), it has played clones of AlphaZero such as Leela Chess Zero in TCEC which it won against consistently for the past 5 seasons. AlphaZero beating Stockfish was more a propaganda attempt from Google to appear as a world leader in AI then an actually attempt to find the superior engine.
      • systemvoltage 4y ago
        Stockfish is definitely strong but the way LCZ or AZ beats its opponents is totally different and foreign to humans. Stockfish has a database and a whole bunch of openings prebaked into it. Here are the actual stats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Chess_Engine_Championship#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Chess_Engine_Championship#... Leela Chess Zero is definitely not as strong as Stockfish 14 but still ranked #4. That's not nothingburger. > AlphaZero beating Stockfish was more a propaganda attempt from Google to appear as a world leader in AI then an actually attempt to find the superior engine. Wtf?
• mherdeg 4y ago
  Is Niemann's win in the 4 September 2022 in-person game really so improbable? Is it unlikely enough that it offers convincing evidence that we live in a simulation? (i.e. he acted based on information he received from outside our reality)
  • ddalex 4y ago
    Not a chess specialist, but he pulled out a couple of unusually good moves on a very uncommon line of play without thinking too much about it, almost looking casually. His excuse was "it just happens that I studied this line last night ". This doesn't happen.
    • chafporte 4y ago
      It was a line that Magnus has already played once or twice in tournament. Hans wondered how Magnus could surprise him. So Hans studied various lines rarely played by Magnus including this one. This was very clear in Hans interview.
      • DangitBobby 4y ago
        The featured article talks about this. It didn't go down even remotely the same way in Magnus' previous game. He also references a game which never actually happened.
        • chafporte 4y ago
          He is not in charge of maintaining a chess database. Did Magnus played this before: yes. Can Hans have know about this: yes. Can he have studied this line because Magnus played it before: yes. Was the line exactly the same: no, he explained that he spent several minutes to evaluate if the transposition was possible. Very credible (contrary to Magnus insinuations)
      • thexumaker 4y ago
        did you even read the chess.com report? > In fact, Magnus has only played 4.g3 twice previously (both before 2010), and the position after Hans castled on move four had never been seen in any of Magnus’ games. Hans in a later interview commented that Magnus had previously played the opening against Wesley So in the 2018 London Chess Classic,24 but there is no such game on record.25 Magnus did play a g3 Nimzo-Indian against Wesley So in a rapid game in Kolkota in 2019, but the move order and emerging position in that game had no similarities to the game against Hans. Hans’s 9...cxd4 had only been played once previously, in a June 2022 Titled Tuesday game between Rasmus Svane and Stelios Halkias.
• smeagull 4y ago
  If he has been cheating, then he hasn't be practicing to the extent you would need to in order to gain the ELO he has.
• taylorportman 4y ago
  I learned chess late and enjoy playing it, through mistakes, at a different pace... so, in spite of the numerous headlines, I don't get it. Competitively, cheating should be meaningless - and/else what kind of society has people playing chess for food? Perhaps I should read the article. current mood, tipsy
  • fastball 4y ago
    I have no idea what you are trying to say.
    • the_only_law 4y ago
      Think they’re saying they can’t find any motive for cheating in professional chess.
• ajhurliman 4y ago
  One way to settle it: Grudge match... in an isolated room, fully naked, x-ray scans, in a Faraday cage, no coverage until the match is over.
  • lofaszvanitt 4y ago
    That won't prove anything...
  • koolba 4y ago
    > Grudge match... in an isolated room, fully naked, … At that point does it even have to be chess?
  • chakhs 4y ago
    Drama aside, no-one seriously thinks Hans can measure up to Magnus. The outcome of that match heavily favors Magnus, even players like Nepo, Caruana, Firouzja are underdogs.
• avazhi 4y ago
  Just ban this clown outright. If somebody has a prodigious history of not playing by the rules, there is no reason to think they'll ever reform, and it isn't worth the reputational damage to the game both within (Magnus) and without (the public's perception of high-end chess). This has been a fiasco when they should have just banned Neiman once it became clear that he's been consistently cheating for years.
• addicted 4y ago
  Where was this report say 1 month ago, before a certain Magnus Carlsen lost to Niemann over the board? Is Chess.com gonna reveal similar reports for every other player or is this privilege only for those who are accused by a chess.com part owner of OTB cheating.
  • mzs 4y ago
    This report is incredibly underwhelming. I only see Hans cheating before 2020-08-12 from the same chart the WSJ published earlier today. To me it seems he was banned again this year for the same offenses yet complied with chess-com terms (save for not sending an email).
  • ksd482 4y ago
    They must have started investigating when Carlsen protested a month ago.
• andrewstuart 4y ago
  I wonder if the accused would be willing to play in a faraday cage?
• addicted 4y ago
  • hollerith 4y ago
    I doubt Hans will sue because if he does, then the defendants get to subpoena documents and witnesses and maybe compel Hans to submit to examinations by various experts. For example, subpoena his internet service providers and get his past purchase history from his banks and credit-card companies.
  • parkingrift 4y ago
    >Hans is gonna make more money than any chess player ever has through any tournament dragging chess.com and Carlsen through court. That’s… not how the court system works.
  • civilized 4y ago
    Can a proven pathological liar really sue to demand that people not accuse him of continuing to lie? It's my opinion that Hans Niemann cheats every chance he gets. Maybe my opinion is wrong but I have every right to it.
  • oldstrangers 4y ago
    I love the aggressively ignorant takes people feel compelled to make on this topic because they're coming from a place of emotion rather than understanding or common sense. The only thing that will happen to Hans is that he will lose his career and fade into oblivion. Alternatively, he will go the Lance Armstrong route, confess to everything with Oprah, and redeem himself as a decent chess player that streams professionally.
    • omegalulw 4y ago
      I don't know if this guy really cheated or not, but from my glance through I don't see even an explanation of the mechanism he would use to cheat OTB. But this is a cry wolf situation - I would be surprised if there isn't some terms or condition that allows chess.com to ban known cheaters esp from a tourney with such a big prize.
• BeefWellington 4y ago
  I think the thing I'd like to have clarified: Why does chess.com care about the results of an OTB game? I can understand their online tournaments being something they care about and why they might rescind an invitation based on these allegations but there's something very strange about them taking it upon themselves to ban him from the platform as a result of his play against someone whose company they're in the process of buying.[1] It seems to me as though they're inserting themselves into this unnecessarily with their analysis too. They spend a great deal of time explaining their rationale in a few places and then toss in a "In our view, no conclusions should be made from this data." at the end of it. If no conclusions should be drawn, don't bother sharing the data; it's useless. By sharing it in this manner, they are attempting to pretend it's reliable and effectively make the accusation with an out to claim they didn't. This part too: And while Magnus’ actions prompted us to reassess the situation, Magnus did not talk with us in advance about our decisions or ask for, or directly influence, those decisions at all. An uncharitable reading is that this is a very honest statement. Magnus may not have directly influenced their decisions but I think it would be hard to argue they don't have a vested interest in this for the reasons above. IMO this is a clear conflict and they should have simply withdrawn his invitation, even suspended him from their platform, but refrained from commenting on the over-the-board controversy entirely. [1]: https://kommunikasjon.ntb.no/embedded/announcement?publisherId=16823864&announcementId=1724&widget=true https://kommunikasjon.ntb.no/embedded/announcement?publisher...
  • cool_dude85 4y ago
    >I think the thing I'd like to have clarified: Why does chess.com care about the results of an OTB game? They run money tournaments and hope to have top GMs join and advertise their service by playing, streaming, and commentating the tournaments. You really don't see why they would prefer not to have an OTB cheat invited to these events? Not to say that Hans has been proven to be a cheat, but it does explain why they have to care about cheating in any event, anywhere.
    • BeefWellington 4y ago
      > You really don't see why they would prefer not to have an OTB cheat invited to these events? No, I definitely see why they would rescind his invitation. I mention so in my post you're quoting from. My question is specifically about the "analysis" they performed of the over-the-board game that started all of this off.
• addicted 4y ago
• awb 4y ago
  It sounds like cheating detection in chess is highly circumstantial, based on outlier data points. Given the massive volumes of chess data out there, I bet it would be easy to make a bot that mirrors the win/loss and blunder/best move ratio of an average GM chess player’s trajectory. Instead of picking the best move all the time, maybe pick a random move out of the top 10 moves. And use a random number generator to determine if you make a blunder. And use an engine that’s appropriate to your current rating. It looks like Hans might have been picking the best moves from the best engine in those games where he got 100% accuracy, which is a dead giveaway. If you’re patient enough to sit through hours of slowly progressing your rating through a few wins, lots of draws a few losses, I bet you could do it undetected. And don’t give any interviews! Hans probably didn’t think about the trail of data he was leaving, or got greedy.
  • oldstrangers 4y ago
    Except, chess.com has literal "strength profiles" of every top player. They have enough data to say, hey, this how strong you should be playing, anything outside that expected norm might be suspicious, especially over a long enough time period. It's a similar idea to the 'Biological Passport' seen in sports wherein the biological data of an athlete is stored and you can reference the data points against new test results to see any anomalies. Creating the "perfect cheating engine" would only be useful for unknown players, and in chess, it's literally impossible to be an unknown and play at a Super GM level (its happened, and of course they were immediately exposed for cheating). Now, if someone like Hikaru or Magnus decided to just automate themselves at their best in the form of a bot, yeah, it would be nearly impossible to detect them on data alone.
    • awb 4y ago
      I was more thinking that cheaters would create a new account and play at a level that’s good but not uncommon like 1700 or 1800 and work their way up to GM status over a few years, careful to coincide their ascension with the historical pace, win rate, etc. of fellow GMs. That way there’s no anomalies in the data.
      • 4y ago
• modzu 4y ago
  its called centaur and its time to embrace it
  • px43 4y ago
    Thank you! I feel like I'm going crazy here. IMO it's much more fun to watch humans teaming up with machines to compete in games of strategy, and given where we're headed in this world, these are exactly the kinds of games we should be encouraging. Building the tools to play games like this will give kids some serious skills required to tackle some of the hardest problems coming down the pipe in the next 10-20 years.
  • notfed 4y ago
    What?
• harry8 4y ago
  Professional competitive chess is dead. Long live chess.
• AlbertCory 4y ago
  I was about to ask "what does Kasparov say?" but decided to research it first. Very disappointing, but coming from him I'm not surprised. See below. [1] https://www.chessdom.com/garry-kasparov-carlsens-behavior-was-unacceptable/ https://www.chessdom.com/garry-kasparov-carlsens-behavior-wa... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LaEipwGi0o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LaEipwGi0o His Twitter feed is all Ukraine stuff, AFAICT. Maybe he's said something more than the above (?) Personal story: I was the host at his Google talk in Mt. View in July 2017. I had to find a room for it, which was super-hard and getting worse all the time. I got a room that held 100 people, and I really didn't know how big a deal Kasparov was. I underestimated that, I guess, but remember that by 2017, Googlers could watch from their computers, so they didn't have to attend in person. I don't think he could have filled up Charlie's Cafe, which holds 450 (if it was even available). Anyhow, he complained that the room was too small. Jerk. (If you look this up on YouTube, you won't see me; they used his London talk instead.)
  • Mystery-Machine 4y ago
    The room was full and he complained that it was too small. I believe he had the right to do so. You were supposed to organize his reception and you did your job poorly by not doing the due diligence and now you're publicly calling a guy jerk for your failure. I wonder who the real jerk is...
    • AlbertCory 4y ago
      • srvmshr 4y ago
        > You have no clue at all what the room situation was, so sit down. The real jerk is you. I think that is uncivil because unlike him, you really didn't know he was the big guy in chess for a long time before Carlsen. Anand, Kramnik and Kasparov were the trifecta - the poster boys of chess as we knew growing up. > and I really didn't know how big a deal Kasparov was. I underestimated that. Considering a lot of Googlers have great respect and interest in algorithmically challenging games, you should have sort of known more than 100 could turn up easily. For regular talks with some honcho, we expect a bigger audience. Heck, just ask another colleague if in doubt. It sounds shallow that you call Kasparov the jerk for complaining the room is at full capacity, when you should have been better at hosting.
• extr 4y ago
  Talk about a buried lede, I can't believe that they allow caught cheaters to simply reset in rankings and never publicly name them. Can you imagine any other sport operating that way?
  • mach1ne 4y ago
    When they receive admittance of cheating, they are able to confirm their cheating detection works as intended. It's a two-way street.
  • ak_111 4y ago
    Wouldn't it be noticeable if someone got their ranking reset? So others can easily infer who got caught?
    • Bakary 4y ago
      People are investigating now, because of the drama. But prior to that there wasn't much in the way of open source analysis
• nottorp 4y ago
  Tbh this scandal only reminds me there is no point in playing a game like chess or go online for fun.
  • Razengan 4y ago
    Or any game online, really. Couch multiplayer is the way.
    • nottorp 4y ago
      I've played a few online competitive games that were fun. But if you go to the mainstream games you end up with kids calling you a stupid noob ... when you beat them. Weaned me off StarCraft at the least.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  • __s 4y ago
    I'm confused, do you mean besides for fun?
    • nottorp 4y ago
      You are. You can't play for fun when you have no idea if you're playing against another human or Stockfish (or whatever is in fashion this week).
      • __s 4y ago
        You don't need to worry about that unless you're playing at GM level for fun. For most people they'll pretty much never run into cheating
        • nottorp 4y ago
          You mean chess.com has the resources to police all casual players? :)
• qwerty456127 4y ago
  I love the fact there are so many news about cheating in a sport/game. This suggests the world has no real problems.
  • Bakary 4y ago
    If the acuteness of a problem was the determining factor with regards to the attention put on it, the news would be completely different. It would currently be 80% climate change 20% nuclear strike modeling strategy or something similar.
• tromp 4y ago
  In releasing this report, Chess.com appears to violate their promise of confidentiality expressed in Exhibit C: > As we mentioned earlier, we have made no public statements regarding the reasons for your account closure or our findings, and anything that happens in this conversation will remain confidential. But they did at least hide the player identity, so we only know it's a FIDE top 100 nearly-2700 player. I'm slightly surprised at how easy they make it for a confessed cheater to unban themselves: > As a titled player, we would like to offer you a chance to re- establish yourself within the Chess.com community, and because of that, we have made no public statements regarding the reasons for your account closure or our findings. If you choose to acknowledge any of the behaviors that you feel might have resulted in your account being closed within the next 72 hours, we may try to work with you privately to have a new account opened, equipped with a title and Diamond Membership.
  • herendin 4y ago
    Edit: the comment above is apparently about a different, unidentified, player, not Nieman >... Chess.com appears to violate their promise of confidentiality... I think they believe that Nieman bringing his alleged cheating at Chess.com into the public arena, and saying things about it that Chess.com believe are not true, broke the agreeement between them, and gave Chess.com the right to respond
    • tromp 4y ago
      Exhibit C is about another unidentified player, not Nieman...
      • herendin 4y ago
        Sorry, I didn't read your comment carefully. I also wonder if there's enough information there to identify the players
        • tromp 4y ago
          Redditors are certainly speculating [1] who could be the 4 confessed cheaters in the top 100. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/xvo7u4/comment/ir2elqw/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/xvo7u4/comment/ir2el...
• thinkingemote 4y ago
  Chess.com recently (coincidently just before this drama happened) bought out Magnus Carlsen's group of companies https://chess24.com/en/read/news/play-magnus-group-receives-chess-com-offer https://chess24.com/en/read/news/play-magnus-group-receives-... They are going to be defending 100% their investment.
  • Woeps 4y ago
    Could you please elaborate? I personally can't see how the acquisition and cheating are connected
    • Aicy 4y ago
      Conflict of interest. Magnus Carlsen has put his reputation on the line by calling out Hans Niemann for cheating. Many people have criticised him for doing saying there is not enough evidence. Chess.com has an interest in defending Magnus's brand since they are buying his companies.
      • AmericanChopper 4y ago
        There is a very short list of people, in the entire history of the game, who could possibly be considered better players than Carlsen. His reputation is not in jeopardy at all.
        • Aicy 4y ago
          No one is questioning his reputation as a skilled player. They are questioning him for potentially calling someone out for cheating on flimsy (or no) evidence.
          • AmericanChopper 4y ago
            Only the most casual of chess followers think that Carlsen calling out a confessed cheater is somehow putting his reputation at stake.
• Bud 4y ago
  If you're going to rewrite the headline, could you at least not make TWO typos in the guy's last name? Sigh.
• thexumaker 4y ago
  Reading through the comments on this thread, it feels like 3/4 of the people on here decided to not read through at least 52 pages of the 72 page report chess.com released lmao
  • aliqot 4y ago
    These are work hours. I'm not reading volume 3 AND 4 of this. That's why Europeans were invited to HN, to summarize in the comments :) Besides, everyone here just wants to know: Was he cheating with a "secret device"? Just publish a paper that says yes or no, that's all we want.
• camaaaargue 4y ago
  Original title: "The Hans Niemann Report"
• bambax 4y ago
  Surprisingly well written. I was expecting a dry report full of fluff and technical jargon, but this is an excellent read.
• ofrzeta 4y ago
  How about .. let's just forget about pro sports like chess, tour de france, 100m dash and instead work out ourselves. Makes more sense anyway, instead of sitting in front of the "TV".
• TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
  I think we are all Hans Neiman on this blessed day.
• rossdavidh 4y ago
  So, this is all interesting for chess, but I wonder if we should be discussing more the broader implications. How much does this happen during high-stakes tests (professional qualifications, etc.)? How much does this happen during job interviews? How much does this happen during political debates? How much does this happen during any high-stakes activity where the person is supposed to be thinking through it on their own?
  • rybosworld 4y ago
    I'd be willing to bet that the prevalence of cheating is roughly equal regardless of the discipline. Let's say 1% of participants are cheating at any given time (I have no idea if this is a high or low estimate). For better or worse, this could represent a metric for gauging how well that discipline is at detecting active cheaters.
    • Waterluvian 4y ago
      I'm quite skeptical that it's equal as that would mean that cheating is not affected by, nor affects community/culture. I think we would find, if we explored this deeper, that occurrences of cheating are clustered as they feed off themselves in a developing culture of cheating.
      • rossdavidh 4y ago
        I recall the bagel measure of cheating found that different industries had significantly different rates of cheating. This was a business where office break rooms had self-serve bagels, and you paid for it by putting money into a money box, on the honor system. Most people were honest, and so the business just dealt with the 10% or so who took a bagel without paying, as a cost of doing business. After a while, he realized that he had a measure of the general level of honesty by industry. I think Freakonomics wrote about this. I think clusters of cheating would be especially prevalent in cases where there was a finite pool of positions available, and more people than that who wanted to get a position. If you know others are cheating, it's a pretty strong rationalization for cheating yourself, and the more prevalent the cheating, the stronger the rationalization.
• jmartrican 4y ago
  I did see a round of speed chess between Magnus and Hans, I think it was 60 seconds on the clock. Does speed chess have the same cheating problem is the regular format?
  • chakhs 4y ago
    Less probable but it's quite trivial to make a browser extension or something of the sort for cheating (feeding moves to engine and showing suggestions)
• _spduchamp 4y ago
  Maybe at this point the highest levels of competitive chess should just continue outright as programming challenges. It would perhaps be more interesting and open to anyone.
  • School-Cotton 4y ago
    This would have been possible a few years ago, but now giant machine learning models outperform human-programmed engines.
• cryptonector 4y ago
  So chess.com says Niemann cheated online. Well, I'll buy that, why not, it's so easy to cheat at chess online that maybe we should assume most online players do. Oh? What? And GMs admit to cheating online? Why then is Niemann's possible/likely online cheating news and not the other GMs'?! Fine, but let's say he's cheating online and that it's more a scandal than those GMs' cheating, and that it being more of a scandal than other GMs' cheating is not in itself a scandal. Now let's look at the OTB issue. So they have no evidence of Niemann's cheating irl, OTB. And he beat Carlsen w/o cheating, OTB. And Carlsen threw a fit. So now chess.com is practically libeling Niemann. They can't prove he cheated even online, but then, Niemann can't prove that he didn't either, and we'll all believe that he probably did because... we'll believe most players do cheat online. And as for the OTB game with Carlsen, there's a video of that game. And Niemann's explanation of his pauses and his thinking in that game are sensible. So chess.com will not come right out and say he cheated OTB -- perhaps that would be a bridge too far in any possible libel case? I don't know if Niemann cheated, and maybe I don't care because what this brouhaha is leading to up is this conclusion: online chess is so trivial to cheat at that money-making online contests and online game ratings should now be a thing of the past. And that is a conclusion chess.com does not want the public to reach, so they're trying real hard to look like they can do something about cheating at online chess. Chess had a great revival these past two years because of covid. Chess is very accessible, easy to learn (to a point), very watchable, and trivial to make it playable online. But chess is also a practically a solved problem, with AI and non-AI chess engines that easily beat grand masters and world champions, and it has been a solved problem for quite some time, and now those engines are trivially available to people trying to learn, to analyze, and/or to cheat. That means that cheating will be trivial. No amount of focus change detection or whatever is going to help because you'd have to have cameras and microphones capturing the whole room that a player is in to keep most players from cheating. Maybe it's time for chess to go back to being an in-person only thing for ratings and contests with real prizes. Also, let's not talk of the ageism in chess.com's complaint that Niemann is too old to be that good at chess. It's true that generally speaking chess has to be learned early in order for one to get good at it, but there's always humans who defy the averages.
  • alephxyz 4y ago
• cryptonector 4y ago
  It's very heartening to see so many here angered by cheating. (And the few voices that justify it are disappointing.)