5 ms·

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 Ha

by 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.
- maegul 4y ago
  I don’t know about those games … but isn’t the incomplete/hidden information a fundamental difference from chess and how easy it is to cheat?
  - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
    Only partly. In DOTA for example one of the more common cheats is scripting that provides the player with reaction time more like a pro in triggering items and abilities.
    - maegul 4y ago
      That makes lots of sense for quick real time games. But getting back to my point about how integral computer engines are in chess for training/preparation ... a script to enhance reaction times seems much more like doping in sports where it probably doesn't improve the player's intrinsic abilities only their performance.
      - karpierz 4y ago
        Poker would also break if you could just use algorithms to tell you how much to bet and when to fold. I suppose any strategic, turn-based game breaks down as soon as you have a world class engine for it.
        jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
        Exactly. Even just a unary hint that a particular position is dangerous would be a huge advantage to even a moderately skilled player.
        vl 4y ago
        In Poker all skilled players remember all probability tables, and there are heuristics for calculating probabilities on the flight, and players also count chips, so any players has all the information for theoretical optimal bets. The game happens on estimating bluffs and adjusting your strategy agains opponent bluffs.
paxys 4y ago
Yup that part stood out to me as well. There are dozens of "Anonymous Confessed GM"s on the cheating list, most of them with a rating much higher than Neimann's. And this doesn't even mention the players who are flagged by their algorithm but haven't admitted their guilt. Given the very high ELO range of the offenders (2600-2700), it's clear that a lot of the most popular names in chess are involved. Why not name all of them? Shouldn't they receive the same amount of scrutiny, public criticism and punishment as him?
- maegul 4y ago
  Yea, it definitely seems a bit suspicious and unfair, which fits frankly with the sport going through growing pains on this. Seems like you gotta beat Magnus for your cheating to matter?! Snark aside, Magnus’s behaviour makes some sense, he wants this to be addressed. But the manner in which it is happening, his conduct included, is just poor form for the sport, even if it was the best overall move Magnus could make.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    I suspect something like “everyone cheats online” is kind of what we have here, and they’re a bit worried about upsetting the whole applecart.
    - maegul 4y ago
      Which gets to my point about the bias of chess.com. Surely they have an interest in making this look like one awful offender, a bad apple essentially, and not that they’re profits come from a broken sport.
      - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
        For anyone unaware, chess.com recently bought out the Play Magnus Group for about $80 million. They most definitely are not a neutral party in this financially. I personally interpret this sort of situation as creating an additional burden to acknowledge and demonstrate the conflict of interest isn't a material factor. I don't know if Hans cheated beyond his admissions. Online seems plausible if not likely to me. OTB seems much less plausible. But this report being leaked to the WSJ, then goes up on the blog, immediately ahead of Neiman's next big event? That definitely an intentional PR campaign, and that comes across as scummy to me. I'd say doubly scummy consider the report itself establishes how prevalent cheating on chess.com is among GMs, yet nothing like this sort of public disclosure has happened in other cases. It's hard to interpret this as anything but selective enforcement based on Carlson's reaction to a specific player and game.
bombcar 4y ago
There are devices that you can put on your arm to greatly improve your baseball swing. They are permitted during batting practice but not during play.
- maegul 4y ago
  But are they even useful in training for a player? Are they essential for improvement and competition?
  - bombcar 4y ago
    I’m not sure they’re essential, but they may be able to help you improve your swing.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - cellis 4y ago
    All major sports watch film, and then run drills based on that film. They also now have analytical recommendations. Welcome to 2022
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Tony Gwynn wasn't an insanely naturally talented hitter; he spend hours each day watching his own films and painstakingly improving his batting. There's a story that Ted Williams told him "you need to hit the inside pitches for power" and Tony went and did that; he never became a huge home run hitter but he improved. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-gwynns-hitting-coach-none-other-than-ted-williams-2007nov24-story.html https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-gwynns-hitting-coa...
msbarnett 4y ago
> 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. Really? My takeaway is that chess.com is doing a better job of detecting cheaters than FIDE, who seem to have been asleep at the wheel with Niemann > 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. This seems wildly implausible to me. Niemann‘s OTB rise would be indicative of a not just significant but utterly world historic chess mind, head-and-shoulders above Fisher and head-shoulders-and-entire-torso above every other player in history. When led into uncharted territory by the world chess champion, Magnus indicated that Niemann seemed utterly and completely untroubled - and yet he’s, what, running stockfish in another window for $1000 prizes online and getting himself caught dozens of times? Why? Why take the risk against opponents he should beat in his sleep? These should have been sleepwalk games for this Fisher++ genius who’s totally untroubled by a 5 time world chess championship, but he’s for some reason making obviously weaker moves when not switching windows when his unaided moves shouldn’t have been screamingly weaker than the aided ones given his singularly extraordinary chess rise. It beggars belief. His world historic rise in rating alone is ludicrously over the top. Kid’s an obvious fraud.
- gbear605 4y ago
  They didn’t find any instances of cheating after August 2020. At that point his OTB ELO was only around 2450. It’s only after his last known instance of cheating that he improved into the truly great level.
  - msbarnett 4y ago
    > They didn’t find any instances of cheating after August 2020 They banned him after August 2020, and only reinstated him after a full confession the next year. The fact that, after having being caught red handed in online for-prize tournaments and knowing he’s being monitored very closely online going forward, he suddenly starts rising at a world-historic pace (at an age this has never before happened at) at OTB tournaments suggests to me that having lost the ability to reliably cheat in one forum he turned his attention to another.
matai_kolila 4y ago
Rampant online cheating? Hm: > At the outset, we want to make clear that while these events highlight a critical topic in chess—cheating the vast majority of chess games do not involve any cheating. We estimate that fewer than 0.14% of players on Chess.com ever cheat, and that our events are by and large free from cheating. We firmly believe that cheating in chess is rare, preventable, and much less pervasive than is currently being portrayed in the media
- bigbacaloa 4y ago
  How rare is cheating in contexts where there is money at stake? Your average person playing blitz while seated on the toilet has little incentive to cheat, particularly if it involves setting up real time access to a powerful engine ... One expects almost no cheating in such an environment. What if the numbers are: 1/700 cheat, but 1/7 GMs cheat ...?
  - School-Cotton 4y ago
    > particularly if it involves setting up real time access to a powerful engine You might be overestimating how difficult this is. The free Stockfish app on your phone is enough to crush any human player.
  - matai_kolila 4y ago
    Professional sports deal with cheating in a number of different ways; suspensions, fines, exclusion from HOF consideration. Cheating is a part of every competitive thing human beings do, unfortunately. Chess is no different.
zeven7 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? In Magnus' recent interview with Lex Fridman, he said though members of his team utilize engines in preparation, it's not something he personally uses very much if at all in his training. In fact he seems to think training against engines can be detrimental. --- Transcript from: https://steno.ai/lex-fridman-podcast-10/315-magnus-carlsen-g https://steno.ai/lex-fridman-podcast-10/315-magnus-carlsen-g... Lex: How much do you use engines like Leela and Stockfish in your preparations? Magnus: My team does. Personally, I try not to use them too much on on my own because I know that when I play you can obviously cannot have help from from engines and often I feel like often having imperfect or knowledge about a position or some engine knowledge can be a lot worse than than having no knowledge. So I try to look at engines as little as possible. Lex: So yeah, so your team uses them for research for generation of ideas but you are relying primarily on your human resources. Mangus: Yeah, for sure... I can evaluate as a human. I can know what they find unpleasant and so on and it's very often the case for me to some extent... And so then looking at the engines doesn't necessarily help because at that point you're facing a human, you have to sort of think as a human.
- maegul 4y ago
  Thanks ... didn't listen to that interview. Also, I'm not a chess person, so everything is AFAICT. But ... 1) Magnus is one of the greatest ever, so he doesn't count as an example; 2) From excerpt, his *team* does use engines, and he *uses his team*. So his use of engines is one degree removed compared to others, which hardly matters, especially given point 1 above.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Yeah, I thing Magnus is saying he doesn’t practice by playing the computer because it doesn’t help; but his team can use the computer to try to find human situations for him to look at. And it makes sense - if he’s the best he really doesn’t have someone better to play against to “learn” so finding plausible situations could be useful. I wonder if that’s one of the things - he felt like he was playing a computer.
scott_w 4y ago
Swimming has training tools that would obviously disqualify you in competition, for one example.
edanm 4y ago
> 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. How is this a conflict of interest? It's just regular old interest. They are interested in Chess continuing to grow.
- ZiiS 4y ago
  The is a subtext in the report suggesting "When players play on the largest online site cheating can be detected and regulated; it is very hard to apply the same level of analysis to OTB matches." It is possible that aligns with chess.com's interests.
bigbacaloa 4y ago
Anyone who has taught a technical subject in the university knows that something like 1/5-1/2 of the audience is inclined to teach when there is not much risk, even when there is very little (a grade on an exam) at stake. When there is money at stake the inclination increases. When the marginal benefits of cheating are high is when cheating is most likely. This occurs in any competitive context that is a subculture (i.e. not football) in which the, say, top ten or one hundred are well compensated ($5000+) but no one else is. Cheating is particularly easy in any online context and those who dismiss the notion that online sports and gambling aren't infected with it are simply naive. People cheat in competitive bass fishing where all you have to do is cut the fish open to catch them ...

by maegul 4y ago

karpierz 4y ago

maegul 4y ago
I don’t know about those games … but isn’t the incomplete/hidden information a fundamental difference from chess and how easy it is to cheat?
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
  Only partly. In DOTA for example one of the more common cheats is scripting that provides the player with reaction time more like a pro in triggering items and abilities.
  - maegul 4y ago
    That makes lots of sense for quick real time games. But getting back to my point about how integral computer engines are in chess for training/preparation ... a script to enhance reaction times seems much more like doping in sports where it probably doesn't improve the player's intrinsic abilities only their performance.
    - karpierz 4y ago
      Poker would also break if you could just use algorithms to tell you how much to bet and when to fold. I suppose any strategic, turn-based game breaks down as soon as you have a world class engine for it.
      - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
        Exactly. Even just a unary hint that a particular position is dangerous would be a huge advantage to even a moderately skilled player.
      - vl 4y ago
        In Poker all skilled players remember all probability tables, and there are heuristics for calculating probabilities on the flight, and players also count chips, so any players has all the information for theoretical optimal bets. The game happens on estimating bluffs and adjusting your strategy agains opponent bluffs.

paxys 4y ago

Yup that part stood out to me as well. There are dozens of "Anonymous Confessed GM"s on the cheating list, most of them with a rating much higher than Neimann's. And this doesn't even mention the players who are flagged by their algorithm but haven't admitted their guilt. Given the very high ELO range of the offenders (2600-2700), it's clear that a lot of the most popular names in chess are involved. Why not name all of them? Shouldn't they receive the same amount of scrutiny, public criticism and punishment as him?

maegul 4y ago
Yea, it definitely seems a bit suspicious and unfair, which fits frankly with the sport going through growing pains on this. Seems like you gotta beat Magnus for your cheating to matter?! Snark aside, Magnus’s behaviour makes some sense, he wants this to be addressed. But the manner in which it is happening, his conduct included, is just poor form for the sport, even if it was the best overall move Magnus could make.
- bombcar 4y ago
  I suspect something like “everyone cheats online” is kind of what we have here, and they’re a bit worried about upsetting the whole applecart.
  - maegul 4y ago
    Which gets to my point about the bias of chess.com. Surely they have an interest in making this look like one awful offender, a bad apple essentially, and not that they’re profits come from a broken sport.
    - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
      For anyone unaware, chess.com recently bought out the Play Magnus Group for about $80 million. They most definitely are not a neutral party in this financially. I personally interpret this sort of situation as creating an additional burden to acknowledge and demonstrate the conflict of interest isn't a material factor. I don't know if Hans cheated beyond his admissions. Online seems plausible if not likely to me. OTB seems much less plausible. But this report being leaked to the WSJ, then goes up on the blog, immediately ahead of Neiman's next big event? That definitely an intentional PR campaign, and that comes across as scummy to me. I'd say doubly scummy consider the report itself establishes how prevalent cheating on chess.com is among GMs, yet nothing like this sort of public disclosure has happened in other cases. It's hard to interpret this as anything but selective enforcement based on Carlson's reaction to a specific player and game.

bombcar 4y ago

There are devices that you can put on your arm to greatly improve your baseball swing. They are permitted during batting practice but not during play.

maegul 4y ago
But are they even useful in training for a player? Are they essential for improvement and competition?
- bombcar 4y ago
  I’m not sure they’re essential, but they may be able to help you improve your swing.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- cellis 4y ago
  All major sports watch film, and then run drills based on that film. They also now have analytical recommendations. Welcome to 2022
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Tony Gwynn wasn't an insanely naturally talented hitter; he spend hours each day watching his own films and painstakingly improving his batting. There's a story that Ted Williams told him "you need to hit the inside pitches for power" and Tony went and did that; he never became a huge home run hitter but he improved. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-gwynns-hitting-coach-none-other-than-ted-williams-2007nov24-story.html https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-gwynns-hitting-coa...

msbarnett 4y ago

> 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. Really? My takeaway is that chess.com is doing a better job of detecting cheaters than FIDE, who seem to have been asleep at the wheel with Niemann > 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. This seems wildly implausible to me. Niemann‘s OTB rise would be indicative of a not just significant but utterly world historic chess mind, head-and-shoulders above Fisher and head-shoulders-and-entire-torso above every other player in history. When led into uncharted territory by the world chess champion, Magnus indicated that Niemann seemed utterly and completely untroubled - and yet he’s, what, running stockfish in another window for $1000 prizes online and getting himself caught dozens of times? Why? Why take the risk against opponents he should beat in his sleep? These should have been sleepwalk games for this Fisher++ genius who’s totally untroubled by a 5 time world chess championship, but he’s for some reason making obviously weaker moves when not switching windows when his unaided moves shouldn’t have been screamingly weaker than the aided ones given his singularly extraordinary chess rise. It beggars belief. His world historic rise in rating alone is ludicrously over the top. Kid’s an obvious fraud.

gbear605 4y ago
They didn’t find any instances of cheating after August 2020. At that point his OTB ELO was only around 2450. It’s only after his last known instance of cheating that he improved into the truly great level.
- msbarnett 4y ago
  > They didn’t find any instances of cheating after August 2020 They banned him after August 2020, and only reinstated him after a full confession the next year. The fact that, after having being caught red handed in online for-prize tournaments and knowing he’s being monitored very closely online going forward, he suddenly starts rising at a world-historic pace (at an age this has never before happened at) at OTB tournaments suggests to me that having lost the ability to reliably cheat in one forum he turned his attention to another.

matai_kolila 4y ago

Rampant online cheating? Hm: > At the outset, we want to make clear that while these events highlight a critical topic in chess—cheating the vast majority of chess games do not involve any cheating. We estimate that fewer than 0.14% of players on Chess.com ever cheat, and that our events are by and large free from cheating. We firmly believe that cheating in chess is rare, preventable, and much less pervasive than is currently being portrayed in the media

bigbacaloa 4y ago
How rare is cheating in contexts where there is money at stake? Your average person playing blitz while seated on the toilet has little incentive to cheat, particularly if it involves setting up real time access to a powerful engine ... One expects almost no cheating in such an environment. What if the numbers are: 1/700 cheat, but 1/7 GMs cheat ...?
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  > particularly if it involves setting up real time access to a powerful engine You might be overestimating how difficult this is. The free Stockfish app on your phone is enough to crush any human player.
- matai_kolila 4y ago
  Professional sports deal with cheating in a number of different ways; suspensions, fines, exclusion from HOF consideration. Cheating is a part of every competitive thing human beings do, unfortunately. Chess is no different.

zeven7 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? In Magnus' recent interview with Lex Fridman, he said though members of his team utilize engines in preparation, it's not something he personally uses very much if at all in his training. In fact he seems to think training against engines can be detrimental. --- Transcript from: https://steno.ai/lex-fridman-podcast-10/315-magnus-carlsen-g https://steno.ai/lex-fridman-podcast-10/315-magnus-carlsen-g... Lex: How much do you use engines like Leela and Stockfish in your preparations? Magnus: My team does. Personally, I try not to use them too much on on my own because I know that when I play you can obviously cannot have help from from engines and often I feel like often having imperfect or knowledge about a position or some engine knowledge can be a lot worse than than having no knowledge. So I try to look at engines as little as possible. Lex: So yeah, so your team uses them for research for generation of ideas but you are relying primarily on your human resources. Mangus: Yeah, for sure... I can evaluate as a human. I can know what they find unpleasant and so on and it's very often the case for me to some extent... And so then looking at the engines doesn't necessarily help because at that point you're facing a human, you have to sort of think as a human.

maegul 4y ago
Thanks ... didn't listen to that interview. Also, I'm not a chess person, so everything is AFAICT. But ... 1) Magnus is one of the greatest ever, so he doesn't count as an example; 2) From excerpt, his *team* does use engines, and he *uses his team*. So his use of engines is one degree removed compared to others, which hardly matters, especially given point 1 above.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Yeah, I thing Magnus is saying he doesn’t practice by playing the computer because it doesn’t help; but his team can use the computer to try to find human situations for him to look at. And it makes sense - if he’s the best he really doesn’t have someone better to play against to “learn” so finding plausible situations could be useful. I wonder if that’s one of the things - he felt like he was playing a computer.

scott_w 4y ago

Swimming has training tools that would obviously disqualify you in competition, for one example.

edanm 4y ago

> 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. How is this a conflict of interest? It's just regular old interest. They are interested in Chess continuing to grow.

ZiiS 4y ago
The is a subtext in the report suggesting "When players play on the largest online site cheating can be detected and regulated; it is very hard to apply the same level of analysis to OTB matches." It is possible that aligns with chess.com's interests.

bigbacaloa 4y ago

Anyone who has taught a technical subject in the university knows that something like 1/5-1/2 of the audience is inclined to teach when there is not much risk, even when there is very little (a grade on an exam) at stake. When there is money at stake the inclination increases. When the marginal benefits of cheating are high is when cheating is most likely. This occurs in any competitive context that is a subculture (i.e. not football) in which the, say, top ten or one hundred are well compensated ($5000+) but no one else is. Cheating is particularly easy in any online context and those who dismiss the notion that online sports and gambling aren't infected with it are simply naive. People cheat in competitive bass fishing where all you have to do is cut the fish open to catch them ...