4 ms·

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 t

by 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.
- maegul 4y ago
  Agreed on all fronts. I've gotten the vague impression over the years that the chess establishment isn't the most fair and non-corrupt organisation (par for the course perhaps for sports organisations). It also seems to be relatively behind or new to massive cheating scandals (??). Put together an event like this was almost certainly going to be ugly and unimpressive.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
    FIDE has a very poor reputation when it comes to handling the more unpleasant stuff.
edanm 4y ago
Err, if that was their interest, why did they even include the new-to-many info about other top GMs having admitted cheating? They could have just not included that part at all.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Because the “our detection shows cheating” is supported by “here’s X cases where our detection worked and got a confession”.
Bud 4y ago
If they have that interest, why did they just release a detailed 72-page report in which they make clear that there have actually been many offenders? Your argument doesn't hold much water.

by maegul 4y ago

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.

maegul 4y ago
Agreed on all fronts. I've gotten the vague impression over the years that the chess establishment isn't the most fair and non-corrupt organisation (par for the course perhaps for sports organisations). It also seems to be relatively behind or new to massive cheating scandals (??). Put together an event like this was almost certainly going to be ugly and unimpressive.
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
  FIDE has a very poor reputation when it comes to handling the more unpleasant stuff.

edanm 4y ago

Err, if that was their interest, why did they even include the new-to-many info about other top GMs having admitted cheating? They could have just not included that part at all.

bombcar 4y ago
Because the “our detection shows cheating” is supported by “here’s X cases where our detection worked and got a confession”.

Bud 4y ago

If they have that interest, why did they just release a detailed 72-page report in which they make clear that there have actually been many offenders? Your argument doesn't hold much water.