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Chess’s Cheating Crisis

theguardian.com

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Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#41

Post by nix23 »

noneeeed wrote: post #27
dalbasal wrote: post #18

“ Paranoia has become the culture ” This. For every actual cheating incident, there are many paranoid suspicions. Chess demands an intense focus, and this makes players react emotionally (see chess tantrums). Paranoia is one of these reactions. This "culture of paranoia" is generally pervasive, not just in chess. Once a paranoia inducing phenomenon (like cheating) exists, the paranoia pervades. People know fb & googl…

I've seen a lot of online conversations recently where the default assumption is that every Olympic sprinter, every cyclist or swimmet, basically every elite athlete is doping. It's pretty sad that we are in a world where you can work incredibly hard to make the most of natural talents and many people will assume you cheated.

>basically every elite athlete is doping.

Yes this! You have 3 doping levels from cheapest to really expansive:

3: Silver (the doping that is known and detectable)

2: Gold (known and probably detectable but often combined with additional substance to "wash it out" faster or hide it behind other stuff like "legal" painkillers etc)

1: Platinum (doping that is not detectable in the next 5 years "seal of proof by laboratories?")

--------

3: Is for your little Darling or Bodybuilders ;)

2: For your National-cup

1: For Olympics, World-cups etc..(everything where lots of money is behind)

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#42

Post by nix23 »

andi999 wrote: post #36
noneeeed wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen a lot of online conversations recently where the default assumption is that every Olympic sprinter, every cyclist or swimmet, basically every elite athlete is doping. It's pretty sad that we are in a world where you can work incredibly hard to make the most of natural talents and many people will assume you cheated.

Isnt that even with doping you need to work incredibly hard and make the most of you talents? (since everybody is doing this, it just raises the bar throughout, doesnt it)

>hard and make the most of you talents?

True, but if your just 0.2% better because of doping your still on the winning side.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#43

Post by faizshah »

3np wrote: post #12

> Sarah Longson, a former British ladies’ champion Athletic sports aside, does anyone know the motivation between gender-segregated leagues in games like chess?

In addition to the other points people have brought up there is a video from a high profile chess streamer on sexual harassment/predatory behavior in the chess community: https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/he50l7/alexandra_sha...

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#44

Post by erfgh »

kaszanka wrote: post #33
nurettin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Super GMs often catch cheaters by creating a stale board in the late mid-game and watch opponents make pointless moves many times in a row. It becomes pretty obvious at that moment.

As someone who only knows the very basics of chess, what do you mean by "stale board"? Searching for that term didn't turn up any interesting results.

He means that a real GM would know that the position is a draw and would offer a draw and stop playing. The cheater doesn't know so he has the engine keep playing forever.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#45

Post by pmontra »

3np wrote: post #12

> Sarah Longson, a former British ladies’ champion Athletic sports aside, does anyone know the motivation between gender-segregated leagues in games like chess?

There are so many more men playing that the chances of finding a woman strong enough to win a top tournament are slim. We would have men-only tournaments with a reverse gender ratio.

Then there are commercial and opportunity reasons. The winner of a women-only tournament is always a women and sponsors can show a winning woman to their customers. Furthermore it could help to recruit new female players. I'd like to hear from a woman about that because maybe knowing that they'll win only in a protected area, or the very existence of protected areas, could actually discourage them to play.

BTW, the same principles apply to the game of Go (only one woman ever won a major open tournament), and even the anti cheating measures.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#46

Post by erfgh »

3np wrote: post #12

> Sarah Longson, a former British ladies’ champion Athletic sports aside, does anyone know the motivation between gender-segregated leagues in games like chess?

Same reason why they exist outside of chess, women are not as good as men.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#47

Post by the-dude »

noneeeed wrote: post #27
dalbasal wrote: post #18

“ Paranoia has become the culture ” This. For every actual cheating incident, there are many paranoid suspicions. Chess demands an intense focus, and this makes players react emotionally (see chess tantrums). Paranoia is one of these reactions. This "culture of paranoia" is generally pervasive, not just in chess. Once a paranoia inducing phenomenon (like cheating) exists, the paranoia pervades. People know fb & googl…

I've seen a lot of online conversations recently where the default assumption is that every Olympic sprinter, every cyclist or swimmet, basically every elite athlete is doping. It's pretty sad that we are in a world where you can work incredibly hard to make the most of natural talents and many people will assume you cheated.

This may be partially or wholly true.

Athletes and the public have a different interpretation of what doping actually is. The public thinks of doping as taking performance enhancing substances.

Athletes think of doping as crossing the specified threshold/limit.

I have heard this interpretation on TV from a well connected Dutch cycling journalist ( Mart Smeets ).

Every athlete takes performance enhancing substances.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#48

Post by pmontra »

cglace wrote: post #24
nurettin wrote: post #8

Chess drama is the best drama. Anyway it was sad to see armenians disqualified. They are a great team and they absolutely need not cheat. And probably did not. Not sure why petrosian kept looking down in that video, though.

He said he uses a touchpad instead of a mouse and would look down at the touchpad.

Mmm, maybe it's me but I look at the pointer on the screen, not at the touchpad. I move my index finger and the pointer moves. If I'd be looking at the touchpad I would have to check where I moved the pointer to. Gaze down, gaze up, repeat every few pixels. Och. I do sometimes look at the keyboard though.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#49

Post by aaron695 »

I'd expect to see Chess engines that allows settings such that it will chose a move only a human at rank X could chose.

And make easy mistakes a computer could beat, but a human couldn't. Along with randomisations.

So it can pass a Turing test.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#50

Post by BuildTheRobots »

lemagedurage wrote: post #5
tetris11 wrote: post #2

One way to get around the cameras and the invigilator in the room for a live chess match is to have a small wireless vibrating device somewhere on your body that can encode information such as coordinates and move difficulty. Someone else would have to be watching the game and doing the computer doping on tlyour behalf though

The invigilator could do a body check, scan for electronics, like they do in airport security.

If people are determined to cheat, cheat they will. Bluetooth controlled vibrating butplugs are an off the shelf product at this point; not sure if most scanners will show internal objects.
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