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Chess’s Cheating Crisis

theguardian.com

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Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#151

Post by specialist »

unholiness wrote: post #139
specialist wrote: post #128

Idea: Replay games to detect cheating. Create a fleet of chess programs, with typical resource constraints (CPU, RAM, time). Have the chess programs replay recorded games. Compare the suggested moves with the player's actual moves. Divine some kind probability that player is cheating. Extra credit for replaying that player's history of games thru the same fleet. Was the player consistent? Were there spikes of cheatin…

This comment has strong "why does need a journal" vibes... Online chess areas like lichess and chess.com absolutely have automated cheat detection which they consider along with with reports in automated banning of accounts. They consider not just whether the player is playing the excellent moves (something common at any level and very common at high levels), but also how a deep search is needed to evaluate that move…

Thanks. I didn't ddg hard enough. r/chess tells me part of lichess' cheat detection is similar to my hunch.

So maybe my only novel suggestion is running lichess (or equiv) live in parallel. Something livestream viewers could also help with.

And I hope someone's replaying historical games.

"how a deep search is needed to evaluate"

Of course. Obvious now that you mention it.

I assumed different programs would make different suggestions. So overseers would want to run a few programs to see if any matched the player's gameplay, style, etc.

Probably the last time I played chess was on an IBM PC XT. The quality of misc game engines varied widely. Of course there's probably been a convergence since.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#153

Post by tutfbhuf »

dalbasal wrote: post #131
specialist wrote: post #128

Idea: Replay games to detect cheating. Create a fleet of chess programs, with typical resource constraints (CPU, RAM, time). Have the chess programs replay recorded games. Compare the suggested moves with the player's actual moves. Divine some kind probability that player is cheating. Extra credit for replaying that player's history of games thru the same fleet. Was the player consistent? Were there spikes of cheatin…

It's pretty easy to determine if a player "is* an engine, and all the moves are computer generated. Where it gets difficult is more subtle cheating.

Exactly. At the moment there is no way to determine if a strong player used an engine for a single move or not (without proctoring). And one perfect move in a critical position can make all the difference. Also more subtle cheaters would never boost their performance to carlsen levels, but instead increase their performance slightly (e.g. from 2550 to 2650 a +100 elo boost).

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#154

Post by the-dude »

Tor3 wrote: post #85
parthdesai wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, i=I don't mean this in a demeaning manner, were you an elite athlete competing in olympics, playing in NBA or premier league? When people say every athlete takes PEDs, it's usually athletes at the very top of their game. And yes, when there are millions or billions (if you're Cristiano Ronaldo or Lebron James) of dollars at stake, athlete's will take any advantage possible. Do I think every professional athlet…

I had just reached an international level, but I was never at the olympic level. But a whole group I trained with for a time all became professionals, and some of them competed in the olympics. I knew them then before they got there, and I knew their level and their attitudes, and I saw nothing in their professional performances indicating that they had at any point moved into doping. How sure can one be? Never total…

As a counterpoint : I have enjoyed quite some nightlife over the years, but I have never stumbled upon cocaine.

I am sure there is plenty.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#155

Post by shagie »

The story of another sudoku cheating - who also was involved with some questionable chess cheating. Eugene Varshavsky. From Cracking The Cryptic channel: The Great Sudoku "Cheat" Scandal https://youtu.be/Wy_k0Tywpb4

And an NPR article about the incident: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2009/10/eugene_varsh...

And the chess cheating accusations from 2006: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/08/sports/othersports/cheati...

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#156

Post by reidmcy »

sudosysgen wrote: post #147
dalbasal wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty easy to determine if a player "is* an engine, and all the moves are computer generated. Where it gets difficult is more subtle cheating.

Not really. There are chess engines that are indistinguishable and made to imitate the play style of a top tier human player.

Can you give an example? I haven't seen any that are indistinguishable from humans

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#157

Post by hinkley »

specialist wrote: post #128

Idea: Replay games to detect cheating. Create a fleet of chess programs, with typical resource constraints (CPU, RAM, time). Have the chess programs replay recorded games. Compare the suggested moves with the player's actual moves. Divine some kind probability that player is cheating. Extra credit for replaying that player's history of games thru the same fleet. Was the player consistent? Were there spikes of cheatin…

In professional cycling they do two blood draws for any competition. The first one they test now for any known substances, practices (transfusions are illegal, without a medical reason). The second one they save to re-test when new drugs come to light. A few notable professionals have had titles stripped for violations that were detected years after the event.

Re-running the games (especially to check for new techniques that aren't public at the time of the event) would be in the same spirit.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#158

Post by gameswithgo »

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.

It is actually most likely that they are doping, the history of revelations in these sports indicates that at various moments in the past, it WAS the case that any given elite athlete was most likely to be doping, it is probably the case now too.

It is possible to cheat to gain an advantage, and not get detected. People with the drive to become elite athletes in the first place, are very likely to be tempted. Once even 1 athlete in the sport is cheating, others will feel it is necessary to cheat with them to compete. This has happened over and over in every sport I know of.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#159

Post by AtlasBarfed »

gadders wrote: post #52
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.

I guess it depends on what you make of information like this: "Of the 50 fastest men's 100m sprint times ever, only 15 have been run by an athlete NOT banned for drugs. All 15 were by Usain Bolt." https://twitter.com/sportingintel/status/1164654855329329152...

IIRC, the Jamaicans basically defunded their drug enforcement, hired known pro-doping coaches, basically have a "team chemist". The Jamaican sprinting explosion followed.

I want to make clear that Jamaica is not an outlier or "bad guy". Really they are small fry in the industrial olympic sports machine. What they really are is a window into what the big time countries do.

It of course helps that sprinting is a national obsession in Jamaica, so the best athletes do sprinting. But that's been true for a long time.

Personally, I do not think humans can run faster than 9.90 in the 100m without "aid". or under 20.00 in the 200, or under 44 in the 400m.

I do not think a human can run faster than 13:00 in the 5000m, or 27:00 in the 10,000m, or somewhere around 2:08 in the marathon.

But those are personal opinions.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#160

Post by gameswithgo »

pierrefermat1 wrote: post #142
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.

It's hilarious you think this after such blatant scandals in cycling coming out. If you ever competed at a high level or spent enough time researching commonly available drugs and how testing is conducted it becomes obvious of what's really happening. This isn't even mentioning people with large budgets who have completely undetectable designer ones

The person you are replying to isn't saying that he thinks this assumption is wrong, just that it is sad.
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