Chess’s Cheating Crisis • Hacker News Board

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#171

Post by michaelt » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

alasdair_ wrote: post #133

medium_burrito wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to assume anything else. If you are not cheating, you are not trying hard enough to win. If you look at a chart of when EPO became available, and all those good knowledgeable DDR sport med docs became available on the free market, there's this discontinuous drop in world records fro pretty much all endurance sports. Notice the discontinuity around 1994: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10,000_metres_world_reco…

That mechanical doping suspension was interesting to learn about. The rider wasn’t caught with a motorized bike, instead the bike was found in their pit and (supposedly) didn’t belong to the rider but due to the rules the rider was treated as if it was their bike.

According to [1] it was literally the bike she rode the race on.

Her claim is the motorised bike belonged to a friend, was handed to her in error, and she rode the race on it without using the motor as she didn't know it was there.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/bike-investigated-technologi...

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#172

Post by anbende » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

reidmcy wrote: post #156

sudosysgen wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, apparently Chess24 has an engine that will let you play against a simulated Magnus Carlsen at various stages and skill-levels of his career.

So you can set some engines not to pick perfect moves but to pick moves consistent with a particular rating or style...

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#173

Post by lapetitejort » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

bjourne wrote: post #77

I had a math exam a long while ago. One of those three hour long and the professor had me seated by myself in the math library. So I asked: - There's tons of math books here. How can you know I won't cheat? - Bjourne, do you intend to cheat? - No, of course not. - Alright. Good luck on your exam!

For some classes, especially as you get higher in fields, no amount of open books will help you in an exam. If you're able to figure out the material using a book then and there while not knowing it before, you deserve the grade.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#174

Post by hinkley » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #166

hinkley wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 techniq…

I think it's important to note that the second blood draw is to detect drugs which are currently banned, but not known how to test for.

Err, yes. In the case of chess, all computer assistance is always banned, but some algorithms may not match current patterns of behavior.

In the case of blood tests, there is a cat and mouse game of changing how the drugs are administered or other chemicals in the blood that reduce the effectiveness of the tests. Later on the presence of those other substances may be used as motivation for re-testing a group of people.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#175

Post by kartoshechka » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#176

Post by ilamont » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

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.

I'm old enough to remember the Rosa Ruiz cheating scandal from the Boston Marathon. 40 years ago everyone kind of laughed it off as a one-off thing that could never happen again because of cameras along the route and better safeguards, but it's emerged that lots of people cheat at the Boston Marathon (https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2019/04/22/boston-marath...) and others (https://www.marathoninvestigation.com).

For me, cycling lost its luster not only after Lance Armstrong was caught and spent years lying to the American public about it, but also after repeat stories like this one (https://www.velonews.com/news/road/cbs-news-12-riders-used-m...) involving the Tour de France and other high-profile races.

The Olympics holds up the ideal of a level playing field for wholesome young athletes from all over the world to compete, but I think everyone knows that it's not a level playing field, even if the strategies used by certain countries to win are perfectly legal such as expensive training programs and granting citizenship to people who have tenuous connections to the new countries they represent (https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2014/02/14/switching-nationa...):

... There are several stories of athletes switching countries, including South Korean speedskater Ahn Hyun-soo who became a Russian citizen and changed his name to Viktor Ahn to join the Russian speedskating team, after falling out with the South Korean skating federation.

It's a shame, because I want to believe athletes and their coaches are honest people who strive for the highest possible standards, but it's hard not to become jaded after decades of pervasive instances of unfair advantages, corner-cutting, and outright cheating.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#177

Post by nottorp » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

NikolaNovak wrote: post #110

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.

Part of it from my layman's perspective is that today, even home exercising frequently involves protein shakes. As you go into even basic body building or training, you start taking more and more "Stuff". There's no clear obvious intuitive big line between "natural talent and hard work" and "illegal chemical cheating". Reading the details of the tests involved a few years ago made me believe the line we draw is thin,…

If you're home exercising and taking protein shakes and stuff, the person you're cheating is yourself.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#178

Post by reidmcy » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 5:44 PM UTC

anbende wrote: post #172

reidmcy wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, apparently Chess24 has an engine that will let you play against a simulated Magnus Carlsen at various stages and skill-levels of his career. So you can set some engines not to pick perfect moves but to pick moves consistent with a particular rating or style...

I don't think Play Magnus is close to indistinguishable, it's a modified version of Stockfish on the backend, having the same rating doesn't mean you have the same style

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#179

Post by gentleman11 » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

Probably a minority viewpoint, but I grew up playing chess face to face with friends and family and neighbours and people at school and at bus stops. I can’t get any enjoyment out of playing the game on a computer without physical pieces and without the other player being at least familiar enough that I might meet them again sometime

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#180

Post by user5994461 » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #176

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'm old enough to remember the Rosa Ruiz cheating scandal from the Boston Marathon. 40 years ago everyone kind of laughed it off as a one-off thing that could never happen again because of cameras along the route and better safeguards, but it's emerged that lots of people cheat at the Boston Marathon ( https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2019/04/22/boston-marath... ) and others ( https://www.marathoninvestigation.com…

>>> The Olympics holds up the ideal of a level playing field for wholesome young athletes

The Olympics is first and foremost a political event. Sports come second.

It hurts to realize but that's a fact of life. The next thing that's hurting might be to realize that many athletes are likely to be missing because of logistics/visa/costs issues.