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Chess’s Cheating Crisis

theguardian.com

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Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#191

Post by trhway »

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,…

>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".

yep, it is all individual. Some people have nice biology, some will get nowhere without "stuff". A recent blood test showed some anemia (that explained why i had such low level fatigue and tiredness threshold in the recent times, and you couldn't just make through it on pure will because it is like an engine with closed air intake - no oxygen, no burning) Started to take B12 and iron - things improved remarkably, physically and mentally. If i were a competitive athlete should i be forbidden from such a "cheating" way of increasing of blood oxygen carrying capability?

My understanding they ban testosterone which also increase the blood oxygen carrying capability. Which means that you're lucky to be born with high testosterone, and you're doomed otherwise (like me - i'm on a lower side). How is that a level playing field then? No exercise can compensate if you get less oxygen.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#192

Post by strbean »

vokep wrote: post #184
NikolaNovak wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

How are protein shakes and such 'stuff' at all approaching performance enhancing chemicals? Performance enhancing chemicals make the body do things it wouldn't normally do, directly modifying behavior to be different than it could be without that substance. Protein shakes are just providing nutrients so the body can make full use of exercise. Giving the body a nutrient rich liquid food is very different from a drug.…

First it is protein shakes. Then creatine and other supplements. Then pre-workout stuff. Then the better pre-workout stuff someone at the gym recommended. Then you find out that pre-workout stuff was banned by the FDA for containing amphetamine analogues. Whoops, you were cheating!

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#193

Post by murph-almighty »

Pulcinella wrote: post #68
nix23 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 laborat…

I want to see a documentary that is basically what Icarus was going to be before it turned into being about international politics: doping by “weekend warriors” in amateur sports. There is a lot of paranoia in the running community (for example) that even local municipal marathons are being won by amateurs doping (not to mention some people running with those Nike “Vaporfly” shoes with the carbon fiber plate in them.…

Jesus I just had this exact same thought. I wonder if that director ever considered retrying his original concept...

With that said I think a lot of the pedantics of "but IS doping really happening in international sports" going on in this thread could be emphatically answered with "uh, yes" by simply watching _Icarus_.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#194

Post by dfxm12 »

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,…

everybody will have SOME naturally or legally allowed amount of tested substance; etc. Which means that I cannot get excited that ANYbody at olympic level is doing it "on their own, unassisted, natural", for whatever definition of above we take.

But at that level, everyone is operating under the same rules. That's just the nature of competition, no? People will take any edge they can while following the letter of the law, if not the spirit.

Hell, even in the context of "on their own, unassisted", some countries directly support their Olympic athletes in terms of training, coaching and facilities, while other athletes have to pay out of pocket for that sort of thing and figure it out on their own and thus are more "unassisted", but there are no rules about that...

At the end of the day, all you can hope for is that the rules are applied justly & transparently.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#195

Post by bluGill »

nix23 wrote: post #73
orwin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know for a fact that 3 isn't even used on national-cup event in France, at least for sailing, canoe and kayak events. Or rather, that the club and physical preparators from this club advise against anything other than supplements, and even the French Kayak champion (Joly) only take a few of those, only 1/3rd of a year.

>sailing, canoe and kayak events How much money is behind those sports? Hint...NOT much. We Talk about Cycling, Athletics, Football and so on.. >I know for a fact that 3 isn't even used on national-cup event in France No you don't. BTW: I knew for a Fact that Lance Armstrong was the biggest Cycle Pro ever born and he would never need doping because he was just in another league then anyone else. EDIT: Would you look…

There is a lot of money in sailing, but in general most of the gains there are from better boats, so the backers putting money in aren't likely spend money on doping. (doping would help, but every dollar spent on dope is a dollar not spent on boat design)

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#196

Post by opportune »

medium_burrito wrote: post #120
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 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…

Well at least in bodybuilding they are open about and silently condone PED usage rather than making it a game of who can do the most without getting caught. It does make it so that you need to be doing very large amount of PEDs to even have a chance at winning Mr Olympia though.

I don’t feel qualified to remark on other sports but based on casual observation of the opinions of bodybuilding fans or even wrestling fans/people into Hollywood, it seems most regular people are very ignorant about PED usage as a phenomenon.

There are limits to the rate that you can pack on muscle mass or how much you can maintain at a low body fat percentage which are telltale signs of PED use (not that I judge it, but just to temper my own expectations). I think many people’s ignorance of these signs are fueling body dysmorphia and insecurity. It’s better if people are aware of how common PED usage is in bodybuilding, Hollywood, and “instagram bodybuilders”

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#197

Post by busyant »

georgiecasey wrote: post #117

I used to cheat on chess.com. It started as a small bit of cheating here and there, just checking every now and then if the move I was going to make was the best. Of course, the computer always had a better move and then I examine the line and told myself I probably would have thought of that! Like a drug, it escalated and I was checking moves all the time. I was never caught but I was ashamed and just stopped playin…

I cheated on Lichess--once.

Story:

I got paired with someone rated 400 points higher than me (no idea why). The dude was destroying me, but somewhere in the middlegame, he let his guard down and exposed himself to a mate-in-one. For once in my life, I saw the mate and I won.

The dude was FURIOUS. He immediately asked for a rematch and I said I had to go. Then the insults came ("chicken shit", etc.).

He even messaged me a few times over the course of a few months (same kind of name calling) and challenged me a few times.

Eventually, I thought, "You know what will really upset him? If I accept a rematch and win again."

So, I accepted one of his challenges and I used a computer. Obviously, he lost and he was FURIOUS again.

Not my proudest moment, but I enjoyed it while it was happening.

But yeah, regular cheating just kind of takes the joy out of the competition.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#198

Post by Animats »

It's hard on puny humans. Computers went slowly from "no computer can play even a decent amateur game of chess" to "supercomputer can play at grandmaster level" and then picked up speed. Now we're at "laptop with $99 program can destroy all humans".

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#199

Post by unnouinceput »

dalbasal wrote: post #72
sillysaurusx wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could the top players be better than any chess engine? It seems like even in 2000 any off the shelf chess engine could beat any human. But I guess not... It would be neat to see the elo of the engines over time. EDIT: Heh, deep blue’s famous match happened in 1997. I guess this really is possible. It’s weird growing up with the idea that “every chess engine can beat humans every time”; I wonder when that became t…

There's a "no news" zone between a discovery and proliferation. In 1997, deep blue become superhuman.. proving the point. The average consumer engine was still like average tournament player with really weird moves. It took another decade before superhuman engines became widely available to normal people. That decade gap is where we often mispredict the future. Once a point is proven, we expect instant impact. Realit…

Friendly reminder your GTX 1080 is more powerful than "Deeper blue" (not deep blue beat Kasparov, but deeper blue, which was a heavy upgrade) so unless you're better then Kasparov any kid could beat you through cheating.

Re: Chess’s Cheating Crisis

#200

Post by specialist »

slingnow wrote: post #181
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…

Did you think the article was stating that no one knew how to detect cheaters?

I think their strategy is called "proctoring".

No one strategy is sufficient.

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