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The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

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Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#51

Post by erdevs »

noncoml wrote: post #43
NotYourLawyer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An admitted cheater has been playing suspiciously. “No reason” lol.

They could have chosen to ban him for life when they caught him cheating. I would have no sympathy for him in that case. But the document paints a different picture. He cheated, and they agreed to re-enable his account if he promised to not cheat again. According to chess.com he kept his promise. So why the sudden new ban? I would agree with you that the initial cheating was enough for lifetime ban. But chess.com dec…

The report outlines the rationale in some detail. The removal of Hans' ban was controversial among chess.com's Fairplay staff. In recent months, suspicions grew about Hans' tournament performance among both elite chess players and chess.com staff. Simultaneously, chess.com is readying to host its largest ever (by cash prize pool) tournament, and Hans recently qualified for it. Then the Sinquefield incident happened, resulting in both Hans' play specifically, and the potential for cheating in chess tournaments generally, being called into question with a great deal of attention.

All of this led chess.com Fairplay staff to request that leadership re-review Hans' account, with updated analysis they provided, and to reconsider the removal of Hans' ban.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#52

Post by JadeNB »

glenstein wrote: post #45
htrqball wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aronian was a late bloomer. No evidence here at all.

How representative is Aronian as an example of skill trajectories in chess?

> How representative is Aronian as an example of skill trajectories in chess?

It doesn't really matter, does it? There's a big difference between telling someone "if you're not a GM by age 14 [but actually I mean 15], then don't bother, it's hopeless" and "a typical top-level player reaches GM by age 14, but it is possible to reach that level even if you are a relatively 'late bloomer'." I'd prefer not to err on the side of telling people not to try.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#53

Post by seer-zig »

htrqball wrote: post #36
lysp wrote: post #19

> The conventional wisdom is that if you are not a GM by age 14, it is unlikely that you can reach the top levels of chess. > While that statement may seem discouraging, it has been borne out in modern chess. > Greats like Fischer, Kasparov, Carlsen, and almost all of the modern GMs who have been established as top five players, were notable GMs by age 15 at the latest Wow.

Aronian was a late bloomer. No evidence here at all.

The exception the proves the rule?

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#54

Post by nevinera »

wsc981 wrote: post #26
crystaln wrote: post #17

Seems like a pretty easy solution would be to have some games played without third party viewers in real time.

People can still cheat with some hidden hardware I guess [0]. A full body inspection of each player would be required as well. —— [0]: https://github.com/RonSijm/ButtFish

Most of the _plausible_ systems involve a one-way link, where an observer is running the engine and supplying information to the player through some system that is perceptible to the player and nobody else. Forcing the player to pass information about the board state _outward_ certainly doesn't make cheating impossible, but it makes it a whole lot harder - input devices that can't be observed are much more difficult.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#55

Post by jfghi »

a-dub wrote: post #24

doing the statistical analysis and all is pretty cool, but honestly, can't they just challenge him to play at his rating in a secure environment? his learning curve is a little steeper than the others... that doesn't convince me the otb games were fraudulent.

That would be interesting. Have a chess bunker somewhere with 100s of games against a variety of opponents. I think at first there would be some nerves but over time the statistics would become clear. Perhaps there could be a 10 game burn-in.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#56

Post by mellosouls »

erdevs wrote: post #33
mellosouls wrote: post #30

I've only really looked at the WSJ version but I'm scratching my head at what the big reveal is here - we already know - by Hans admission - he cheated online when he was 12 and 16. I think anybody who knows how online chess tournaments work assumed those two times would cover multiple games and dates. Other statistical analyses have been published that indicate no evidence for OTB cheating. The negative against Niem…

The full report is worth reading, if you're interested. It reveals a great deal of additional information, not just about Hans' history of cheating and his misrepresentations, but of wider spread cheating (or suspected cheating) by high level chess elites online.

I've now gone through the full report and note that the vast bulk of it has little to do with the accusations themselves (or evidence) but ELI5 type stuff about the context including analysis, and - as you say - indications of a wider problem.

That's fine, but gives the surface impression of being heavyweight while the important stuff is only a few pages and adds little that is new and nothing that delivers a knockout blow that justifies the onslaught against Niemann led by Carlsen's antics that kicked the whole thing off.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#57

Post by [deleted] »

JadeNB wrote: post #52
glenstein wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How representative is Aronian as an example of skill trajectories in chess?

> How representative is Aronian as an example of skill trajectories in chess? It doesn't really matter, does it? There's a big difference between telling someone "if you're not a GM by age 14 [but actually I mean 15], then don't bother, it's hopeless" and "a typical top-level player reaches GM by age 14, but it is possible to reach that level even if you are a relatively 'late bloomer'." I'd prefer not to err on the…

[deleted]

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#58

Post by a-dub »

JadeNB wrote: post #52
glenstein wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How representative is Aronian as an example of skill trajectories in chess?

> How representative is Aronian as an example of skill trajectories in chess? It doesn't really matter, does it? There's a big difference between telling someone "if you're not a GM by age 14 [but actually I mean 15], then don't bother, it's hopeless" and "a typical top-level player reaches GM by age 14, but it is possible to reach that level even if you are a relatively 'late bloomer'." I'd prefer not to err on the…

as a rule it is decidedly uncouth in our society to use population statistics when speaking in terms of ability or potential, as the act of making those statements can bias real world abilities and potentials by setting expectations of limits.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#59

Post by msbarnett »

gbear605 wrote: post #41
msbarnett wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Second, that it's common amongst the elite of the sport is huge. Either online chess is somewhat dead on arrival as a sport and was never taken seriously by many players (which makes sense to me given how integrated computer engines are in the sport) ... or the chess world needs to go through some sort of cultural revolution here. Really? My takeaway is that chess.com is doing a better job of detecting cheaters tha…

They didn’t find any instances of cheating after August 2020. At that point his OTB ELO was only around 2450. It’s only after his last known instance of cheating that he improved into the truly great level.

> They didn’t find any instances of cheating after August 2020

They banned him after August 2020, and only reinstated him after a full confession the next year.

The fact that, after having being caught red handed in online for-prize tournaments and knowing he’s being monitored very closely online going forward, he suddenly starts rising at a world-historic pace (at an age this has never before happened at) at OTB tournaments suggests to me that having lost the ability to reliably cheat in one forum he turned his attention to another.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#60

Post by erdevs »

htrqball wrote: post #34
erdevs wrote: post #27

This report provides a detailed background of Hans' potential cheating, and detailed breakdowns of certain aspects of chess.com's cheat-detection methodology, including previously unknown (or little known) methods such as window focus change event monitoring and post-focus-change move analysis.[1] The report also reveals Niemann's engine move correlations alongside over two dozen chess Grandmasters who have admitted…

Quoted post unavailable.

> I find the decsription "lied outright" unfitting

Hmm.. if time allows in the next hour or so, I will find his exact quotes from the interview and will definitely edit this out if it is unfair. But my recollection is that Hans stated explicitly that he had never cheated in a serious tournament since he was 12, that he only cheated thereafter in "unrated" games, that he only cheated twice overall, and that he hadn't cheated at all in the ~2.5 years (since he was 16) preceding his game against Carlsen in Sinquefield this year. From the report, chess.com is saying any or all of those statements are outright lies.

But it's good to call this out and it sucks to unfairly malign anyone so I'll follow-up if other obligations allow me to scrub through the post-game interviews videos quickly.

> Expecting a perfect verbal 72 page report from him under these circumstances fells pretty cruel.

To be equally fair, 'a perfect verbal 72 page report from him' is not at all what I stated or implied as a standard, and saying so is a strawman.

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