Talk about a buried lede, I can't believe that they allow caught cheaters to simply reset in rankings and never publicly name them. Can you imagine any other sport operating that way?
The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman
241–250 of 486 posts
Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's why I quit playing seriously when I was still an underclassman. It was overwhelmingly obvious that merely being well above average was completely irrelevant, and there was absolutely no practical reason for me to play chess whatsoever. Although it did subsequently get me laid once or twice, which in retrospect still surprises me.
> It was overwhelmingly obvious that merely being well above average was completely irrelevant I find this true for any semi-competitive endeavor that doesn't also have intrinsic extra benefits. You're going to hit the people who want it more than you and are willing to put in the practice time , and they're going to beat you. Consequently, any competitive thing I do has to also have an extra dimension to it. A compe…
Wisdom is an obstacle to material success.
Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
Checkout Alpha Zero chess which has no other information other than the chess rules. No opening books or repetoires. It sometimes beats Stockfish like a python strangling and squeeing a prey. It makes moves that no one understands. > In a 1000-game match, AlphaZero won with a score of 155 wins, 6 losses, and 839 draws. DeepMind also played a series of games using the TCEC opening positions; AlphaZero also won convinc…
It played Stockfish 8, which was already a year old when they played, and the match was under arguably unbalanced circumstances. The current version of Stockfish is Stockfish 15, and although it hasn't played AlphaZero (because AlphaZero doesn't compete), it has played clones of AlphaZero such as Leela Chess Zero in TCEC which it won against consistently for the past 5 seasons. AlphaZero beating Stockfish was more a…
Stockfish is definitely strong but the way LCZ or AZ beats its opponents is totally different and foreign to humans. Stockfish has a database and a whole bunch of openings prebaked into it.
Here are the actual stats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Chess_Engine_Championship#...
Leela Chess Zero is definitely not as strong as Stockfish 14 but still ranked #4. That's not nothingburger.
> AlphaZero beating Stockfish was more a propaganda attempt from Google to appear as a world leader in AI then an actually attempt to find the superior engine.
Wtf?
Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman
#244So page 9 from the last paragraph is interesting. Chess.com basically indicate that apart from Hans, a number of highly rated players (including higher than Hans) have been caught and admitted to cheating. I haven't gone over the report thoroughly, but it's clearly focused on Hans's conduct and not so much on the state of play regarding online cheating, which is, even by Magnus's statement, the chief focus of all of…
Anyone who has taught a technical subject in the university knows that something like 1/5-1/2 of the audience is inclined to teach when there is not much risk, even when there is very little (a grade on an exam) at stake. When there is money at stake the inclination increases. When the marginal benefits of cheating are high is when cheating is most likely. This occurs in any competitive context that is a subculture (i.e. not football) in which the, say, top ten or one hundred are well compensated ($5000+) but no one else is.
Cheating is particularly easy in any online context and those who dismiss the notion that online sports and gambling aren't infected with it are simply naive. People cheat in competitive bass fishing where all you have to do is cut the fish open to catch them ...
Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
For shooters, bots or assists that only use vision and normal input (special mouse/keyboard) aren't hard to imagine and I'm positive already exist. I know specifically I read a while back about mice that do recoil correction to improve aim, and things like "click when something that looks like a head is in the crosshairs" would be a weekend project at most for a bored college student. Strategy games may be harder, bu…
Those have been common for decades and are pretty much the lowest bar for detection.
Using computer vision on the video stream (eg via a capture card) and then sending valid mouse and keyboard inputs most definitely has not been around for decades. It's a mechanism to cheat that has zero binaries running on the host computer.
Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
Checkout Alpha Zero chess which has no other information other than the chess rules. No opening books or repetoires. It sometimes beats Stockfish like a python strangling and squeeing a prey. It makes moves that no one understands. > In a 1000-game match, AlphaZero won with a score of 155 wins, 6 losses, and 839 draws. DeepMind also played a series of games using the TCEC opening positions; AlphaZero also won convinc…
It played Stockfish 8, which was already a year old when they played, and the match was under arguably unbalanced circumstances. The current version of Stockfish is Stockfish 15, and although it hasn't played AlphaZero (because AlphaZero doesn't compete), it has played clones of AlphaZero such as Leela Chess Zero in TCEC which it won against consistently for the past 5 seasons. AlphaZero beating Stockfish was more a…
Agree. I feel awful that Deepmind honchos take a round table meeting once in a while, where they pick up a board or online game and totally demolish the top player just to prove how good ML algorithms are.
Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
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,…
Where does this report state that the "removal of Hans' ban was controversial among chess.com's Fairplay staff?"
> Where does this report state that the "removal of Hans' ban was controversial among chess.com's Fairplay staff?"
Page 58, from the text of a letter chess.com sent privately to Hans, just after they banned him:
"When I received your confession back on August 12th of 2020, in light of your age, I allowed you to create a new account with no fair play markings to continue to stream chess... For my team, however, there always remained serious concerns about how rampant your cheating was in prize events. In finalizing the field for the upcoming CGC, and based on a growing concern regarding ensuring fair play in Chess.com’s first million dollar prize event, my team did a deep review of your past history, and encouraged me to rethink my position of letting you continue to play in prize events on Chess.com. I ultimately made the decision that too much was at stake given our ongoing suspicions and past violations." [Emphasis added, 1]
This is an example of where such internal controversy is discussed.
[1]Full text of this section of the letter: "Moving on to my second point, I want to address both the reasons and timing for freezing your account and rescinding your CGC invite. For my team, however, there always remained serious concerns about how rampant your cheating was in prize events.
When I received your confession back on August 12th of 2020, in light of your age, I allowed you to create a new account with no fair play markings to continue to stream chess. You’ll remember that I worked hard to both advise you on this process and to protect you as much as I could. I would do that again for you or any young player I deemed to have lost their way and wanted to choose a better path forward.
For my team, however, there always remained serious concerns about how rampant your cheating was in prize events. As you know, we’ve closed the accounts of hundreds of titled players (including 4 of the top 100 Grandmasters who have confessed to cheating), and we carefully monitor and help all of them as they rehabilitate into participating in our events. You and I had many subsequent discussions in our Slack DMs where we openly cooperated on the right way for you to rebuild your reputation.
In finalizing the field for the upcoming CGC, and based on a growing concern regarding ensuring fair play in Chess.com’s first million dollar prize event, my team did a deep review of your past history, and encouraged me to rethink my position of letting you continue to play in prize events on Chess.com. I ultimately made the decision that too much was at stake given our ongoing suspicions and past violations.
Considering the above, we made this decision to close your account privately and uninvite you from the CGC. I regret the timing, but the timing between the Sinquefield Cup and the CGC required me to move quickly to replace your spot. I believe I acted in the best interest of the game and all participants to reconsider our invitation with so much at stake.
I’m going to bring my letter to a close with an offer to have a call. If you are willing to correct the false statements you made about having never cheated when it mattered (now that you have said these untruths publicly), acknowledge the full breadth of the above violations, and cooperate with us to compete under strict Fair Play measures, Chess.com would be happy to consider bringing you back to our events. In fact, I think it would be a wonderful redemption story for the full truth to come out, for the chess world to see this and acknowledge your talent regardless of your past, and give the community what they deserve: The truth."
Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman
#248Talk about a buried lede, I can't believe that they allow caught cheaters to simply reset in rankings and never publicly name them. Can you imagine any other sport operating that way?
When they receive admittance of cheating, they are able to confirm their cheating detection works as intended. It's a two-way street.
Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
The room was full and he complained that it was too small. I believe he had the right to do so. You were supposed to organize his reception and you did your job poorly by not doing the due diligence and now you're publicly calling a guy jerk for your failure. I wonder who the real jerk is...
Quoted post unavailable.
> You have no clue at all what the room situation was, so sit down. The real jerk is you.
I think that is uncivil because unlike him, you really didn't know he was the big guy in chess for a long time before Carlsen. Anand, Kramnik and Kasparov were the trifecta - the poster boys of chess as we knew growing up.
> and I really didn't know how big a deal Kasparov was. I underestimated that.
Considering a lot of Googlers have great respect and interest in algorithmically challenging games, you should have sort of known more than 100 could turn up easily. For regular talks with some honcho, we expect a bigger audience. Heck, just ask another colleague if in doubt. It sounds shallow that you call Kasparov the jerk for complaining the room is at full capacity, when you should have been better at hosting.
Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
> > 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. This is confusing correlation and causation. One thing that people don't realize is the sheer amount of money required to become a "GM". You have to get a certain number of "norms" from FIDE and the requirements list is a PITA: https://chessgoals.com/how-to-get-a-grandmaster-norm/ If you don't…
That's why I quit playing seriously when I was still an underclassman. It was overwhelmingly obvious that merely being well above average was completely irrelevant, and there was absolutely no practical reason for me to play chess whatsoever. Although it did subsequently get me laid once or twice, which in retrospect still surprises me.
> Although it did subsequently get me laid once or twice, which in retrospect still surprises me.
!