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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

#321

Post by AmericanChopper »

Aicy wrote: post #318
AmericanChopper wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very short list of people, in the entire history of the game, who could possibly be considered better players than Carlsen. His reputation is not in jeopardy at all.

No one is questioning his reputation as a skilled player. They are questioning him for potentially calling someone out for cheating on flimsy (or no) evidence.

Only the most casual of chess followers think that Carlsen calling out a confessed cheater is somehow putting his reputation at stake.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#322

Post by johnaspden »

res0nat0r wrote: post #283
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…

They say they estimate that less than 0.14% of players on chess.com ever cheat, so it may be less than everyone assumes just due to this current drama.

They also claim 100 million subscribers, so that's 140,000 cheats. Since if you're cheating you probably do quite well (I pity the engine that could lose to me!), that's likely most of the high-rated players on their site.

And actually this tallies quite well with my experience of amateur physical sport, where at the lower levels everyone's honest and sporting and it's all great fun, but as soon as you get to the point where people are putting their heart and soul into the game, everyone's cheating, everyone knows everyone else is cheating, and anyone who's not cheating might as well give up and go home, as far as winning things is concerned.

Once you put money on it, and you're playing against people you're never likely to meet in real life, Jesus I can't imagine what it's like.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#323

Post by aws_ls »

pedrosorio wrote: post #239
quadrifoliate wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, this sort of ad-hoc stereotyping weakens the rest of the analysis. There are plenty of counterexamples. Anand, a former world champion, became a GM at age 19 and is still ranked World No. 9 currently (at age 52). Ding Liren (Current No. 2) became a GM at 17. Grischuk (currently No. 17, peak No.3) became a GM at 17. All three have crossed 2800 ELO at some point. I hope this is not the sort of analysis t…

> Anand, a former world champion, became a GM at age 19 At the age of 18: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viswanathan_Anand#Early_chess_... Also, according 2700chess.com he was #96 in the world with a rating of 2520 on January 1988. That's right after turning 18. Growing up in India (before the chess boom). Before chess engines existed. 6 months later he was #49 in the world. https://2700chess.com/players/anand A year…

Thanks for the pointer to Milky Chess YT videos. The first one at 13.41 minutes has a clincher argument regarding a flat Centipawn loss at 2300 ELO and 2600 ELO. Don't think, another argument is needed.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#324

Post by maegul »

rrobukef wrote: post #218
6510 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't look at the chess.com thing since the historic progress is eclipsed by a streak of 5 important games where he simply scores 100%. Everything else is irrelevant. GM's usually have zero games at that level. Dropping to his usual level after that doesn't average it out to human level. lol Someone should organize that running joke: naked chess tournament.

A Find-the-cheater tournament. One player is asked to cheat without consequences, the others are aware there is one cheater.

Yes! Had exactly the same thought myself.

There's a video of Hikaru Nakamura looking at some of the games identified by this report, and he was admitting that it wasn't immediately obvious to him: the games looked like good games (although I didn't watch the whole video).

So such a test of the system almost feels necessary for the chess world to see if they really can tell the difference between high level classical OTB play and cheating. It would be interesting indeed if ever the consensus was that a fair player was the cheater and the actual cheater just looked like "good play"!

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#325

Post by noxvilleza »

patmcc wrote: post #174
lmm wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really can't shake my personal feeling that chess as a sport is just simply dead, especially as an online e-sport. Especially in combination with the possibility that there's plenty more cheating that they're not catching/detecting. Online chess is bigger than ever, and some kind of botting/cheating is possible for virtually every e-sport (indeed I'd say many are easier than chess). This is a major scandal that s…

>>Online chess is bigger than ever, and some kind of botting/cheating is possible for virtually every e-sport (indeed I'd say many are easier than chess). I think it's the other way, chess is about as easy to cheat as it gets. With chess you can have a perfectly usable cheating system that isn't on the same computer at all - computer A is clean, and is where you actually play on chess.com, computer B is where you ent…

Yeah chess is the perfect type of game for cheating - it has a tiny (relatively) gamestate, perfect information, and it's turn-based. At the level of chess player we're talking about it's sorta trivial for them to almost immediately memorize a boardstate.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#326

Post by SilverBirch »

omegalulw wrote: post #233
oldstrangers wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the aggressively ignorant takes people feel compelled to make on this topic because they're coming from a place of emotion rather than understanding or common sense. The only thing that will happen to Hans is that he will lose his career and fade into oblivion. Alternatively, he will go the Lance Armstrong route, confess to everything with Oprah, and redeem himself as a decent chess player that streams profess…

I don't know if this guy really cheated or not, but from my glance through I don't see even an explanation of the mechanism he would use to cheat OTB. But this is a cry wolf situation - I would be surprised if there isn't some terms or condition that allows chess.com to ban known cheaters esp from a tourney with such a big prize.

I think it's a fools errand to figure out how he cheated over the board. Small electronic device in a shoe or belt? Someone relaying instructions to him via blinked morse code in the room? At best you're going to suggest something that can't be proven, at worst you're going to suggest something that can, and therefore hurt your accusations.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#327

Post by lr1970 »

patmcc wrote: post #174
lmm wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really can't shake my personal feeling that chess as a sport is just simply dead, especially as an online e-sport. Especially in combination with the possibility that there's plenty more cheating that they're not catching/detecting. Online chess is bigger than ever, and some kind of botting/cheating is possible for virtually every e-sport (indeed I'd say many are easier than chess). This is a major scandal that s…

>>Online chess is bigger than ever, and some kind of botting/cheating is possible for virtually every e-sport (indeed I'd say many are easier than chess). I think it's the other way, chess is about as easy to cheat as it gets. With chess you can have a perfectly usable cheating system that isn't on the same computer at all - computer A is clean, and is where you actually play on chess.com, computer B is where you ent…

You can point a camera on the first computer screen to capture and analyze GO board and second computer will provide suggestions. No need to memorize anything.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#328

Post by johnaspden »

strenholme wrote: post #221
BeefWellington wrote: post #135

I think the thing I'd like to have clarified: Why does chess.com care about the results of an OTB game? I can understand their online tournaments being something they care about and why they might rescind an invitation based on these allegations but there's something very strange about them taking it upon themselves to ban him from the platform as a result of his play against someone whose company they're in the proc…

This is my general take on it. As I posted on Twitter: As one example, chess.com thinks it’s suspicious that Hans became a grandmaster at 17 instead of a younger age (page 15 of the report), but keep in mind that the legendary Joseph Henry Blackburne didn’t learn to even how to play chess until he was 17. More recently, world champion #15 Vishy Anand did not become a grandmaster until he was 18. Point being, it argue…

> This is a line I draw in the sand and will hold to.

Would you play him for money at a game where you are both equally skilled and it's easy to cheat?

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#329

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

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…

> The fact that online cheating is so widespread even among top chess players is certainly news to many, including me.

A few weeks ago my daughter very proudly announced that she managed to "outsmart" (=hack) her online test app used by her class. I was shocked and asked why she would do that, she's smart enough to get an A without that. She seemed obviously puzzled by my question and my lack of enthusiasm about her "achievement" she was so proud of (it involved some JS modifications). I guess is it's just another kind of thrill.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#330

Post by b4je7d7wb »

vkou wrote: post #298
lmm wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really can't shake my personal feeling that chess as a sport is just simply dead, especially as an online e-sport. Especially in combination with the possibility that there's plenty more cheating that they're not catching/detecting. Online chess is bigger than ever, and some kind of botting/cheating is possible for virtually every e-sport (indeed I'd say many are easier than chess). This is a major scandal that s…

Cheating is common in e-sports, but it is rare in high-level competitive e-sports. Sure, you may be a 'gaming chair enthusiast', using a cheat when in your online Apex or Forntite pub games, but you can't bring it with you to a tournament. Starcraft is about the only e-sport where I can see tournament cheating providing a very large advantage for a single bit of information - a player who can be notified that he is b…

Dota2 could have a similar situation. Enemy is doing Roshan. Obviously not as significant as your example since teams play around the control of that area and have very good gamesenses. But sometimes that few extra seconds or confidence to initiate would make a gamechanging difference.

It would also be a lot harder to detect since just having a hunch is a perfectly valid reason to jump into the fog.

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