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The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

chess.com

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Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#11

Post by bombcar »

maegul wrote: post #8
paxys wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup that part stood out to me as well. There are dozens of "Anonymous Confessed GM"s on the cheating list, most of them with a rating much higher than Neimann's. And this doesn't even mention the players who are flagged by their algorithm but haven't admitted their guilt. Given the very high ELO range of the offenders (2600-2700), it's clear that a lot of the most popular names in chess are involved. Why not name all…

Yea, it definitely seems a bit suspicious and unfair, which fits frankly with the sport going through growing pains on this. Seems like you gotta beat Magnus for your cheating to matter?! Snark aside, Magnus’s behaviour makes some sense, he wants this to be addressed. But the manner in which it is happening, his conduct included, is just poor form for the sport, even if it was the best overall move Magnus could make.

I suspect something like “everyone cheats online” is kind of what we have here, and they’re a bit worried about upsetting the whole applecart.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#12

Post by maegul »

karpierz wrote: post #6
maegul wrote: post #5

So 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…

> Using a computer engine is part of learning and preparing in chess (AFAICT). What other sport has a similar issue where an extremely useful and essential and highly available tool in the sport is considered cheating based entirely on using it within the narrow window of a game? Of course it was going to leak into play in online games where you only have the data feed of moves and nothing else connecting the players…

I don’t know about those games … but isn’t the incomplete/hidden information a fundamental difference from chess and how easy it is to cheat?

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#13

Post by bombcar »

maegul wrote: post #10
bombcar wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are devices that you can put on your arm to greatly improve your baseball swing. They are permitted during batting practice but not during play.

But are they even useful in training for a player? Are they essential for improvement and competition?

I’m not sure they’re essential, but they may be able to help you improve your swing.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#14

Post by maegul »

bombcar wrote: post #11
maegul wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, it definitely seems a bit suspicious and unfair, which fits frankly with the sport going through growing pains on this. Seems like you gotta beat Magnus for your cheating to matter?! Snark aside, Magnus’s behaviour makes some sense, he wants this to be addressed. But the manner in which it is happening, his conduct included, is just poor form for the sport, even if it was the best overall move Magnus could make.

I suspect something like “everyone cheats online” is kind of what we have here, and they’re a bit worried about upsetting the whole applecart.

Which gets to my point about the bias of chess.com. Surely they have an interest in making this look like one awful offender, a bad apple essentially, and not that they’re profits come from a broken sport.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#15

Post by jsnell »

Releasing Exhibit C seems like a huge lapse in judgement from chess.com; they've supposedly redacted it, but there's so much information there that it has to be completely trivial to deanonymize. Like, just how many of the people with a 2700+ rating played in chess.com money tournaments until suddenly creating a new account in July 2020 and then didn't play in such tournaments for a year.

If that still doesn't narrow it down to one person, then the widths of the redaction black bars will finish the job.

Edit: Not sure where the downvotes are coming from, but just to be clear, Exhibit C is some totally unrelated bystander with nothing to do with the Niemann case. These emails, and by proxy the person's identity, are being published for no other reason than for chess.com to fluff up their cheating etection credentials. How is this acceptable?

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#16

Post by crystaln »

Valgrim wrote: post #2

Will chess.com provide an automated tool that uses the same methodology to analyse every player that uses it's platform? If not it seems unfair to other high profile players. But imagine they do, will those players get automatically banned from the website? Will tournaments require a proof of your online score and "non-cheater" certificate? A part of me seems to see this kind of automated analysis dangerously intrusi…

Seems like an almost unsolvable problem long term as in online poker.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#18

Post by threatofrain »

paxys wrote: post #7
maegul wrote: post #5

So 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…

Yup that part stood out to me as well. There are dozens of "Anonymous Confessed GM"s on the cheating list, most of them with a rating much higher than Neimann's. And this doesn't even mention the players who are flagged by their algorithm but haven't admitted their guilt. Given the very high ELO range of the offenders (2600-2700), it's clear that a lot of the most popular names in chess are involved. Why not name all…

As I understand it, Hans decided to take the issue public and made questionable statements about his credibility, which in turn weighs upon the credibility of chess.com's decision to kick him out of an upcoming $1M tournament.

Re: The Full Chess Cheating Report of Hans Neiman

#19

Post by lysp »

> 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.

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