Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match • Hacker News Board

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#131

Post by unkulunkulu » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

scott_w wrote: post #117

ekabod wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying Nepo has less mental endurance than Carlsen is not the same as saying he doesn't have any as this poster wrote.

That’s incorrect. The original poster said Nepo lacks the mental endurance required to be world champion, not that he lacks it altogether.

He lacks enough of it to become one at this point in time (when we have Magnus and Nepo has his current mental edurance) :)

Actually relative strength is one of the things that wonder me the most I would say in the game: when one of the opponents is much stronger than the other the wins look so easy and the loses so stupid, but when the winner is matched against someone even stronger you see the same exact picture. I love you all I dunno why I say that now but here you go.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#132

Post by usehackernews » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 6:18 PM UTC

manquer wrote: post #130

usehackernews wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its easy to cheat, but also easy to get caught. You can’t cheat yourself to a high score. The same engines that people cheat with are the same engines used to detect cheating. If you’re using an engine to play your moves, you’ll be caught very quickly.

I can imagine training ML models that can imitate human play closely enough and even your play specifically to increase the odds you win. Detecting a stockfish moves over enough sample size is easy sure, but detecting a engine which is designed to imitate human play not make the best move everytime is not easy with number of moves a human would play in their lifetime.

Sure, but this isn’t an easy way to cheat.

The original commenter say it’s easy to cheat at chess. While potentially possible, I wouldn’t consider building a ML model to mimic your own play an ‘easy’ cheat method.

I’d also say building a model to mimic your own play consistently would be incredibly difficult. But, that’s for a different conversation.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#133

Post by skinkestek » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 7:58 PM UTC

OrderlyTiamat wrote: post #81

scbrg wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My apologies. I'd never seen it, and since it was in the context of chess, I included that in my searches. There was lots of information about cheese, and lots of questions about who the GOAT was, but not what it meant. Interestingly, my comment got a handful of upvotes before it was modded to oblivion, so apparently I wasn't alone in not knowing this very common acronym. I'll try to be more American next time I'm on…

That is actually an amusing but interesting failure mode for search, linking "GOAT" to "goat" and "chess" to "cheese" is pretty natural, but totally misleading in this case. I wonder if there's a good solution (for google/ddg/etc users) for that beyond just putting everything in quotation marks, as that doesn't seem to help much anymore.

We could point it out and pester Google employees with how dumb it has become in every discussion where it is brought up.

I've been doing this for a while and it now seems I'm getting some support.

The last few years however I have given up Google and after using DDG for a few years I'm now testing out Kagi and I am happy to say that not only is the business model much better aligned with me as a user, but the results also seems to be significantly better than both Google and DDG now.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#134

Post by manquer » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

usehackernews wrote: post #132

manquer wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine training ML models that can imitate human play closely enough and even your play specifically to increase the odds you win. Detecting a stockfish moves over enough sample size is easy sure, but detecting a engine which is designed to imitate human play not make the best move everytime is not easy with number of moves a human would play in their lifetime.

Sure, but this isn’t an easy way to cheat. The original commenter say it’s easy to cheat at chess. While potentially possible, I wouldn’t consider building a ML model to mimic your own play an ‘easy’ cheat method. I’d also say building a model to mimic your own play consistently would be incredibly difficult. But, that’s for a different conversation.

While ML model building is bit more difficult , fuzzing a standard engine moves do only what you can understand is certainly possible without too much difficulty.

The point is cheating is bigger concern in online chess than other eSports

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#135

Post by lofatdairy » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 10:17 PM UTC

manquer wrote: post #128

lofatdairy wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this comment underrates not only Caruana's strength but also Carlsen's ability to navigate the incredibly difficult positions Caruana placed him in. Sure, no game from 2018 can compare against game 6 from this year, but game 6 was a historic game, but it arose from a subtle position that just as easily could have been played in 2018. I think game 8 most easily demonstrates how Caruana fought incredibly hard t…

Players play not to loose all the time that is nothing wrong or unusual about it, if both players play not to lose most of the game you are going to likely have a draw at the top level. Playing conservatively or defensively doesn't mean no prep or less work or less talent, it means only taking less risk. Magnus is unusual for his aggressive playing style and makes piece sacrifices for activity while also being able t…

Again, while I agree that playing to not lose involves less risks, this doesn't characterize all the games between Caruana and Carlsen or Nepomniachtchi and Carlsen. Keep in mind that just because Caruana or Nepo aren't sac-ing a piece every game, doesn't mean they're not going for sharp positions and taking risks, that's just not how chess is played at the top level. The inbalances that they capitalize off of are nuances of position and structure, not necessarily just material.

You can thank alpha zero and Dubov for Magnus's willingness to sacrifice for activity, I think anyone watching a Carlsen game from before around 2018 would call Carlsen "aggressive", if anything Carlsen was known more to play into an endgame that he'd win off his persistence and accuracy. I also don't think this is accurate even for his more recent classical games. He'll take opportunities to go into inbalances that he feels are easier for him to navigate than his opponent, but he certainly isn't Tal and I think this mischaracterization also serves to downplay Caruana and Nepo's role in reaching sharp, lively positions in their matches, while overplaying Carlsen's. Again, all I am arguing is that Caruana's play in 2018 was both remarkable and admirable, and that it would be impossible for him to hold a drawn match against possibly the greatest chess player of all time if he only played to neutralize every position and didn't arrive with the mindset to win.

I disagree with your point about Armageddon for two reasons. 1. Draw odds means that one player is always playing to "not lose" which is exactly what you're critiquing. Sure white has to play aggressively, but black will be playing to neutralize all life in the position, and I personally don't watch to watch only Berlin defense games - it's bad enough that the Marshall has been reduced to a drawing weapon. 2. At lower time formats we see less deep lines and ideas and more mistakes. I personally enjoy high-quality chess and Armageddon isn't designed to produce that, it's designed to produce a decisive result. Plus, sacrifices aren't even unique to Armageddon, they might be rare, but queen sacrifices are still being played in top level chess, Dubov-Karjakin just last year comes to mind, and they're even more frequent in Rapid, Danyyil-Shirov being one that was extremely famous last year as well.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#136

Post by v64 » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 11:34 PM UTC

tephra wrote: post #49

smnplk wrote: post #38

I feel sorry for Ian. That c5 move totally destroyed him. Some people don't understand how elementary mistake that was. And to make it in slow chess... I hope he recovers from that and goes on to win some tournaments. But as for the next candidates match, I think Alireza or Giri have the best chance to win it.

I don't think Giri has actually qualified yet.

Correct, the next Candidates tournament has only 2 spots left, and those are going to the top 2 winners of the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#137

Post by usehackernews » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 11:53 PM UTC

manquer wrote: post #134

usehackernews wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but this isn’t an easy way to cheat. The original commenter say it’s easy to cheat at chess. While potentially possible, I wouldn’t consider building a ML model to mimic your own play an ‘easy’ cheat method. I’d also say building a model to mimic your own play consistently would be incredibly difficult. But, that’s for a different conversation.

While ML model building is bit more difficult , fuzzing a standard engine moves do only what you can understand is certainly possible without too much difficulty. The point is cheating is bigger concern in online chess than other eSports

Yes, it’s a concern. But that doesn’t mean unfair advantages and cheating doesn’t occur in other esports.

Anyway, I don’t think we’re disagreeing on chess cheating. For me, the small chance someone is cheating doesn’t ruin the esport for me - For you it does, which is a perfectly reasonable response to it.

Secondary thought in the engine idea you had - chess fraud detection, I imagine, goes well beyond just the engine and move likeliness. It will also human-like interaction (Can’t confirm this, but the PM in me has me consumed with thinking about solutions to this problem)

When people play a chess game online, they are frequently evaluating positions. This results in cursor/mouse behavior that’s sporadic. If a user is considering moving the queen, they’ll move their cursor over to it. A user relying on an engine for every move would interact with the board in a very precise manner.

A player with a perfect engine to mimic humans will still get caught as their interaction with the board would differ greatly because only one position is considered for each move.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#138

Post by yazfield » Sun, Dec 12, 2021, 12:47 AM UTC

hobofan wrote: post #90

kungito wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say Hikaru single handedly popularised chess because he's a GM who started memeing on twitch.tv. There are other streamers who are also big, and some youtubers, but I'd say the fact that he's so highly ranked was required for success. Then Pogchamps tournament happened and chess exploded.

While Hikaru and other Twitch streamers/content creators are definitely a part of the puzzle, I'd say that this comparison of search trends[0] indicate that the more likely kick-off event was Queen's Gambit, which reached a lot of people that are not that into Twitch. [0]: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=...

interesting to compare hikaru to magnus search trends https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=...

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#139

Post by beermonster » Sun, Dec 12, 2021, 8:58 AM UTC

OrderlyTiamat wrote: post #81

scbrg wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My apologies. I'd never seen it, and since it was in the context of chess, I included that in my searches. There was lots of information about cheese, and lots of questions about who the GOAT was, but not what it meant. Interestingly, my comment got a handful of upvotes before it was modded to oblivion, so apparently I wasn't alone in not knowing this very common acronym. I'll try to be more American next time I'm on…

That is actually an amusing but interesting failure mode for search, linking "GOAT" to "goat" and "chess" to "cheese" is pretty natural, but totally misleading in this case. I wonder if there's a good solution (for google/ddg/etc users) for that beyond just putting everything in quotation marks, as that doesn't seem to help much anymore.

I hadn’t heard of the term before but since it was in all caps I searched for ‘GOAT acronym’ and the first match was on the money. Obviously searching for goat is going to find lots of stuff about goats.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#140

Post by beermonster » Sun, Dec 12, 2021, 8:59 AM UTC

CamelCaseName wrote: post #52

scbrg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, for anybody else who wasn't familiar with the term GOAT , and don't want to spend minutes fighting search engines all too eager to tell them about goat cheese, it apparently means to Greatest of All Time . Please explain obscure or very domain specific acronyms.

My experience using Google: "goat meaning" -> first result "goat acronym" -> first result "goat definition" -> first result

Same on DuckDuckGo too. Which is how I found out about the, before-unheard, term. Only saw it being used in Chess articles during the World Championships.