Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chess Investigation Finds U.S. Grandmaster ‘Likely Cheated’ More Than 100 Times

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 339 posts

Re: Chess Investigation Finds U.S. Grandmaster ‘Likely Cheated’ More Than 100 Times

#151

Post by adamckay »

briandear wrote: post #97
selfmodruntime wrote: post #22

The fact that an athlete in a competitive sport was allowed to partake in an event even after admitting to cheating not only once, but twice, is outrageous in itself.

Are we calling chess a sport?

Yes.

It's recognised by the International Olympic Committee - https://olympics.com/ioc/recognised-international-federation...

A common definition is: "Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport

Re: Chess Investigation Finds U.S. Grandmaster ‘Likely Cheated’ More Than 100 Times

#152

Post by IceWreck »

aluminum96 wrote: post #27

It's a real red flag that he plays stronger moves after the browser window loses focus. I'd argue that's much less circumstantial than anything else so far.

Even if he was cheating, its a dumb move to do that. It's super easy to stop websites from knowing that you're switching tabs or windows.

https://github.com/IceWreck/Page-Visibility-User-Script

I made this a while ago.

Or just use another computer.

Re: Chess Investigation Finds U.S. Grandmaster ‘Likely Cheated’ More Than 100 Times

#153

Post by largepeepee »

mzs wrote: post #147
chesscom wrote: post #144

There is so much more to our report than what was focused on in the WSJ article. The full report will be shared shortly…

>Rensch had previously said that Chess-com had never shared a list of cheaters or the platform’s cheat detection algorithm with Carlsen. So who did chess.com share those with?

And why would they ever share full details of confidential agreements?

Ie, their secret sauce.

Re: Chess Investigation Finds U.S. Grandmaster ‘Likely Cheated’ More Than 100 Times

#154

Post by ehsankia »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #101

> “Outside his online play, Hans is the fastest rising top player in Classical [over-the-board] chess in modern history,” the report says, while comparing his progress to the game’s brightest rising stars. “Looking purely at rating, Hans should be classified as a member of this group of top young players. While we don’t doubt that Hans is a talented player, we note that his results are statistically extraordinary.” I…

I think the biggest tell is how he wasn't able to explain his play and just threw a smug response whenever asked to describe anything.

Re: Chess Investigation Finds U.S. Grandmaster ‘Likely Cheated’ More Than 100 Times

#155

Post by javajosh »

raydiatian wrote: post #134
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #101

> “Outside his online play, Hans is the fastest rising top player in Classical [over-the-board] chess in modern history,” the report says, while comparing his progress to the game’s brightest rising stars. “Looking purely at rating, Hans should be classified as a member of this group of top young players. While we don’t doubt that Hans is a talented player, we note that his results are statistically extraordinary.” I…

Yeah you pointed out something special here. It’s like those unsung Russian sub captains who didn’t start the nuclear apocalypse because they had an intuitive understanding between faulty and genuine threats. You can’t explain why you know something you just know it. Besides, Magnus genuinely has never seemed like the guy to get petty and up and throw a fit, he’s lost plenty of times without doing such.

>never seemed like the guy to get petty and up and throw a fit

More than that, Magnus is a very fierce competitor and he doesn't withdraw from tournaments. He's 31 and this is his first withdrawal AFAIK.

Re: Chess Investigation Finds U.S. Grandmaster ‘Likely Cheated’ More Than 100 Times

#156

Post by pclmulqdq »

jonny_eh wrote: post #143
whatshisface wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative - an environment where innocent people were sometimes getting expelled - would be worse when it's just a game.

Sometimes people are caught red-handed.

Yeah, it doesn't have to involve banning people for life on borderline cases of cheating, but if you are caught red-handed, a lifetime ban seems in order.

Re: Chess Investigation Finds U.S. Grandmaster ‘Likely Cheated’ More Than 100 Times

#157

Post by arecurrence »

paxys wrote: post #72
arecurrence wrote: post #29

Why don't cheaters just use two machines or even just their phone and a laptop? The evidence is often around other processes or browser tabs running on their device (and in this case also focus loss) but an immediate thought must be to simply use multiple devices.

No, the evidence is usually around analysis of the moves and how they compare to those generated by chess engines and how the same player has played in the past. The mechanics of the cheating are mostly irrelevant.

You're totally right, some of the articles I looked at focused on tangential causes... whereas analysis of moves compared to decisions by a vastly superior system has got to be the smoking gun.

I suppose new algorithms will be designed or trained to account for the user's performance history.

Re: Chess Investigation Finds U.S. Grandmaster ‘Likely Cheated’ More Than 100 Times

#158

Post by raydiatian »

JetSetIlly wrote: post #146
raydiatian wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah you pointed out something special here. It’s like those unsung Russian sub captains who didn’t start the nuclear apocalypse because they had an intuitive understanding between faulty and genuine threats. You can’t explain why you know something you just know it. Besides, Magnus genuinely has never seemed like the guy to get petty and up and throw a fit, he’s lost plenty of times without doing such.

> You can’t explain why you know something you just know it. The way Carlsen described his suspicions reminded me of "connoisseurship" in the art world. Now that's a "skill" that's not as important as it once was but once the science has given its results and there are still no firm conclusions, connoisseurship is all you have.

Cheater connoisseurship. Nice.

Re: Chess Investigation Finds U.S. Grandmaster ‘Likely Cheated’ More Than 100 Times

#159

Post by sixstringtheory »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #133
nordsieck wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally, I'm not a fan of permanent Scarlet Letters for .... I think I may go so far as to say anything . What's your opinion of the National Sex Offender Registry?

> What's your opinion of the National Sex Offender Registry? People are on it for simply peeing in public. And teenage minors in a relationship sending nudes to each other due to a lack of "Romeo and Juliet" laws. Not much is black & white.

Now that the easy stuff is out of the way, what do you think about people on the registry for violent sexual assault?

Re: Chess Investigation Finds U.S. Grandmaster ‘Likely Cheated’ More Than 100 Times

#160

Post by selfmodruntime »

smaryjerry wrote: post #107
fredoliveira wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's where the report comes in. He has cheated several times as an adult too.

If you consider 17 an adult and that the report is correctly identifying those games. This is no different than cheating in a video game online. It’s playing random people from matchmaking for rating points tied to that game. Maybe there were multiple tournaments as well for small prizes (probably under $1000 prize money) if the report on the report is correct though. I’d compare it to an NBA player cheating in a pic…

> If you consider 17 an adult and that the report is correctly identifying those games

For him, that was 2 years ago.

Post reply on HN