they should play a game inside one of these: https://www.ets-lindgren.com/products/shielding/rf-shielded-...
Dear Chess World
161–170 of 1001 posts
Re: Dear Chess World
#162We need a TSA body detector before a match between Magnus and Niemann.
They often have that. But if you have an accomplice placed with the spectators that person could just discreetly signal stuff. Like scratching the nose or so. At least for the WC matches they also often sat behind one-way glass.
Re: Dear Chess World
#163For all the people defending Hans, he has admitted to cheating in real, official, prize money online tournaments, and chess.com believes that in his apology he still lied about the extent of his cheating. Maybe Hans did cheat OTB, maybe he didn't, but the tough part about reputation is it is very hard to build and very easy to break. And Hans had proven to the world that he would cheat. I personally don't think Hans…
To be fair to Hans, his claim is he cheated in a prize money tournament when he was 12. If he cheated in prize money games besides that it would be different, but I think most people are willing to forgive a 12 year old.
If it's reasonable for a 12yo to be able to play in a for-money tourney, then I don't think it's unreasonable to think they should know the difference between right and wrong.
Re: Dear Chess World
#164Isn't it time to just abandon chess as a competitive sport? It's (mostly) a solved game for f* sake, move on. I will probably be downvoted to oblivion, but I'm absolutely serious and would love constructive commentary. What's the big appeal of chess? We (as humans) can't beat computers. It's probably useful for further research, but I see absolutely no value in (human) competitions.
A car can go faster than Usain Bolt yet I'm still going to watch him. If you were familiar with chess culture, you would already be aware of the appeal of human chess champions. If anything, the sport has grown enormously in the last few years. What ismprobably going to decline is the relative focus on OTB Classical.
Chess is far from solved, either. AlphaZero's play has actually led to the emergence of additional theory.
Re: Dear Chess World
#165It reminds me of the outcry from Trevor Bauer over the MLB not enforcing the illegal substance rule for pitchers. He had to take matters into his own hands until the league decided to enforce the rules.
Look at all the people who had their careers absolutely destroyed by the US Postal/Discovery Channel/Lance Armstrong/Trek business (including Greg LeMond!) in the era where they were accusing Armstrong of the world's largest ever coordinated doping program, in the era before Armstrong and team were stripped of all their titles.
Ultimately in the fullness of time they were all proven to be correct.
Re: Dear Chess World
#166This is highly disappointing. For one thing, the fact that Carlsen is making this statement now and not weeks earlier is embarrassing. For another, the evidence he presents is disappointingly weak. I can understand being suspicious of online games. Fair enough. But the evidence for cheating offline is: 1) Rapid progress in OTB chess. This rapid progress is still much less rapid than many other players and involved Ha…
With regards to his recent rating increase, Hans' rating increase is not completely unprecedented but it's still very rare. The issue isn't that he's a mid-2600s player, or even that he's increased by 200 points in two years, it's the shape of the ratings graph and the unusual staircase progress he's made at the GM level.
It took Hans about five years to go from 2300 to 2500 rating, and most of that was pre-pandemic. Increasing your rating gets exponentially more difficult as your rating increases, which is why there are so few players who ever make it to the 2700 level or even the 2600 level. Most players at this level who spend multiple years in a rating lull never significantly increase their playing ability (there are countless examples, but look at someone like MVL for a typical example). There are only a small number of cases of people who reach Hans' level who have staircase looking ratings progress graphs at the 2500+ level.
Hans' recent rating increase is far from proof that he's cheating, but it is definitely extremely unusual.
Re: Dear Chess World
#167This is highly disappointing. For one thing, the fact that Carlsen is making this statement now and not weeks earlier is embarrassing. For another, the evidence he presents is disappointingly weak. I can understand being suspicious of online games. Fair enough. But the evidence for cheating offline is: 1) Rapid progress in OTB chess. This rapid progress is still much less rapid than many other players and involved Ha…
>the fact that Carlsen is making this statement now and not weeks earlier is embarrassing
Why?
Re: Dear Chess World
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. Niemann has admitted to cheating in the past, and has apparently been banned from some past events for cheating. So Carlsen can safely relate to the public that he believes Niemann to be a "cheater". But to say for a fact that Niemann cheated in a specific match, he'd be communicating a statement of fact. If that statement is false, or could colorably be argued as false, then Niemann can take him to court for de…
Note that the above defamation is the US-based one, I believe. Other countries have vastly different statues, and in some cases true statements of fact can be defamation (if they were not widely known, I believe).
Japan is like that - making someone look bad by publicizing their provably-true behavior is considered defamation
Re: Dear Chess World
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
He's admitted to cheating at 12 years old and at 16 years old (just 3 years ago)
Right but the claim he made is at 16 he cheated only in no-stakes games, not for prize money.
You realize you're putting your trust in the word of someone admitting they cheated. It only goes downhill from there.
Re: Dear Chess World
#170I am disappointed with Magnus. He is misusing the weight of his reputation even if cheating is a big deal in chess. The first mistake was still choosing to play when he had reservations once Hans was invited. The second mistake was quitting the tournament and messing up the standings once he lost. The third mistake was making an insinuation through a tweet. The fourth mistake was resigning in two moves his next game…
> I am disappointed with Magnus. He is misusing the weight of his reputation even if cheating is a big deal in chess.
I think the unspoken truth but also the thing both chess.com and Magnus are hinting at is that Niemann has cheated a lot more than he lets on, perhaps his entire stream was built on cheating, who knows. But chess.com can't just start sharing information like that, and they are walking a fine line just with their public statement where they affirmatively assert that Niemann is underplaying the reality of his cheating. Magnus probably has insider information from chess.com but is bound by NDA and this is also why he's now challenging Niemann to give him permission to speak on the matter.