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

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

#171

Post by fairity »

lamontcg wrote: post #145
antiterra wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The admissions were from when he was 12 and 16; many so societies generally believe in redemption from childhood transgressions.

This assertion keeps on being made and it seems almost deliberately obtuse to me. If you do something bad when you are 17.9 should we wipe the slate clean once the odometer rolls over to exactly 18.0 where for some reason that age creates a solid barrier where the person emerges like a chrysalis and all their sins are washed clean? And as a 50 year old, the difference between a 16 year old and a 19 year old are not v…

The rate at which we forgive and forget prior actions should decrease as someone ages in a monotonic way. Reason being an individual’s capacity and willingness to learn and change their values and behavior decreases with time. Sure, the 18yo cliff makes no sense.

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

#172

Post by largepeepee »

robswc wrote: post #58
antiterra wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The admissions were from when he was 12 and 16; many so societies generally believe in redemption from childhood transgressions.

12 is fine... 16 is iffy... it was only 3 years ago. I'm personally a bit frustrated with the ever changing standards for adolescents. They are as responsible or naive as people want them to be for whatever their bias calls for. (not saying you btw, just in general).

12 is only "fine" if you were caught and demonstrated you learned to stop.

12 is horrible if you have a track record of blatant cheating and only getting worse for years till they permanently banned you.

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

#173

Post by lotsofpulp »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #135
pclmulqdq wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is, I think, the single biggest factor in the proliferation of cheating. Most cheaters are smart enough to do the math on how they should win at the sport, or is smart enough to hire someone who can do the math. In other words, cheaters are rational actors. Allowing people back into the sport swings the EV math heavily in favor of cheating if the penalty isn't massive given that the chance of getting caught is s…

This is why I constantly cheated in school. I got caught once and the penalty was a 0 on the test and a talking to. And only because I was a cheating noob. The benefits were in the thousands and thousands of scholarship dollars. I cheat now in my employment. I work three full time jobs remotely and do the bare minimum in each. The risk is getting fired (and if I only get fired from two of the jobs, I am still ahead o…

Selling your labor to multiple buyers and delivering acceptable work is not cheating.

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

#174

Post by mzs »

paxys wrote: post #170
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.

Is there a single sport in the world where a player will get a lifetime ban for admitting to cheating in the past? All major ones will let you compete even after being caught doping/fixing a half dozen times in your career. The bar is a lot lower than you think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Sportspeople_banned_f...

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

#175

Post by cool_dude85 »

mkl95 wrote: post #104
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.

There are a few competitive sports where the same pattern occurs. Namely decentralized sports, particularly boxing where it's not rare for some elite athlete to be banned temporarily after testing positive for PEDs. Most bans are for 6-12 months which is a joke. My guess is that the more decentralized a sport is, the more likely it is for cheating to occur and go unpunished. Chess is unofficially becoming a decentral…

Presumably any long FIDE ban would be the end of a serious chess career, right?

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

#176

Post by avar »

somenameforme wrote: post #67
MAXPOOL wrote: post #19

The next 'move' for cheaters is to use chess computers in a way that passes 'Chess Turing Test' and makes cheating indistinguishable from normal human play under analysis. When there is money in the game, there is incentive to cheat. > The report says dozens of grandmasters have been caught cheating on the website, including four of the top-100 players in the world who confessed. There are probably smart cheaters alr…

Cheat detection isn't done by only by move analysis, but by an extensive profiling of a person and games based on many factors beyond even just the moves. For instance one of the easiest ways to catch a weak player cheating is move times. Such a player will have no idea whether a move is trivial or works only due to an exceptionally precise and lengthy series of counter-intuitive calculations that no human could do w…

> And after the game he was unable to explain his own ideas, proposed ideas that were simply losing, referenced games that did not exist, and was generally (relative to the class of player here) clueless

Aside from Niemann's case, how is it strategically beneficial to a chess player to provide the "inside scoop" on his plays?

You're presupposing incompetence, but another explanation would be a deliberate strategy to throw off future opponents.

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

#177

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

ehsankia wrote: post #154
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.

I might take into consideration rapid rise in ratings, and even this chess.com report, but please, this argument about post game interview is pure nonsense. It is not a 'tell' in the slightest. Any player with at least IM title will give you a decent analysis of that position if he wants, and Niemann is certainly better than IM even without alleged computer help. He was visibly disinterested in the interview and it was conducted in a rather hostile manner, so it is perfectly understandable that he probably just wanted a break and rest.

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

#178

Post by Tenoke »

ehsankia wrote: post #154
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.

Other players have had questionable post-game interviews. This is evidence but without history of cheating it wouldn't mean much.

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

#179

Post by threatofrain »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #135
pclmulqdq wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is, I think, the single biggest factor in the proliferation of cheating. Most cheaters are smart enough to do the math on how they should win at the sport, or is smart enough to hire someone who can do the math. In other words, cheaters are rational actors. Allowing people back into the sport swings the EV math heavily in favor of cheating if the penalty isn't massive given that the chance of getting caught is s…

This is why I constantly cheated in school. I got caught once and the penalty was a 0 on the test and a talking to. And only because I was a cheating noob. The benefits were in the thousands and thousands of scholarship dollars. I cheat now in my employment. I work three full time jobs remotely and do the bare minimum in each. The risk is getting fired (and if I only get fired from two of the jobs, I am still ahead o…

Being a TA and discovering that about half the class was engaged in a singular cheating ring (that does not mean the other half is free from cheating) changed my perspective as to how cheating should be dealt with.

In general I feel that if enough people are doing the "wrong" thing, then punishing most of the population is probably an even worse move. Failing individuals, marking their transcript, or kicking them out of college may seem acceptable when you have the perspective that only individuals cheat. But when you hypothetically punish over half the student body by taking their money and kicking them out...

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

#180

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

selfmodruntime wrote: post #162
wisnoskij wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when they were 12.

One time when they were 17. Obviously the sanction at 12 wasn't bad enough. A barring for 5 years would've maybe helped him learn his lesson

Whatever happened during online play on a second rate chess site is hardly a reason to ban player from OTB events without evidence of cheating in such events.
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