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Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

incoherency.co.uk

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Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An Engine requires rules as well. Yes, the basic rules of chess.

If that's the only rule, it can quickly become "who can spend more on compute on a single game" championship. Not very interesting.

There's a very well known engine tournament called TCEC. For that tournament, all the engines run on the same hardware.

The teams submit their binaries to the organizers beforehand, and the organizers run them on the tournament hardware.

There are some questions beforehand about what hardware to use (for example, some engines use GPUs and others don't), but after that is settled, the tournament is run in a fair way, hardware-wise.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure. On its own, it's no more than a raised eyebrow. The next few days will show if there's any solid evidence. Btw. the 24% chance of "winning" against a 200 Elo higher rated opponent refers to "winning a point" - it includes draws as well.

Rookie question but don’t draws occur more than 20-25% of the time at this level? Or is that just a unique feature of chess versus say StarCraft. Restated, are sports specific ELO scores real? Alternatively phrased, does an X ELO score in one competitive endeavor represent the same relative strength as the same ELO in another subject?

Draws are the most common outcome at the "supergrandmaster" level, yes, to the extent that calls for changes to tournament formats or the game itself are often called for. Chess960 is the most popular chess variant, in which the starting positions of the pieces are shuffled in some way, resulting in 960 possible starting positions. There's also been experiments done with no-castling chess or tweaks to how the pawns move, or the ability to capture your own pieces.

I'm not sure about your Elo question but I think a 200 points difference should meant the same thing regardless of sport.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#183

This is relevant to today's events because Magnus Carlsen just withdrew from a tournament[1] after yesterday's loss to a significantly lower rated opponent who had previously been suspended for cheating on chess.com. The tournament organizers have also implemented additional anti-cheating protocols starting today. Whatever comes out of these accusations, the chess world will sure enjoy its new infusion of drama. [1]…

I'm not sure why wasn't that blatantly obvious until today. Chess is an extremely unsuitable sport for online because you are 100% free to use the strongest computers on it without 100% no cheat protection at all. It should be ..100% restricted to person-to-person tournaments for keeping score.

It's pretty easy to detect the blatent cheaters who just copy moves from the top engines: you just run the engines on the game and compare the moves between the player and engine: a close enough match is certainly cheating. More sophisticated cheaters who actually know the game well themselves are harder to catch.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did miss the exact context of this video, what is the position being discussed? It's that from a game Hans played with somebody which he then drew?

It's from a line that ultimately wasn't entered into in the game, but Hans mentioned to Alireza in the postgame. So it's a position that Hans should have considered during the game. He claims it's obviuosly winning for white. It isn't, and Hikaru is ~immediately able to see that the position is (significantly) losing for white.

> Hikaru is ~immediately able to see that the position is (significantly) losing for white.

Hikaru could have followed the game with an automatic engine evaluation, that would make it 'slightly' easier for him to '~immediately' evaluate the position with better precision.

You are comparing a tired guy answering the questions on the spot to a person who could have had all the computer help in the world (and they do when they are following live matches).

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did miss the exact context of this video, what is the position being discussed? It's that from a game Hans played with somebody which he then drew?

Starting from this position in the game against Alireza today, which was even: https://lichess.org/editor/r2q1rk1/1pbn1pp1/2p1b2p/p2pP3/P1N... The interviewer (Alejandro Ramirez, also a GM) asks Hans what happens if black takes the knight on c4, which didn't happen in the game but is the engine's best move. Hans says Bh6, starts down one line with g6, Bg5 (good moves) but backtracks the latter and blunders with f4, a…

So how did he make it to +3 position against #4 player in the world if he is so terrible? If he cheated and used a computer, what is your suggestion, that his cheating method had failed mid-game?

As for his 'blundering' in a live Q&A talk, that's not indicative at all, I have posted my reasoning in a sibling comment.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which AI has beat humans at poker? I'm curious as I just heard a guest on Lex Fridman's podcast say differently... I'm not up to speed with that realm

IIRC if you take out the human element of poker (bluffing), it becomes a statistics / numbers game - at least, I see 'win chance' numbers on the off occasion I see poker on TV. Knowing your chances and being able to guess at other players' gives you an advantage.

But you don't need a computer for that... knowing the odds for a hand is a pretty basic skill. And on the other hand if you did place bets based on your hand odds you'd be leaking a lot of information to your opponent.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, somehow I missed this. Pretty wild accusations from Magnus and Hikaru on this. Hans just had a horrific tournament in his last attempt, which makes this whole thing pretty interesting. Hans didn't play engine perfect lines when beating Magnus in the Sinquefield Cup, though he obviously played extremely accurately.

Do you have a source of Magnus accusations? He seems to have withdrawn relatively quietly, perhaps consciously trying to refrain from cheating accusations. Hikaru was less reserved on the other hand. He called Hans's post-game interview analysis sub-2700 level after Hans Neiman badly mis-evaluated several positions.

Magnus didn't make an overt accusation: it was other chess experts who read that into the circumstances of his withdrawal &c.

Esports has a nice overview of the most prominent reactions:

https://esports.gg/news/gaming/hikaru-nakamaru-on-carlsens-w...

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#188
Is there a precise, published-in-advance definition of cheating in the chess contest rules, or are the contest organizers allowed to shift goalposts as they see fit, and ban a player from future contests because of any arbitrary reason they come up with?

My naïve definition would be: a player was probably not cheating if they would have been able to come up with the same moves even if they had played in an isolated room with only basic supplies (such as water and sugar for human players and electricity for computer players). Thus a player who is consulting a chess book, a friend, the web or a computer is cheating, because those are not available in an isolated room.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source of Magnus accusations? He seems to have withdrawn relatively quietly, perhaps consciously trying to refrain from cheating accusations. Hikaru was less reserved on the other hand. He called Hans's post-game interview analysis sub-2700 level after Hans Neiman badly mis-evaluated several positions.

Yeah I think he's being very professional instead of just throwing out accusations; let the arbitrators call that. I'm not at all into chess (only through the odd HN post where I get out-nerded left, right and center), but I can imagine it ends up being a very analytical thing, where the experts or analysts can spot whether someone is playing like a human or a computer. And I also think they can't add "noise" (e.g. h…

Nothing really throws the computer off. It is objectively much better than any human at evaluating any position, not just the types of positions computers get into.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#190

Though I'm not much of a poker player myself, I am friends with many professionals who have found success both online and offline, in games from pot-limit omaha to no-limit hold-em. Cheating in online poker has been around for many years, with varying success by online gaming companies to implement anti-cheat measures in their software. With recent developments in AI, there is renewed discussion about cheating as the…

Which AI has beat humans at poker? I'm curious as I just heard a guest on Lex Fridman's podcast say differently... I'm not up to speed with that realm

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