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

Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

incoherency.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 262 posts

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#191

Post by lavp »

fzliu wrote: post #159
randunel wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1981206 (a blitz to be compared against https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2372960 from 2 days ago).

Good catch. I was searching for a game without Nf3, but this is effectively a transposition. One minor point folks aren't mentioning that I think works in Neimann's favor - Carlsen is known for enjoying the Catalan, and the opening in the game was essentially a Nimzo/Catalan hybrid. This fact makes Neimann's supposed pre-game prep a bit more palatable. Everything else (postgame interview, past history, Twitter antics…

There are rumors that Carlsen's prep got leaked and that Niemann knew what was going to played the morning of.

Although this is pure speculation, it seems to be a more plausible and satisfactory explanation if Niemann did in fact cheat. It would also explain why Carlsen would withdraw from the tournament rather than continuing.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#193

Post by jetbooster »

icu wrote: post #176

I'd be interested if any HN members consider James Stanley a 'cyborg' with the shoes on? From what I've found on Wikipedia, it sounds like wearing the shoes is an, "integration of some artificial component or technology that relies on some sort of feedback." This got me thinking that the Nike shoes Marty wore in Back to the Future 2 could also be considered a cybernetics enhancement. To what degree does a device need…

In artificial hip definitely makes you a cyborg, and I like to imagine by contact lenses as cybernetic vision enhancement devices, though I can see people err-ing on that. But I don't think I would consider my glasses to be 'cybernetic'. In my opinion the difference is whether it sits inside the body (imo, inside the eyelids counts). Pacemaker, insulin pump, cochlear implant. Otherwise, you could claim our phones are cybernetic memory and knowledge enhancements (which isn't entirely wrong)

Though I think many of these simply bring you back towards 'baseline healthy human'. For many, the term cyborg requires you to _exceed_ baseline human to be worthy of the term.

So if he implanted this device that made him inhumanly good at chess, I think it would count. This is just using a very inefficient keyboard.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#194

Post by tiborsaas »

crtasm wrote: post #36
gnramires wrote: post #32

Honestly a Faraday cage should be a very good defense against most attacks including this one. Moderately expensive for a good quality one, probably only affordable for high stakes tournaments (it shouldn't be expensive in terms of materials: a very simple sheet metal cage with adequate electrical connection technique should be enough, but I assume it's too specialized to be cheap -- plus care must be taken with open…

This is running locally on hardware on his person, a faraday cage won't help.

A tiny bit of airport security would rule out the rest of the cases :)

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#195

Post by faeriechangling »

okamiueru wrote: post #149
faeriechangling wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't find a citation but I recall that computers agreed with the moves of grandmasters from the pre-computer era about 60% of the time. Generally, the biggest heuristic for identifying cheating is identifying somebodies moves share statistical similarity to the top moves of common engines (Especially stockfish). This doesn't really work after a single game, but anybody playing the top move of stockfish 90% of the…

> 20 seconds to make their first move At this level, players know all opening lines to some depth. The first move? I don't see how 20 seconds indicate anything other than a passage of time.

Well in this case it did actually indicate something other than the passage of time, it indicates the player was using a shoe operated cheating device an remarked on how he would normally move more quickly.

Maybe I overemphasized the first move because it was emphasized in the article, in general cheaters use their clock in weird ways throughout the game since for them pretty much any move is similarly complex. In this case the shoe operating cheating device raised the minimum time to make a move, which is a characteristic common to many forms of cheating.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#196

Post by timwaagh »

ivalm wrote: post #102
searealist wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's binary. Either he did cheat today or he did not. If he did not then who cares what his post analysis looks like after drawing the #4 player in the world and being +3 at some point. The only reasonable analysis is to declare him a cheater today or discard the interview. To say that the interview would point to him cheating vs Magnus but not today is nonsense.

You can always say 40% cheater, 60% non cheater in this one game, but this updates the priors for future game considerations. At some point the priors will be such that the belief in the risk of cheating (which needs not be more than 50%) will cause the player to not be invited.

So called Bayesian analysis frequently goes awry because of its ultimate dependence on assumptions (priors). But you don't even bother to do a calculation.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#197

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

sgjohnson wrote: post #134
pedrosorio wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> private events with potentially billions of dollars at stake What are these? Elon Musk - Jeff Bezos head to head?

No, those are the make believe games that Dan Bilzerian loves to boast about.

There are certainly games with $10m+ on the table in total. I’m sure there have been 9 figure pots, if not 10, but not every single hand.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#198

Post by em1sar »

searealist wrote: post #86
threatofrain wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the accusation is that the sum of signals doesn't look good.

It's binary. Either he did cheat today or he did not. If he did not then who cares what his post analysis looks like after drawing the #4 player in the world and being +3 at some point. The only reasonable analysis is to declare him a cheater today or discard the interview. To say that the interview would point to him cheating vs Magnus but not today is nonsense.

this guy is right

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#199

Post by TempUserzzz »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #170
ManWith2Plans wrote: post #97

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…

Not a member of this forum, but wanted to help a bit here.

First off, computers are (especially in complex positions) ridiculously stronger than humans, like your average family car can't keep up with a Ferrari. In less complex games (like an endgame with fewer pieces) top-10 players can definitely play 20 perfect moves in a row, in an attacking game that's harder. A player like Niemann is not really expected to reach that level in a game like this.

A second point is how much time you spend on each move. If you play a move with big consequences (say sacrificing material, or violating a principle) you would generally think longer. A computer doesn't see it that way and might spot "instantly" that this move wins material 7 moves down the road, where even a World Champion will check his analysis before playing that.

So playing too perfect and playing too fast in critical positions are both red flags. In Online chess, they often use this to grade your moves, and flag you if you go over certain thresholds, especially if you have a lower "rating".

Hans Niemann did both of this (too fast and too good) and then after the game was not really able to explain his thought process afterwards. None of this is hard evidence, but they are red flags, and if you add that Niemann has been caught before in online chess... that's so many red flags it would make the CCP proud.

Hope that helps a bit! So no, there is no very analytical thing, which does mean we need to be a bit careful and leave the option open that Niemann maybe just really liked this move on general grounds, got lucky it worked, and has learned of his previous mistakes. It could definitely happen.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#200

Post by mda »

randunel wrote: post #150
fzliu wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconded re: Neimann's analysis. Specifically, he stated in a post-game interview that Carlsen had played the same Nimzo-Indian g3 line in a prior tournament, even though that never happened. For the sake of the sport, I hope Neimann didn't cheat, but I doubt we'll ever know for sure.

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1981206 (a blitz to be compared against https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2372960 from 2 days ago).

Yeah, but Move 6 is different and it changes the whole dynamics of the game.

Prior to Move 6 this is a well known line with 700 hundred high level games, and Magnus (apparently) never played the line with 6.a3 before, so I find Hans's claim extremely dubious.

Still not an evidence that he cheated, but I agree that sum of signals e.g. prior cheating ban on chess.com, incoherent after game analysis without engine help and in general never being worse against 4 Super GMS and having a winning position against all of them does not paint a good picture. Something smells, but we will probably never know.

Edit: corrected move#

Post reply on HN