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Dear Chess World

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Re: Dear Chess World

#21

Post by peter422 »

For 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 did cheat in that particular tournament but at the same time I don't think he deserves too much sympathy. Cheaters literally destroy the game, and Hans at the very least was a cheater.

Re: Dear Chess World

#22

Post by jfengel »

joemazerino wrote: post #2

How did Niemann cheat? Magnus uses Niemann's outplaying as evidence but is there anything concrete?

Nobody knows how he was cheating. Without a strip search there's no way to be sure.

It is known that it's not technologically impossible. There are ways to do it, some of them rather outlandish but not infeasible.

Unfortunately, that's as far as it can go. Either you start doing something really extreme to ensure that players can't cheat (that aforementioned strip search, making them play in a Faraday cage, etc), you'll never really know.

Even worse than that, the cheating may not have gone on during the match. It could have been as simple as old-fashioned spying: studying what preparations Carlsen had made, and learning their weaknesses before the match even starts.

You can't really prevent that. The best you can hope for is for a chess expert to opine that this move seems like an unlikely thing for a human to play without the assistance of a computer. Carlsen is just such an expert, but obviously his opinion alone is much too biased.

Re: Dear Chess World

#23

Post by addicted »

perihelions wrote: post #15

It's very remarkable that Carlsen is suspicious of Niemann's game against him in Sinquefield, since there's a clear consensus among other top chess players that there was absolutely nothing unusual about it (or at least about the moves played).

And he wasn’t suspicious about his game when he beat Hans a few weeks earlier itself.

If Hans did go to all those extremes to cheat OTB it’s really surprising he would do so while playing black against Magnus Carlsen in an otherwise kind of pointless game.

Re: Dear Chess World

#24

Post by yreg »

keepquestioning wrote: post #6

I last played chess in high school. I'm following this for the drama. I guess "over the board" chess means an IRL chess game. Can someone explain how the fuck someone would be able to do this and not make it obvious? Why is this being continually glossed over? Am I dumb?

jstanley here on hn made such a cheating device as a hobby project:

https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/sockfish.html

Re: Dear Chess World

#25

Post by MauranKilom »

perihelions wrote: post #15

It's very remarkable that Carlsen is suspicious of Niemann's game against him in Sinquefield, since there's a clear consensus among other top chess players that there was absolutely nothing unusual about it (or at least about the moves played).

The reasons Carlsen gives for being suspicious are not "the moves played were unusual" but about Niemann's behavior surrounding them.

Re: Dear Chess World

#26

Post by dgritsko »

smoldesu wrote: post #7
abnry wrote: post #4

I 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…

Yeah, the tone I'm getting from reading this basically boils down to "I was uncomfortable with how he played so I quit". Isn't that part of the metagaming in chess? Poker has always been about unnerving your opponent through stoicism or deception. I don't see why chess can't have the same layer of subtlety, and if it really concerns him then he should be able to wear a visor to block everything but the game board. Ot…

I think it boils more down to this:

"I was uncomfortable with how he played because he has a history of cheating so I quit"

Which is entirely reasonable, if you think that cheating is an "existential threat" to chess itself.

Re: Dear Chess World

#27

Post by deanCommie »

smoldesu wrote: post #7
abnry wrote: post #4

I 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…

Yeah, the tone I'm getting from reading this basically boils down to "I was uncomfortable with how he played so I quit". Isn't that part of the metagaming in chess? Poker has always been about unnerving your opponent through stoicism or deception. I don't see why chess can't have the same layer of subtlety, and if it really concerns him then he should be able to wear a visor to block everything but the game board. Ot…

Basketball, hockey, and football players are expected to perform under the roar of tens of thousands of fans AND those that hate them.

Tennis players and Chess players are expected to be granted absolute silence.

Is that an inconsistency? I don't think so. It's part of the expectation of the sport. Sport is in general a weird type of impure competition. Sponsorships, TV contracts, etc, all contribute to mixed priorities.

So no, I don't think it's appropriate to equate Poker and Chess in this regard. Their best practices can be evaluated on their own measures.

Re: Dear Chess World

#28

Post by perihelions »

MauranKilom wrote: post #19
solarparade wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible to have a device in your shoe that will not trip metal detectors that can feed moves from the outside. It doesn't even have to be that complex, for a super GM even just a simple signal that indicates "this position has a crushing move, spend extra time thinking on this move" is enough to significantly improve their performance Unless you catch the method of cheating directly, it's basically impossible…

Makes me wonder if they ever point nonlinear junction detectors[0] at people that aren't supposed to have electronics on them in these kinds of events. I think it would be pretty hard to cheat then. Or would something like The Thing[1] escape that? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_junction_detector [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

Wow!

- "Such a technique was used in the 1980s construction of the U.S. embassy in Moscow. Thousands of diodes were mixed into the building's structural concrete making detection and removal of the true listening devices nearly impossible."

Re: Dear Chess World

#29

Post by Andugal »

So Magnus can't prove it (yet?) but has a strong feeling about it.

It reminds me of other cases in cycling or athletics...

Let's hope the truth also triumphs this time.

Re: Dear Chess World

#30

Post by flawn »

peter422 wrote: post #21

For 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…

I could also decide to cheat when being in the top players in the world. Even better, because I would only need to use my cheats sometimes and hide it even better because my knowledge holds up enough.
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