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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

#241

Post by Bluecobra »

weare138 wrote: post #106

Neat. Reminds me of the hidden shoe computers developed by Claude Shannon and Ed Thorp in 1960 for cheating at roulette. https://nautil.us/claude-shannon-the-las-vegas-cheat-6397 J. Doyne Farmer and Norman Packard from UC Santa Cruz also developed one in the late 70s as part of a group called The Eudaemons. http://physics.ucsc.edu/people/eudaemons/layout.html

History Channel had a great series called Breaking Vegas and one episode featured Doyne Farmer and Norman Packard's roulette shoe computer:

https://archive.org/details/breaking-vegas-s-1-e-08-beat-the...

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#242

Post by andy81 »

grumpopotamus wrote: post #40
fasthands9 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know very little about chess. Do computers play like top humans? Or different stylistically? ie - if you were a top player and looking at the moves of an opponent, could you discern if the style was more similar to a top rated human or a top rated computer?

The top chess engines are now much much stronger than humans, and they will find some moves that grandmasters are unlikely to even consider. One recent example was Kf8 in the recent Patrycja Waszczuk cheating scandal: https://www.chess.com/news/view/patrycja-waszczuk-cheating-2... . I watched Hikaru Nakamura analyze the game on stream and he burst out laughing when he saw the infamous Kf8 move, since it was such a bi…

Link to stream highlights - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BgVe_Jp4Ys

That Kf8 really is the move of somebody living in another universe.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#243

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

myownpetard wrote: post #157
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a rather poor example. If there are multiple checkmates, humans are usually much more likely to see ones that require the least number of moves. Anyway if there are multiple checkmates, the game is irrecoverably lost by another player and it is easy to see on the board.

It's more complex than this. The situation would be more like, there is a forced checkmate in 12 but it involves navigating a sharp position that is complex and any miscalculation could equalize the position. On the other hand, you can simply exchange queens and rooks and have a clear winning endgame, but it will only result in a checkmate in 20 moves. Almost any human would opt for the latter to avoid the risk. From…

I tend to analyse my games after playing them, and I must say that NOT ONCE in a few hundred of games played at my level (~2500+ on lichess rapid) I have seen a forced mate in 10+ moves other than in end-game when there are very few pieces on the board left. And when you see such long checkmate, usually it doesn't really matter, because by then all is already clear on the board.

So no, I stand by my point that a specific choice of one of multiple possible checkmates is quite a poor indicator of using a computer to calculate moves.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#244

Post by FreakLegion »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #185
FreakLegion wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> So how did he make it to +3 position against #4 player in the world if he is so terrible?

There are two answers to this question. One is obvious and is the subject of the article we're all responding to: Cheating. Some people think he's cheating.

The other is that nobody actually thinks Hans is terrible. Even if he cheated he's still at least a 2500-level player and perfectly capable of taking the odd game off of super GMs. Being very good and cheating aren't mutually exclusive possibilities.

> that's not indicative at all

The word you want is conclusive. The interviews are certainly indicative, but they're very far from conclusive.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#245

Post by sgjohnson »

mda wrote: post #162
sgjohnson wrote: post #124

> I told him that I was planning to recruit a "plausibly-good" chess player to use the shoes to win the world championship, Would one be able to clear a metal detector with this? I doubt it.

With enough miniaturization, maybe? There are computers small as a grain of sand, sure they don't run stockfish yet, but not impossible. e.g. on 3nm node it s possible to fit 300million transistors per mm2.

> sure they don't run stockfish yet

You don’t need to run stockfish on it. Thin client would suffice.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#246

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

FreakLegion wrote: post #244
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> So how did he make it to +3 position against #4 player in the world if he is so terrible? There are two answers to this question. One is obvious and is the subject of the article we're all responding to: Cheating. Some people think he's cheating. The other is that nobody actually thinks Hans is terrible. Even if he cheated he's still at least a 2500-level player and perfectly capable of taking the odd game off of s…

> The word you want is conclusive.

No. The word I want is indicative, as in "Serving to indicate; Pointing out; bringing to notice; giving intimation or knowledge of something not visible or obvious".

Giving "imprecise" analysis at the Q&A session does not mean anything at all, and of course it can't be used as an evidence of any kind that a cheating took place.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#247

Post by myownpetard »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #243
myownpetard wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more complex than this. The situation would be more like, there is a forced checkmate in 12 but it involves navigating a sharp position that is complex and any miscalculation could equalize the position. On the other hand, you can simply exchange queens and rooks and have a clear winning endgame, but it will only result in a checkmate in 20 moves. Almost any human would opt for the latter to avoid the risk. From…

I tend to analyse my games after playing them, and I must say that NOT ONCE in a few hundred of games played at my level (~2500+ on lichess rapid) I have seen a forced mate in 10+ moves other than in end-game when there are very few pieces on the board left. And when you see such long checkmate, usually it doesn't really matter, because by then all is already clear on the board. So no, I stand by my point that a spec…

That's surprising to me especially for rapid but you're better than me (2000 lichess). Under time pressure, if I have a passed a or h pawn and can simply trade down and promote I will opt to do that rather than try to calculate a deep mating combination.

> other than in end-game

This is frequently where such scenarios occur. Many end games are difficult for humans to play with absolute precision, even seemingly simple ones like knight and bishop vs. king. But when there are fewer pieces on the board is exactly when computers are able to perform incredibly deep calculations.

A good example is the notorious 30 move forced mate that Caruana "missed" in game 6 of his world championship match with Magnus, which occurred with only 3 pieces and 3 pawns left on the board.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#248

Post by jonwachob91 »

systemvoltage wrote: post #81
jonwachob91 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hans admitted to Chess.com he cheated, that's why he was allowed back in cash tournaments such as Titled Tuesday. Firouzja was 11 years old at the time of his ban and he was an unknown commodity at the time. He was quickly unbanned b/c it was revealed that he was just a kid developing very fast. Hans' situation and Firouzja's situation are not the same.

There is no direct admission. It is still a speculation: https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/x6rxcx/fact_check_is... At this point, I am just extremely skeptical of the narratives in chess. It is much like politics. No substance, all speculation. If I have to speculate, it would be that Hans is a weirdo and has no social skills, people are piling up on his atypical asshole-like personality. If there is proof to a…

Hans own coach published a long statement today and admitted in it that Hans did cheat online.

"It is reasonably well established that Hans cheated online at some point."

[1] https://forum.killerchesstraining.com/t/paranoia-and-insanit...

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#249

Post by icambron »

bluecalm wrote: post #236
ivalm wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that he probably did not cheat vs firouzja. Even vs Carlson my money is at most the line magnus wanted to play somehow got leaked. It’s hard to imagine getting live engine support otb at a modern tournament.

Why is it hard to imagine? It's easy to imagine him getting signals from the audience for example which can be done in multiple ways. I am not up to date with the state of metal/RFID detectors but simplistic ones they use at chess tournaments are probably possible to game as well.

It’s easy to imagine almost anything. The question isn’t whether he could but rather whether he did. I’m challenging the reasons many people believe he did, or likely did.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#250

Post by faeriechangling »

joshuamorton wrote: post #240
SamBam wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd humbly suggest that those anonymous comments put up or shut up.

There are various videos you can see of strong players forcing draws against stockfish (or engine cheaters online etc.). The general way to do it is to trade everything but rooks and then force a very closed position. Then you shuffle for 50 moves or until contempt makes the computer sacrifice material.

I mean I can force a draw against stockfish by just using stockfish myself to beat stockfish.

Look to put this into perspective back in 2008 Hikaru Nakamura a world top 10 player won a game once against the then top engine and it was a significant story in the chess world that day. It's been 14 years since then. If people can easily draw stockfish I'd like to see them do it live giving stockfish the same clock.

One problem with trying to draw stockfish by trading off its pieces is that stockfish is so dominant it tends to win more games the more complicated positions get, so it's actually hardcoded to be bias towards making positions as complicated as possible, so it will resist you closing the position and trading off pieces to an extent. It's also non-deterministic. You might be able to force it to a draw in some games but it's hard to do this reliably.

I'm also by the way not saying Magnus cannot draw stockfish 1/100 games, I'm saying it wouldn't be easy.

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