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

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261–270 of 339 posts

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

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we calling chess a sport?

Yes. It's recognised by the International Olympic Committee - https://olympics.com/ioc/recognised-international-federation... A common definition is: "Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport

Key word being "physical" though, right?

I wouldn't consider poker players or tetris players athletes.

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

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Report says over 100, as late as 2020.

He already admitted to cheating a lot. He didn’t say he cheated in two games, he said cheated at two times in his life. He even detailed how his second time was pumping up his rating, you can’t pump a rating with only one game. Sounds like if it went to 2020 then he would have been 17 at least, not 16 but that’s pretty close at least.

No, he said this:

> “I cheated on random games on Chess.com. I was confronted. I confessed. And this is the single biggest mistake of my life. And I am completely ashamed. I am telling the world because I don’t want misrepresentations and I don’t want rumours. I have never cheated in an over-the-board game. And other than when I was 12 years old I have never cheated in a tournament with prize money.”

This report identifies 3 separate tournaments with prize money in 2020 alone (2 SCC Grand Prix, and the Pro Chess League) that he appears to have cheated in, blatantly contradicting what he previously said.

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

#263
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are still rather short-sighted when it comes to what a computer can do. They can really only think in front of them. If I put information into this program, I get information out. They don't think that applications can monitor their own meta-state. Or the state of other applications. So I'm not terribly surprised that he thought running the engine in another browser window would have been sufficient. He might…

there are easily observed indications that websites can detect window focus. take facebook for example. if you get a notification while a facebook tab is open but not in focus, the tab title will irritatingly and eye-drawingly flash between "facebook" and "x messaged you" until you focus on the tab. or youtube. if you open a youtube video in the background it will not autoplay until you focus on that tab. these thing…

Easily observed to people who know what to look for or how these things work. I'm sure a mechanic would scoff at how many "obvious signs" the average driver misses about potential problems with their vehicle.

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

#265
It is a premature conclusion that Hans was cheating in this game. Let the proper process play out, whatever that may be. Magnus has not presented any actual evidence. Chess.com is not an impartial player here in this drama and cannot be considered source-of-truth (they just purchased Magnus' startup for ~$80M; their fortunes are linked and would be subject to similar biases). WSJ article has not really done a deep dive.

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

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The rate at which we forgive and forget prior actions should decrease as someone ages in a monotonic way.

Everybody ages in a monotonic way. :-)

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

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Pretty much hard disagree with that.

50 year olds may be set in their ways because they don't see any need to change and what they've got going works for them, but you can change at any age.

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

#268

There is so much more to our report than what was focused on in the WSJ article. The full report will be shared shortly…

I'd be curious to know about the cheating rate on chess.com. I'd expect at lot of people to cheat occasionally, e.g. kids with too much time on their hand, people trying to "fix" their ranking, or getting a bit of help when they play against their friend and so on...

And also... who cares? there are no stake, just playing against random people, who cares if they cheat as long as you have fun playing. It's less fun for the cheater, but doesn't impact non-cheater.

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

#269
post #75
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? I completely didn't understand this part? In pretty much everything else, you cheat, you're basically done.

> In pretty much everything else, you cheat, you're basically done. The penalty for cheating in most major sports is way more lenient than you think. Most leagues will suspend you for a handful of games in the first instance. In the NBA for example you can be caught three times before being suspended for one season.

Yeah, and you can even just go into a different sport like Baseball for that time.

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

#270

There is so much more to our report than what was focused on in the WSJ article. The full report will be shared shortly…

The report was great, and answers a lot of questions everyone had. I'm especially glad to see you applied your tools to OTB games.

The only disappointing thing was the focus on how fast Hans' rating soared after he hit 2500, and how much it rose between ages 11 and 19.25. These thresholds were very cherry-picked to make Hans look bad, which you didn't need to do. For example, Hans's rating lingered at 2450 for two years and then popped. If you charted ratings rise starting at 2450, Hans would be on the other side of the chart!

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