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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).
Is there a good summary by a chess expert on how he may or may not have cheated? (Ideally a video).
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He's admitted to cheating at 12 years old and at 16 years old (just 3 years ago)
Yes, the maturity jump from 16 to 19 is marginal at best. If you generalize from crime statistics, a 19 year old is actually more likely to be dishonest than a 16 year old. Criminality peaks in the late teens and drops in the early 20s. https://pinkerton.com/our-insights/blog/age-crime-curve (Yes yes I know, Pinkerton are evil. they have the best plot of this correlation I could find. The crime-age correlation is the…
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Some things matter so little that the penalties can be extremely high; for example, nobody needs to play chess so the penalty for cheating at chess can be a lifetime ban from sanctioned tournaments. Is it entirely fair to the actually repentant? No. But does it keep out the false-repentant? Yes.
There were multiple examples of people from other online sports where former cheaters became world top players and important members of the community. It is immoral to close every redemption path to a former sinner.
A key fact to understand in thinking about cheating in over the board chess: a strong player can defeat a much stronger opponent with just 1-3 hints per game indicating the strongest move. For example, most chess experts agree that a ~2600 rated player with 2-3 hints at key moments per game would be expected to beat a ~2800 rated player. Many people might assume that a cheater needs guidance every move, thereby requi…
200 points difference means a 25% chance to win, so I doubt just 1 hint is enough to bridge that gap consistently. Many high level games are won by grinding out a small advantage. I'll take a 2700 with 3 hints against a 2800 though.
Even at my own mediocre level of 1800, I definitely do not score 0.25 against 2000 rated players. More like 0.1 if I'm feeling sharp.
The questions I have about this are pretty basic: 1. How would Niemann have cheated? The shoe computer theory is a bit far fetched - are devices that small capable enough? Is he suspected of having an accomplice? 2. Why didn't Magnus just say something right away? He could have easily made his accusations at the moment to event organizers - quietly - and they could have had Niemann remove his shoes or something. Inst…
yes, the tech is there
But yes, I agree that Carlsen should have just refused to play Hans after Sinquefield
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This seems interesting, any chess-knowing people willing to take the hit for the team and watch all 23 minutes?
Using an ultra-high ELO chess engine to score each possible move, then reversing through the players moves and seeing how often it would have been a positive move (one that shifts the balance of the game in your favor) - or perfect move (not sure which). It is extremely rare to make 100% perfect moves in a game, let alone a series of games. Typical gameplay for high level chess player doesn't peak over 72-75% for a g…
In case you haven't seen it, some new evidence surfaced yesterday: https://youtu.be/jfPzUgzrOcQ
This seems interesting, any chess-knowing people willing to take the hit for the team and watch all 23 minutes?
for reference, magnus carlsen's correlation score at his peak averages around 70% (according to the video)
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That's hardly evidence. Me, as a 1600 player, have played some 0-0-0 games on Lichess. I didn't cheat. I just play a lot of chess games and during those games, my opponent was really bad, so I had a perfect game (according to the engine).
So there are "really bad" opponents at the 1600 level, but is it reasonable to think there are "really bad" opponents at the 2600 level? It's a different world up there.
Isn't it time to just abandon chess as a competitive sport? It's (mostly) a solved game for f* sake, move on. I will probably be downvoted to oblivion, but I'm absolutely serious and would love constructive commentary. What's the big appeal of chess? We (as humans) can't beat computers. It's probably useful for further research, but I see absolutely no value in (human) competitions.
This is completely incorrect. We have fully solved chess with 7 pieces, and 8-piece tablebases are in progress. The initial chess position has 64 pieces, and solving gets exponentially harder as more pieces are added.
> We (as humans) can't beat computers.
We can't beat cars at races either yet competitive foot races still exist.