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Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

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Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#31

Post by Tenoke »

cortesoft wrote: post #24
michaelwm wrote: post #5

Though I'm not much of a poker player myself, I am friends with many professionals who have found success both online and offline, in games from pot-limit omaha to no-limit hold-em. Cheating in online poker has been around for many years, with varying success by online gaming companies to implement anti-cheat measures in their software. With recent developments in AI, there is renewed discussion about cheating as the…

About 20 years ago (before the crackdown on online poker in the US), I had a friend who made a good living playing online poker. His cheating strategy was to use an engine to watch every single game being played on the server. Once he accumulated enough data on players, he would simply play at tables where there were really bad players. He would have insight into each players strategy, and could counter easily. He ma…

20 years ago online poker was extremely soft, and you could make a profit easily with a little bit of skill. At any rate, what you describe is usually not considered cheating - most sites (with some exceptions now, but likely none back then) explicitly allow software that tracks stats about players - by 2010 (when I was playing semi-professionally online) most regs used software like that (usually Poker Tracker or Hold'em Manager) both to make decisions in a given hand and to avoid tables with too many other regs in the first place.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#32

Post by gnramires »

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 openings and ventilation).

Edit: I believe at the moment it's still necessary a fairly large device to run the best engines which can't be concealed (?).

Edit2: Oh the engine is running on the Pi 0! Impressive.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#33

Post by textadventure »

icelancer wrote: post #4
sharedfrog wrote: post #3

This is relevant to today's events because Magnus Carlsen just withdrew from a tournament[1] after yesterday's loss to a significantly lower rated opponent who had previously been suspended for cheating on chess.com. The tournament organizers have also implemented additional anti-cheating protocols starting today. Whatever comes out of these accusations, the chess world will sure enjoy its new infusion of drama. [1]…

Wow, somehow I missed this. Pretty wild accusations from Magnus and Hikaru on this. Hans just had a horrific tournament in his last attempt, which makes this whole thing pretty interesting. Hans didn't play engine perfect lines when beating Magnus in the Sinquefield Cup, though he obviously played extremely accurately.

No GM would be stupid enough to cheat playing 100% engine lines, they of all people know which engine lines would look particularly suspicious. All they need to know is to avoid any serious blunders, and play some important moves here and there, and that's enough to get a serious advantage at this level.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#34

Post by Flankk »

fasthands9 wrote: post #18
sharedfrog wrote: post #3

This is relevant to today's events because Magnus Carlsen just withdrew from a tournament[1] after yesterday's loss to a significantly lower rated opponent who had previously been suspended for cheating on chess.com. The tournament organizers have also implemented additional anti-cheating protocols starting today. Whatever comes out of these accusations, the chess world will sure enjoy its new infusion of drama. [1]…

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?

No post body was provided.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#35

Post by eunos »

Animats wrote: post #10

Computer-assisted chess cheating has been going on for over a decade now.[1] It's getting to be embarrassing for humans, that small battery powered devices now win against strong players. At world championship level, at least you still need a laptop. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheating_in_chess#High-profile

The high profile cases cheating are still ordinary. I'm waiting someone implanted devices in their head level cheating

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#36

Post by crtasm »

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.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#37

Post by cortesoft »

Tenoke wrote: post #31
cortesoft wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 20 years ago (before the crackdown on online poker in the US), I had a friend who made a good living playing online poker. His cheating strategy was to use an engine to watch every single game being played on the server. Once he accumulated enough data on players, he would simply play at tables where there were really bad players. He would have insight into each players strategy, and could counter easily. He ma…

20 years ago online poker was extremely soft, and you could make a profit easily with a little bit of skill. At any rate, what you describe is usually not considered cheating - most sites (with some exceptions now, but likely none back then) explicitly allow software that tracks stats about players - by 2010 (when I was playing semi-professionally online) most regs used software like that (usually Poker Tracker or Ho…

It was a long time ago so my memory might be fuzzy, but I believe he played on pokerroom.com... the cheating part of it, from my memory, was that the tracking software had access to mucked hands, which normal players at the table wouldn't have access to.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#38

Post by IncRnd »

For those who may not be aware, the author reinvented a device (one of many really) that has been used in casinos to cheat at games of chance and table games.

Don't actually use something like this. You will always get caught, sooner or later. Depending on who lost money on your match, you will either be tossed out of the tournament, thrown in jail, or killed. Maybe some mix of those will happen. These sorts of things have been used literally for decades.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#39

Post by PKop »

systemvoltage wrote: post #11
sharedfrog wrote: post #3

This is relevant to today's events because Magnus Carlsen just withdrew from a tournament[1] after yesterday's loss to a significantly lower rated opponent who had previously been suspended for cheating on chess.com. The tournament organizers have also implemented additional anti-cheating protocols starting today. Whatever comes out of these accusations, the chess world will sure enjoy its new infusion of drama. [1]…

Hans seems like a cool guy, I watched his interview afterwards. PowerPlayChess covered the game, it was a magnificent performance but also not perfect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n27zd_dVtFw Those saying it he got banned on chess.com, it was total bullshit, here it is of how it happened live on Han's stream when he was an IM: https://livestreamfails.com/post/84343 More info here, if he was really cheating he wou…

He got kicked off of chess.com twice for cheating. Doesn't seem so cool.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#40

Post by grumpopotamus »

fasthands9 wrote: post #18
sharedfrog wrote: post #3

This is relevant to today's events because Magnus Carlsen just withdrew from a tournament[1] after yesterday's loss to a significantly lower rated opponent who had previously been suspended for cheating on chess.com. The tournament organizers have also implemented additional anti-cheating protocols starting today. Whatever comes out of these accusations, the chess world will sure enjoy its new infusion of drama. [1]…

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 bizarre move for a human to play.
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