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Dear Chess World

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Re: Dear Chess World

#441

Post by roflyear »

VanillaCafe wrote: post #377
boole1854 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While interesting, this does not seem very convincing to me. They successfully show that Niemann was playing many games with a high percentage of "engine perfect" moves, but they do not do enough to show that this is inconsistent with what top players usually do. A whole distribution of scores is shown for Niemann but only limited summary statistics are shown for other top players. A proper comparison would involve s…

> They successfully show that Niemann was playing many games with a high percentage of "engine perfect" moves, but they do not do enough to show that this is inconsistent with what top players usually do. I thought the video very much did make that case. A single known cheating game had a 98% correlation (Sebastien Feller Paris 2010), other GMs have generally at most 75% average correlation. The analysis had more tha…

Yah and Hikaru was able to find games of his that were 100% too, fairly quickly: https://clips.twitch.tv/FaintCuteKumquatPhilosoraptor-hDvbAj...

Re: Dear Chess World

#442

Post by walrus01 »

not_kurt_godel wrote: post #375
erdevs wrote: post #97

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…

> Also, clever cheating devices have been found in over the board chess competitions The most convincing candidate for such a device I've seen is an Illuminati Thumper Pro hidden in Hans's shoe: https://illuminati-magic.com/products/thumper . If you watch the footage of him getting scanned before his match with Alireza (and, crucially, before Magnus announced he was dropping), there are a couple of subtle things that…

You don't need something that transmits if you're searching for bug-like devices or any general integrated circuits with a nonlinear junction detector:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_junction_detector

I am very far removed from anything related to Chess, but if they want to get serious about this they should hire people who specialize in the federal-contracting adjacent field of TSCM (technical surveillance countermeasures).

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=tscm+tech...

I also think that people putting a lot of focus into shoes or other clothing articles underestimate the motivation and capability of people to use the traditional "prison wallet" method of concealing things.

Re: Dear Chess World

#443

Post by swyx »

SCAQTony wrote: post #411
erdevs wrote: post #97

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…

Perhaps play naked in a Faraday cage?

this is really the only way (maybe not naked, but change into preapproved uniforms)

Re: Dear Chess World

#445

Post by markwkw »

Chess is, in a way, doomed. At this point cheating by a smart perpetrator is nearly impossible to detect. - Miniature devices can even be implanted. You can probably already have a chess engine onboard your body. - Accomplices of a cheater only need to transmit a few bits of information to be useful - making cheating cheap when audience is allowed. - Statistical methods will not be able to detect a player increasing their apparent skill by a small margin (help with occasional moves, successively picking suggestions from a varied group of chess engines so that adherence to one engine cannot be proven)

Given this, we will be left with cheaters getting caught rarely through obvious slips in op-sec (device falls out, gets picked by a detector through unlucky occurrence)

or

We will be forever accusing people of cheating. They will deny it. We will ask them to explain why they made certain moves. They will fail to explain themselves sufficiently... Are we here yet?

Re: Dear Chess World

#446

Post by Sebb767 »

Tenoke wrote: post #303
tgtweak wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to cheat statistics. This is how they find accounting fraud as well.

It's actually fairly easy to cheat statistics. It happens literally all the time in Academia. There's a thousand ways to make a statistical analysis believably say what you want in a way where even other professionals don't realize is the case unless an expert does a thorough analysis.

It's easy to cheat a statistic you create. It's quite hard to cheat a statistic where you don't know who will look when at which particular data points.

Re: Dear Chess World

#447

Post by derac »

psychphysic wrote: post #390
root_axis wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many people might assume that a cheater needs guidance every move, thereby requiring a potentially more obvious cheating mechanism. That is not the case. IMO, this reasoning potentially implicates every high level player. If it's possible that two hints can account for the difference between 2600 and 2800, and a 19 year old kid under heavy scrutiny can exploit this weakness without being detected, it seems assured…

Hot take, but chess is a zombie sport. Software running in a smartphone can play deep games against each other. Chess engines aren't like car engines are to sprinting. They are more akin to text-to-image AIs but as though every single picture they produce is better than what any artist ever could produce. Part of that is because Chess is easily defined (the win conditions are comparatively simple). I'm rambling now a…

And yet the audience for chess engine tournaments is basically 0, while millions(?) watch human tournaments.

Re: Dear Chess World

#448

Post by Tenoke »

fieryscribe wrote: post #347
syncerr wrote: post #227

Hans is clearly cheating. Comparing his past games against what an engine would do is pretty damning. Chess engines are far superior to players and the best players in the world top out in the high 70s percent correlations (Magnus averages around 70%). Hans has a string of games at 100% correlation[0], meaning he's playing perfect games. Past players who achieved this later went on to admit to cheating[1]. Magnus kno…

Daniel Rensch and others have said that Magnus has not seen chesscom cheating algorithms or lists. It had been a rumor in the chess world for a while that Hans has cheated before

He hasn't been officially shown but that doesn't mean that someone in the know hasn't leaked it to him. He's deeply connected and respected in the chess world.

Further, even if he didn't see it people notice when GMs get bans as their accounts turn inactive (which they had in this case).

Re: Dear Chess World

#449

Post by [deleted] »

MauranKilom wrote: post #45
bombcar wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second best player in the world would be best positioned to cheat; they'd need a small advantage to become best. And the best player in the world could cheat, too, reducing their mental load and taking it easy. Both cases would likely be exposed by the cheaters getting lazy.

I don't think you become the best or second best player through a mindset that includes "I'll cheat if that's what it takes to reach the top".

[deleted]

Re: Dear Chess World

#450

Post by toolslive »

erdevs wrote: post #97

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…

You're right: the hint doesn't even have to be a move. It could also be an evaluation "it's better for white", or even: "there is a winning combination" which might be enough to get them to focus on finding it.
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