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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

#51

Post by squidbeak »

systemvoltage wrote: post #15
icelancer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only by K factor; those calculations don't hold at the highest levels, the distribution is skewed. Magnus also rarely loses with the white pieces in classical; his last loss was in 2018 at Biel vs. a much better player than Hans.

Not correct, the current rating doesn't reflect growing player's strength. It takes time for them to accrue rating. Alireza used to be beat players 200 points higher as he was climbing through the ladders. Hans just topped 2700. There is also the reverse side of the coin that top players peak at a rating and then decline as they age. Not saying Magnus is, but it is not a possibility that can be ruled out.

Alireza was able to speak accurately and in depth in his post game interviews along the way. Niemann doesn't seem able to do this.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#52

Post by yuubi »

IncRnd wrote: post #38

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 thing…

for instance, the shoe-mount roulette predictor of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eudaemonic_Pie

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#53

Post by furyofantares »

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…

Everyone (that talked on the forums, a minority of players) ran Poker Tracker / Hold'em Manager but even in that community I think it was considered shady to use a shared database or to undergo a large datamining operation of hands you weren't involved in.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#54

Post by systemvoltage »

squidbeak wrote: post #51
systemvoltage wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not correct, the current rating doesn't reflect growing player's strength. It takes time for them to accrue rating. Alireza used to be beat players 200 points higher as he was climbing through the ladders. Hans just topped 2700. There is also the reverse side of the coin that top players peak at a rating and then decline as they age. Not saying Magnus is, but it is not a possibility that can be ruled out.

Alireza was able to speak accurately and in depth in his post game interviews along the way. Niemann doesn't seem able to do this.

What are you talking about? He talked for 17 mins and according to GothamChess and PowerPlayChess, it was one of the best chess interviews ever.

Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCeJrItfQqw

I don't get it. HN seems to be always on the skeptical side when accusing anyone, here we're seeing people pile up on Hans without any evidence whatsoever.

The fact of the matter is, no one knows why Magnus quit.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#57

Post by pge »

lovemenot wrote: post #30
icelancer wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It turns out that "Clever Hans" was reading subconscious body language cues from Magnus

background for anyone that didn’t get this joke:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#58

Post by hocuspocus »

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?

In the moment I doubt a top GM would notice. Everyone is preparing using state-of-the-art chess engines and taking inspiration, even from moves that would have been considered crazy a decade ago.

After the fact, it'd probably be more obvious. Human players will typically avoid unnatural moves that require long sequences of perfect play before they pay off.

But top players are also the best qualified at cheating in a way that wouldn't raise suspicion. Many games are lost or drawn because of small mistakes or inaccuracies during the endgame. And playing a perfect endgame is not implausible at this level.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#59

Post by FartyMcFarter »

If one really wanted to cheat with a computer, I imagine it would be better to only carry around enough hardware to communicate wirelessly with it, rather than the whole thing.

This would be harder to detect as the amount of hardware would be much smaller, and it would allow using a more powerful computer.

Re: Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes

#60

Post by latexr »

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…

I played casually many years ago. I remember reading about that strategy to find the fish¹ and have no doubt it was reasonably widespread, because I then opened the cash tables² and noticed that despite a number of them having vacant seats, a couple had a waitlist. Sure enough, opening the game you could see that most players were trying to take from the same person.

That lead to an interesting counter-strategy: because most players were aiming to sucker a single target they heavily avoided playing anyone else, which meant that by playing a little more aggressively one could steal³ from them as well.

Can’t say how viable that would be on the long run, as I only tried it briefly. My goal was to have fun playing and that definitely wasn’t. I stopped playing altogether shortly after.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_poker_terms#fish

² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_game

³ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steal_(poker)

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