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

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

#61

Post by ghank »

frumper wrote: post #50
zqlamp wrote: post #25

The chess.com campaign continues. 100 games are nothing online, Carlsen/Firouzja play that in a single night. The headline is pure propaganda and omits the word "online". In fact, the article tries to paint Niemann as a liar while the purported facts pretty much match what he admitted to. One cheating in a titled tournament at age 12 and multiple cheats at the beginning of 2020. He said he was 16, so he was barely 17…

Did I miss where cheating online is somehow not as bad as cheating in person? I understand it's harder to cheat in person, but I never thought it was "worse" to cheat in person because it's the worst thing you can do to your opponents in either an online, or an in-person game.

You miss that 100 classical games OTB are an eternity, and 100 online blitz games are nothing.

And yes, while cheating online is shabby, hardly anyone took online chess seriously before the big money tournaments started during the pandemic.

And that the whole chess.com affair is a side show that is exploited for streamer content and clicks. The relevant issue is cheating or not cheating in the Sinquefield cup.

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

#62

Post by robswc »

Hamcha wrote: post #38
whartung wrote: post #32

So, I'm not much of a chess person, much less a competitive chess person. Can the "over the board" cheating potential be reduced with a 5 minute "tape delay" of broadcasting the game? Is that enough time to thwart the influence of an external signal? Seems to me the only way this person can redeem himself is through over the board play under strict conditions ("Come dressed in shorts, a t-shirt and sandals"). But I d…

In blitz, 5 minutes totally would work, in classical chess I have my doubts. The Sinquefield Cup (the tournament where the drama started) added a 15 minute delay which would be much more noticeable and less forgiving.

That's a question I was going to ask. Sure, not _every_ move is 5 min, but wouldn't a 5 min delay almost ensure any cheater would play mostly more than 5 min, each turn? (besides some simple moves, ofc)

Or is it that they only need to cheat at a few points where taking more than 5 min wouldn't be abnormal at all?

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

#63

Post by ccooffee »

perihelions wrote: post #9
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #6

Cheating at 3+2 games while streaming? How's it is even possible to input all moves/positions into a chess program in parallel too main game and also while commenting? IMO it is impossible without some very specialized software or external assistance who would do the clicks. And how does he cheat in over the board events?

Computer vision for chess is widely available (and very useful!) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19563768 ( "Chessvision.ai – Analyze chess position from websites, images or video" , 49 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21162466 ( "Show HN: ChessBoss – enhancing physical chessboards with computer vision" , 36 comments)

Here's a story from Reddit about someone using these systems during over-the-board play to cheat: https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/xigy...

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

#64

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

ghank wrote: post #56
angio wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He cheated in prize money tournaments. That's borderline fraud.

Here is Carlsen taking a move from Howell in a Lichess prize tournament, which he'd never do OTB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNMcnrmb97g

The move was pretty obvious.

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

#65

Post by Bud »

jrm4 wrote: post #54
Bud wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh. Really? I mean, not in baseball. Not in football. Not in basketball. Not even in President of the United States. What is this alternate reality you're in, and what is your list of "everything else"? Citations, please.

I didn't go deep on it, but it seemed like dude's cheating was repeated, open, and notorious.

It was.

I was addressing the other part of your statement, however.

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

#66

Post by fredoliveira »

jayski wrote: post #49
jrm4 wrote: 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.

I'm not a fan of this player, I don't even play chess. Still it sounds a bit harsh to me that a child that cheated online can never in his adult life participate in chess tournaments. If he had cheated as an adult I would have a different opinion.

Well, that's where the report comes in. He has cheated several times as an adult too.

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

#67

Post by somenameforme »

MAXPOOL wrote: post #19

The next 'move' for cheaters is to use chess computers in a way that passes 'Chess Turing Test' and makes cheating indistinguishable from normal human play under analysis. When there is money in the game, there is incentive to cheat. > The report says dozens of grandmasters have been caught cheating on the website, including four of the top-100 players in the world who confessed. There are probably smart cheaters alr…

Cheat detection isn't done by only by move analysis, but by an extensive profiling of a person and games based on many factors beyond even just the moves. For instance one of the easiest ways to catch a weak player cheating is move times. Such a player will have no idea whether a move is trivial or works only due to an exceptionally precise and lengthy series of counter-intuitive calculations that no human could do without a significant think. And so they'll tend to rely both in approximately the same amount of time.

Even during the Carlsen-Niemann game it was meta-factors that initially clued Carlsen in. Niemann was playing without any significant effort or tension, in spite of playing in a game where he was outplaying the world champion. And after the game he was unable to explain his own ideas, proposed ideas that were simply losing, referenced games that did not exist, and was generally (relative to the class of player here) clueless. None of that final section is definitive proof of cheating to say the least, but it helps create a probabilistic profile of a player (and a game).

The point of this is that even a computer that played human-like (which I would argue will not happen for the distantly foreseeable future), would be just one factor among many in busting cheaters. I expect this is why Magnus was also initially reluctant to directly accuse him of cheating. He felt he was cheating based on the meta-factors and probably got folks more capable than himself to evaluate the technical factors, and when that also came up as a redflag - yeah, the dude's a cheater.

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

#68

Post by frumper »

ghank wrote: post #61
frumper wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did I miss where cheating online is somehow not as bad as cheating in person? I understand it's harder to cheat in person, but I never thought it was "worse" to cheat in person because it's the worst thing you can do to your opponents in either an online, or an in-person game.

You miss that 100 classical games OTB are an eternity, and 100 online blitz games are nothing. And yes, while cheating online is shabby, hardly anyone took online chess seriously before the big money tournaments started during the pandemic. And that the whole chess.com affair is a side show that is exploited for streamer content and clicks. The relevant issue is cheating or not cheating in the Sinquefield cup.

A cheater is a cheater. They are making a choice to cheat. It's not an accident. They know it's wrong, they know their conduct is hurtful. It doesn't make any sense to say that no one took it serious. I'm sure people that lost to him would feel otherwise. If he's so good why would he even bother cheating in tournaments?

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

#69

Post by pessimizer »

MAXPOOL wrote: post #19

The next 'move' for cheaters is to use chess computers in a way that passes 'Chess Turing Test' and makes cheating indistinguishable from normal human play under analysis. When there is money in the game, there is incentive to cheat. > The report says dozens of grandmasters have been caught cheating on the website, including four of the top-100 players in the world who confessed. There are probably smart cheaters alr…

> makes cheating indistinguishable from normal human play under analysis.

From what I understand, Niemann got into trouble because people thought that he wasn't able to adequately provide the analysis i.e. the reasoning behind some of his own moves. You'd need a live auxiliary AI to tutor the cheater in how to explain why a particular move was made.

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

#70

Post by bombcar »

MAXPOOL wrote: post #19

The next 'move' for cheaters is to use chess computers in a way that passes 'Chess Turing Test' and makes cheating indistinguishable from normal human play under analysis. When there is money in the game, there is incentive to cheat. > The report says dozens of grandmasters have been caught cheating on the website, including four of the top-100 players in the world who confessed. There are probably smart cheaters alr…

The best players only need one or two notes, even something as simple as "there's a good play here" twice a game could throw things dramatically.

That is harder, almost as hard as playing for real, but doable. Much easier to just be a mechanical turk for sharkfish or whatever it's called.

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