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A recent chess controversy

chicagobooth.edu

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Re: A recent chess controversy

#61
post #54

> Nakamura responded to Kramnik’s allegations by arguing that focusing on a particular streak while ignoring other games was cherry-picking. The researchers note that there’s a problem with this argument, too, as it violates the likelihood principle. This principle tells us the interpretation should only rely on the actual data observed, not the context in which it was collected. I don't quite understand this objecti…

Or if Bob Barker has opened door number 3 and there's a goat behind it.

Monty Hall.

Re: A recent chess controversy

#62
post #10

This is basically an article describing why you can’t just look at an event after it occurs, see that it has some extremely rare characteristics, and then determine it was unlikely to happen by chance. It is like asking someone to pick a random number between 1 and 1 million and then saying, “oh my god, it must not actually be random… the chances of choosing the exact number 729,619 is 1 in a million! That is too rar…

Yeah tbh it doesn't really go into chess-specific stats either You could look at a bunch of other metrics to identify cheating: how many errors/perfect moves^ and whether that's within the usual range. How well were the opponents playing? Etc If you consider that Nakamura might have been having a good day/week, was already stronger than his opponents, and some of them may have had bad games/days, you can change somet…

not really. this may be true for the average player, but as Magnus has explained multiple times, all he or another top GM would need to be near-unbeatable would be to check an engine in 1 or 2 critical positions per game. this essentially impossible to detect statistically. even if a cheater were to use an engine on every move, it would be trivial to just vary the engine used for each turn, vary the number of moves picked, sometimes play a slightly worse move to evade detection, etc etc

Re: A recent chess controversy

#63
post #8

This is basically an article describing why you can’t just look at an event after it occurs, see that it has some extremely rare characteristics, and then determine it was unlikely to happen by chance. It is like asking someone to pick a random number between 1 and 1 million and then saying, “oh my god, it must not actually be random… the chances of choosing the exact number 729,619 is 1 in a million! That is too rar…

“You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and I came in through the parking lot. And you won’t believe what happened. I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!” -Feynman, from Six Easy Pieces

Feynman is one of the best ever at explaining complicated concepts in ways almost everyone can understand. That is a very rare skill for the super intelligent to have.

Re: A recent chess controversy

#64
post #2

It is well known that Kramnik baselessly accuses everyone. The article seems to be more about statistics than chess, and doesn’t make any accusations. Kind of a click bait title IMO.

I'm just trying to figure out how you even cheat on chess, the only thing that comes to mind is moving pieces, and sneaking new ones on the board, but if there's enough cameras, how do you get away with it, eventually someone WILL notice, highlight it, point it out, and you will be shamed.

Just having someone who is following the game with a chess engine and who has a way to get a single message to you telling you that your opponent's last move was a serious blunder would be enough to give you a noticeable advantage.

For example look at the position in this video [1] from a recent game on Chess.com between Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana (the title of the video says Magnus vs Hikaru because the video covers 3 of Hikaru's games in the tournament).

I linked to a spot in the video a little before the part where one simple message could changed the game because the host is explaining what Hikaru is going to be trying to do. Briefly, trading pieces off is good for Hikaru, and that's what he starts to do.

You can see from the evaluation bar this Stockfish says he is slightly better.

Then he plays Bg5 which looks like an easy way for force a pair of bishops off, continuing the plan. But look at the evaluation bar! It quickly swings from 0.2 in favor of white to 1.7 in favor of black. But black can only realize that advantage by playing RxN, a move that Fabiano did not even consider. He went on to lose the game.

A prearranged signal from a confederate that meant "Hikaru just made a game changing blunder" would very likely have resulted in Fabiano seeing RxN. It's a move that many would spot if they were given the position as a puzzle and so knew there was a tactic somewhere.

[1] https://youtu.be/acjI2KqQ0gI?si=qkfkL6i53UDcBOQd&t=752

Re: A recent chess controversy

#65
I find it counter intuitive that the frequency of cheating matters. It's not something that happens randomly, people choose to. And if the #2 in the world decides to cheat it may be for different reasons than other players.

But, of course he doesn't. He streams all his games and gives constant stream of consciousness commentary. If you can explain your top level moves live with seconds per move, you aren't cheating.

Re: A recent chess controversy

#66
It's frustrating that their entire analysis is based on the claim that cheating occurs in maybe 1 out of 10,000 games; they got this from a quote in an interview with the deputy president of the World Chess Federation after he had been beaten in a charity match by someone who admitted cheating. To their credit they also ran the analysis assuming cheating is 1/500 and the odds rose to 7%. I suppose it makes sense that they are merely rebutting the accusations based on the same methodology but it's still frustrating.

Re: A recent chess controversy

#67
post #10

This is basically an article describing why you can’t just look at an event after it occurs, see that it has some extremely rare characteristics, and then determine it was unlikely to happen by chance. It is like asking someone to pick a random number between 1 and 1 million and then saying, “oh my god, it must not actually be random… the chances of choosing the exact number 729,619 is 1 in a million! That is too rar…

Yeah tbh it doesn't really go into chess-specific stats either You could look at a bunch of other metrics to identify cheating: how many errors/perfect moves^ and whether that's within the usual range. How well were the opponents playing? Etc If you consider that Nakamura might have been having a good day/week, was already stronger than his opponents, and some of them may have had bad games/days, you can change somet…

Is that bit in The Queen’s Gambit about chess players coaching each other between matches complete bullshit? Or should one expect a player to occasionally play uncharacteristically when the stakes are high because they would seek out advice which skews their play?

Also psychological games fall neatly into the scenario you describe. I play better and you play worse because I got into your head, or sent the noisy people to be across the hall from you instead of from me, so I slept like a baby and you didn’t.

Re: A recent chess controversy

#68
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the old Soviet/US rivalry days there was an accusation of cheating that I thought was novel. The accusation was that the Soviet players in the middle rounds were doing subtle not-right moves with the US #1. This forced the lead US player to put way too much effort into figuring out if it was some new line that he didn't know about and tiring him out. Then by the time he got to the final he was exhausted and confus…

I'm not inclined to see that as cheating .

Right, it's collusion.

Re: A recent chess controversy

#69
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not inclined to see that as cheating .

Right, it's collusion.

No? It's a technique that could readily be done by one person, and teams are allowed to strategize. Bluffing/deception is kosher in chess, just harder as the key elements of the game are all public.

Before computers put an end to the practice, long games used to adjourn overnight. https://www.chess.com/terms/chess-adjournment

> During adjournments, players could count on the help of other strong masters, called seconds. These seconds would analyze the position and tell the player what they should play when the game resumed.

Re: A recent chess controversy

#70

> Nakamura responded to Kramnik’s allegations by arguing that focusing on a particular streak while ignoring other games was cherry-picking. The researchers note that there’s a problem with this argument, too, as it violates the likelihood principle. This principle tells us the interpretation should only rely on the actual data observed, not the context in which it was collected. I don't quite understand this objecti…

I believe they're speaking within the scope of the Bayesian analysis. We could interpret games outside of the winning streak as evidence to whether he's a cheater or not. Instead, I believe they are looking at the question of "given this winning streak in particular, what's the probability of him cheating in this set of games"?

They start with a prior (very low probability), I'm assuming they use the implied probabilities from the Elo differences, and then update that prior based on the wins. That's enough to find the posterior they're interested in, without needing to look outside the winning streak.

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