> Hans is known to have cheated Do you have a link to this? Proof that this player has cheated in the past would be the strongest evidence, I believe, he'd do so again.
He admits to cheating in the video linked below. However, that's when he was 12 (and 16) and his friend helped. It is much more different situation then anal beads or electronics in your shoe. Disclaimer: don't know much about chess, let alone professional chess.
Also his coach was caught cheating in a titled tournament on chess.com
> the opinion of the famous player This is a hilariously inaccurate description of magnus. He is widely regarded as the greatest chess player to have ever lived. His opinion on what it takes to play high level chess is worth taking extremely seriously. It's not like he has a history of temper tantrums or petulant behavior; he's an upstanding custodian of the mantle of world champion.
> He is widely regarded as the greatest chess player to have ever lived. By whom exactly? He has a large fan club on the internet and uses modern social network very well but I don’t think there is a wide consensus that he is better than Kasparov at his prime. I personally don’t believe him to be better than neither Fischer nor Botvinnik but that’s only me and is impossible to verify anyway. And no, his opinion again…
Well he does have the highest ELO of all time, no?
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…
> 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 source? sounds like bs to me
If you wrote a computer program with 3 bugs, how long would it take you to fix the bugs if someone did / didn't tell you where the bugs where?
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…
Even better, in that video he has a pack of gum that sets off the sensor, the security guard takes it, finishes the scan, and then gives it back! Obviously not proof of cheating but how hard would it have been to hide a device in that pack of gum?
Here is a crazy idea. If you get caught cheating, even once, you should be banned for life. Otherwise we end up in a lose-lose situation. It’s almost impossible for Magnus to prove Niemann cheated on that game. It’s impossible for Niemann to prove he didn’t cheat. But shouldn’t matter. He was caught cheating before, he shouldn’t have been allowed to compete again. I don’t remember Ben Johnson or Lance Armstrong getti…
Nieman was never caught cheating OTB
This is correct. Despite FIDE's request, there is not yet official collaboration between chess.com Fair Play and FIDE.
Niemann, as black, equalized reasonably early on and then had a consistent lead against Magnus the entire game . Magnus did make mistakes in the game, but only after a near-perfect grind for 27 moves. To be clear, I'm not saying this to make a claim that this is definitive proof of anything. I'm pointing out that the theory that Magnus simply blundered away the game doesn't hold water. Niemann had the advantage—as bl…
> Niemann, as black, equalized reasonably early on and then had a consistent lead against Magnus the entire game. Magnus did make mistakes in the game, but only after a near-perfect grind for 27 moves. Of course he played near-perfectly for 27 moves. That's what it means to be a 2700 (or even a 2500, if you think his recent ratings growth is the product of cheating). Virtually any high-level game will look like that…
Can we get concrete statistics on that? What does an actual 2700 game look like in terms of perfect move percentage? What about Hans?
Niemann, as black, equalized reasonably early on and then had a consistent lead against Magnus the entire game . Magnus did make mistakes in the game, but only after a near-perfect grind for 27 moves. To be clear, I'm not saying this to make a claim that this is definitive proof of anything. I'm pointing out that the theory that Magnus simply blundered away the game doesn't hold water. Niemann had the advantage—as bl…
27 moves being mostly opening prep?
One of the chief complaints here is that it was an unusual line, specifically chosen by Magnus to be unlikely to have been explored during preparation.
You're conflating accuracy with engine correlation. Having a perfectly accurate game means you didn't make any moves that caused a centipawn loss. Having 100% engine correlation means you're making the exact moves the engine would make.
The engine scores centipawn loss against the perfect move (according to the engine). The engine plays the move with the lowest centipawn loss itself. How are those two different?
If there are multiple good moves, they all count as accurate.
Using an ultra-high ELO chess engine to score each possible move, then reversing through the players moves and seeing how often it would have been a positive move (one that shifts the balance of the game in your favor) - or perfect move (not sure which). It is extremely rare to make 100% perfect moves in a game, let alone a series of games. Typical gameplay for high level chess player doesn't peak over 72-75% for a g…
It's also worth pointing out that a player's odds of making the perfect move are inverse to their opponent's ELO: as the level of play rises, finding the right play becomes exponentially harder. The data suggests he's sometimes playing other grandmasters as good as those grandmasters would play a rando on Lichess.
> Niemann, as black, equalized reasonably early on and then had a consistent lead against Magnus the entire game. Magnus did make mistakes in the game, but only after a near-perfect grind for 27 moves. Of course he played near-perfectly for 27 moves. That's what it means to be a 2700 (or even a 2500, if you think his recent ratings growth is the product of cheating). Virtually any high-level game will look like that…
Can we get concrete statistics on that? What does an actual 2700 game look like in terms of perfect move percentage? What about Hans?
What I read was that Hans' average centipawn loss in that game looked completely normal, for him or for any GM at that level.