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Dear Chess World

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Re: Dear Chess World

#861

Post by morelisp »

jansan wrote: post #810
lupire wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangent: any hack magician that uses that device deserves to lose their career.

As opposed to chess, magic is about lying and cheating. Everybody knows it and everybody is fine with it in magic, as you can see here in Dary's legendary ambitious card routine: https://youtu.be/w4iu5FMaR2o?t=71 Edit: At the grand finale at 7:51 he says it again: "I haven't cheated yet, but it's coming up."

Nonetheless there's a rough ranking of "acceptable lies", and a thumper - anything with a secretly complicit audience member, really - ranks near the bottom of that.

Re: Dear Chess World

#862

Post by rurban »

aqme28 wrote: post #385
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…

That "100%" analysis is very deeply flawed. The author of the video even issued a retraction ( https://twitter.com/IglesiasYosha/status/1574308784566067201... ). It's cherry-picked games and it doesn't compare to the "engine correlation" of other high ranked players against similar opponents. I would not rely on it as evidence that Hans is "clearly cheating."

No it's not. Just the probability calculation had a few flaws. The string of 100% games, esp. in the few tournament games he needed a win, is decisive. Note that he played a lot of games in each tournament on the 70% level, to fool statistics.

Re: Dear Chess World

#863

Post by KvanteKat »

return_to_monke wrote: post #847
acheron wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

…by a lower ranked one who is already a known cheater .

He did cheat in online chess. Other than that, what do you mean "known cheater"?

Surely he means just that; i.e. Hans Niemann is known to have cheated in past games (these were online games and it must be noted that Niemann maintains that he has never cheated before or since the and never in an "over the board" tournament).

Re: Dear Chess World

#864

Post by ddalex »

andrepd wrote: post #427
stouset wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What hard evidence—exactly—do you expect Carlsen to be able to produce? Alternatively, imagine anyone in a similar position. What hard evidence can anyone produce in situations such as this? 100% serious question.

Doesn't than line of thinking mean that anybody can accuse somebody of cheating when they unexpectedly beat them?

There is no smoking gun, but there is a lot of smoke. The ease with which Niemann pulled out of the hand a couple of brilliant moves, without spending too much time thinking about it, on an unusual line, is highly suspicious.

Re: Dear Chess World

#865

Post by fastball »

warinukraine wrote: post #658
chrononaut wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am confused. Isn't that what he essentially said? What other accusations is he making (the "more than he publicly admitted" part aligns to your Chess.com reference), other than the addition of his observations of his behaviors during their match? Are you referring to the concluding paragraph?

No, I agree with the person you're responding to. Saying "I refuse to play with known cheaters" is better than "He's cheating and so I don't want to play with him". With the letter you suddenly have to prove something really difficult. With the former you have absolutely nothing to prove.

But.... that is what he said. Please highlight the part of the statement where he said something that was closer to "he is a known cheater" vs. "he is cheating".

Re: Dear Chess World

#866

Post by TheFattestNinja »

victor9000 wrote: post #853
Waterluvian wrote: post #494

I have no opinions on the actual event given I have no clue what the details are. But accusing someone of cheating without any concrete evidence doesn’t sit well with me. It creates a situation where it declares all exceptional cases impossible. It’s impossible for growth. It’s impossible that someone could lose to a weaker player. I suspect that people are able to say “even without concrete evidence, this is astrono…

There's no smoking gun, but it's so blatantly obvious. Hans has floundered incredibly in postgame analysis after some of his recent wins, saying things like "I don't need to show variations" and "chess speaks for itself". For those who are not familiar, postgame analysis is where a player sits down with a commentator (often a retired GM) and discusses the key positions in the game. This universally involves describin…

The analysis video was weird. But you have to discount that under that 1) he had just lost a winning game, so probably pretty tilted 2) he was already in the eye of the storm about Magnus 3) he might just be a bit of a dick personally.

If a position has 1 winning move out of 10, you have 10% to nail it even if you are a bozo. I'd say that as a good player you'd do better than random. So while unlikely he might have just got lucky against Magnus (if we want to assume the impossibility of him just having become good).

I agree with parent that the accusation is terrible. 1) it comes from someone in a position of power, 2) it comes from someone who is party injured in the matter (saltiness factor) 3) is completely unfounded as of now. There are just suspicions and theories. 4) it's playing with the accusation without committing to it, kinda like "ill commit only if it's convenient to me". 5) his prior cheating is immaterial. Especially as a child. No one cares that he "has cheated", the point of the matter is "did he cheat in this instance".

Is it bad optics that the guy beating Magnus as an underdog is a known past cheater? Yes. Is it relevant to "he beat Magnus here"? no.

Innocent till proven guilty

Re: Dear Chess World

#867

Post by LightG »

I have sympathy with Magnus.

Once a cheat, not always a cheat ... but you built the reputation of being a cheat and that's all on the cheat.

It's on the cheat to literally bend-over backwards (lol) to assure people they have changed.

Re: Dear Chess World

#868

Post by LightG »

root_axis wrote: post #198
peter422 wrote: post #21

For all the people defending Hans, he has admitted to cheating in real, official, prize money online tournaments, and chess.com believes that in his apology he still lied about the extent of his cheating. Maybe Hans did cheat OTB, maybe he didn't, but the tough part about reputation is it is very hard to build and very easy to break. And Hans had proven to the world that he would cheat. I personally don't think Hans…

As an outsider to the chess world, this all seems like a roundabout way of saying "we have no evidence that he cheated, but in lieu of evidence let's go with gut feelings".

I cheated with your wife, but would you like to go to dinner with me to discuss business? I promise I won't do it again.

Thanks

Re: Dear Chess World

#869

Post by dagw »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #511
psychphysic wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Machines can throw objects faster, further, and more accurate than humans, but field sports are still popular. It's interesting not because the object goes far, but because it's being done by a human.

but field sports are still popular.

Are they? The throwing sports? How many people do you know who regularly follow shotputting or javelin (outside of possibly the olympics). How much do the top 20 javelin throwers in the world earn in sponsorship and prize money and how does that compare to other actually popular sports.

I have no doubt that chess will remain at least as popular as javelin or shot-put for the foreseable future. I'm just not sure that counts as 'popular'.

Re: Dear Chess World

#870

Post by John23832 »

nonethewiser wrote: post #316
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…

> (or Niemann, if concrete evidence against him emerges) This window seems closed though. Carlsen seems to have no evidence. Where else could the evidence come from? All we have is character attacks. Even if justified, they can't prove that he cheated. All we know for sure is that Carlsen accused him of cheating with no evidence.

That's not true. Both he and Chess.com both say that they have evidence to the extent of Hans' cheating. Both have asked Neimann for the ability to speak freely without threat of libel.

Ball is in Han's court.

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