Checkmate: Cheating Detection
joeposnanski.substack.com
joeposnanski.substack.com
There's no concrete, hard evidence of Niemann cheating.
I don't think you can go as far as "it's unfair to suspect him without hard evidence, or without figuring out how he could have cheated".
There are things which are suspicious about Niemann. (e.g. His history of cheating in online games, including where prize money is involved. During the recent brouhaha, chess.com banned his account, and stated that his cheating has gone beyond what he publicly stated).
Except not at all, or not anymore than anyone could "beat" the world's foremost martial artist, with a gun.
For an absolute novice to mimick 100% or even a large amount of chess engine moves, it would be exceedingly obvious that they are cheating, even by the most cursory and rudimentary of cheating detection measures and mildly versed (in chess) observers.
The serious problem of cheating in chess, is not at all that a John Doe with zero chess knowledge would rise up the ranks and become the world champion cheating. The scary prospect is when cheating is done by strong chess players, because they only need two or three tips from an engine a game, to have a massive advantage over everybody else.
Carlsen himself discussed this topic last year: https://youtu.be/VcbHmHHwlUQ
I think this might be slightly wrong. The original battle was lost by deep blue but the "real" deep blue- kasparov match, the well publicized one in 1997, in which Kasparov accused IBM of having humans behind it was lost by kasparov.
The last game was the shortest ever game in which Kasparov had ever lost. I think it lasted around 19 moves.
What's ironic is that in the current St Louis match the organizers were checking if Kasparov had a computer to assist him and in the deep blue match the organizers were checking if Deep Blue had a human to assist it.
> Besides, do you know what Devon Allen’s reaction time was? It was 0.99 seconds. One thousandth of a second too fast, according to World Athletics’ science. They’re THAT sure that .01 seconds
That should read 0.099 seconds and 0.001 seconds respectively.
Magnus Carlsen would not be the first world champion to go to war with FIDE, and it’s surprising how recent stories don’t mention the surprising withdrawal-but-not-retirement of Carlsen from championship play here. Put together with the other puzzle pieces, ot feels like Magnus is trying to play a game that’s not on the board.
The last candidates tournaments and championship matches have IMHO been boring, over-prepared, extremely risk-averse, uninspiring stuff, and it’s not fun to watch Carlsen/Caruana/Nepo loaded like Atlas or Sysiphus. More enjoyable things happen in looser formats. So some disruption sounds good to me.
https://en.chessbase.com/post/is-hans-niemann-cheating-world...
here's the link I was talking about https://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=80630&start... at the bottom of the page in the DrCliche post
https://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=80630&start...
in the post by DrCliche. I have no idea how accurate his stats are, but if they are accurate, it doesn't look good for Hansi
It seems to me that the entire chess community is absolutely ruining this guy's life on an accusation without any proof. This chess champ had clout to burry this guy with a tweet.
Carlsen won't play in future tournaments where this guy is also there and won't do a rematch. It seems like he is just sulking.
From an outsider of the game, without any proof and without a rematch, everyone is destroying Niemann unjustly. Comedians ripping into him.
This scandal has removed any interest I may have had in competitive chess not because of the possible cheating, but how the chess world handled it.
It's also weird that if someone is good enough to beat one of the best chess players in the world, that they would also resort to cheating against much weaker opponents.
He did when he was 12 and 16. It's impossible to assess whether that holds value (particularly difficult because Niemann is 19). I wouldn't be surprised if other professional chess players cheated as young teenagers.
Also cheating in online chess is a very low barrier if entry. Anyone can do it. When I did cheat in counter strike, it was as simple as wanting to see how it worked. Downloading some questionable binaries and running them.
A simile might be downloading an illegal copy of windows and stealing a car. Both are technically stealing, but stealing windows is not a predictor that you are going to steal a car.
Cheating in person so discreetly that no one is even sure that it happened is the opposite. It would have required custom hardware, discreet placement, and a lot of practice reading the data. Nothing suggests that he was a hardware engineer if any sort. How many accomplices did he have? The more people, the harder to keep a secret.
Similarly, his offers to rematch and play even naked are really doubling down. Magnus seems scared to entertain these matches.
It might make sense to have a theory of how he was cheating before accepting a rematch.
Magnus also has nothing to gain. If Magnus loses he looks like a jerk for accusing him of cheating, or an idiot for not being able to setup conditions that prevent him from cheating.
If Magnus wins, he proves nothing since he’s expected to win. All it proves is that the first game was a fluke and they’re ratings disparities are accurate.
Apparently, even if this person was or was not cheating, refusing a rematch and calling him a cheater was the best possible move.
And there's the incredible sharp increase of rating, basically from 2400 IM level in 2021 to Super GM 2700 level (live ratings) within 2 years. Yes, that is legitimately possible, other players had similar incredible gains, so it's not completely unheard of, but he is either one of the greatest improvers of all-time or something is wrong.
Secondly, that increase in rating is totally normal for someone playing around that level.
Magnus took about half that time to go from 2300 to 2500.
Ding took like 1yr for similar
Alireza simiar...
To be precise he was 2484 in 2021-Jan as you can verify here https://ratings.fide.com/profile/2093596/chart
Hence he went from IM level to Super GM level within 1 year and 9 month.
Another coincidence is that GM Maxim Dlugy, a coach of Hans, is a known cheater.
This is a situation where both parties have reasons to lie and there's no solid evidence for anything. There's no reason to do anything or blame anyone until any new information comes up.
Withdrawing from a round-robin and losing a game on purpose are quite strong indications of this.
It's obviously a bad situation for the chess world. ... But, I think if you strongly believe cheating is going on without being addressed, protest seems an entirely understandable.
this is just a short summary of the Carlson-Niemann cheating accusation, with a tiny rant about technology in sport
Hans is probably hitting stride right now having been going fulltime on chess for about 8 years. Cheating likely not necessary, flipside, streamers having to think and deal with the stream which usually results in streamers being underrated.
Levon's game changed my mind. This is exactly what computers do sometimes. Some odd move that is unexplainable and then they blow you off the board. This is blowing levon off the board in a njadorf... he's the njadorf expert. No I'm now in the boat he's cheating now.
Levon blundered, mate. Clearly so.
Quote from Levon about this event: "So far I am playing so badly that any points that I get are kind of a miracle"
Hans certainly lied by a significant amount.
There was a theory that someone on Magnus' team leaked their prep to Hans. Something along those lines may make the comment not a lie but I await evidence. To prove an admitted cheater isn't cheating takes extra effort.
>Levon blundered, mate. Clearly so.
Definitely a blunder, :snirk: When playing against an engine every human eventually blunders. If you're a supergm you blunder in an unusual way. Like moving a center pawn 1 square. :snirk:
>Quote from Levon about this event: "So far I am playing so badly that any points that I get are kind of a miracle"
Levon who is currently in 8th place isn't doing that badly.
Carlsen whose only loss is hans and he either drew or crushed everyone else...
> To prove an admitted cheater isn't cheating takes extra effort.
What logic is this? If you commit one crime, now forever you must prove your innocence? That's dumb.
It is very obvious that e6 in the game with Levon was a huge blunder. It is not remarkable that a super GM found this.
If any other 2700 found this, would you take it as evidence they were cheating?
> Levon who is currently in 8th place isn't doing that badly.
The point is he admits he was doing poorly. And Hans is in 7th, so clearly having a better tournament.
> Carlsen whose only loss is hans and he either drew or crushed everyone else...
You know Hans didn't "win" that game, right? Carlsen resigned during the first move.
Are you following the events at all or just parroting talking points and making shit up?
You are typically not given an opportunity to prove your innocence, once you have a criminal record. If you apply for a job or apartment and fail the background check, it is usually kthxbye. This is unfortunate in many ways, but it is how the world works.
You're just twisting the argument around, go troll somewhere else.
One current reality of the chess world is that federations and playing sites usually won't sanction players for misconduct that is not under their jurisdiction. In Niemann's case, that meant his record of cheating on chess.com didn't stop him from playing in the Sinquefield Cup or in the current Julius Baer tournament. There are several grandmasters complaining about this. They want federations and sites to coordinate with each other, so cheating in one place gets you banned from all of them.
Again, whether that's good or bad is up to you, but it's sort of like someone committing a string of crimes in one country and getting to start over in another one. That just doesn't work any more.
That is what I said, I think. The question of proving your innocence usually doesn't come up. Private parties simply decide to do business with someone else instead of you, game over.
Niemann is currently not under any USCF or FIDE sanctions afaik, and there are lots of open tournaments that anyone can play in as long as they are not under sanctions, so Niemann is unconditionally allowed to play in those. The Sinquefield and Baer tournaments are closed invitationals and some people are of the view that people with cheating records shouldn't receive invitations to those sorts of events. That is an intermediate view, between people saying an online cheating record shouldn't affect OTB playing opportunities, and other people saying cheating anywhere should mean getting banned everywhere.
Your view on the rights and wrongs of this are up to you. I don't claim special wisdom. I can observe that other people's views are all over the place. I do know that your expectations should be formed by seeing what happens in reality, rather than by what you would prefer to see happen.
[trust: noun] assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone.
If someone demonstrates they’re untrustworthy by cheating to meet a selfish ‘want’ (success, status, attention) rather than out of desperation for a ‘need’ (feeding their family), why would you ever trust them again without evidence of some kind of personality transforming life event?
Also, competition isn’t just about winning - only one person ultimately wins after all - the other players have to be able to take pleasure and meaning from just taking part, and the suspicion of cheating completely undermines that - it sullies the whole endeavour for both players and spectators.