Magnus Carlsen Finally Speaks on Chess Cheating Scandal, Sows Even More Chaos | Hacker News Reader

Magnus Carlsen Finally Speaks on Chess Cheating Scandal, Sows Even More Chaos

vice.com

28 pointsisaacfrond32 comments

"Magnus Carlsen finally speaks on Chess Cheating Scandal"

No he didn't (from the article!):

“Unfortunately I cannot particularly speak on that”

They quote him as not wanting to speak on it not only once, but twice, yet they still give the article this title. Genuinely farcical journalism.

if you watch the video, which is on his youtube channel, yes he says “I don’t want to speak on this”, but then he does end up saying quite a lot anyway

Facts don't generate clicks

The title is much more accurate than the quote, since he did in fact talk quite a bit about the scandal. Much of it obliquely and by implication.

If you suspect that someone is cheating, playing against them can be very frustrating and decreases performance. Niemann is suspected and his mentor has been suspected in the past. Ken Regan analyzed Niemann online and offline games from the last two years and found noting (statistically) suspicious, but:

> It turns out that not only did Niemann perform almost exactly as expected of him in terms of move accuracy, but his opponents are the ones who underperformed against him. https://en.chessbase.com/post/is-hans-niemann-cheating-world...

Of course, statistical analysis over all games can't detect cheating that is used sparingly only on few important occasions. Chess players are generally not idiots and statistical methods are known to all. If Niemann gets help only for 1-3 moves in few important games per year, statistics can't catch him.

If Carlsen can't find evidence, he can avoid playing in the same tournaments as Niemann. So can others. Attending tournaments and losing games on purpose is not right. It affects other people.

The most convincing case against I've seen against Niemann is that he appears to play absurdly much better (200 Elo!) in games that are broadcast, and where cheating with an accomplice would thus be easy [0]. The tournament being broadcast explains the majority of the variation in his performance during the time period. That's standard statistics, with easy to understand methodology. While after reading your article, I just don't understand Regan's methodology, his presentation of results, nor his evasive answer to the question of broadcast games.

Now, of course Regan is an expert on the topic. But he is also making a far worse case than the "zealous amateurs" as the article calls it. It really is coming across just as an argument from authority. (Maybe the full 90 minute interview is better, and it's just the article that's shit.)

[0] https://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?p=933597&sid=1fd7...

I think his method is straight forward, simple and well justified. He calculates "move match" agreement with engine's first line, move-match percentage, average error per move judged by computer, (uneven positions count less) and goes from there to calculate Raw Outlier Index.

Here is the data: https://cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/chess/fidelity/data/Niemann/

Here is some reasoning and links to articles: https://cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/chess/fidelity/

> Here is the data: https://cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/chess/fidelity/data/Niemann/

Yes, that's what I mean by his presentation of results. That's a dozen text files with undocumented schemas, and no interpretation of the results or contextualizing them.

> Here is some reasoning and links to articles: https://cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/chess/fidelity/

Yes, I've also seen that page, and tried reading the papers. You know what the outcome is? That the links to the research description, overview, papers, and talks are all dead.

Can the professionals playing chess receive visual signals from the audience?

That should be good enough. You can just use your eyes instead of your anus!

Transmit with anus receive with eyes, full duplex!

Or just put something under your skin, watching a handful of the thousands of surgery videos online its enough learn how to do it with the help of a friend, or even by yourself if you are the daring type.

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/160080-man-implants-magn...

Seeing as you're going to need an outside man any way, I'd opt for the friend route :D

The difficulty is in finding a friend willing to be implanted under your skin.

Calm down ant-man

in the game Magnus is accusing Hans of cheating in, there would be no feasible way for Hans to receive visual signals like this, not without it being obvious

Why? As long as the audience is visible. Some color coded signal like handkerchief color should be good enough.

watch the video. they were in a fairly dark room with walls on 3 sides of the table. if he cheated, he almost certainly did it with some kind of device on his body. probably hidden in his hair

They should setup an event in a room that blocks any transmission, with no light coming in or out except a single camera. Full body X-ray before.

MRI is better, you don't want to get irradiated before every game.

I notice there is a lot of XYZ is implying that ABC cheated in the chess world. Is such indirectness a cultural/convention thing, or a is there some greater game theory going on?

I suppose if you don’t have hard evidence all you can do is insinuate without getting in trouble yourself (defamation?). Not saying there’s no cheating. Frequently in criminal world for certain things like insider trading or cartels you need a whistle blower to really get any evidence, without it it’s hard to gather.

Some of the indirectness is likely because of how recent it is - as a player you don't want to speak about something that is being currently investigated. I think people who expect Magnus to just explain everything asap are being a bit too harsh.

We have lost the count of the amount of people that have risk their lives trying to cheat in sports (e.g. the Olympics), I actually find it a bit surprising that it took this long to ocurre in Chess world, specially given how long small wireless devices have been available.

I doubt a small wireless device is even the easiest way to cheat. Very little information needs to be transmitted: 2-3 bits at the right time could give a player a huge advantage.

To me it seems easier to use a stooge in the audience. Information could be transmitted as coughs of varying volume, pitch, length, rubbing your eyes/nose, or any number of even more discreet ways.

To completely remove suspicion, you’d need to start playing games in a faraday cage in a soundproof room with no spectators.

Faraday cage only works against specific frequency, to overcome it all you need to do is use different frequency.

What I think is that compared to many other sports Chess is less centralized. In for example many athletic sports there is a pretty clear hierarchy : local clubs - national association - international association (socces, tennis, with notable exceptions like boxing, or even the less clear UEFA - FIFA hierarchy; US sports are often very centralized).

So the rules of chess are clear, but the sport is practiced online over many different venues and organizers (like: boxing or MMA) that don't all seem to fall under one set of guiding principles. So there is no appeal to authority, even when the sports biggest star is a part of a controversy.

That being said, based on this article I think Chess.com is just stringing out the controversy for maximal exposure. Again, akin to the controversies in boxing or say MMA.

Accusation without evidence is a legal liability. It's not gentlemanly.

neither is posting José saying “if I speak I am in big trouble” on twitter

Why doesn’t he just leak his thoughts through a mouthpiece? E.g. “friends close to Carlsen say…”

There is no risk of defamation etc this way.

A content free article worthy of an evidence free insinuation.

The epitome of fake news.

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