Hacker News Reader

> Using a computer engine is part of learning and preparing in chess (AFAICT). What other sport has a similar issue where an extremely useful and essential and highly available tool in the sport is considered cheating based entirely on using it within the narrow window of a game? Of course it was going to leak into play in online games where you only have the data feed of moves and nothing else connecting the players.

Pretty much every e-sport with hidden information has this issue. CS:GO, DotA2, SC2. They all have replay analyzers to reveal the map and let you look back to figure out how to play better. But if there was a way to use them in game (map hacks), it'd invalidate the game.

I don’t know about those games … but isn’t the incomplete/hidden information a fundamental difference from chess and how easy it is to cheat?

Only partly. In DOTA for example one of the more common cheats is scripting that provides the player with reaction time more like a pro in triggering items and abilities.

That makes lots of sense for quick real time games. But getting back to my point about how integral computer engines are in chess for training/preparation ... a script to enhance reaction times seems much more like doping in sports where it probably doesn't improve the player's intrinsic abilities only their performance.

Poker would also break if you could just use algorithms to tell you how much to bet and when to fold.

I suppose any strategic, turn-based game breaks down as soon as you have a world class engine for it.

Exactly. Even just a unary hint that a particular position is dangerous would be a huge advantage to even a moderately skilled player.

In Poker all skilled players remember all probability tables, and there are heuristics for calculating probabilities on the flight, and players also count chips, so any players has all the information for theoretical optimal bets. The game happens on estimating bluffs and adjusting your strategy agains opponent bluffs.

> I suppose any strategic, turn-based game breaks down as soon as you have a world class engine for it.

Yep. Perhaps just a consequence of technology and an oncoming "singularity" ... professional sports just don't make much sense anymore apart from their value as entertainment (which is already questionable in the case of Chess IMO) and all of the noise around cheating etc is much more about "being immersed in the story" just like good film directing and VFX/SFX. You're either a fan or aren't and that's just how it is.

Hopefully the love and appreciation for amateur sports makes a return ... not much to cheat for if the only prize is pride and pleasure.

I'd argue it's much easier to cheat in Chess than those games. In Chess the "hidden information" is the best move to play (I know I'm misusing the term there), which is easily determined by using a computer.

eSports are similar to normal sports in the fact that even if you have complete information, you need the physical skill to back it up. Professional DotA / SC2 / CSGO players would still wipe the floor with a mediocre player using maphacks.

Trying to think of an example in 'physical' sports (give me some rope here)... in baseball you start by using light aluminum bats, then in college they impose weight rules on non-wood bats, then in the MLB they impose weight rules on wood bats. However, pro players sometimes train with non-regulation bats to work on bat speed or for pregame warm up. Rarely, a training bat will accidentally get used during a game. If such a bat breaks during the game, it will reveal itself as a hollowed or corked bat. The consequences, esp with regard to public perception, for such mistakes are severe.

https://fanbuzz.com/mlb/sammy-sosa-corked-bat/

Some of the Dota cheats use methods in which subtle bits of what should be private information are made public, although not always in a nice/easy way for humans to see. For example some animations and particle effects are visible through the fog of war. Another interesting situation (which I think was recently fixed?) was a bitmap stored on a unit (for example, your hero) for visibility checks by each faction (as in, which factions could see you). You could thus tell if you were visible, and hence detect enemy vision.

> Second, that it's common amongst the elite of the sport is huge. Either online chess is somewhat dead on arrival as a sport and was never taken seriously by many players (which makes sense to me given how integrated computer engines are in the sport) ... or the chess world needs to go through some sort of cultural revolution here.

Really? My takeaway is that chess.com is doing a better job of detecting cheaters than FIDE, who seem to have been asleep at the wheel with Niemann

> Fourth, the OTB cheating question still seems open and it seems plausible to me that a good chess player would cheat online for followers and income and entrance to tournaments and then use OTB as the real testing ground.

This seems wildly implausible to me. Niemann‘s OTB rise would be indicative of a not just significant but utterly world historic chess mind, head-and-shoulders above Fisher and head-shoulders-and-entire-torso above every other player in history. When led into uncharted territory by the world chess champion, Magnus indicated that Niemann seemed utterly and completely untroubled - and yet he’s, what, running stockfish in another window for $1000 prizes online and getting himself caught dozens of times? Why? Why take the risk against opponents he should beat in his sleep? These should have been sleepwalk games for this Fisher++ genius who’s totally untroubled by a 5 time world chess championship, but he’s for some reason making obviously weaker moves when not switching windows when his unaided moves shouldn’t have been screamingly weaker than the aided ones given his singularly extraordinary chess rise.

It beggars belief. His world historic rise in rating alone is ludicrously over the top. Kid’s an obvious fraud.

They didn’t find any instances of cheating after August 2020. At that point his OTB ELO was only around 2450. It’s only after his last known instance of cheating that he improved into the truly great level.

> They didn’t find any instances of cheating after August 2020

They banned him after August 2020, and only reinstated him after a full confession the next year.

The fact that, after having being caught red handed in online for-prize tournaments and knowing he’s being monitored very closely online going forward, he suddenly starts rising at a world-historic pace (at an age this has never before happened at) at OTB tournaments suggests to me that having lost the ability to reliably cheat in one forum he turned his attention to another.

They reinstated him January of the following year, only five months later.

He was (and still is) banned from prize money tournaments even after that partial re-instatement.

Regardless, there's obviously a huge difference between "no evidence he cheated after August 2020" (wow, guess his heart grew 3 sizes that month) and "no evidence he cheated after a 5 month ban which required him to beg to get his account back, made it very clear to him that they were watching him like a hawk, and they wouldn't let him play in tournaments even after that" (not exactly indicative of an unprompted improvement in his morals).

The Chess.com anti cheat system, as described by the report, is set up to handle blitz and bullet. This makes sense, both because it's most of what is played on the site, and because it's so much easier to detect cheating in that environment: A whole lot of engine recommendations would be bananas if a human played them in blitz, and finding major mistakes is very challenging under such time pressure. Evaluating when to play a secondary or tertiary line under pressure, instead of what the engine says, is also challenging. Along with the metadata of thinking time, or whether someone tabbed out of the screen, it's unsurprising that cheating is pretty detectable.

On the other hand, in OTB classical chess the difficulty is in bypassing the security controls. Players are much closer to engines, and far fewer moves appear to be completely inhuman. Furthermore, with an accomplice that is also quite good at chess, those lines could just be discarded. This makes it much easier to both play very good moves that are not all that suspicious, and take enough time to "sell" the thinking time.

This doesn't mean Hans cheated over the board, just that without very good physical security, any unscrupulous GM could gain 300-400 points virtually undetected, other than from the fact that they are playing much better than they used to. If security is a top priority, at the very least we need to do what the Sinquefield cup did in the last few rounds: No spectators and a 15 minute delay, so that all communication with computers/co-conspirators has to include the player relaying all the moves out before they can get any help.

> If security is a top priority, at the very least we need to do what the Sinquefield cup did in the last few rounds: No spectators and a 15 minute delay, so that all communication with computers/co-conspirators has to include the player relaying all the moves out before they can get any help.

This. And then let's test this Niemann character, as now I'm really curious as to whether -and how- he cheats at OTB.

From page 17 of the report:

> In conclusion, while we cannot definitively prove that Hans’ rise in strength is entirely “natural,” we have also found no indications in the game data to suggest otherwise. While some have suggested that a move-by-move analysis by humans may surface some oddities in move choice or analysis, there is nothing in our statistical investigation to raise any red flags regarding Hans’ OTB play and rise.

That’s specifically in response to the question of whether or not Niemann has played a statistically anomalous number of “near perfect games”, based on analysis of on-board moves. But as they note earlier:

> Hans is consistently above many contemporaries in strength increases, even though he has only recently shown the same caliber of play. Likewise, as set forth in Figures A and B below, Hans had the fastest and biggest increase in his score over time in comparison to his peers and other notable players, when considering all of their known Classical OTB games played from age 11-19.

Which should raise a lot of red flags given the nature of the “peers” (Fischer, Magnus) and its very sudden occurrence after being banned from online tournaments. It’s much harder to detect computer-aided cheating in classical time control moves than in speed chess (where they detected it in his online play) — not least because, as they note, they have no access to time-usage data for the OTB events, which would be critical to any such analysis. Nevertheless they do flag 6 OTB events that their FairPlay team believes merits further analysis by FIDE, in Appendix X.3. Reading between the lines I think that’s about as strong a statement as they can make without fully creating political issues with FIDE, who they’re probably hoping will work more closely with them going forward.

All that said, it makes more sense to look at the anomalous nature of his OTB outcomes rather than searching individual OTB moves trying to find a smoking gun given chess.com’s relative lack of data there, and the political entanglements involved. And as for that

> While we don’t doubt that Hans is a talented player, we note that his results are statistically extraordinary.

Yup that part stood out to me as well. There are dozens of "Anonymous Confessed GM"s on the cheating list, most of them with a rating much higher than Neimann's. And this doesn't even mention the players who are flagged by their algorithm but haven't admitted their guilt. Given the very high ELO range of the offenders (2600-2700), it's clear that a lot of the most popular names in chess are involved. Why not name all of them? Shouldn't they receive the same amount of scrutiny, public criticism and punishment as him?

Yea, it definitely seems a bit suspicious and unfair, which fits frankly with the sport going through growing pains on this.

Seems like you gotta beat Magnus for your cheating to matter?! Snark aside, Magnus’s behaviour makes some sense, he wants this to be addressed. But the manner in which it is happening, his conduct included, is just poor form for the sport, even if it was the best overall move Magnus could make.

I suspect something like “everyone cheats online” is kind of what we have here, and they’re a bit worried about upsetting the whole applecart.

Which gets to my point about the bias of chess.com. Surely they have an interest in making this look like one awful offender, a bad apple essentially, and not that they’re profits come from a broken sport.

For anyone unaware, chess.com recently bought out the Play Magnus Group for about $80 million. They most definitely are not a neutral party in this financially. I personally interpret this sort of situation as creating an additional burden to acknowledge and demonstrate the conflict of interest isn't a material factor.

I don't know if Hans cheated beyond his admissions. Online seems plausible if not likely to me. OTB seems much less plausible. But this report being leaked to the WSJ, then goes up on the blog, immediately ahead of Neiman's next big event? That definitely an intentional PR campaign, and that comes across as scummy to me. I'd say doubly scummy consider the report itself establishes how prevalent cheating on chess.com is among GMs, yet nothing like this sort of public disclosure has happened in other cases. It's hard to interpret this as anything but selective enforcement based on Carlson's reaction to a specific player and game.

Agreed on all fronts.

I've gotten the vague impression over the years that the chess establishment isn't the most fair and non-corrupt organisation (par for the course perhaps for sports organisations). It also seems to be relatively behind or new to massive cheating scandals (??). Put together an event like this was almost certainly going to be ugly and unimpressive.

FIDE has a very poor reputation when it comes to handling the more unpleasant stuff.

Err, if that was their interest, why did they even include the new-to-many info about other top GMs having admitted cheating? They could have just not included that part at all.

Because the “our detection shows cheating” is supported by “here’s X cases where our detection worked and got a confession”.

If they have that interest, why did they just release a detailed 72-page report in which they make clear that there have actually been many offenders?

Your argument doesn't hold much water.

It appears that chess.com was handling the matter discreetly until Hans made the issue public. It would be unfair if it turned out that the other GM's also challenged chess.com publicly.

Hans didn't make anything public until two stars made public allegations against him.

carlsen is right saying cheating is an existential threat to chess. if cheating becomes easier to conceal (more subtle) it will kill interest in spectating and double paranoia in player.

i could not care about bike racing due to doping, literally all top racers were doping back when i was following it. i can no longer watch it without doping in the back of my mind after all of it started coming out. Olympiads to me are the same.

if cheating in your sport is not dealt with it will grow like cancer .

As I understand it, Hans decided to take the issue public and made questionable statements about his credibility, which in turn weighs upon the credibility of chess.com's decision to kick him out of an upcoming $1M tournament.

I wouldn't take this to mean that everybody cheats, or everybody at the top cheats, as a sibling comment has stated. Wikipedia cites the number of grandmasters as "almost 2000" so even 100 GM cheaters is still a small amount (modulo the ones no longer living I guess, who likely are not playing on chess.com). Elsewhere in the report chess.com gives a figure for number of players they believe have cheated on the site from total player base of 0.14%.

1/20 GMs is a minority, but it means that top players play cheaters all the time.

This article https://en.chessbase.com/post/thirteen-super-grandmasters says

The history of the game of chess knows around 30 players who have at some point exceeded the dream mark of 2600 Elo points.

On the other hand this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_players_by_peak_... puts 125 at over 2700

I don't think the list of other confessed GM cheaters has this same qualifier of "is a super GM" or "is ranked above 2700," however.

Grandmaster rank is achieved via a peak Elo of 2500 plus gaining two grandmaster norms[1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmaster_(chess)#Current_re...

https://ratings.fide.com/profile/2093596 says Hans Niemann has a rating of 2699

You were replying to a comment that said

"Anonymous Confessed GM"s on the cheating list, most of them with a rating much higher than Neimann's.

That qualification is true of Hans Niemann's Elo given in the table - at the time of the chess.com cheating - of 2465, when he was an IM with a single GM norm.

The highest rated "Anonymous Confessed GM" in this table in the report is a 2686 Elo.

worth noting that gm title is up for 'sale'

the are proven cases of gms selling/throwing games so you can earn norms for gm title (understandable phenomenon when considering effort of getting to gm level vs little money you can make from it, gm from poorer country has big incentive earn extra $).

Is it not obvious that you start with the most anomalous ELO to success comparisons?

Therefore, Neimann.

Also these players will think twice now about crossing chess-com's star players and stake-holders.

It would be against chess.com's interests to name those GMs, wouldn't it?

> Using a computer engine is part of learning and preparing in chess (AFAICT). What other sport has a similar issue where an extremely useful and essential and highly available tool in the sport is considered cheating based entirely on using it within the narrow window of a game?

In Magnus' recent interview with Lex Fridman, he said though members of his team utilize engines in preparation, it's not something he personally uses very much if at all in his training. In fact he seems to think training against engines can be detrimental.

---

Transcript from: https://steno.ai/lex-fridman-podcast-10/315-magnus-carlsen-g...

Lex: How much do you use engines like Leela and Stockfish in your preparations?

Magnus: My team does. Personally, I try not to use them too much on on my own because I know that when I play you can obviously cannot have help from from engines and often I feel like often having imperfect or knowledge about a position or some engine knowledge can be a lot worse than than having no knowledge. So I try to look at engines as little as possible.

Lex: So yeah, so your team uses them for research for generation of ideas but you are relying primarily on your human resources.

Mangus: Yeah, for sure... I can evaluate as a human. I can know what they find unpleasant and so on and it's very often the case for me to some extent... And so then looking at the engines doesn't necessarily help because at that point you're facing a human, you have to sort of think as a human.

Thanks ... didn't listen to that interview. Also, I'm not a chess person, so everything is AFAICT.

But ...

1) Magnus is one of the greatest ever, so he doesn't count as an example;

2) From excerpt, his *team* does use engines, and he *uses his team*. So his use of engines is one degree removed compared to others, which hardly matters, especially given point 1 above.

Yeah, I thing Magnus is saying he doesn’t practice by playing the computer because it doesn’t help; but his team can use the computer to try to find human situations for him to look at.

And it makes sense - if he’s the best he really doesn’t have someone better to play against to “learn” so finding plausible situations could be useful.

I wonder if that’s one of the things - he felt like he was playing a computer.

Anyone who has taught a technical subject in the university knows that something like 1/5-1/2 of the audience is inclined to teach when there is not much risk, even when there is very little (a grade on an exam) at stake. When there is money at stake the inclination increases. When the marginal benefits of cheating are high is when cheating is most likely. This occurs in any competitive context that is a subculture (i.e. not football) in which the, say, top ten or one hundred are well compensated ($5000+) but no one else is.

Cheating is particularly easy in any online context and those who dismiss the notion that online sports and gambling aren't infected with it are simply naive. People cheat in competitive bass fishing where all you have to do is cut the fish open to catch them ...

> Third, chess.com have a conflict of interest in this meta-discussion, I presume, as they have commercial interests in the survival of online chess.

How is this a conflict of interest? It's just regular old interest. They are interested in Chess continuing to grow.

The is a subtext in the report suggesting "When players play on the largest online site cheating can be detected and regulated; it is very hard to apply the same level of analysis to OTB matches." It is possible that aligns with chess.com's interests.

Rampant online cheating? Hm:

> At the outset, we want to make clear that while these events highlight a critical topic in chess—cheating the vast majority of chess games do not involve any cheating. We estimate that fewer than 0.14% of players on Chess.com ever cheat, and that our events are by and large free from cheating. We firmly believe that cheating in chess is rare, preventable, and much less pervasive than is currently being portrayed in the media

How rare is cheating in contexts where there is money at stake?

Your average person playing blitz while seated on the toilet has little incentive to cheat, particularly if it involves setting up real time access to a powerful engine ... One expects almost no cheating in such an environment.

What if the numbers are: 1/700 cheat, but 1/7 GMs cheat ...?

> particularly if it involves setting up real time access to a powerful engine

You might be overestimating how difficult this is. The free Stockfish app on your phone is enough to crush any human player.

Professional sports deal with cheating in a number of different ways; suspensions, fines, exclusion from HOF consideration.

Cheating is a part of every competitive thing human beings do, unfortunately. Chess is no different.

There are devices that you can put on your arm to greatly improve your baseball swing. They are permitted during batting practice but not during play.

But are they even useful in training for a player? Are they essential for improvement and competition?

I’m not sure they’re essential, but they may be able to help you improve your swing.

All major sports watch film, and then run drills based on that film. They also now have analytical recommendations. Welcome to 2022

Tony Gwynn wasn't an insanely naturally talented hitter; he spend hours each day watching his own films and painstakingly improving his batting.

There's a story that Ted Williams told him "you need to hit the inside pitches for power" and Tony went and did that; he never became a huge home run hitter but he improved. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-gwynns-hitting-coa...

Swimming has training tools that would obviously disqualify you in competition, for one example.