Hacker News Reader

Comment by constantcrying | Hacker News Reader

Then don't cheat. If you are a known cheater other players have the right to be suspicious of you, especially in high stakes tournaments.

>But somehow is Niemann how is doing the public relations stunt.

What else would you call this lawsuit? Do you think Niemann, a known cheater, has an actual claim which meets the very high standards he needs to overcome to win the suite? Do you not think a professional chess player has the right to withdraw from a series and say that he does not feel comfortable playing a known cheater?

View on HN

> you not think a professional chess player has the right to withdraw from a series

He may have a legal right to do that.

But if someone does that, then the international chess federation should sanction that player for unsportsmanlike conduct, and bad the withdrawer from future tournaments.

Absurd rule. Imagine feeling sick and having to play 8 hours of bad chess, because the alternative is a potential career end.

Withdrawing already has a significant punishment. You lost.

I also fail to see how it is unsportsmanlike by itself. All else aside, why shouldn't you be allowed to withdraw from a game?

> Imagine feeling sick

No, obviously people who are sick should not be punished for withdrawing.

Instead, I am saying that if someone engages in unsportsmanlike conduct, where you withdraw specifically in relation to, and in a way that damages your opponent, then that should be punished.

> how it is unsportsmanlike by itself

Well if you think for one second, you'd realize that I obviously was not trying to imply that sick people should be punished.

>No, obviously people who are sick should not be punished for withdrawing.

Then the rule is just pointless. Can anyone prove that you are not sick?

>where you withdraw specifically in relation to, and in a way that damages your opponent, then that should be punished.

Why should you be forced to play against a known cheater whom you suspect of having cheated against you?

You already get your punishment for withdrawing. Why should there be a rule that forces you to play against an opponent that makes you uncomfortable. What if your opponent were insulting you, withdrawing certainly would damage his reputation. Should you be forced there for 8 hours having him demean you, because doing anything else might damage his reputation? What if he is "just" trolling you while you try to think? Not okay to withdraw?

My point is where do you draw the line? Damaging your opponent certainly is not an acceptable standard.

> Then the rule is just pointless. Can anyone prove that you are not sick

No, but if someone goes into a tournament, resigns on move one, and then goes to Twitter with a tweet saying "if I speak....big trouble" then in that situation they can be punished.

Is it hypothetically possible that someone might be able to secretly pretend like they are sick?

Sure. But the point of rules like this is to prevent the highly obvious and damaging examples of unsportsmanlike conduct.

If someone is secretly resigning games in an unsportsmanlike manner, but nobody notices, then there isn't much actually damaging about those actions.

> should there be a rule that forces you to play

No, instead unsportsmanlike conduct should be punished. Such as resigning on turn one, and then going to Twitter about it with a vague accusation.

> My point is where do you draw the line?

Well what you do is you punish the really obvious stuff.

And if it is done super secretly, then it isn't that damaging anyway, and we don't have to worry about it.

Supposing minutes after Carlsen resigned it came out that Niemann had carried with him a device obviously designed to cheat, would Magnus's behaviour been justified then?

Notice how you have just moved the goal posts!

Since you did that I am going to assume that you now take back your silly arguments about the impossibility of only punishing people who are super obviously engaging in unsportsmanlike conduct.

I am glad that I am able to convince you so easily, that actually yes it is possible to punish super obvious cases without also punishing people who are dying of a debilitating disease and much engage in an emergency withdrawal!

That was a pretty funny argument you were making though! It's really entertaining that you were actually trying to claim that it is impossible to find obvious cases without punishing uhh, sick people?

>Notice how you have just moved the goal posts!

Nope.

>Since you did that I am going to assume that you now take back your silly arguments about the impossibility of only punishing people who are super obviously engaging in unsportsmanlike conduct.

My argument has always been that Magnus did not act unsportsmanlike. Obviously obvious offenses can and should be punished.

>am glad that I am able to convince you so easily, that actually yes it is possible to punish super obvious cases without also punishing people who are dying of a debilitating disease and much engage in an emergency withdrawal!

Good that I never made such an argument. I was just objecting to the rule as you had written it. I obviously agree that obvious misconduct can and should be punished, but not because there is some hyper specific rule you proposed.

>It's really entertaining that you were actually trying to claim that it is impossible to find obvious cases without punishing uhh, sick people?

I was refering to what you said the rule should be. Basically any sport has a general rule against bad behaviour. FIDE surely has one already, which could be applied, had any significant misconduct actually happened.

What is funny on the other hand is that you have moved the goal post from a specific action of Magnus to a nonsensical debate where you pretend I believe a rule almost any sports association has is impossible, when I was refering to your very bad proposal for a stupid additional rule.

> I obviously agree that obvious misconduct can and should be punished but not because there is some hyper specific rule

So you agree with me completely and we're just arguing against a made up argument, regarding a "hyper specific rule" that I.never made.

I clarified multiple times on this, and you continued to pretend like it is impossible to punish unsportsmanlike conduct without punishing sick people.

So great!

Yes you agree with me that unsportsmanlike conduct that is obviously unsportsmanlike conduct, can be punished, and we don't have to worry about absurd hypotheticals of punishing sick people.

> was refering to what you said the rule should be

Actually, it was you who brought up this idea of it being impossible to punish unsportsmanlike conduct without punishing sick people.

It was you who made that argument, not me.

Maybe you haven't noticed, but I was talking about the incident between Carlsen and Niemann.

> but I was talking about the incident between Carlsen and Niemann

Indeed, and it seems pretty silly that you would claim that it is impossible to punish someone who resigned on move 1, in the way that he did, without punishing people who are deathly ill!

Surely you should understand how it is pretty easy to tell the difference between these two situations.

The fact that this was the context, is the exact reason why it is so silly to imply that punishing this behavior would also require punishing people who are very sick, and cannot play because of that.

You missed my point entirely. Any rule which would punish Carlsen would also inevitably punish the innocent, since Carlsen already did nothing wrong.

No, actually sick people would not have to be punished.

The rule would pretty easily be able to tell the difference between someone who withdrawals from the tournament because they are sick, and someone who resigned turn 1 and then goes to Twitter about it.

Those are pretty easily distinguishable.

And it is funny that you made it seem like it is impossible to tell the difference between these two scenarios.

It was you who made it seem like this was difficult. You who brought up this sick person hypothetical, as if it was an unsolvable problem.

And now, once I've pointed out the absurdity of this supposedly unsolvable problem, according to you, you don't want to admit that this was silly to bring up in the first place.

So there can be no redemption? I can’t, off the top of my head, think of any endeavors where someone can never participate again once they’ve cheated. Certainly not in sports.

>So there can be no redemption?

Maybe, maybe not. If it had turned out that it really had been the case that he hadn't done any cheating since childhood I would have been quite a bit more sympathetic. Redemption is not something you are entitled to, it is something you may receive after many years of exemplary behaviour.

Personally I wouldn't want him blacklisted from the entire sport. But at the same time he is deserving of suspicicion by other players. I also think that he didn't do himself any favors with that lawsuit and it makes it even more understandable if other professional players want to avoid playing him.

Could there be? Sure.

Has Hans done anything to warrant it? Not that I can see.

If he were to announce, say, a 5 year break from competitive play and a substantial amount of volunteer work, that'd be a start.

Not filing this sham of lawsuit.

Really? Doping and Lance Armstrong is the first thing that comes to mind. Although I guess we could argue he wasn't competing anymore

Reply on news.ycombinator.com