Guess what someone with 64 squares did now?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Carlsen has made his entire career out of that sort of game. Create some sort of theoretically even but asymmetrical endgame and then just grind the crap out of it.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Well that settles that. I was trying to figure out if there was some subtle line I was missing that just barely failed after b5, but then I read the commentary and post-match interviews and nope, he just straight miscalculated a simple tactics

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I guess having challengers who totally flame out under pressure solves the decisive games problem

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

I guess having challengers who totally flame out under pressure solves the decisive games problem

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

Well that's a wrap. Great for fans of decisive chess. Not so great for fans of close matches.

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

 

Warning: the inevitable crypto-blathering comes late in the convo, but otherwise I thought it was a pretty cool talk.

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

There is a scandal brewing in the chess world. Seinfield Cup in St. Louis is happening, one of the bigger tournaments each year. Magnus won in the first round against Nepo, and then had white against a late-replacement in the tournament, Hans Niemann. He's a very odd character. He's known for being a bit of a bad boy (lots of confrontational interviews and streaming statements), but an up and coming strong player. He managed to beat Magnus with the black pieces. The game didn't look especially suspicious to me, largely because Magnus played pretty poorly, but Magnus thought otherwise, and resigned from the tournament saying that he'd get in trouble if he explained why. Some GMs stated that young players should be given a chance, and others (including Nepo) made some sly comments that Niemann's play was "more than impressive." Niemann also has a repuation for cheating, being banned from chess.com twice, and some GMs booting him out of their online money matches.

 

Cut to yesterday, and all eyes were on Niemann versus Firouzia, who just beat the everliving piss out of everyone at the world blitz-rapid tournament, and is pretty clearly the best player in the world of the new generation. This game was definitely suspicious. Niemann played a move that was VERY much an engine move, offering a piece for a position that no commentators or GMs could see why it was good. There was no immediate forced mate. But the engines loved it, and there was an insane line 12 moves down the way that could force a win. Firouzia declined the sacrafice because he had no clue what was going on, and white had a much better game for a while. It wound up going to a draw, and Niemann told Firouzia about a line he considered which would have won nearly by force, and also no commentators saw coming, even in hindsight. The interview afterwards with Niemann explaining the game was doubly-suspicious. He claimed to have studied all of the lines involved the morning of, despite never playing in this particular opening variation before, and the 2600 that was going over the game with Niemann clearly had a much better understanding of the position (when they turned the engine evaluation off.) He couldn't even spell out the entire line that accepting the initial piece sac involved, blundering repeatedly in the post-mortem.

 

I think it's pretty clear shenanigans are involved, but how he's cheating is going to be tough to prove. I think it might just take the players refusing to play at events he's invited to to put a stop to it.

 

I don't normally like listening to Nakamura much because he's too awkward to listen to in large doses, but for evaluating if top-level players are cheating, it makes more sense to listen to him than anyone else chiming in.

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by JudasIscariotTheBird

[Sammy Sofa]

Sinefield Cup

 

[Sammy Sofa]

[tweet]

[/tweet]

[CyHawk_Cub]

Kink shaming. Despicable.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

This kinda stuff is only gonna get worse for chess. He definitely cheated and there's definitely no way they can prove it.

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

This kinda stuff is only gonna get worse for chess. He definitely cheated and there's definitely no way they can prove it.

So there is this guy that has been dubbed the expert on chess cheating statistics. He's named Reagan, so no one should have trusted him in the first place. He's basically just misapplying standard deviation analysis used to test correlations to prove scientific theories. However, he's looking at Neimann's overall, over-the-board results, and declares that the results are within 2-sigma of normal distribution (which, if you are trying to detect something strange for someone who has admitted to cheating, is WAY overkill) so no cheating. If you apply his methods to some people who were actually caught cheating, his method often doesn't detect cheating. Pretty clearly worthless.

 

So let's see what a chess coach (who also happens to be a trans woman) with engine correlation posing as a statistician thinks.

 

 

This is as close to "proof" that will exist. And a MUCH better method. It tosses out portions of games that overlap theory. Hans has been brazenly cheating his ass off for a long while over the board.

[Cubswin11]

This kinda stuff is only gonna get worse for chess. He definitely cheated and there's definitely no way they can prove it.

So there is this guy that has been dubbed the expert on chess cheating statistics.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Is there a popular theory/rumor as to how Niemann would be cheating? I know the media's running with the whole anal beads thing which doesn't appear to be seriously suspected, but I'm not sure what security measures exist that would make other options feasible.

[Sammy Sofa]

Is there a popular theory/rumor as to how Niemann would be cheating? I know the media's running with the whole anal beads thing which doesn't appear to be seriously suspected, but I'm not sure what security measures exist that would make other options feasible.

 

Oh, sweet, innocent TT.

 

[Tryptamine]

Is there a popular theory/rumor as to how Niemann would be cheating? I know the media's running with the whole anal beads thing which doesn't appear to be seriously suspected, but I'm not sure what security measures exist that would make other options feasible.

 

From what I read, there's the rumor that someone in Magnus's close group leaked the info to the kid and that's why he prepared for a strategy that Magnus had never used before that game.

[jersey cubs fan]

Every time I see this thread I assume it’s about gambling or ncaa tourny stuff

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

Is there a popular theory/rumor as to how Niemann would be cheating? I know the media's running with the whole anal beads thing which doesn't appear to be seriously suspected, but I'm not sure what security measures exist that would make other options feasible.

 

From what I read, there's the rumor that someone in Magnus's close group leaked the info to the kid and that's why he prepared for a strategy that Magnus had never used before that game.

Yeah, that's a youtube-comments-section spawned rumor that no one is taking seriously. It's also completely unrelated to the multiple insanely engine-correlated games that are popping up in Hans' over-the-board history.

 

But for TT, Fabiano Caruana has been addressing this a little recently. He is very critical of the security devices used at most events, and that they were insufficient to catch a hidden device with less metal than a gun.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Is there a popular theory/rumor as to how Niemann would be cheating? I know the media's running with the whole anal beads thing which doesn't appear to be seriously suspected, but I'm not sure what security measures exist that would make other options feasible.

 

Nope. That's the problem. Until they actually find the cheating mechanism, it's going to be hard to justify direct action.

 

To anyone who actually knows chess, it's pretty blatant that he's cheating.

 

So we have computer programs that are far beyond what any human can match in terms of quality of play. Most of the time, these computers are just insanely good at differentiating between several possible moves that a human would just consider roughly equal. Over the course of a game, that small advantage every move eventually becomes decisive.

 

Once in awhile, the computer-certified best move in a position is one that a human being would never consider playing because it doesn't look right according to traditional principles, but the computer can calculate every possible response many moves down the line and see that it actually works. When commentators are doing analysis they'll call them "computer moves.". They'll have the engines running and sometimes say "ok the computer is suggesting this move, but obviously that's a computer move, no human would play that."

 

Niemann's win against Carlsen included at least one such move, and when asked to explain it in post game analysis, he couldn't explain why the move was good and show the proper follow up to some of the obvious responses from Carlsen. Making a computer move, and not being able to explain why, is a 100% dead to rights giveaway.

 

There are essentially two ways to have computer recommendations fed to you in a match, both of which have been used in the past.

 

One is to have a computer on your person, undetected. A famous incident happened over a decade ago now when an unknown player entered a tournament and beat several master-level players. A tournament director noticed that his shoes seemed to be oversized and asked him to remove them for inspection. The player refused, walked out of the playing hall and was never heard from again.

 

The second way is to be signalled from the audience somehow. The French team at the chess equivalent of the world cup was found to be doing this 10 years ago. Their coaches were being fed computer moves from someone on the outside, then they would signal the moves to the players via a code they had worked out based on where the coaches stood in the playing hall.

 

The vibrating anal beads thing was just a dumb internet meme that the press took seriously, but he almost certainly figured out a way to conceal a device under his clothes or in his ear that the metal detector couldn't detect. And if he didn't, he was being fed moves from the audience via an accomplice.

 

Ive been to the st. Louis chess club to watch and play. You have to walk through a metal detector in order to get into the playing area. I don't know a ton about metal detector technology but I wouldn't be surprised if it's not foolproof.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Two more chess cheating stories.

 

My favorite all time was when a lower level master was having a great tournament and had beaten several much higher rated players. His final opponent noticed that whenever the position got complicated, he would take a bathroom break, which is a pretty big giveaway. He followed his opponent to the bathroom, sat in the adjacent stall, and reported to the tournament director that he "didn't hear any bathroom noises.". The td waited until the guy was finished, inspected the toilet and found a smartphone taped to the underside like a gun in a mob movie.

 

 

 

I was playing in a small tournament in Springfield, Ill., like 12 years ago. Way smaller and less serious than pro level stuff, just renting out a banquet hall, setting up some tables everyone pays $20 and the top prize is like $120. I had won the tournament the year before and was 2-0 this time.

 

I got paired with a young teenage kid whose dad sat on the sidelines with a laptop. We were playing a rather famous opening that most serious chess players would know 15+ moves deep (Ruy Lopez marshal counter), and the kid was slamming down each move instantly, showing he knew the line really well. I happened to know a divergence around the 10th move that isn't quite optimal but it gets players out of their comfort zone of memorized lines.

 

I play that move, and the kid immediately frowns and stops playing instant responses. He tanks for about 5 minutes, then his dad comes over, shows him a page from the Harry Potter book his dad had on his person for some reason, and they both leave the playing hall. They were gone for over 20 minutes, and I couldn't find them in the bathroom or anywhere else in the building. When they finally came back, the kid played the rest of the divergent line perfectly.

 

It was incredibly obvious what happened, but I figured if I complained, they would just deny it and there's not really anything that could be done, and the TD is just some dude who rented the hall and reports results to the USCF, he doesn't need a bunch of drama. So I let it go.

[Sammy Sofa]

So who ended up winning?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

So who ended up winning?

 

He did. Only game I lost at that tourney across multiple years

[Sammy Sofa]

Get that vengeance, son.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Get that vengeance, son.

 

USCF keeps pretty good records, I could probably find him.