6 ms·

The interesting thing I learned about this is that the big names in chess all agree that they don't need to be told what move to make. In a recent interview Mag

The interesting thing I learned about this is that the big names in chess all agree that they don't need to be told what move to make. In a recent interview Magnus Carlsen said: > The people who get caught are those who cheat in a really obvious and stupid manner. The problem was that he [i.e., a player caught in 2016] was not good enough to see what would’ve made sense. > Had I started cheating in a clever manner, I am convinced no one would notice. I would’ve just needed to cheat one or two times during the match, and I would not even need to be given moves, just the answer on which move was way better. Or, here there is a possibility of winning, and here you need to be more careful. That is all I would need in order to be almost invincible, which does frighten me. So all you need is a buzz or maybe two - "caution" and "opportunity," "defense" and "offense" or whatever. The difficult part is getting the game state to the device. In streamed games this can be done with a medium amount of trouble but in non-streamed OTB games you'd need the player or a confederate to be silently inputting moves for the engine to respond to. Not impossible but... difficult. Nevertheless, when the prizes are in the hundreds of thousands, people may try to find a way.

thethimble 4y ago
It seems not too crazy to have a morse code format to input moves too, right? Knight C3 is just a few squeezes.
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
  Overtime you can learn to isolate pelvic floor muscles and anal sphincter, so a cockring and buttplug, or vag-toy and buttplug, could enable rapid input, and greater bandwidth using cords.
  - qdot76367 4y ago
    If only Shannon were here to see what's been done to information theory.
    - svnt 4y ago
      “Entropy finds a way.” — Claude Shannon, probably.
    - wave_function 4y ago
      Shannon was actually involved in the first wearable computer, so maybe he wouldn’t have found it so far-fetched! https://www.engadget.com/2013-09-18-edward-thorp-father-of-wearable-computing.html https://www.engadget.com/2013-09-18-edward-thorp-father-of-w...
- nordsieck 4y ago
  > It seems not too crazy to have a morse code format to input moves too, right? At 3 minutes per move for the standard format, it's totally reasonable. It might be a bit less feasible during speed chess (which is used as a tie breaker).
dqpb 4y ago
To compress the message to a buzz or two, I think the AI would need to know which moves you're considering.
- eru 4y ago
  Yes. But you need to tell the AI the current board state anyway (ie via transmitting what moves have been made). So adding some more input is not necessarily that much harder. The benefit of getting the AI pick a move from the top two you are considering is that play looks more convincingly human.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
faeriechangling 4y ago
The Fritz chess engine program has a feature where when playing against the engine, and there’s a winning move in the position, an indicator light will come on. These hints are helpful at all levels, because if you’re playing fritz and a move says there’s a strongly winning move, you’re going to look more at bold moves that involve things like sacrifices that lead to a scary attack, any move that takes a piece, any move that gives a check, and less at passive moves like moving your king around. You can ignore variations that obviously lead to no change in the status quo. Often it will be the case that only one move COULD be the winning move because only one move causes any meaningful effect on the position so the fact the tactics light is flashing means you can just play it without further calculation. Computer hints allow the human brain to basically filter for better candidate moves far more efficiently.
- dcow 4y ago
  What if moving your king is the winning move. Plus, what’s stopping a good “AI” from incorporating this meta game into it’s calculations for showing the indicator?
  - faeriechangling 4y ago
    A king move can be the one strong move in a position, but let me be more clear. Early into the game your king is usually pretty far away from the action, so even if it is the best move, moving it usually doesn't affect things in a direct enough way so as to have a massively positive effect on the position. It's possible, it's just not very likely. It's only in positions where the king is really getting into fights with the other pieces where it becomes likely a king move is the one strong move. These kinds of heuristics doesn't need to be perfect to give you an edge.
  - awb 4y ago
    Hikaru analyzed some of Niemann’s games and at certain points he was very surprised by the move, but said that if he was told that there was a strong winning move in that position he would have found the move easily. Kind of similar to what Magnus said that he wouldn’t even need the move, just a hint like “strong winning move on the board” would be enough for him to find the winning line because he wouldn’t have to look at defensive or passive moves.
SamBam 4y ago
> I would not even need to be given moves, just the answer on which move was way better I feel like people keep looking past this line, and suggesting that the device transmit things like "caution" or whatever. In another thread, someone suggested it could warn you if the most tempting line was a bad one. These all rely on the idea that Stockfish can think like a human and say "Carlsen will be thinking of X, I'll warn him that's a bad idea." I've never seen any indication that Stockfish can know what a human is thinking, novice or grandmaster. Instead Carlsen suggested something else: he asks about two moves, and Stockfish tells him which is rated higher. That's totally doable by stockfish, but means all these suggestions require an input, such as a butt-squeeze detector.
- dcow 4y ago
  Or simply an accomplice.
- evrydayhustling 4y ago
  Stockfish rates moves by chasing them down a game tree and evaluating positions. I can imagine several heuristics for a "non-obvious move here" buzzer based on that architecture: - Hidden gem: The best move has similar value to others if exploring a few moves, but becomes clearly better at depth [n]. - Trap: There is a move that has similar value to others on shallow exploration, but offers opponent a checkmate at depth [n] - Material exchange: The best move involves a major material loss in the first few moves. I would love to see these tested in practice, but it seems very plausible to me that some combination of them could make a very useful one-bit (erm, one-butt?) signal.
- screye 4y ago
  Won't delaying the stream by a few minutes solve this entire attack path ? With stream sniping as popular as it is, this is a well understood and well implemented form of anti-cheat.
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    Sure, unless the player can communicate questions to the computer/accomplice.
thomasahle 4y ago
> Or, here there is a possibility of winning, Exactly this. Many top games have one or two critical moments where a player makes a blunder or even just a small mistake. Often this is not picked up on, but if a top player is made aware this has happened, they can quickly find it and punish it.

thethimble 4y ago

It seems not too crazy to have a morse code format to input moves too, right? Knight C3 is just a few squeezes.

TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
Overtime you can learn to isolate pelvic floor muscles and anal sphincter, so a cockring and buttplug, or vag-toy and buttplug, could enable rapid input, and greater bandwidth using cords.
- qdot76367 4y ago
  If only Shannon were here to see what's been done to information theory.
  - svnt 4y ago
    “Entropy finds a way.” — Claude Shannon, probably.
  - wave_function 4y ago
    Shannon was actually involved in the first wearable computer, so maybe he wouldn’t have found it so far-fetched! https://www.engadget.com/2013-09-18-edward-thorp-father-of-wearable-computing.html https://www.engadget.com/2013-09-18-edward-thorp-father-of-w...
nordsieck 4y ago
> It seems not too crazy to have a morse code format to input moves too, right? At 3 minutes per move for the standard format, it's totally reasonable. It might be a bit less feasible during speed chess (which is used as a tie breaker).

dqpb 4y ago

To compress the message to a buzz or two, I think the AI would need to know which moves you're considering.

eru 4y ago
Yes. But you need to tell the AI the current board state anyway (ie via transmitting what moves have been made). So adding some more input is not necessarily that much harder. The benefit of getting the AI pick a move from the top two you are considering is that play looks more convincingly human.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

faeriechangling 4y ago

The Fritz chess engine program has a feature where when playing against the engine, and there’s a winning move in the position, an indicator light will come on. These hints are helpful at all levels, because if you’re playing fritz and a move says there’s a strongly winning move, you’re going to look more at bold moves that involve things like sacrifices that lead to a scary attack, any move that takes a piece, any move that gives a check, and less at passive moves like moving your king around. You can ignore variations that obviously lead to no change in the status quo. Often it will be the case that only one move COULD be the winning move because only one move causes any meaningful effect on the position so the fact the tactics light is flashing means you can just play it without further calculation. Computer hints allow the human brain to basically filter for better candidate moves far more efficiently.

dcow 4y ago
What if moving your king is the winning move. Plus, what’s stopping a good “AI” from incorporating this meta game into it’s calculations for showing the indicator?
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  A king move can be the one strong move in a position, but let me be more clear. Early into the game your king is usually pretty far away from the action, so even if it is the best move, moving it usually doesn't affect things in a direct enough way so as to have a massively positive effect on the position. It's possible, it's just not very likely. It's only in positions where the king is really getting into fights with the other pieces where it becomes likely a king move is the one strong move. These kinds of heuristics doesn't need to be perfect to give you an edge.
- awb 4y ago
  Hikaru analyzed some of Niemann’s games and at certain points he was very surprised by the move, but said that if he was told that there was a strong winning move in that position he would have found the move easily. Kind of similar to what Magnus said that he wouldn’t even need the move, just a hint like “strong winning move on the board” would be enough for him to find the winning line because he wouldn’t have to look at defensive or passive moves.

SamBam 4y ago

> I would not even need to be given moves, just the answer on which move was way better I feel like people keep looking past this line, and suggesting that the device transmit things like "caution" or whatever. In another thread, someone suggested it could warn you if the most tempting line was a bad one. These all rely on the idea that Stockfish can think like a human and say "Carlsen will be thinking of X, I'll warn him that's a bad idea." I've never seen any indication that Stockfish can know what a human is thinking, novice or grandmaster. Instead Carlsen suggested something else: he asks about two moves, and Stockfish tells him which is rated higher. That's totally doable by stockfish, but means all these suggestions require an input, such as a butt-squeeze detector.

dcow 4y ago
Or simply an accomplice.
evrydayhustling 4y ago
Stockfish rates moves by chasing them down a game tree and evaluating positions. I can imagine several heuristics for a "non-obvious move here" buzzer based on that architecture: - Hidden gem: The best move has similar value to others if exploring a few moves, but becomes clearly better at depth [n]. - Trap: There is a move that has similar value to others on shallow exploration, but offers opponent a checkmate at depth [n] - Material exchange: The best move involves a major material loss in the first few moves. I would love to see these tested in practice, but it seems very plausible to me that some combination of them could make a very useful one-bit (erm, one-butt?) signal.
screye 4y ago
Won't delaying the stream by a few minutes solve this entire attack path ? With stream sniping as popular as it is, this is a well understood and well implemented form of anti-cheat.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  Sure, unless the player can communicate questions to the computer/accomplice.

thomasahle 4y ago

> Or, here there is a possibility of winning, Exactly this. Many top games have one or two critical moments where a player makes a blunder or even just a small mistake. Often this is not picked up on, but if a top player is made aware this has happened, they can quickly find it and punish it.