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Chess Investigation Finds U.S. Grandmaster ‘Likely Cheated’ More Than 100 Times

326 points by freefal 4y ago

shagie 4y ago
Gift link - https://www.wsj.com/articles/chess-cheating-hans-niemann-report-magnus-carlsen-11664911524?st=z6xstlbc9rm5lnv&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink https://www.wsj.com/articles/chess-cheating-hans-niemann-rep...
chatterhead 4y ago
[flagged]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
It's important to note that the investigation was conducted by chess.com, which is hardly an impartial authority in the matter.
- edgarvaldes 4y ago
  On the other hand, the analysis is about online games on the chess.com platform.
- Version467 4y ago
  How aren't they impartial? They are obviously an interested party, but do they have an incentive to skew the facts? If so in which direction? Not doubting you, just genuinely interested.
  - axxl 4y ago
    Magnus owns a decent stake in them (20% maybe?) and has been very publicly making accusations as well.
    - heartbreak 4y ago
      Their deal with Magnus hasn’t closed, but yes, they are purchasing his company.
    - Version467 4y ago
      Oh, I didn't know that chess.com wanted to buy chess24. That does make it more difficult.
    - suetoniusp 4y ago
      Its not that much, but the article ignores the fact that chess.com knew all of this and invited him to their tournaments. Then once the Singfield cup event happened and Magnus got mad they banned him. They have been selectively releasing information about him and his one time coach for a few weeks now. While in the past they have never, not once, released any of their cheating information. Why now? If they dont release the report they are talking about then this article is nothing.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        Apparently they have a policy of only dealing internally, with their own online systems. Basically they just quietly ban players caught cheating, and don't report it anywhere normally. Even now, they haven't released this publicly yet.
  - darkwizard42 4y ago
    As mentioned in the article they are in talks to buy Magnus's app Play Magnus. That being said, if they have literal screenshots of the discussions between Niemann and chess.com admitting to cheating and appealing the ban, those seem like smoking guns in addition to all this other analysis
    - hollerith 4y ago
      >if they have literal screenshots of the discussions between Niemann and chess.com admitting to cheating Screenshots are easy enough to fake perfectly that if I didn't trust a party to give an honest summary of the discussion and (as in the current stake) thousands of dollars or more is at stake, then I wouldn't trust screenshots either.
      - ratg13 4y ago
        If you are one of the parties in the conversation, then it stands to reason that you have more than screenshots.
      - edanm 4y ago
        Screenshots in this case are perfectly reliable. If they are literally faking screenshots of what Hans said, it'd be incredibly easy for him to prove it and sue them for the falsification.
        hollerith 4y ago
        Can you explain how Hans could prove that screenshots are fake? I suppose you mean Hans could subpoena records from his own ISP or Chess.com or Chess.com's ISP that reveal the content of Hans's communication; right?
        edanm 4y ago
        Exactly. He can subpoena records, can have a third party get access to e.g. Gmail or whatever he uses, etc.
  - permo-w 4y ago
    I would say that more than relationships with Magnus, chess.com are not impartial in the same way that the tabloid press are not impartial. controversy -> attention -> money. I bet their brand recognition is through the fucking roof after being in international news and spread all over tiktok for a couple of weeks this isn't to say that I don't think Niemann cheated. I think he probably did, just that chess.com is getting great publicity from all this and it would be un-shocking for them to want to string it out a bit longer. it would be poor business not to, in fact
- aliswe 4y ago
  If you are yourself impartial, you should back up your statement claiming they are (hardly im-) partial. Otherwise we will probably just dismiss you as hardly impartial ...
perihelions 4y ago
https://archive.ph/TtSEO https://archive.ph/TtSEO
suetoniusp91 4y ago
Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
Cheating at 3+2 games while streaming? How's it is even possible to input all moves/positions into a chess program in parallel too main game and also while commenting? IMO it is impossible without some very specialized software or external assistance who would do the clicks. And how does he cheat in over the board events?
- perihelions 4y ago
  Computer vision for chess is widely available (and very useful!) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19563768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19563768 ("Chessvision.ai – Analyze chess position from websites, images or video", 49 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21162466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21162466 ("Show HN: ChessBoss – enhancing physical chessboards with computer vision", 36 comments)
  - Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
    Things that are easy for some members of HN crowd are likely not that easy for a 19yo person who's only notable achievement in life so far is being really good at chess (well, presumably). Such software also doesn't explain his OTB results, which are consistent with his online results.
    - HarHarVeryFunny 4y ago
      Some OTB tournaments allow players to go to the bathroom with their phone, others allow audience in same room - so an accomplice (such as Hans' coach Maxim Dlugy - another admitted cheat) could relay moves via signal. I've seen suggestion on Hiraku's channel that current scanning for players for communication devices is sub-par, although Hans has offered to play naked to disprove that theory (some porno site is calling his bluff by offering him $1M to actually do it). Anal beads? I dunno ... Magnus has estimated it would usually only take one or two computer corrections per game for himself to play perfectly, so we're not talking about every move, just at key points. Apparently even just an indication that there is some key/winning move at a given point, without indicating what it is, is enough for the player to stop and put in the time to find it.
fxtentacle 4y ago
I believe the critical aspect here is not the specific cheating that chess.com found, but that this appears to contain written statements by Niemann himself which contradict his public statement. And if it now turns out that he lied in his confession, too, then that's a really bad look w.r.t. his trustworthiness.
- threatofrain 4y ago
  Confessions have an important role in forgiveness, but given that, the public arena is never the right place for confessions; i.e., do you expect someone to say "Actually, I also hit on another employee last May." That would get you nailed to a cross and no lawyer would ever advise that except on the calculus of further damage control.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - kjeetgill 4y ago
    There's a huge difference between not confessing and making a false confession.
- perihelions 4y ago
  - "written statements by Niemann himself which contradict his public statement" The article doesn't say that Niemann's admissions to Chess.com were about cheating in prize-money tournaments, nor the other disputed facts. The spreadsheet of incidents they show us isn't what Niemann admitted to cheating in, but was Chess.com's internal anticheat flagged -- we can tell because they label it as "suspect games" and it uses qualifiers like "likely". The inferences that the cheating was for real money prizes, or at an age older than 16, or on for-profit Twitch streams, are drawn from from this list of suspected games. We don't currently know what facts Niemann confessed too: it's not public whether the facts Niemann is allegedly lying about overlap with the facts Niemann admitted to in writing in 2020. WSJ may have evidence that's dispositive on this point (i.e. those Slack texts), but they haven't printed it yet.
energyy 4y ago
do I really need to login/pay to read this news?
- hoppyhoppy2 4y ago
  an archive.ph link and a gift-article link have been posted here in the comments.
  - energyy 4y ago
    yeah, saw that after posting this.. thanks
MAXPOOL 4y ago
The next 'move' for cheaters is to use chess computers in a way that passes 'Chess Turing Test' and makes cheating indistinguishable from normal human play under analysis. When there is money in the game, there is incentive to cheat. > The report says dozens of grandmasters have been caught cheating on the website, including four of the top-100 players in the world who confessed. There are probably smart cheaters already playing who are able to evade detection.
- bombcar 4y ago
  The best players only need one or two notes, even something as simple as "there's a good play here" twice a game could throw things dramatically. That is harder, almost as hard as playing for real, but doable. Much easier to just be a mechanical turk for sharkfish or whatever it's called.
- somenameforme 4y ago
  Cheat detection isn't done by only by move analysis, but by an extensive profiling of a person and games based on many factors beyond even just the moves. For instance one of the easiest ways to catch a weak player cheating is move times. Such a player will have no idea whether a move is trivial or works only due to an exceptionally precise and lengthy series of counter-intuitive calculations that no human could do without a significant think. And so they'll tend to rely both in approximately the same amount of time. Even during the Carlsen-Niemann game it was meta-factors that initially clued Carlsen in. Niemann was playing without any significant effort or tension, in spite of playing in a game where he was outplaying the world champion. And after the game he was unable to explain his own ideas, proposed ideas that were simply losing, referenced games that did not exist, and was generally (relative to the class of player here) clueless. None of that final section is definitive proof of cheating to say the least, but it helps create a probabilistic profile of a player (and a game). The point of this is that even a computer that played human-like (which I would argue will not happen for the distantly foreseeable future), would be just one factor among many in busting cheaters. I expect this is why Magnus was also initially reluctant to directly accuse him of cheating. He felt he was cheating based on the meta-factors and probably got folks more capable than himself to evaluate the technical factors, and when that also came up as a redflag - yeah, the dude's a cheater.
tobyjsullivan 4y ago
Interesting piece. It highlights how it's hard to differentiate between someone genuinely playing at a level higher, and a cheater. A few things I noted from this article: 1. The driving force behind the original accusations is that Magnus felt his opponent wasn't "exerting" himself enough, compared to other young prodigies. 2. Chess.com's case is that his results are "statistically extraordinary." 3. There is a history of cheating 4. Allegations that he admitted cheating privately (though it's not clear to whom) 1, 2, and 3 could easily be cause for suspicion; however, that's not the same as evidence. The one crucial piece absent from this article is any suggestion of how he cheated. Without providing a means, I find this piece premature and questionable. That said, I don't know anything about chess, lot alone cheating at the master level. So maybe the "how" is common sense and not difficult? And of course, there's also this: > The report also addresses the relationship during the saga between Carlsen and Chess.com, which is buying Carlsen’s “Play Magnus” app for nearly $83 million.
- EddySchauHai 4y ago
  > it's hard to differentiate between someone genuinely playing at a level higher, and a cheater Actually, it isn't! Great chess bots have very different play styles and there are people currently studying them. It's very unlikely someone will come out of nowhere so to speak (as in, not on some amazing rise as a young child) with these types of techniques. I'm nowhere near these levels of chess players but have played competitively for my county as a school-kid and still play a couple hundred games a year so have some idea.
  - chrisherring 4y ago
    A smart cheater isn't just going to replicate bot moves and make it easy to detect. They may just use it to decide between 2 moves they were 50/50 on already. Do this 2 or 3 times and it would make a big difference at the grand master level. This would be quite hard to detect.
- HarHarVeryFunny 4y ago
  FIDE are doing their own investigation, but the chess.com cheat detection algorithm is apparently well regarded, and online cheating is obviously very simple to do. He's admitted cheating online as recently as 3 years ago. If he can reasonably be proved to having cheated online more often and more recently than he has admitted to, then that gives good reason to suspect he'll have cheated OTB too given the chance. There are various ways one might cheat OTB, from taking one's phone the bathroom in the middle of a tournament (some allow this!!), to getting signals from an accomplice who is seeing the game in real time. Signals could be electronic to some device on the player, or visual from an audience member in the room. It's been proposed to introduce a 15-30 min broadcast delay in tournament games as one way to prevent cheating. Some tournaments scan the players for electronic devices - not sure how foolproof this is.
selfmodruntime 4y ago
The fact that an athlete in a competitive sport was allowed to partake in an event even after admitting to cheating not only once, but twice, is outrageous in itself.
- jrm4 4y ago
  Right? I completely didn't understand this part? In pretty much everything else, you cheat, you're basically done.
  - Bud 4y ago
    Oh. Really? I mean, not in baseball. Not in football. Not in basketball. Not even in President of the United States. What is this alternate reality you're in, and what is your list of "everything else"? Citations, please.
    - jrm4 4y ago
      I didn't go deep on it, but it seemed like dude's cheating was repeated, open, and notorious.
      - Bud 4y ago
        It was. I was addressing the other part of your statement, however.
    - Cupertino95014 4y ago
      Citation: Pete Rose, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Curt Schilling will never get in the Hall of Fame. You're right that that's not "basically done," but once they're retired, HoF is all they have to look forward to. Being officially in disgrace is pretty done.
      - Bud 4y ago
        Yet I can cite hundreds of cases of cheating in all the major sports in which, yes, there was a suspension or other penalty, but the players or people involved were then allowed to participate again. The examples you cited are very extreme, but even in these cases, they don't support your argument. None of those players were removed from the game during their playing careers and barred. And again, those are just the most extreme cases. There are many, many less severe cases, all of which support my argument and not yours. You might want to remove Schilling from your list, btw. He hasn't been accused of any cheating; instead, he did other embarrassing things.
zqlamp 4y ago
The chess.com campaign continues. 100 games are nothing online, Carlsen/Firouzja play that in a single night. The headline is pure propaganda and omits the word "online". In fact, the article tries to paint Niemann as a liar while the purported facts pretty much match what he admitted to. One cheating in a titled tournament at age 12 and multiple cheats at the beginning of 2020. He said he was 16, so he was barely 17 according to the article. That isn't a lie, that can easily happen in an interview. If that is all that chess.com has, their behavior is extremely poor. Also, what about all those other cheating titled players who did not have the misfortune to win against multi-million asset Carlsen? It is time for Europeans to send GDPR requests for cheating scores etc. and terminate their accounts. The risk is too great.
- angio 4y ago
  He cheated in prize money tournaments. That's borderline fraud.
  - ghank 4y ago
    Here is Carlsen taking a move from Howell in a Lichess prize tournament, which he'd never do OTB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNMcnrmb97g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNMcnrmb97g
    - Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
      The move was pretty obvious.
      - klrobert 4y ago
        Then why does Carlsen ask "how?" before playing it? This is a conversation that would never have happened in an OTB tournament.
        Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
        Likely, because he was thinking of something else. It happens often when playing weaker opponents, you are so concentrated on some genius master plan to defeat an opponent, that when an opponent does something dumb you fail to see it immediately. Of course, my lichess rating is slightly below Carlsen's so I'm probably not the world's best expert on such things. (I don't quite understand what you mean by 'those conversation would never have happened .. ')
aluminum96 4y ago
It's a real red flag that he plays stronger moves after the browser window loses focus. I'd argue that's much less circumstantial than anything else so far.
- FireBeyond 4y ago
  Which shows ... I don't know ... naivety, or cockiness, or something. If I'm cheating at chess (or poker or whatever) online and I know that there are likely to be some form of anti-cheat scanning happening... why wouldn't you run your chess client on a computer beside you - then everything surrounding that is undetectable (processes, focus, CPU utilization, etc.)
  - kuboble 4y ago
    Because he likely wasn't aware they they track it and having this other computer introduces other risks. If he accidentally showed a picture of his second computer on the same desk during e.g. a stream it would be akin to guilt admission.
  - williamcotton 4y ago
    Cheating is a bad decision to begin with. I’m not surprised that further bad decisions were quickly in pursuit.
  - bena 4y ago
    People are still rather short-sighted when it comes to what a computer can do. They can really only think in front of them. If I put information into this program, I get information out. They don't think that applications can monitor their own meta-state. Or the state of other applications. So I'm not terribly surprised that he thought running the engine in another browser window would have been sufficient. He might have even had it open in "incognito mode". And since it's incognito, it can't be detected, right?
    - KennyBlanken 4y ago
      Most people don't realize that the online chat functions for a lot of customer service sites show every character you type, not when you hit 'enter' or 'send'.
rjj 4y ago
Just to make sure I read this right: he most likely cheated in 11 online tournaments from 2015 - 2020. Why not analyze his recent and over-the-board games?
- jfghi 4y ago
  I imagine everything is being analyzed but given that cheating in 11 online tournaments is enough to invalidate someone’s career it makes for an appropriate topic of article.
  - rjj 4y ago
    I get that. Just checking I had it right that this is ~not really the analysis we most want.
- Jabbles 4y ago
  From the article: While it says Niemann’s improvement has been “statistically extraordinary.” Chess.com noted that it hasn’t historically been involved with cheat detection for classical over-the-board chess, and it stopped short of any conclusive statements about whether he has cheated in person. Still, it pointed to several of Niemann’s strongest events, which it believes “merit further investigation based on the data.” FIDE, chess’s world governing body, is conducting its own investigation into the Niemann-Carlsen affair.
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
  Kenneth Regan did that and came to a conclusion that there were no cheating.
  - jbverschoor 4y ago
    I'd say he could not come to a conclusion that there were cheating.
  - goatlover 4y ago
    Which is odd, considering how many games Hans played at 90-100% match for chess engine moves, which seems to be a lot more than other GMs, where typically their best games are in the 70% range. See Hikaru and other chess YT channels.
arecurrence 4y ago
Why don't cheaters just use two machines or even just their phone and a laptop? The evidence is often around other processes or browser tabs running on their device (and in this case also focus loss) but an immediate thought must be to simply use multiple devices.
- ActorNightly 4y ago
  Traditionally chess engine moves were identifiable easily enough by regular players, and chess.com even has algorithms in place to detect this. Thats all going to change now though, and its totally possible to cheat using a second computer with an engine that will be undetectable.
- slivanes 4y ago
  You mostly read about cheaters who get caught.
  - olliej 4y ago
    Yeah, I think fail to consider survivor bias to be relevant in cases like this. It's also why there are occasional surges in cheating (or crime, or whatever) after significant instances - subsequent examination then finds other cases because it's now looking for them, but the reality is the cheating (or whatever) was always there and just not noticed.
- paxys 4y ago
  No, the evidence is usually around analysis of the moves and how they compare to those generated by chess engines and how the same player has played in the past. The mechanics of the cheating are mostly irrelevant.
  - arecurrence 4y ago
    You're totally right, some of the articles I looked at focused on tangential causes... whereas analysis of moves compared to decisions by a vastly superior system has got to be the smoking gun. I suppose new algorithms will be designed or trained to account for the user's performance history.
whartung 4y ago
So, I'm not much of a chess person, much less a competitive chess person. Can the "over the board" cheating potential be reduced with a 5 minute "tape delay" of broadcasting the game? Is that enough time to thwart the influence of an external signal? Seems to me the only way this person can redeem himself is through over the board play under strict conditions ("Come dressed in shorts, a t-shirt and sandals"). But I don't know if how long they're allowed per move, and if 5 minutes is enough time to thwart external influence.
- umvi 4y ago
  Depends on the game type and cheating type. If blitz type game where players have <5 minutes to decide a move, then yes, delayed broadcast might be effective. Other game types allow for >5 minutes per move so tape delay would be ineffective since cheater could just stall. Cheating type also matters. There's external help (friend in the audience communicating 1 or more bits of information via auditory, optical, radio, or some other signal), and there's also internal help (raspberry pi zero + battery and pressure sensor embedded in your shoe or something). There are so many ways to cheat that it's hard to enumerate all of them let alone prevent all of them.
- Hamcha 4y ago
  In blitz, 5 minutes totally would work, in classical chess I have my doubts. The Sinquefield Cup (the tournament where the drama started) added a 15 minute delay which would be much more noticeable and less forgiving.
  - robswc 4y ago
    That's a question I was going to ask. Sure, not _every_ move is 5 min, but wouldn't a 5 min delay almost ensure any cheater would play mostly more than 5 min, each turn? (besides some simple moves, ofc) Or is it that they only need to cheat at a few points where taking more than 5 min wouldn't be abnormal at all?
    - cantaloupe 4y ago
      The latter. The article briefly points out that cheating on only a few moves can give one grandmaster a significant advantage, which makes cheating difficult to detect. In discussion of a previous article, some HN commenters suggested that even having a binary “be careful here” signal based on a chess engine could make a big difference.
ENOTTY 4y ago
In case you’re looking for whether this says anything about the butt plug allegations, this report does not. It only concerns cheating on an online platform, not in person cheating
Madmallard 4y ago
How is this person like at all able to even compete over the board? Seems like this type of history and even a history of cheating at all should just be a permanent nix.
- spuz 4y ago
  He is a genuinely very good player. That also makes it potentially very hard to detect if he has indeed cheated. His current coach has been quoted in a past interview saying how easy it would be to cheat undetected if you were already at GM level. You only need the engine to guide you in 2-3 moves to swing a game. 2013 Interview with Max Dlugy: https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-shoe-aistant--ivanov-forfeits-at-blagoevgrad-051013 https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-shoe-aistant--ivanov-forfe... Also, before you ask, "if he is already at GM level, why does he feel the need to cheat?" the answer is that the stronger players and athletes often feel more inclined to cheat because they have such high expectations of themselves. Past cheating scandals in sports have proven this.
  - stripykitteh 4y ago
    True, in pro cycling over the last few decades it became almost mandatory (unless you were phenomenally gifted) to take PEDs in order to be able to compete. The difference between being in a top team and a lower ranked team is measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars. Riders who spent 10-15 years of their childhood training to be a pro were faced with a difficult choice - cheat and realize your dream, or stay clean and walk away from the sport.
tzs 4y ago
GothamChess coverage on YouTube [1]. Part of this is showing and reading the article itself so if the WSJ paywall is getting in your way you can read it in the video. Hikaru coverage on YouTube [2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1DCqoBjR4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1DCqoBjR4s [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VptbNKbHQiM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VptbNKbHQiM
bmacho 4y ago
This is the most interesting part for me: Computers have “nearly infallible tactical calculation,” the report says, and are capable of beating even the best human every single time. The report says dozens of grandmasters have been caught cheating on the website, including four of the top-100 players in the world who confessed. I can't really comment it, but I leave it here if you haven't read the article.
- wisnoskij 4y ago
  I can 100% garenty you that anyone interested enouhg to get into the top 50k chess players is going to be interested enough in chess to want to play around with a chess engine, and why not use it in the most convenient way possible, to play a few chess.com matches with it.
- mzs 4y ago
  And when they admit to it, chess.com allows them to continue using the site, even when prizes are at stake, without anyone else knowing.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
> “Outside his online play, Hans is the fastest rising top player in Classical [over-the-board] chess in modern history,” the report says, while comparing his progress to the game’s brightest rising stars. “Looking purely at rating, Hans should be classified as a member of this group of top young players. While we don’t doubt that Hans is a talented player, we note that his results are statistically extraordinary.” I basically made the argument that, in any sport, when a player does statistically much, much better than their previous performance would predict, that in and of itself should be considered evidence of cheating - perhaps not conclusive evidence, but definitely evidence warranting further investigation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32990022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32990022 > All this talk of "Carlsen accused him of cheating with no evidence" reminds me of the blowback against some athletes in the 70s and 80s who accused rivals of taking PEDs "with no evidence". > Sometimes the evidence of someone doing monstrously better than can be expected by their history is sufficient IMO. I mean, look at this article about swimmer Shirley Babashoff [1], dubbed "Surly Shirley" at the time by the media, for suggesting the East German women were on PEDs in the 70s. Nowadays we look back on those images of the East German women, looking more manly than any dude I've ever seen, and wonder how we considered with a straight face that they weren't on a boatload of drugs. Similarly, it completely baffles me how any sane person can think that Flo Jo wasn't on PEDs in the runup to the 1988 Olympics - her 100m dash record still stands today. > I'm not saying Carlsen went about it in the right way, because now Niemann is basically in an indefensible position, but I'm also not willing to quickly dismiss it because Carlsen has "no evidence".
- raydiatian 4y ago
  Yeah you pointed out something special here. It’s like those unsung Russian sub captains who didn’t start the nuclear apocalypse because they had an intuitive understanding between faulty and genuine threats. You can’t explain why you know something you just know it. Besides, Magnus genuinely has never seemed like the guy to get petty and up and throw a fit, he’s lost plenty of times without doing such.
  - JetSetIlly 4y ago
    > You can’t explain why you know something you just know it. The way Carlsen described his suspicions reminded me of "connoisseurship" in the art world. Now that's a "skill" that's not as important as it once was but once the science has given its results and there are still no firm conclusions, connoisseurship is all you have.
ed-209 4y ago
Serious question: why isnt online play excluded at this level of competition? Why not restrict these "pro" matches to regulated conditions as in any other pro competition? We dont generally place full trust in online job interviews so why lower the bar to "honor system" when it comes to the most cheat-friendly competition in the universe?
- ehsankia 4y ago
  To be fair, what kicked out this whole saga was a real life match between him and Magnus Carlson. There are plenty of theories out there about how he could've cheated, some more absurd than others. Also, there has been history of people cheating in IRL games by taking many bathroom breaks and looking up solutions while on break.
- buscoquadnary 4y ago
  Pandemic happened that's the big reason.
- paxys 4y ago
  Because it takes a lot of time and money to set up an in-person tournament. A virtual one is basically free and will get a lot more participation from top players.
chaoticmass 4y ago
If he really is so good, why doesn't he start doing IRL tournaments and rise through the ranks that way?
zhivota 4y ago
Why don't they just put the players into a Faraday cage with wired cameras on the inside? No communication out of the box by any means in that case.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  I could actually cheat in that situation, if my people could hack the camera controls and dilate the iris or move it or something...
- tempestn 4y ago
  You can run a chess engine that can beat any human on a small portable device, so external communication wouldn't be necessary. Perhaps combined with a metal detector it could work? Honestly though I think the more significant reason is that that would require building the cages, and would prevent live audiences.
2devnull 4y ago
Knew it!
chesscom 4y ago
There is so much more to our report than what was focused on in the WSJ article. The full report will be shared shortly…
- mzs 4y ago
  >Rensch had previously said that Chess-com had never shared a list of cheaters or the platform’s cheat detection algorithm with Carlsen. So who did chess.com share those with?
  - largepeepee 4y ago
    And why would they ever share full details of confidential agreements? Ie, their secret sauce.
    - mzs 4y ago
      Cause they shared Dlugy's private emails last week? Cause they leaked this report to the WSJ before putting it on their site? Cause Rensch worded the non-denial denial specifically like that?
      - largepeepee 4y ago
        Like I had mentioned previously, why would they reveal their entire hand? It makes sense to show the relevant part of their upcoming case and who knows what kind of agreement they had with Dlugy and with lawyers before deciding to reveal that snippet. Like in poker. Just because they showed one card, doesn't mean they are now obligated to show their hand.
        jimmySixDOF 4y ago
        Yes if there are legal avenues this takes it will involve Dlugy and the Chess Max Academy. The problem is unless there is a caught in the act smoking gun it's all lot of statistics and inuendio that's very hard for anyone to prove in either direction. I'd feel more comfortable if Chess.com ran the exact same report they are releasing now on 50 other top players to see how close to a hundred anomalies they get. Still its a fascinating story with deep implications far beyond the world of chess.
mzs 4y ago
One of the reporters adds a detail that several from the WSJ article means 6 (which we all would have immediately known had chess.com simply published on their site instead of leaking the 72-page report): >The report made no conclusions about Niemann's in-person games. But it also flagged his play from six over-the-board events, saying those merit further investigation. https://twitter.com/andrewlbeaton/status/1577380477807300626 https://twitter.com/andrewlbeaton/status/1577380477807300626
moralestapia 4y ago
Keep this in mind(!) Magnus Carlsen is a majority shareholder in chess.com.
- Etheryte 4y ago
  Not a majority shareholder, majority would be 50%+. He holds around 20% if I recall correctly. It's still a large portion, but it was outlined specifically in the article that he was not included in this investigation and didn't influence it.
- elcomet 4y ago
  Are you sure you're not talking about chess24?
  - dankwizard 4y ago
    They recently merged
- sgjohnson 4y ago
  Magnus Carlsen is not on trial here. And it’s disingenious to suggest that he’s actively trying to destroy Hans’ career because his ego couldn’t stand losing to him in that OTB game, because it’s an extremely serious allegation from human perspective.
- aliswe 4y ago
  *major
amatecha 4y ago
"I would never, could even fathom doing it, in a real game" .. well, that's a lie, considering he already admitted to doing it in games with monetary prizes when he was younger.
- _-david-_ 4y ago
  Real game likely means in person. Weren't all the games he admitted to cheating in online?
vonwoodson 4y ago
- dankwizard 4y ago
  Hans account found
zac23or 4y ago
Question for anyone inside the chess world: is chess now the same as ciclism, in terms of cheating?
permo-w 4y ago
here's an analysis someone did of Niemann's record in in-person games where the board positions were broadcasted to the internet vs games where they weren't (making it harder to cheat): https://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?t=80630&start=100#p933597 https://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?t=80630&start=100...
rys 4y ago
Do we know how he cheated in the in-person over the board games? That’s the most fascinating aspect of the story now.
vario 4y ago
Noob here: how did he cheat without getting caught? did he memorize chess engine responses? Or did he have a secret computer somewhere feeding him the moves?
- openfuture 4y ago
  Memorizing is not cheating. Many of the pros do that. He'd need to be receiving computer analysis during the game for it to be cheating.
  - vario 4y ago
    I see. Yes the article which I read later, did mention players looking at gadgets in the toilet...among other techniques. I guess the future of chess championships would be interesting...
pcj-github 4y ago
It is a premature conclusion that Hans was cheating in this game. Let the proper process play out, whatever that may be. Magnus has not presented any actual evidence. Chess.com is not an impartial player here in this drama and cannot be considered source-of-truth (they just purchased Magnus' startup for ~$80M; their fortunes are linked and would be subject to similar biases). WSJ article has not really done a deep dive.
- ratg13 4y ago
  As Magnus pointed out, the issue is more about how can you trust that a regular cheater is not cheating in a particular game if the regulators aren't doing enough to prevent it.
meechi555 4y ago
meechi555 4y ago

326 points by freefal 4y ago

Gift link - https://www.wsj.com/articles/chess-cheating-hans-niemann-report-magnus-carlsen-11664911524?st=z6xstlbc9rm5lnv&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink https://www.wsj.com/articles/chess-cheating-hans-niemann-rep...

chatterhead 4y ago

[flagged]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Mountain_Skies 4y ago

It's important to note that the investigation was conducted by chess.com, which is hardly an impartial authority in the matter.

edgarvaldes 4y ago
On the other hand, the analysis is about online games on the chess.com platform.
Version467 4y ago
How aren't they impartial? They are obviously an interested party, but do they have an incentive to skew the facts? If so in which direction? Not doubting you, just genuinely interested.
- axxl 4y ago
  Magnus owns a decent stake in them (20% maybe?) and has been very publicly making accusations as well.
  - heartbreak 4y ago
    Their deal with Magnus hasn’t closed, but yes, they are purchasing his company.
  - Version467 4y ago
    Oh, I didn't know that chess.com wanted to buy chess24. That does make it more difficult.
  - suetoniusp 4y ago
    Its not that much, but the article ignores the fact that chess.com knew all of this and invited him to their tournaments. Then once the Singfield cup event happened and Magnus got mad they banned him. They have been selectively releasing information about him and his one time coach for a few weeks now. While in the past they have never, not once, released any of their cheating information. Why now? If they dont release the report they are talking about then this article is nothing.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Apparently they have a policy of only dealing internally, with their own online systems. Basically they just quietly ban players caught cheating, and don't report it anywhere normally. Even now, they haven't released this publicly yet.
- darkwizard42 4y ago
  As mentioned in the article they are in talks to buy Magnus's app Play Magnus. That being said, if they have literal screenshots of the discussions between Niemann and chess.com admitting to cheating and appealing the ban, those seem like smoking guns in addition to all this other analysis
  - hollerith 4y ago
    >if they have literal screenshots of the discussions between Niemann and chess.com admitting to cheating Screenshots are easy enough to fake perfectly that if I didn't trust a party to give an honest summary of the discussion and (as in the current stake) thousands of dollars or more is at stake, then I wouldn't trust screenshots either.
    - ratg13 4y ago
      If you are one of the parties in the conversation, then it stands to reason that you have more than screenshots.
    - edanm 4y ago
      Screenshots in this case are perfectly reliable. If they are literally faking screenshots of what Hans said, it'd be incredibly easy for him to prove it and sue them for the falsification.
      - hollerith 4y ago
        Can you explain how Hans could prove that screenshots are fake? I suppose you mean Hans could subpoena records from his own ISP or Chess.com or Chess.com's ISP that reveal the content of Hans's communication; right?
        edanm 4y ago
        Exactly. He can subpoena records, can have a third party get access to e.g. Gmail or whatever he uses, etc.
- permo-w 4y ago
  I would say that more than relationships with Magnus, chess.com are not impartial in the same way that the tabloid press are not impartial. controversy -> attention -> money. I bet their brand recognition is through the fucking roof after being in international news and spread all over tiktok for a couple of weeks this isn't to say that I don't think Niemann cheated. I think he probably did, just that chess.com is getting great publicity from all this and it would be un-shocking for them to want to string it out a bit longer. it would be poor business not to, in fact
aliswe 4y ago
If you are yourself impartial, you should back up your statement claiming they are (hardly im-) partial. Otherwise we will probably just dismiss you as hardly impartial ...

perihelions 4y ago

https://archive.ph/TtSEO https://archive.ph/TtSEO

suetoniusp91 4y ago

Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago

Cheating at 3+2 games while streaming? How's it is even possible to input all moves/positions into a chess program in parallel too main game and also while commenting? IMO it is impossible without some very specialized software or external assistance who would do the clicks. And how does he cheat in over the board events?

perihelions 4y ago
Computer vision for chess is widely available (and very useful!) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19563768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19563768 ("Chessvision.ai – Analyze chess position from websites, images or video", 49 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21162466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21162466 ("Show HN: ChessBoss – enhancing physical chessboards with computer vision", 36 comments)
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
  Things that are easy for some members of HN crowd are likely not that easy for a 19yo person who's only notable achievement in life so far is being really good at chess (well, presumably). Such software also doesn't explain his OTB results, which are consistent with his online results.
  - HarHarVeryFunny 4y ago
    Some OTB tournaments allow players to go to the bathroom with their phone, others allow audience in same room - so an accomplice (such as Hans' coach Maxim Dlugy - another admitted cheat) could relay moves via signal. I've seen suggestion on Hiraku's channel that current scanning for players for communication devices is sub-par, although Hans has offered to play naked to disprove that theory (some porno site is calling his bluff by offering him $1M to actually do it). Anal beads? I dunno ... Magnus has estimated it would usually only take one or two computer corrections per game for himself to play perfectly, so we're not talking about every move, just at key points. Apparently even just an indication that there is some key/winning move at a given point, without indicating what it is, is enough for the player to stop and put in the time to find it.

fxtentacle 4y ago

I believe the critical aspect here is not the specific cheating that chess.com found, but that this appears to contain written statements by Niemann himself which contradict his public statement. And if it now turns out that he lied in his confession, too, then that's a really bad look w.r.t. his trustworthiness.

threatofrain 4y ago
Confessions have an important role in forgiveness, but given that, the public arena is never the right place for confessions; i.e., do you expect someone to say "Actually, I also hit on another employee last May." That would get you nailed to a cross and no lawyer would ever advise that except on the calculus of further damage control.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kjeetgill 4y ago
  There's a huge difference between not confessing and making a false confession.
perihelions 4y ago
- "written statements by Niemann himself which contradict his public statement" The article doesn't say that Niemann's admissions to Chess.com were about cheating in prize-money tournaments, nor the other disputed facts. The spreadsheet of incidents they show us isn't what Niemann admitted to cheating in, but was Chess.com's internal anticheat flagged -- we can tell because they label it as "suspect games" and it uses qualifiers like "likely". The inferences that the cheating was for real money prizes, or at an age older than 16, or on for-profit Twitch streams, are drawn from from this list of suspected games. We don't currently know what facts Niemann confessed too: it's not public whether the facts Niemann is allegedly lying about overlap with the facts Niemann admitted to in writing in 2020. WSJ may have evidence that's dispositive on this point (i.e. those Slack texts), but they haven't printed it yet.

energyy 4y ago

do I really need to login/pay to read this news?

hoppyhoppy2 4y ago
an archive.ph link and a gift-article link have been posted here in the comments.
- energyy 4y ago
  yeah, saw that after posting this.. thanks

MAXPOOL 4y ago

The next 'move' for cheaters is to use chess computers in a way that passes 'Chess Turing Test' and makes cheating indistinguishable from normal human play under analysis. When there is money in the game, there is incentive to cheat. > The report says dozens of grandmasters have been caught cheating on the website, including four of the top-100 players in the world who confessed. There are probably smart cheaters already playing who are able to evade detection.

bombcar 4y ago
The best players only need one or two notes, even something as simple as "there's a good play here" twice a game could throw things dramatically. That is harder, almost as hard as playing for real, but doable. Much easier to just be a mechanical turk for sharkfish or whatever it's called.
somenameforme 4y ago
Cheat detection isn't done by only by move analysis, but by an extensive profiling of a person and games based on many factors beyond even just the moves. For instance one of the easiest ways to catch a weak player cheating is move times. Such a player will have no idea whether a move is trivial or works only due to an exceptionally precise and lengthy series of counter-intuitive calculations that no human could do without a significant think. And so they'll tend to rely both in approximately the same amount of time. Even during the Carlsen-Niemann game it was meta-factors that initially clued Carlsen in. Niemann was playing without any significant effort or tension, in spite of playing in a game where he was outplaying the world champion. And after the game he was unable to explain his own ideas, proposed ideas that were simply losing, referenced games that did not exist, and was generally (relative to the class of player here) clueless. None of that final section is definitive proof of cheating to say the least, but it helps create a probabilistic profile of a player (and a game). The point of this is that even a computer that played human-like (which I would argue will not happen for the distantly foreseeable future), would be just one factor among many in busting cheaters. I expect this is why Magnus was also initially reluctant to directly accuse him of cheating. He felt he was cheating based on the meta-factors and probably got folks more capable than himself to evaluate the technical factors, and when that also came up as a redflag - yeah, the dude's a cheater.

tobyjsullivan 4y ago

Interesting piece. It highlights how it's hard to differentiate between someone genuinely playing at a level higher, and a cheater. A few things I noted from this article: 1. The driving force behind the original accusations is that Magnus felt his opponent wasn't "exerting" himself enough, compared to other young prodigies. 2. Chess.com's case is that his results are "statistically extraordinary." 3. There is a history of cheating 4. Allegations that he admitted cheating privately (though it's not clear to whom) 1, 2, and 3 could easily be cause for suspicion; however, that's not the same as evidence. The one crucial piece absent from this article is any suggestion of how he cheated. Without providing a means, I find this piece premature and questionable. That said, I don't know anything about chess, lot alone cheating at the master level. So maybe the "how" is common sense and not difficult? And of course, there's also this: > The report also addresses the relationship during the saga between Carlsen and Chess.com, which is buying Carlsen’s “Play Magnus” app for nearly $83 million.

EddySchauHai 4y ago
> it's hard to differentiate between someone genuinely playing at a level higher, and a cheater Actually, it isn't! Great chess bots have very different play styles and there are people currently studying them. It's very unlikely someone will come out of nowhere so to speak (as in, not on some amazing rise as a young child) with these types of techniques. I'm nowhere near these levels of chess players but have played competitively for my county as a school-kid and still play a couple hundred games a year so have some idea.
- chrisherring 4y ago
  A smart cheater isn't just going to replicate bot moves and make it easy to detect. They may just use it to decide between 2 moves they were 50/50 on already. Do this 2 or 3 times and it would make a big difference at the grand master level. This would be quite hard to detect.
HarHarVeryFunny 4y ago
FIDE are doing their own investigation, but the chess.com cheat detection algorithm is apparently well regarded, and online cheating is obviously very simple to do. He's admitted cheating online as recently as 3 years ago. If he can reasonably be proved to having cheated online more often and more recently than he has admitted to, then that gives good reason to suspect he'll have cheated OTB too given the chance. There are various ways one might cheat OTB, from taking one's phone the bathroom in the middle of a tournament (some allow this!!), to getting signals from an accomplice who is seeing the game in real time. Signals could be electronic to some device on the player, or visual from an audience member in the room. It's been proposed to introduce a 15-30 min broadcast delay in tournament games as one way to prevent cheating. Some tournaments scan the players for electronic devices - not sure how foolproof this is.

selfmodruntime 4y ago

The fact that an athlete in a competitive sport was allowed to partake in an event even after admitting to cheating not only once, but twice, is outrageous in itself.

jrm4 4y ago
Right? I completely didn't understand this part? In pretty much everything else, you cheat, you're basically done.
- Bud 4y ago
  Oh. Really? I mean, not in baseball. Not in football. Not in basketball. Not even in President of the United States. What is this alternate reality you're in, and what is your list of "everything else"? Citations, please.
  - jrm4 4y ago
    I didn't go deep on it, but it seemed like dude's cheating was repeated, open, and notorious.
    - Bud 4y ago
      It was. I was addressing the other part of your statement, however.
  - Cupertino95014 4y ago
    Citation: Pete Rose, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Curt Schilling will never get in the Hall of Fame. You're right that that's not "basically done," but once they're retired, HoF is all they have to look forward to. Being officially in disgrace is pretty done.
    - Bud 4y ago
      Yet I can cite hundreds of cases of cheating in all the major sports in which, yes, there was a suspension or other penalty, but the players or people involved were then allowed to participate again. The examples you cited are very extreme, but even in these cases, they don't support your argument. None of those players were removed from the game during their playing careers and barred. And again, those are just the most extreme cases. There are many, many less severe cases, all of which support my argument and not yours. You might want to remove Schilling from your list, btw. He hasn't been accused of any cheating; instead, he did other embarrassing things.

zqlamp 4y ago

The chess.com campaign continues. 100 games are nothing online, Carlsen/Firouzja play that in a single night. The headline is pure propaganda and omits the word "online". In fact, the article tries to paint Niemann as a liar while the purported facts pretty much match what he admitted to. One cheating in a titled tournament at age 12 and multiple cheats at the beginning of 2020. He said he was 16, so he was barely 17 according to the article. That isn't a lie, that can easily happen in an interview. If that is all that chess.com has, their behavior is extremely poor. Also, what about all those other cheating titled players who did not have the misfortune to win against multi-million asset Carlsen? It is time for Europeans to send GDPR requests for cheating scores etc. and terminate their accounts. The risk is too great.

angio 4y ago
He cheated in prize money tournaments. That's borderline fraud.
- ghank 4y ago
  Here is Carlsen taking a move from Howell in a Lichess prize tournament, which he'd never do OTB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNMcnrmb97g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNMcnrmb97g
  - Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
    The move was pretty obvious.
    - klrobert 4y ago
      Then why does Carlsen ask "how?" before playing it? This is a conversation that would never have happened in an OTB tournament.
      - Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
        Likely, because he was thinking of something else. It happens often when playing weaker opponents, you are so concentrated on some genius master plan to defeat an opponent, that when an opponent does something dumb you fail to see it immediately. Of course, my lichess rating is slightly below Carlsen's so I'm probably not the world's best expert on such things. (I don't quite understand what you mean by 'those conversation would never have happened .. ')

aluminum96 4y ago

It's a real red flag that he plays stronger moves after the browser window loses focus. I'd argue that's much less circumstantial than anything else so far.

FireBeyond 4y ago
Which shows ... I don't know ... naivety, or cockiness, or something. If I'm cheating at chess (or poker or whatever) online and I know that there are likely to be some form of anti-cheat scanning happening... why wouldn't you run your chess client on a computer beside you - then everything surrounding that is undetectable (processes, focus, CPU utilization, etc.)
- kuboble 4y ago
  Because he likely wasn't aware they they track it and having this other computer introduces other risks. If he accidentally showed a picture of his second computer on the same desk during e.g. a stream it would be akin to guilt admission.
- williamcotton 4y ago
  Cheating is a bad decision to begin with. I’m not surprised that further bad decisions were quickly in pursuit.
- bena 4y ago
  People are still rather short-sighted when it comes to what a computer can do. They can really only think in front of them. If I put information into this program, I get information out. They don't think that applications can monitor their own meta-state. Or the state of other applications. So I'm not terribly surprised that he thought running the engine in another browser window would have been sufficient. He might have even had it open in "incognito mode". And since it's incognito, it can't be detected, right?
  - KennyBlanken 4y ago
    Most people don't realize that the online chat functions for a lot of customer service sites show every character you type, not when you hit 'enter' or 'send'.

rjj 4y ago

Just to make sure I read this right: he most likely cheated in 11 online tournaments from 2015 - 2020. Why not analyze his recent and over-the-board games?

jfghi 4y ago
I imagine everything is being analyzed but given that cheating in 11 online tournaments is enough to invalidate someone’s career it makes for an appropriate topic of article.
- rjj 4y ago
  I get that. Just checking I had it right that this is ~not really the analysis we most want.
Jabbles 4y ago
From the article: While it says Niemann’s improvement has been “statistically extraordinary.” Chess.com noted that it hasn’t historically been involved with cheat detection for classical over-the-board chess, and it stopped short of any conclusive statements about whether he has cheated in person. Still, it pointed to several of Niemann’s strongest events, which it believes “merit further investigation based on the data.” FIDE, chess’s world governing body, is conducting its own investigation into the Niemann-Carlsen affair.
Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
Kenneth Regan did that and came to a conclusion that there were no cheating.
- jbverschoor 4y ago
  I'd say he could not come to a conclusion that there were cheating.
- goatlover 4y ago
  Which is odd, considering how many games Hans played at 90-100% match for chess engine moves, which seems to be a lot more than other GMs, where typically their best games are in the 70% range. See Hikaru and other chess YT channels.

arecurrence 4y ago

Why don't cheaters just use two machines or even just their phone and a laptop? The evidence is often around other processes or browser tabs running on their device (and in this case also focus loss) but an immediate thought must be to simply use multiple devices.

ActorNightly 4y ago
Traditionally chess engine moves were identifiable easily enough by regular players, and chess.com even has algorithms in place to detect this. Thats all going to change now though, and its totally possible to cheat using a second computer with an engine that will be undetectable.
slivanes 4y ago
You mostly read about cheaters who get caught.
- olliej 4y ago
  Yeah, I think fail to consider survivor bias to be relevant in cases like this. It's also why there are occasional surges in cheating (or crime, or whatever) after significant instances - subsequent examination then finds other cases because it's now looking for them, but the reality is the cheating (or whatever) was always there and just not noticed.
paxys 4y ago
No, the evidence is usually around analysis of the moves and how they compare to those generated by chess engines and how the same player has played in the past. The mechanics of the cheating are mostly irrelevant.
- arecurrence 4y ago
  You're totally right, some of the articles I looked at focused on tangential causes... whereas analysis of moves compared to decisions by a vastly superior system has got to be the smoking gun. I suppose new algorithms will be designed or trained to account for the user's performance history.

whartung 4y ago

So, I'm not much of a chess person, much less a competitive chess person. Can the "over the board" cheating potential be reduced with a 5 minute "tape delay" of broadcasting the game? Is that enough time to thwart the influence of an external signal? Seems to me the only way this person can redeem himself is through over the board play under strict conditions ("Come dressed in shorts, a t-shirt and sandals"). But I don't know if how long they're allowed per move, and if 5 minutes is enough time to thwart external influence.

umvi 4y ago
Depends on the game type and cheating type. If blitz type game where players have <5 minutes to decide a move, then yes, delayed broadcast might be effective. Other game types allow for >5 minutes per move so tape delay would be ineffective since cheater could just stall. Cheating type also matters. There's external help (friend in the audience communicating 1 or more bits of information via auditory, optical, radio, or some other signal), and there's also internal help (raspberry pi zero + battery and pressure sensor embedded in your shoe or something). There are so many ways to cheat that it's hard to enumerate all of them let alone prevent all of them.
Hamcha 4y ago
In blitz, 5 minutes totally would work, in classical chess I have my doubts. The Sinquefield Cup (the tournament where the drama started) added a 15 minute delay which would be much more noticeable and less forgiving.
- robswc 4y ago
  That's a question I was going to ask. Sure, not _every_ move is 5 min, but wouldn't a 5 min delay almost ensure any cheater would play mostly more than 5 min, each turn? (besides some simple moves, ofc) Or is it that they only need to cheat at a few points where taking more than 5 min wouldn't be abnormal at all?
  - cantaloupe 4y ago
    The latter. The article briefly points out that cheating on only a few moves can give one grandmaster a significant advantage, which makes cheating difficult to detect. In discussion of a previous article, some HN commenters suggested that even having a binary “be careful here” signal based on a chess engine could make a big difference.

ENOTTY 4y ago

In case you’re looking for whether this says anything about the butt plug allegations, this report does not. It only concerns cheating on an online platform, not in person cheating

Madmallard 4y ago

How is this person like at all able to even compete over the board? Seems like this type of history and even a history of cheating at all should just be a permanent nix.

spuz 4y ago
He is a genuinely very good player. That also makes it potentially very hard to detect if he has indeed cheated. His current coach has been quoted in a past interview saying how easy it would be to cheat undetected if you were already at GM level. You only need the engine to guide you in 2-3 moves to swing a game. 2013 Interview with Max Dlugy: https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-shoe-aistant--ivanov-forfeits-at-blagoevgrad-051013 https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-shoe-aistant--ivanov-forfe... Also, before you ask, "if he is already at GM level, why does he feel the need to cheat?" the answer is that the stronger players and athletes often feel more inclined to cheat because they have such high expectations of themselves. Past cheating scandals in sports have proven this.
- stripykitteh 4y ago
  True, in pro cycling over the last few decades it became almost mandatory (unless you were phenomenally gifted) to take PEDs in order to be able to compete. The difference between being in a top team and a lower ranked team is measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars. Riders who spent 10-15 years of their childhood training to be a pro were faced with a difficult choice - cheat and realize your dream, or stay clean and walk away from the sport.

tzs 4y ago

GothamChess coverage on YouTube [1]. Part of this is showing and reading the article itself so if the WSJ paywall is getting in your way you can read it in the video. Hikaru coverage on YouTube [2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1DCqoBjR4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1DCqoBjR4s [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VptbNKbHQiM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VptbNKbHQiM

bmacho 4y ago

This is the most interesting part for me: Computers have “nearly infallible tactical calculation,” the report says, and are capable of beating even the best human every single time. The report says dozens of grandmasters have been caught cheating on the website, including four of the top-100 players in the world who confessed. I can't really comment it, but I leave it here if you haven't read the article.

wisnoskij 4y ago
I can 100% garenty you that anyone interested enouhg to get into the top 50k chess players is going to be interested enough in chess to want to play around with a chess engine, and why not use it in the most convenient way possible, to play a few chess.com matches with it.
mzs 4y ago
And when they admit to it, chess.com allows them to continue using the site, even when prizes are at stake, without anyone else knowing.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

> “Outside his online play, Hans is the fastest rising top player in Classical [over-the-board] chess in modern history,” the report says, while comparing his progress to the game’s brightest rising stars. “Looking purely at rating, Hans should be classified as a member of this group of top young players. While we don’t doubt that Hans is a talented player, we note that his results are statistically extraordinary.” I basically made the argument that, in any sport, when a player does statistically much, much better than their previous performance would predict, that in and of itself should be considered evidence of cheating - perhaps not conclusive evidence, but definitely evidence warranting further investigation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32990022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32990022 > All this talk of "Carlsen accused him of cheating with no evidence" reminds me of the blowback against some athletes in the 70s and 80s who accused rivals of taking PEDs "with no evidence". > Sometimes the evidence of someone doing monstrously better than can be expected by their history is sufficient IMO. I mean, look at this article about swimmer Shirley Babashoff [1], dubbed "Surly Shirley" at the time by the media, for suggesting the East German women were on PEDs in the 70s. Nowadays we look back on those images of the East German women, looking more manly than any dude I've ever seen, and wonder how we considered with a straight face that they weren't on a boatload of drugs. Similarly, it completely baffles me how any sane person can think that Flo Jo wasn't on PEDs in the runup to the 1988 Olympics - her 100m dash record still stands today. > I'm not saying Carlsen went about it in the right way, because now Niemann is basically in an indefensible position, but I'm also not willing to quickly dismiss it because Carlsen has "no evidence".

raydiatian 4y ago
Yeah you pointed out something special here. It’s like those unsung Russian sub captains who didn’t start the nuclear apocalypse because they had an intuitive understanding between faulty and genuine threats. You can’t explain why you know something you just know it. Besides, Magnus genuinely has never seemed like the guy to get petty and up and throw a fit, he’s lost plenty of times without doing such.
- JetSetIlly 4y ago
  > You can’t explain why you know something you just know it. The way Carlsen described his suspicions reminded me of "connoisseurship" in the art world. Now that's a "skill" that's not as important as it once was but once the science has given its results and there are still no firm conclusions, connoisseurship is all you have.

ed-209 4y ago

Serious question: why isnt online play excluded at this level of competition? Why not restrict these "pro" matches to regulated conditions as in any other pro competition? We dont generally place full trust in online job interviews so why lower the bar to "honor system" when it comes to the most cheat-friendly competition in the universe?

ehsankia 4y ago
To be fair, what kicked out this whole saga was a real life match between him and Magnus Carlson. There are plenty of theories out there about how he could've cheated, some more absurd than others. Also, there has been history of people cheating in IRL games by taking many bathroom breaks and looking up solutions while on break.
buscoquadnary 4y ago
Pandemic happened that's the big reason.
paxys 4y ago
Because it takes a lot of time and money to set up an in-person tournament. A virtual one is basically free and will get a lot more participation from top players.

chaoticmass 4y ago

If he really is so good, why doesn't he start doing IRL tournaments and rise through the ranks that way?

zhivota 4y ago

Why don't they just put the players into a Faraday cage with wired cameras on the inside? No communication out of the box by any means in that case.

AnimalMuppet 4y ago
I could actually cheat in that situation, if my people could hack the camera controls and dilate the iris or move it or something...
tempestn 4y ago
You can run a chess engine that can beat any human on a small portable device, so external communication wouldn't be necessary. Perhaps combined with a metal detector it could work? Honestly though I think the more significant reason is that that would require building the cages, and would prevent live audiences.

2devnull 4y ago

Knew it!

chesscom 4y ago

There is so much more to our report than what was focused on in the WSJ article. The full report will be shared shortly…

mzs 4y ago
>Rensch had previously said that Chess-com had never shared a list of cheaters or the platform’s cheat detection algorithm with Carlsen. So who did chess.com share those with?
- largepeepee 4y ago
  And why would they ever share full details of confidential agreements? Ie, their secret sauce.
  - mzs 4y ago
    Cause they shared Dlugy's private emails last week? Cause they leaked this report to the WSJ before putting it on their site? Cause Rensch worded the non-denial denial specifically like that?
    - largepeepee 4y ago
      Like I had mentioned previously, why would they reveal their entire hand? It makes sense to show the relevant part of their upcoming case and who knows what kind of agreement they had with Dlugy and with lawyers before deciding to reveal that snippet. Like in poker. Just because they showed one card, doesn't mean they are now obligated to show their hand.
      - jimmySixDOF 4y ago
        Yes if there are legal avenues this takes it will involve Dlugy and the Chess Max Academy. The problem is unless there is a caught in the act smoking gun it's all lot of statistics and inuendio that's very hard for anyone to prove in either direction. I'd feel more comfortable if Chess.com ran the exact same report they are releasing now on 50 other top players to see how close to a hundred anomalies they get. Still its a fascinating story with deep implications far beyond the world of chess.

mzs 4y ago

One of the reporters adds a detail that several from the WSJ article means 6 (which we all would have immediately known had chess.com simply published on their site instead of leaking the 72-page report): >The report made no conclusions about Niemann's in-person games. But it also flagged his play from six over-the-board events, saying those merit further investigation. https://twitter.com/andrewlbeaton/status/1577380477807300626 https://twitter.com/andrewlbeaton/status/1577380477807300626

moralestapia 4y ago

Keep this in mind(!) Magnus Carlsen is a majority shareholder in chess.com.

Etheryte 4y ago
Not a majority shareholder, majority would be 50%+. He holds around 20% if I recall correctly. It's still a large portion, but it was outlined specifically in the article that he was not included in this investigation and didn't influence it.
elcomet 4y ago
Are you sure you're not talking about chess24?
- dankwizard 4y ago
  They recently merged
sgjohnson 4y ago
Magnus Carlsen is not on trial here. And it’s disingenious to suggest that he’s actively trying to destroy Hans’ career because his ego couldn’t stand losing to him in that OTB game, because it’s an extremely serious allegation from human perspective.
aliswe 4y ago
*major

amatecha 4y ago

"I would never, could even fathom doing it, in a real game" .. well, that's a lie, considering he already admitted to doing it in games with monetary prizes when he was younger.

_-david-_ 4y ago
Real game likely means in person. Weren't all the games he admitted to cheating in online?

vonwoodson 4y ago

dankwizard 4y ago
Hans account found

zac23or 4y ago

Question for anyone inside the chess world: is chess now the same as ciclism, in terms of cheating?

permo-w 4y ago

here's an analysis someone did of Niemann's record in in-person games where the board positions were broadcasted to the internet vs games where they weren't (making it harder to cheat): https://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?t=80630&start=100#p933597 https://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?t=80630&start=100...

rys 4y ago

Do we know how he cheated in the in-person over the board games? That’s the most fascinating aspect of the story now.

vario 4y ago

Noob here: how did he cheat without getting caught? did he memorize chess engine responses? Or did he have a secret computer somewhere feeding him the moves?

openfuture 4y ago
Memorizing is not cheating. Many of the pros do that. He'd need to be receiving computer analysis during the game for it to be cheating.
- vario 4y ago
  I see. Yes the article which I read later, did mention players looking at gadgets in the toilet...among other techniques. I guess the future of chess championships would be interesting...

pcj-github 4y ago

It is a premature conclusion that Hans was cheating in this game. Let the proper process play out, whatever that may be. Magnus has not presented any actual evidence. Chess.com is not an impartial player here in this drama and cannot be considered source-of-truth (they just purchased Magnus' startup for ~$80M; their fortunes are linked and would be subject to similar biases). WSJ article has not really done a deep dive.

ratg13 4y ago
As Magnus pointed out, the issue is more about how can you trust that a regular cheater is not cheating in a particular game if the regulators aren't doing enough to prevent it.

meechi555 4y ago