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Math doesn’t move chess pieces? Well… yes, but I just linked the study, with the underlying data and all sources. Sune Fischer is a Danish physicist and computer scientist, FIDE 1800 or so, and Pradu Kannan is the author of the chess engine Buzz, and an aerospace engineer. I believe he’s rated at 1500.

Odds of any sort, be they a pawn, a minor piece, or a major piece, have an effect on the game. Every engine is based on the mathematical relationship between the move and the ideal outcome, so while math doesn’t move the pieces, the pieces don’t move independently from math!

I haven’t played OTB in years, and have no active rating. At my peak, I was likely a middling club level player (1600-1700). However, not sure how relevant that is; we are discussing something that is only relevant to a handful of super GMs, who are literally on another planet compared to even the 1500 or so chess grandmasters (2500+) that are alive.
 
Posts: 2320 | Location: S. FL | Registered: October 26, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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quote:
Originally posted by Ogie:
A couple of points: Magnus is a shareholder at chess.com. so it is possible chess.com has a vested interest in the situation.

The argument that a few centipawns advantage is significant is, in my opinion, nonsense.

Also, intentionally losing is tantamount to cheating since it affects the other players in the tournament.

I agree that there needs to be more clarity here, but until it is proven that Niemann cheated one has to assume that he didn't and that Carlsen is a poor sport.


If you think it is reasonable to say Chess.com might have an interest in banning Niemann because Magnus is now a shareholder (a recent thing, since Chess.com bought his competing platform a few weeks ago), then I think it is fair to say Niemann might have an interest in cheating to get more prize money. Seems equally fair, and equally speculative, to me.

I won't try to argue about centipawns. I'm not good enough at chess OR statistical analysis to speak intelligently about that stuff!

There is one real big difference betwen resigning and cheating: One of those things is against FIDE tournament rules, and the other is not. It may be tantamount to cheating in your opinion, but in terms of the rules of the tournament they were playing in, it is very different. The tournament rules place no restrictions on when or why a player may resign. The do, however, clearly define what cheating is and prohibit it. At worst, what Magnus did was being a poor sport. It is not, in the eyes of the tournament rules, the same thing at all.

Oddly, while I was reading through the FIDE tournament rules, I think it is actually not against the rules to sandbag. There is nothing that requires you to play your best at all times. It looks like you could throw your games in a smaller tournament in an effort to make your schedule easier in a larger tournament with a bigger prize pool. I'm not sure if that is because no one actually does it, or if it is just so hard to prove that they don't bother trying. It's also possible I missed something when reading the rules, or maybe they handle that sort of thing under the really nebulous rules like "The players shall take no action that will bring the game of chess into disrepute including the way that a player behaves in front of the cameras."

Magnus is definitely an ass, no argument there. I just don't think his choice to resign was as bad as you seem to think it was. It was definitely rude, but he made sure what he was doing still followed the rules. Anyway, time for me to move on to other things. Have a nice night.

- Bret
 
Posts: 2461 | Location: OH | Registered: March 03, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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"centipawn"?




Backtrack your trail a bit and see if you can pick up where you strayed.

Jeez Louise
 
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Originally posted by parabellum:
"centipawn"?


Backtrack your trail a bit and see if you can pick up where you strayed.

Jeez Louise


Exactly!!
 
Posts: 6606 | Location: Northwest Indiana | Registered: August 15, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Yesterday, I was oblivious to all of this.

That was nice
 
Posts: 107255 | Registered: January 20, 2000Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I'm not going to get in to the weeds of did he or didn't he, because I'm not nearly good enough to make any determination.

I will, however, point out that Carlsen's main goal in chess - now that he's given up his world championship - is to hit a rating of 2900. Resigning like that against Nieman hurts that rating. It doesn't matter to this tournament because he's tearing through the field so far, but it hurts the thing that matters most to him right now.
 
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I think I will just stick to shooting and fishing. Razz
 
Posts: 583 | Location: Helena, AL | Registered: July 15, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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For those still interested despite claiming that they’re not, a good article from The Wall Street Journal that discusses why computers have affected chess and how they can be used to cheat.
================================

Behind a Chess Scandal: How Would a Player Cheat And Get Away With It?

A new controversy involves the world’s No. 1 and a 19-year old grandmaster

BY JOSHUA ROBINSON AND ANDREW BEATON

World champion Magnus Carlsen has set the chess world on fire in recent weeks while barely saying a word. First, he abruptly quit a prestigious tournament in St. Louis after a defeat in early September. Then this week, he resigned from a game after making just one move.

What both staggering incidents have in common was Carlsen’s opponent, a 19-year-old American grandmaster named Hans Moke Niemann.

Carlsen hasn’t said explicitly what he’s thinking. But the chess community set out to decode his message and came to the conclusion that Carlsen thinks Niemann is a cheater.

Niemann, who beat Carlsen in their first meeting and was credited with a victory over him on Monday, has forcefully denied any allegation that he has cheated during any in-person game. He did, however, admit this month that he had received illegal assistance in online play on two previous occasions, chalking them up as youthful indiscretions.

Chess.com, which has suspended Niemann, indicated in a statement the breadth of his cheating was greater than that.

Underpinning the entire fracas is a much more fundamental question: How would a player cheat at chess—and get away with it?

The answer is in everyone’s pocket. Over the past 20 years, chess technology has become so advanced— and so portable—that anyone with a smartphone is capable of pulling up websites with software powerful enough to grind down Magnus Carlsen. These chess engines, as they are known, have such awesome powers of calculation that they can analyze moves deep into the game’s future in mere seconds.

“Any chess program running on a cellphone could communicate better moves than even the world champion plays,” American grandmaster Maurice Ashley says.

From there, it’s a matter of getting the chess engine’s guidance to the player. The irony is that once chess engines became so sophisticated, chess cheating turned into a decidedly low-tech endeavor. The illicit schemes initially concocted by some of the finest tactical minds in the world have mostly involved trips to the bathroom to secretly look at a phone.

In 2006, for instance, Veselin Topalov’s team accused Vladimir Kramnik of taking a suspect number of bathroom breaks during the World Championship match.

Though the allegation wasn’t proven, organizers responded by forcing the players to share a bathroom.

The strangest part is that this wasn’t the only Toiletgate in high-level chess. More recently, Latvian Grandmaster Igors Rausis, who has also represented Bangladesh and the Czech Republic, was suspended by the game’s world governing body in 2019 after he was caught using a smartphone in the washroom.

Bathroom intermezzos became less of an issue when the pandemic pushed many high-level tournaments online, but cheating didn’t. In fact, it exploded. And so did the infrastructure to catch it. Chess.com reported in November 2020 that it had closed 18,000 accounts in 30 days for fair play violations, more than in any single month in the site’s existence before that point.

The shuttered accounts included av-erage pawn-pushers and grandmasters alike, the site said.

But what represents an existential crisis for the game today is the mere notion that it remains plausible to cheat at the highest levels during in-person events without detection. It just takes an accomplice, a chess engine, and a bit of spy-craft. “All you need is a sophisticated enough communication device to be able to pull off such a brazen act,” Ashley says.

There are all sorts of gizmos someone could attempt to sneak on their person, from nearly invisible earpieces to a tiny device that vibrates or buzzes in a way that is only felt by the person wearing it.

Unless officials catch a player in the act—or in the bathroom—it’s complicated to say definitively whether a grandmaster cheated in a specific over-the-board game. At that level, players don’t need to be fed every move. Contests tend to be won and lost in subtle middle-game combinations that gently tilt the balance.

In practice, this means that a cheater might only need assistance in a couple of key moments—a quick buzz to indicate that the optimal tactic is, say, a knight move rather than nudging another pawn.

In a way, it isn’t so different from the scandal that upended baseball when the Houston Astros stole opposing pitchers’ signs and relayed it to their batters by banging trash cans in the dugout. In another way, it’s completely different: even knowing the pitch type, the Astros had to execute and hit a ball at 95 miles per hour. They still could have struck out. But when you know the move in chess, the only physical skill is picking up a piece. And all of a sudden, it becomes a duel of human vs. computer.

After Carlsen lost to Niemann and withdrew from the tournament in St. Louis having played only three rounds, event organizers ramped up security, even though they said that they hadn’t found anything untoward. Players were wanded with a metal detector and the broadcast of the games was delayed by 15 minutes—a countermeasure that aims to deter outside help because anybody watching remotely would be behind the action.

Chess insiders have suggested that more stringent methods, such as longer tape delays and more thorough screenings, may be necessary.

Russian grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi appeared to be joking when he raised the possibility of “playing naked in a locked room.”

But the mere idea suggested how extraordinary the rules might have to become to eliminate even a whiff of funny business.

Unbothered by the allegations, Niemann took his St. Louis victory over Carlsen as a sign of his own rapid progress.

Though he was the lowest rated player in the field, that was his second win in the tournament’s first three games. “It must be embarrassing for the world champion to lose to me,” he said at the time. “I feel bad for him.”

Niemann then proceeded to lose or draw his final six games.

LINK




6.4/93.6

“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.”
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Posts: 47365 | Location: 10,150 Feet Above Sea Level in Colorado | Registered: April 04, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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This has to be the next Southpark episode, Cartman chess prodigy.
 
Posts: 3580 | Location: Texas Hill Country | Registered: July 24, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I'm losing interest, here's why: when a cell phone/AI can play better than the most accomplished human, is it really still a game? A game for humans, I mean.

I used to play, never was any good. But, I remember the feeling when you got beat, the aspect of no luck being involved, it meant that the other guy really was better than you. I think that is why people care so much about outcomes even though the concept of machine assistance makes it no longer so.
 
Posts: 6400 | Location: NoVA | Registered: July 22, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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To each his own, but someone on just a bicycle, not to mention a motorcycle, can complete a 100 mile run faster than any unassisted human. Someone shooting from a bench over a rest can achieve better results than most of us can when shooting from one of the traditional unsupported competition positions. The fact that there are computers that can beat any human chess player doesn’t change the fact that playing against another human can be a satisfying endeavor. The point of all this controversy is how players perform against other humans, not whether nonhuman opponents could beat them.

If computers have ruined the game for you, then don’t play it, but if we limit our activities because something—or even someone—else might be better at it than we are, life might get pretty dull.




6.4/93.6

“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.”
— Plato
 
Posts: 47365 | Location: 10,150 Feet Above Sea Level in Colorado | Registered: April 04, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Niemann then proceeded to lose or draw his final six games.

What a bullshit article, to end it like that. Nothing can take away Niemann's win over Carlsen. If Niemann didn't cheat, then I hope he doesn't let such insinuations take the pride he should feel for beating the world's #1 player. At the same time, he was a dick to say that Carlsen should be embarrassed. There is no reason for Carlsen to have any shame for losing. Shake hands, congratulate him, and then crush him the next game.



Year V
 
Posts: 2613 | Registered: November 05, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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“It must be embarrassing for the world champion to lose to me. I feel bad for him.”
--Hans Niemann

This quote shows how immature Niemann is. It must mean he himself feels shame for losing, which is probably why he cheated in the first place. He must have realized there is no pride in winning by cheating.



Year V
 
Posts: 2613 | Registered: November 05, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Posts: 6978 | Location: South East, Pa | Registered: July 04, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Originally posted by Keystoner:
quote:
Niemann then proceeded to lose or draw his final six games.

What a bullshit article, to end it like that. Nothing can take away Niemann's win over Carlsen. If Niemann didn't cheat, then I hope he doesn't let such insinuations take the pride he should feel for beating the world's #1 player. At the same time, he was a dick to say that Carlsen should be embarrassed. There is no reason for Carlsen to have any shame for losing. Shake hands, congratulate him, and then crush him the next game.


It’s a bit worse than that. In the first three games, Hans Niemann won two, and drew one.

After the third game, where he beat Magnus Carlsen, anti-cheating measures were put in place, including delaying the live broadcast of the game (so someone watching online or on TV couldn’t assist by sending signals).

He lost or drew all of the remaining 6 games. Coincidence?
 
Posts: 2320 | Location: S. FL | Registered: October 26, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Originally posted by reloader-1:

It’s a bit worse than that. In the first three games, Hans Niemann won two, and drew one.

After the third game, where he beat Magnus Carlsen, anti-cheating measures were put in place, including delaying the live broadcast of the game (so someone watching online or on TV couldn’t assist by sending signals).

He lost or drew all of the remaining 6 games. Coincidence?

I don't know, and neither do you, and neither does anyone else, and unless you have evidence of cheating, it's insulting to openly imply there was any. If you think there was, you're entitled, state it explicitly, but all you can state is your guess.



Year V
 
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The #1 chess player in the world (Magnus Carlsen) has insuated Hans Niemann is cheating (also, Hans’ coach… who has also admitted to cheating in the past)

The #1 chess player in the US (Fabiano Caruana) has stated that the “anti-cheating expert” Dr. Regan is flat out wrong with his methods, as he incorrectly labeled the last cheater (coincidentally, who cheated against Fabiano) as innocent. His insinuation is also quite clear.

I, a middling chess player who enjoys watching tournaments, know that Magnus has played in an incredibly dominating fashion, that is unparalleled. He had a 53 game unbeaten streak with white, and loses it to someone who has acknowledged cheating, multiple times, in the last couple years. Edit: also someone who is rated 200 points less than him - that’s unbelievable.

Hans performed surprisingly well in the Sinquefield, UNTIL anti-cheating measures were put in place. Since then, he’s been incredibly average to below average.

I’ll state it outright: once a cheater, always a cheater. Hans cheated online, and I would stake money that he cheated in the Sinquefield against Magnus.

Not sure why you said what you did, when in your last post you mentioned that you thought Hans was immature and probably cheated…
 
Posts: 2320 | Location: S. FL | Registered: October 26, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Originally posted by reloader-1:
I’ll state it outright: once a cheater, always a cheater. Hans cheated online, and I would stake money that he cheated in the Sinquefield against Magnus.

Good. Much better than vague implications.

quote:
Originally posted by reloader-1:
Not sure why you said what you did, when in your last post you mentioned that you thought Hans was immature and probably cheated…

I didn't say he probably cheated. I've stated quite explicitly in this thread that I don't *think* he cheated when be beat Carlsen. And you can state to your heart's content as many times as you want that Carlsen is the #1 player in the world. Looks like you, along with Carlsen, just have to suck it up.

quote:
Originally posted by Keystoner:
...which is probably why he cheated in the first place.

This refers to the times Niemann admitted to cheating, although I also think there were more times that he cheated online. I don't doubt Chess.com has the smoking gun there.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Keystoner,



Year V
 
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We shall see… I’m a data freak, and analyzing Hans’ rise is quite interesting. He’s either the latest bloomer that chess has ever seen, which is incredible in the modern era, or a fraud.

I lean to the fraud side, but we will let FIDE and the lawyers decide. By the way, Hans Niemann worked for Magnus Carlsen in the last year as a sponsored player, so I trust his evaluation is slightly more accurate.

The analogy for this is some high schooler, who has never run under 11 seconds in the 100m, lining up in the Olympics and running a 9.5 flat against Usain Bolt.
 
Posts: 2320 | Location: S. FL | Registered: October 26, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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To your heart's content...



Year V
 
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