from the chess-is-a-wearable-computing-man's-game? dept.
Hans Niemann, 19, has been the talk of the chess world after five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen accused him of cheating during their Sinquefield Cup game in September.
Niemann denied he cheated and even offered to play naked to prove he was clean, but did admit to cheating twice in his life, aged 12 and 16.
However, major website Chess.com has released a 72-page report that highlights more than 100 games where the platform believes Niemann cheated.
The games are dated between July 2015 and August 2020.
[...] "We present evidence in this report that Hans likely cheated online much more than his public statements suggest," the report states.
[...] Niemann categorically denied that he cheated in the Sinquefield Cup, which was played over-the-board and not online.
Chess.com in its report said it had no evidence that Niemann had ever cheated over-the-board or in his game against Carlsen.
However, the report said Chess.com found aspects of the Sinquefield Cup game "suspicious".
[...] Chess.com has said it has no evidence to suggest Niemann had cheated since 2020, after his ban was lifted.
"Our investigation has revealed that while there has been some noteworthy online play that has caught our attention as suspicious since August 2020, we are unaware of any evidence that Hans has engaged in online cheating since then," the report said.
"Our investigation has concluded that he did, however, cheat much more than he has publicly admitted to, including in many prize events, at least 25 streamed games, and 100+ rated games on Chess.com, as recently as when he was 17 years old."
Niemann has not commented on the report.
Oct. 2022 Final H. Niemann Report.pdf:
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Opportunist on Thursday October 06 2022, @10:41PM (9 children)
why I should care.
Seriously, this is maybe the tenth story in 2 weeks about someone cheating in some game. Is it any more important because it's chess instead of Fortnight or football?
(Score: 5, Funny) by Osamabobama on Thursday October 06 2022, @11:00PM (5 children)
If anti-cheating measures lead to even moderately common naked chess, it will be a noteworthy change. (Naked football would be a bigger phenomenon, but nobody is talking about that, yet.)
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 07 2022, @12:44AM (4 children)
The story I read somewhere suggested that the cheater was using vibrating anal beads to receive their illicit information.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Opyros on Friday October 07 2022, @01:17AM (1 child)
Have you seen this story on Ars [arstechnica.com] where someone tried to actually construct a device to do such a thing?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2022, @02:44AM
That's awesome. Adafruit is a great vendor and website and this is certainly right up their alley, so to speak.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by looorg on Friday October 07 2022, @03:51AM (1 child)
Isn't it kind of hard, no pun intended, to play chess or focus on more or less anything while having anal beads up your rectum? Certainly so if they are also vibrating or pulsating or whatever they do. I guess he could train to keep up his composure. Still nobody else noticed? Some real Zen master level of focus.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 07 2022, @10:31AM
Like everything: easier with practice.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday October 06 2022, @11:05PM (1 child)
Your choice if you care or not.
Personally, I found fascinating the mechanism of detection and how little "help" advanced players need in the game to get ahead. Perhaps having TFS hinting about would have created more interest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday October 07 2022, @06:44AM
Yeah, if argued that way, it starts to be more interesting.
You should write the articles.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday October 07 2022, @07:09PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday October 06 2022, @11:00PM (5 children)
From the linked PDF, highly informative. In brief, using a chess engine. Surprisingly, only 1-3 bits of additional info can mean a jump of hundreds in ELO at grandmaster level.
How detection works
Impact of cheating
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Disagree) by legont on Friday October 07 2022, @12:53AM (1 child)
This would effectively rule out any chess genius.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by c0lo on Friday October 07 2022, @04:15AM
Very improbable.
In brief and as a crude approximation of the principle of the detection: you can't cheat all the time, especially in Over The Board (as opposed to online) games and, being a genius, the "genial" moves are expected with higher frequency (i.e. a cheater usual play medium-(sub)optimal moves most of the time - around 80-100 on a 150 scale - and on moments, inexplicable, something way over. Then a bunch of good players get to review the move to see if there is something a human might find as justifiable).
Do read the report for details, they are neither stupid nor careless.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 07 2022, @10:36AM (2 children)
I don't know why it's surprising that a single critical decision can swing the outcome of a highly competitive game. If the players are near even in skill to start with, a single critical move decision should be all it takes to swing the game.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday October 09 2022, @11:04PM (1 child)
Because I'm oblivious to the world of high competitive games?
(I reckon that's because I spend most of my time compete only with myself, so cheating doesn't help in such situations)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 10 2022, @12:01AM
Yeah, if you're going to cheat against a Grand Master and win, you will need advice on most moves, but when equally rated Grand Masters play it's quite different.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday October 06 2022, @11:00PM
If no, then "better 100 guilty parties go free than 1 innocent gets convicted". Ya know, that shit we were taught in 8th grade.
Of course, if you're an SDSU kicker drafted to the NFL this doesn't matter as social media proclaims you not only guilty, but gets you kicked off your NFL team before charges are even filed, let alone tried.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday October 06 2022, @11:42PM (1 child)
I'd watch that.
Chess is fucking boring. But watching nerdy quasi-autistic savants with over-inflated egos strip then try to concentrate on a difficult board game in front of one another with their dicks hanging out, now that's worth a laugh or two.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2022, @12:05AM
You mean you'd watch "their dicks hanging out" for hours on end?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2022, @12:29AM (5 children)
"Likely" cheated? If you can't prove it, you should keep your damn mouth shut! This sounds like all the stupid stories about our elections since 2000... The winners "likely cheated"... Prove it goddammit!
But yeah, he probably did it. It has gotten to the point where you have to assume the worst about anybody who wins anything, Lance Armstrong, Herschel Walker... What are they gonna dig up on Michael Jordan? Wasn't he friends with Michael Jackson once?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2022, @02:39AM (1 child)
What this young man has working against him is that he admitted to cheating to climb up the rankings and is now saying that he doesn't do it any more now that he's near the top. It isn't too much of a stretch to think that if he needed to cheat to get to his position, that he would need to cheat to keep his position. Or at least if his recent play looks a lot like like the style of a chess engine, that it isn't a surprise to suspect him of foul play. Armstrong wasn't a known cheater, so he was able to hold on to the denials for a long time. Nothing had to be dug up about Hershel Walker, all that is out there in the open.
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday October 09 2022, @03:44AM
Most people improve especially at his age.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday October 07 2022, @10:48AM (2 children)
They're saying that the statistics match up very much with those of a cheater. Is that absolute proof? No. Is that a sign of something fishy? Yes.
The accusation of over-the-board cheating came as the result of a move which all the top chess players would expect to demand substantial thinking time made in a few seconds. Which means that either the player in question had memorized the position ahead of time and decided how to react to it before he even sat down at the board, or had been somehow signaled.
The equivalent in poker would be like someone holding 1 pair deciding to call immediately rather than thinking for a moment first and even considering folding. If that happened, you might reasonably wonder whether they know exactly what they're up against.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2022, @02:12PM (1 child)
Even low level players think 2, 3 or 4 moves ahead. Someone at that level should be planning 6 or 7 minimum, with certain plays going out further. If he considered it on the previous move(s), and his opponent reacted as predicted, then there is no reason he couldn't move immediately.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday October 07 2022, @07:47PM
Yes, the pros think ahead, although not quite in the way you might expect. They can calculate quite a ways ahead, no question, but they tend to be narrowing their possible moves down a lot quicker, and their evaluation of the new position is going to be more precise.
For example, once you're down to 6 pieces, computers have calculated exactly how the game is going to end provided both players do the best possible moves. A pro player won't have memorized all those exact positions (there are thousands, nobody can manage that), but they will have gone through all of them to know which positions are won, drawn, or lost. Whereas an amateur would probably have to play out a lot of those and be more likely to be wrong in their evaluation of their chances.
And in this case, given the complexity of what he was doing, which required plenty of calculation to ensure the move wouldn't lose the game, he knew about 60 times faster than any other human player the world has ever seen. Either he's a level of chess genius that makes Fischer look like a patzer, or he prepared that exact position before and memorized the right move, or he was extremely lucky and happened to guess the right move without calculating, or he had help.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.