So the WAGC has just ended.

I think the results tend to agree with the decision.
Carlo has won 3/8 games. One of them, surprisingly (considering his current rank), against Oscar Vazques (5d) - but that's just a one rank difference.
Among his losses:
Amir Fragman 5d(the Israeli team captain, btw, who's recently lost to Reem Ben-David - the "famous" opponent in the said game).
Juri Kuronen 6d from Finland
Vietnamese 5d
and Willem Koenraad Pomstra 5d from the Netherlands

Some of the games (rounds 3 and 6) were recorded and can be found here:
https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/event/amaki ... cords.html

(sadly the game with France didn't take place, and the other win was against a 1d/2d from Iceland)

I didn't really explore the game records, although the result against Korea in the opening was interesting...

It is probably not a good tournament to examine his overall performance with. Given that he has just been accused of cheating, it can't have been the happiest of times, nor the best of preparations for such an event. For me it is more interesting to analyze the individual games themselves. It is always interesting to analyze Go games(!) but here we would be able to see if his PGETC style was holding good, or if he was playing in a different way, or generally just make some banal observations on the games.

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North Lecale

So … you really registered for this comment, and with that nickname?

Now, if THAT ain’t bad taste, then I don’t know.

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“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?

I am still very much surprised that nobody is really building up a defense for Carlo here. Let's look at the situation after move 70. Before that move all engines tell you B was behind, but 70 was a mistake that brought B a little bit in the lead. Black only temporaril;y increased his lead afetr another slack move at 84, but around move 124 and move 140 the evaluation is almost ewual again. Then white makes another error and loses a group. So white's loss is mailny caused by his own mistakes, not by an opponent who continuesly chose a top move from leela as the accusation was.

Evaluation was done with AQ, which is (~one stone) stronger than Leela 0.11. I aslo used leela zero for this - same result. That was in april, when AQ was still better. Leela Zero is now at least 2 stones stronger than AQ.

I'm not sure I follow what you're trying to say.

To pick up one thread, I'm not sure who was ahead really matters. Here's a counterfactual scenario: suppose I use Leela to pick all my moves, but unknown to me, my opponent is really strong against Leela, because they've learned some pattern it can't handle. I lose. Nonetheless, I cheated.

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Occupy Babel!

Hmmm? I've done quite some analysis myself which has thrown considerable doubt on the statistical methods used, Bill has written a lot about the weakness of confirmatory evidence and compared to Regan's work in chess. Plenty of others have chimed in and I'd say the general mood here is sceptical of the conviction.

Or do you mean something more formal to the appeals committee rather than internet chit-chat? People may have taken actions not publicised here.

The appeal was successful.

http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/409

I'm pleasantly surprised to see such a quick decision, the EGC will be a happier place now the chief referee has found his innocence.

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North Lecale

I am also pleasantly surprised to see that the statement is so clear and non-defensive. It can be very hard for people to backtrack from decisions.

I’m not a native speaker of English, but I think the comma I added here is essential, otherwise it could also be interpreted as follows:

Am I mistaken?

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“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?

Bonobo, you are correct that it is syntactically ambiguous, but semantically it is clear enough (even without a comma you can imagine an implied "thus" after the "and").

The English mistake that stuck out to me was "convince": either this should be "convict" or "convincingly show that" (and then "of using" -> "used").

I am a native speaker of English and thought that the sentence was clear enough as written, although adding the comma doesn't hurt.

I'd say you are (i.e. it's not essential). At least I can't imagine any native speaker reading it the alternative way you give, except perhaps an ultra-rationalist on a bad hair day.

It's hard to give a precise reason but the rhythm of the sentence is given by the two "that"s and the fact that the last portion (after "and") doesn't have a "that" marks it out as different. When we read the sentence we therefore automatically put in a very slight pause before the "and". Inserting a comma here would run the risk that we put treat the items as a list (i.e. assume ellipsis of another "that") and so end up with the very alternative meaning you are trying to avoid!

Standards may have changed in recent years but it was long a rule in the UK legal world that all legal documents had to be written without commas. For somewhat different reasons journalists also tend to avoid commas. I found the English of the whole sentence somewhat stilted and if I had been wearing my sub-editor's hat I would have "corrected" it to:

Therefore we do not think that it was proven beyond reasonable doubt that Carlo Metta broke any rules. The decision made by the league manager should be reversed.

This reflects in part another aspect English speakers of at least my generation will recall from junior school - being told time after time not to use "and" (as in: "Write what you did in your holidays." "I went to the seaside and I had an ice-cream and I went on the Big Dipper and I was sick all over and I the man was rude to me and I cried and I had a nice time.") We were also taught that it was not nice to use nice. I suppose the modern version is it's not cool to use cool. Innit?

(I didn't plan it that way, but I notice that I seem to have written all that without a comma....)

English has a word meaning and not, namely, nor. So we might have, "We do not think A nor do we think B." Which has the same meaning as, "We do not think either A or B." Which has a different meaning from, "We do not think both A and B." For the interpretation you are concerned about, I think that or is the conjunction, not and.

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins
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Many are cold, but few are frozen.

Which body has made the appeals decision?

I presume the Appeals Commission of the league, which comprises Victor Bogdanov, Ales Cieply, and Frank Jansen.

The lavatory one was humorous and disappointing at the same time.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/che ... atory.html


and from the US Chess Federation report on the FIDE Congress 2017 https://new.uschess.org/news/walter-brown-fide-congress-nine-new-us-titles-anti-cheating-news/

¨The Anti-Cheating Commission (ACC) meeting was next for me. Members of the Commission feel that the measures in place at the 2016 Olympiad in Baku were a good starting point but can and must be improved. An example would be a player who is to play in a round and takes his cell phone with him. He is checked when he walks in and hands over the cell phone for safe storage. He finishes his game, and goes out and collects his cell phone. He must now exit. He cannot go back in to watch his teammates if he has his cell phone with him. They want even arbiters and other officials not to have cell phones in their possession while in the playing area. Some cases were discussed and it was mentioned that in a few countries, cases are being prosecuted by the civil authorities on fraud charges.¨

The sad fact is it only takes relying on a computer for a single move to be cheating. I do not think serious online tournaments will be an option. Unless you have independent monitors with the players and very strict guidelines as in live tournaments.

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Walla Walla GO Club -(on FB)

We play because we enjoy the beauty of the game, the snap and feel of real stones, and meeting interesting people. Hope to see ya there! お願いします!

Anthony

Lukan, can you elaborate on why you think EGC will be an unhappy place? Was the recent WAGC an unhappy place?

Why are most top players unhappy?

If most top players believe the player to be guilty, on what basis is this belief based?

How do you know it is "most?" I know you're a strong player, but some strong players have come out strongly, in public, in favour of a better process for deciding on situations like this. I am not aware of public statements condemning the decision to reverse the original ban - I guess yours is maybe the first?

While this was not a court of law, I think the common understanding is that someone accused of a crime is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. The appeal has concluded that he cannot be proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt, hence innocent.

Perhaps it is fair to phrase it as "No word of innocence. No word of guilt." The reality for most of us is, you don't have any idea who you are playing, and if they are cheating. I remember one match where all our opponents disconnected at once - I thought nothing of it at the time, but afterwards somebody said to me "Normally that means they were all in the same room". Is turning on webcams going to solve that? No, not if you are strong at cheating. I mean, you can just have some headphones on and say that you are listening to music, but actually you have Sai talking to you

Putting suspicions aside, I think Carlo has a unique style. His opponents were not used to it, and so it helped him perform well in the league this year. Next year people will know what to expect, I think his results will suffer.

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North Lecale

"a 4-dan level of play in compare to 6-dan level of play is something completely different and the difference is very visible."

Please tell us what is the difference regardless of the dispute and regardless of a particular player's games.