Chess cheating blog post

[jlt]

Magnus Carlsen also studies a lot with AI and doesn't seem able to approach 100% if I believe the video. It doesn't formally prove anything but it's suspicious.

[mhlepore]

My opinion on a player having relatively many 100% games: most likely, this means a) he has studied with AI a lot and applies his acquired knowledge in AI playing style or b) he cheats. Statistics cannot distinguish these two possibilities if correlations are derived from several engines.

I would expect that picking up techniques by studying AI would not result in perfect emulation of AI for 30+ consecutive moves.

The ironic thing is if you only use AI to cheat a few times per game, detection can be avoided. This is going to be the real challenge going forward to building circumstantial cases - cheaters are going to learn to be better cheaters.

[mart900]

In https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfPzUgzrOcQ&t=702s Yosha Iglésias uses some tool to talk about accuracy / correlation between a game's moves and AI moves and the press mentions some 100% occasions for Niemann. What are those accuracy / correlation numbers? The percentage of identical moves themselves? Some derived alleged likelood of cheating?

I thought this was a convincing criticism of Iglésias' analysis https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments ... video_with
Basically it seems that her methodology was deeply flawed

[RobertJasiek]

Magnus Carlsen also studies a lot with AI and doesn't seem able to approach 100%

Playing strength and ability to learn in a particular manner need not be strongly correlated. A player can learn from AI but nevertheless decide to limit its impact on his playing style. A player might use different AIs or AI program versions than those used for correlation numbers. There are just too many parameters to draw definite conclusions.

[kvasir]

Magnus Carlsen also studies a lot with AI and doesn't seem able to approach 100%

Playing strength and ability to learn in a particular manner need not be strongly correlated. A player can learn from AI but nevertheless decide to limit its impact on his playing style. A player might use different AIs or AI program versions than those used for correlation numbers. There are just too many parameters to draw definite conclusions.

It is also important to remember that Hans has been playing a lot of tournaments, he is said to be travelling to every tournament he can, this has two consequences: his opponents are not very high rated (compared to Hans) and there are a lot more games in total than is typical.

The statistic being used in the video is simply bonkers. Of course one can ask what other players score on this statistic but it is not that better players score higher. It depends too much on the opponent (i.e. making an early mistake, blundering into easier lines, do they play topical lines or avoid theory, ...) for it to be realistic to base suspicion on this statistic. Many of the replies in this thread are still treating it as a useful statistic when it is clearly not.

[mhlepore]

There must be lots of games where a grandmaster plays in a tournament (online or OTB) against someone rated 300 points lower. If that population of games also contains a fair number of near engine-perfect games by the grandmaster, it would support kvasir's theory.

[kvasir]

There must be lots of games where a grandmaster plays in a tournament (online or OTB) against someone rated 300 points lower. If that population of games also contains a fair number of near engine-perfect games by the grandmaster, it would support kvasir's theory.

People do appear to find these one-hundred games for lot of players when they look for them. Did you looked for them?

[hyperpape]

There is usually a lot of really bad analysis floating around for cheating cases but there are exceptions. If you have links to the actual reports then I'd actually be interested, especially if it is not bad arguments and bad statistics.

My comment was based on a Hacker News thread the day I posted—there were several criticisms of the one video, but also what looked like other stats.

It sounds like you’re better informed than I am. I don’t yet have an opinion, I was just sharing to note that there’s an attempt to get evidence beyond gut feelings.

[Gomoto]

... what can one do against body implantations ...

Finally our cyborg overlords have arrived.

What can we do?

Stop playing for wins and start playing for joy.

In the best case, playing for the joy of our opponent.

[mhlepore]

Just here to report that non-AI cheating is alive and well.

[kvasir]

Fide's fair play commission started an inquiry into Magnus and Hans. Then chess.com declared they would make more information public. Now as it happened this report was leaked or pre-released to the Wall Street Journal. Of course this happened on the eve of the US Championship.

I don't know how much Hans cheated online but Chess.com seems to think it was a lot and there will apparently be a 70+ page report according the Wall Street Journal. Still no real evidence for cheating in over the board in rated tournaments has been put forward or promised. Maybe Chess.com will explain sometime why famous chess players can repeatedly be caught cheating online without any complaint to Fide, US Chess or what ever the relevant federation is

It sounds like you’re better informed than I am. I don’t yet have an opinion, I was just sharing to note that there’s an attempt to get evidence beyond gut feelings.

I think I meant to emphasis more that if there are links to good analysis it would be interesting to share, rather than that they are all bad. It just doesn't appear easy to make statistical analysis of chess that can expose over the board cheating and be convincing. I saw one claim of not finding any evidence, so far, it is mentioned in the video that was shared.

==Edit added a missing word

[Gomoto]

It is just a scheme to raise interest in chess by the way

Last ditch effort akin to blowin up your own pipeline

Similar success probability

My uncalled for advice: Who sticks to the rules rulez

[RobertJasiek]

On 2022-10-20, Hans Moke Niemann has initiated a complaint at the United States District Court, Eastern District of Missouri, Eastern Division against Magnus Carlsen, Play Magnus Group, Chess.com, Daniel Rensch and Hikaru Nakamura:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... 08.1.0.pdf

"17. Accordingly, Niemann asserts the following claims against Defendants: (1) slander; (2) libel; (3) unlawful group boycott under the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1, et. seq.; (4) tortious interference with contract and business expectancies; and (5) civil conspiracy.
18. Niemann seeks damages in an amount to be determined at trial, but no less than One Hundred Million Dollars ($100,000,000)."

According to Legal Information Institute on Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1,

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1

"15 U.S. Code § 1 - Trusts, etc., in restraint of trade illegal; penalty

Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any contract or engage in any combination or conspiracy hereby declared to be illegal shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $100,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $1,000,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding 10 years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court."

Note that the complaint suggests "no less than $100,000,000" while the law suggests "not exceeding $100,000,000".

According to Wikipedia,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(civil)

"A civil conspiracy is a form of conspiracy involving an agreement between two or more parties to deprive a third party of legal rights or deceive a third party to obtain an illegal objective. [...]"

[kvasir]

I am not sure what the process is exactly but I think filling the complaint is a prerequisite for serving it to the defendants. That is a whole process in itself. At some point a judge will be appointed to hold hearings on random things like changes to claims, summary dismissals, like in a TV legal drama. Probably this lawsuit is at a way to early stage to actually spend much time thinking about it. It is a civil case and an important difference from criminal cases is that there isn't a fixed script, the different parties can agree on how to conduct the trial and/or ask the judge to rule on what is appropriate if they disagree. If the parties agree more or less on what they think needs to be litigated then they could have a quick resolution but if they desire to waste time, argue in public and put on a circus show then that is possible. It is also a possibility that the different defendants will not agree among themself if they want a circus or not.

I haven't seen any news that the defendants were served or that a judge was appointed. I imagine it will be considered newsworthy if a judge were appointed for the case.

[kvasir]

In the previous week or two all the defendants have filed motions to dismiss the lawsuit. Hans Niemann's lawyers will presumably file responses, then the defendants can file responses to that, then there could be a hearing. At least this is what I read in the rather biased Chess.com news coverage.