Cheating in chess

[Matthew Turner]

I've only taken a quick look, but does seem surprising on the surface. If this does end up coming to court (doubtful?) you'd hope they'd have more evidence than just the moves. It's very possible that they do and are quite correctly choosing not to share at this stage.

Not sure what you are expected, but remember this was played on Tornelo.

[Matthew Turner]

Ponomariov has linked to this

The linked game starts 1. d4 e6 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 a6. The first seven half moves have a "book" flag, but not the eighth. If they are starting the engine detection at 4. .. a6 they will get misleading results.

This is just an instant result produced by chess.com (remembering that the actual tournament was played on Tornelo). It wouldn't be used for any statistical analysis.

[Thomas Rendle]

I'm aware it's played on Tornelo, so the organisers are presumably the ones that have sanctioned the ban?

[Matthew Turner]

I'm aware it's played on Tornelo, so the organisers are presumably the ones that have sanctioned the ban?

This is the Fair Play Panel that approved the sanction

Tomasz Delega (Chief Arbiter)
Bojana Bejatovic (FIDE Fair Play Commission)
Aleksadar Colovic (Grandmaster)
David Cordover (Tornelo)

[Matt Bridgeman]

I'm aware it's played on Tornelo, so the organisers are presumably the ones that have sanctioned the ban?

This is the Fair Play Panel that approved the sanction

Tomasz Delega (Chief Arbiter)
Bojana Bejatovic (FIDE Fair Play Commission)
Aleksadar Colovic (Grandmaster)
David Cordover (Tornelo)

David Cordover is a lovely chap, and the founder of the Tornelo platform. I know him from our Aussie days, and he coached my daughter at the 2015 Australian Junior Championship in Canberra. I wouldn’t have thought he would have endorsed the decision lightly.

[JustinHorton]

No offence, Matt, but we really need to be knowing things here, not thinking them.

[Mark D Podlesak]

Everyone (as a known player) flagged in online chess immediately gets backed by all and sundry. It could of course be they are innocent. There is no way to be sure 100% either way. I've checked through one of the games of the current debate and every move except 2 were computer first choice. The 2 mistakes could have been done on purpose, as they lowered the advantage score, but still an advantage that could be built on. But the game was short enough that the mistakes made by the opponent probably had logic beyond my understanding would lead to a top player selecting the same moves.
The scores given on Lichess and chess.com are meaningless generally and not used by the sites involved. But it's the computer move matching that's important, even possibly down to 4th best move. Their figures are based on over the board GM games, many thousand in fact, that enable them to compare with online Tournaments. Why would someone's online games, several in fact, match a computers more than when they play OTB.
There are always examples where an OTB game match's a computers to confuse matters. It seems you can't really have serious competition online.

[Matthew Turner]

Which game are we talking about?

[Matthew Turner]

Mark,
OK, I guess you mean round 1. The first 14 moves are theory (Illescas Cordoba - Adams 1995) with the first 13 moves played instantly by both players. The deviations from first choices are 21. Qg4 threatening mate and 24. Qf4 taking control of the dark squares. The moves are all completely natural - this is just how a 2430 plays.
Take her games and take my games from the British Rapidplay and see if you can say which one of us is cheating. In a blind test, I don't think you'd have a chance of telling us apart.

[Mark D Podlesak]

I appreciate your reply Matthew.

[Reg Clucas]

So there you go, playing for the four move checkmate could well get you thrown off of Lichess!

And deservedly so! I tell the juniors at our club not to try it.

[Ian Thompson]

Another chess cheating scandal as 20 players are disqualified from the FIDE World Online University Championships, which uses the Tornelo playing platform, though the Fair Play Panel are not officially saying it was cheating they were disqualified for. The winner of the Women's rapid, Iulija Osmak, won the 2017 Ukrainian Women's Championship yet that counted for nothing as her score of 4.5/5 was changed to 0/5.

The wrinkle this time is that Osmak has volunteered for a lie detector test to prove her innocence. But even if that was acceptable, which it won't be, what good would it do if she passed it anyway when essentially she does not know what exactly she did to trigger the Fair Play violations? It appears to me that the Fair Play Panel are prepared to defend themselves by issuing copious reassurances that their process is bullet proof but they are afraid to show the actual evidence to anyone and essentially refuse the right of appeal. The defence seems to be for this, which is trotted out virtually every time, that if they showed the evidence the cheaters would find away around it.

I wonder if anyone accused in this way could find out anything useful by invoking their rights under FIDE's Data Protection Policy (or, with better formatting, from page 257 of the FIDE Arbiter's Manual):

Know the existence of automated decision-making, including profiling, and, at least in those cases, meaningful information about the logic involved, as well as the significance and the envisaged consequences of such processing for the data subject.

[Alistair Campbell]

I note Ali Mortazavi has tweeted yesterday about cheating in chess, if anyone is interested.

[Alex McFarlane]

Apologies if this is well known, but from much of the material I have read on this case it does not appear to be so.

Tornelo does not ban players. Its software only does a reduced check to highlight potential cases. (A cut down Regan test, if you like.) It is up to the tournament organiser/arbiters to take action against the players.
Therefore in this case we have a different scenario from most of the others discussed in that this is not a platform ban with no explanation. It is a ban instigated by the tournament officials.

I have no 'insider' knowledge, but interpreting some of the things said I concluded that the ban was not based solely on getting computer assistance. I could not rule out computer assistance as part of the reason for the ban.

[Roger Lancaster]

"Know the existence of automated decision-making, including profiling, and, at least in those cases, meaningful information about the logic involved, as well as the significance and the envisaged consequences of such processing for the data subject" - FIDE Arbiter's Manual - see above.

I suppose it's unkind to speculate on how arbiters are expected to have "meaningful information about the logic involved" in the decisions of Lichess and Chess.com, to name the two most obvious cases, when those platforms won't disclose that information.