Cheating in chess

[NickFaulks]

But weren't they asked, in effect, whether they were willing to risk being disqualified if it was suspected that they were cheating, because that's what the regulations said?

I am accustomeded to reading financial documents in which an array of risk factors are listed, to avoid future trouble.

Here, if all entrants were required to tick a box confirming "I understand that if I play well and win the event, it is likely that I shall be disqualified and publicly branded as a cheat", that would be good enough for me.

[Roger de Coverly]

Here, if all entrants were required to tick a box confirming "I understand that if I play well and win the event, it is likely that I shall be disqualified and publicly branded as a cheat", that would be good enough for me.

That might seem an implicit condition of taking part in events on lichess or chess.com.

Another factor that those sitting on judgement could consider is whether the results are plausible. The disqualified winner of the University Championship was even one of the favourites based on her past record. There have been disqualified winners or those high placed in recent British events where on past record the performances seemed improbable.

[NickFaulks]

That might seem an implicit condition of taking part in events on lichess or chess.com.

Implicit won't do. It needs to be explicit.

[Matthew Turner]

Here, if all entrants were required to tick a box confirming "I understand that if I play well and win the event, it is likely that I shall be disqualified and publicly branded as a cheat", that would be good enough for me.

This is in essence true for the Universities Championships and any events where FIDE apply a balance of probabilities approach to banning cheats.

That might seem an implicit condition of taking part in events on lichess or chess.com.

Another factor that those sitting on judgement could consider is whether the results are plausible. The disqualified winner of the University Championship was even one of the favourites based on her past record. There have been disqualified winners or those high placed in recent British events where on past record the performances seemed improbable.

This on the other hand is complete nonsense. Lichess and Chess.com have a very high threshold before banning a player. Cheat detection systems look at performance in terms of quality of play rather than results.

[Roger de Coverly]

Lichess and Chess.com have a very high threshold before banning a player. Cheat detection systems look at performance in terms of quality of play rather than results.

As they refuse to disclose their methods, that would be a guess or speculation. Good results and high quality of play are likely to correlate.

[Paolo Casaschi]

...
Given the pandemic and the limited resource available, it is more or less impossible to stop or detect determined and technically-savvy online cheats with certainty.
...
However, FIDE still wants to run online tournaments which provide a reasonably level playing field and afford a fair chance for innocent players to win.

Suppose there is a situation where upon investigation FIDE considers that there is a chance greater than 50% that the points winner has cheated, whereas there is a negligible chance that the second-placed player has cheated.

If you can't reliably detect cheaters (and I agree with you there) maybe it's just not possible to have an online competition branded as a world championship by FIDE.

I can accept a private website such as lichess to have their own rules and disqualify whoever they like without any explanation. I just do not think that an organisation like FIDE, organising events branded as world championship can afford to do the same. Both in principle and also taking into account the negative press each time these situations appears.

You also mentioned the need to safeguard honest players that would have otherwise won an event. There's a fundamental difference there, in the case of a mistake this person would be second in an event they deserved to win. Instead, if your judgement call is wrong, the innocent suspected cheater not only has a deserved win taken away from them but also their reputation trashed; hiding cowardly behind statements like "we take the title away from you but we don't claim you actually cheated" does not make the case any stronger. The burden of the proof there should be a lot more than crossing a 50% line.

While I have followed chess events of all kinds for a few decades, personally all this gives me very little interest to follow those online championship...

[David Sedgwick]

Although it postdates this event, the FIDE Arbiters Manual explicitly says what standard of proof is required in online events:

The standard of proof shall be whether FPL has established an online cheating offence to the comfortable satisfaction of the hearing panel bearing in mind the seriousness of the allegation which is made. This standard of proof in all cases is greater than a mere balance of probability but less than proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

The 2021 edition of the Arbiters' Manual has indeed been published only recently, but the FIDE Online Chess Regulations, from which you quote, were promulgated and published about three months ago. Only the comments in rectangular boxes constitute new content in this section.

[JustinHorton]

Here, if all entrants were required to tick a box confirming "I understand that if I play well and win the event, it is likely that I shall be disqualified and publicly branded as a cheat", that would be good enough for me.

That might seem an implicit condition of taking part in events on lichess or chess.com.

Implicit or explicit, you may find that just because you insist that a customer sign up to certain conditions, it doesn't mean those conditions can lawfully be insisted on.

Lichess and Chess.com have a very high threshold before banning a player. Cheat detection systems look at performance in terms of quality of play rather than results.

As they refuse to disclose their methods, that would be a guess or speculation. Good results and high quality of play are likely to correlate.

Chess.com at least do not appear to "have a very high threshold before banning a player", and given that on that organisation's own account, many bannings are made without any human intervention, it's rather strange to claim otherwise.

[Matthew Turner]

If you have an automated system then you cannot also have a low threshold of proof, otherwise your website would very quickly implode. If you have an automated system then you must also have a very high threshold of proof for these cases.

[NickFaulks]

If you have an automated system then you must also have a very high threshold of proof for these cases.

They could have a low threshold of proof and then randomly ban one in fifty of the players they catch. I'm not saying they do that, but the fact is that we don't know what they do.

[JustinHorton]

They could also ban a lot of people.

[John McKenna]

"... maybe it's just not possible to have an online competition branded as a world championship by FIDE."

Rebrand it as a FIDE Online World Championship and a multitude of sins will be covered.

[NickFaulks]

Rebrand it as a FIDE Online World Championship and a multitude of sins will be covered.

I'm not sure what you mean. Anything online has Online in the title.

[Martin Crichton]

Looks like GM Nick Pert and WGM Irina Bulmaga were demolished by stockfish or some other chess engine in last nights Bunratty online event in rounds 4 and 5.
...

round 4 https://www.chess.com/live/game/7581682325

round 5 https://www.chess.com/live/game/7582311767

I'm not sure that the win against the WGM would be cast iron evidence of cheating if the player were rated 2000+, as it appears to me that the WGM faced an opening gambit she were inadequately prepared for, whereupon she made an early bad choice (6... d5) after which her position looked absolutely untenable, and duly got smashed. Surely a player of your standard (170ish in old money) would expect to give their opponent a complete battering after 6... d5 and un-developing all their opponent's pieces within the first ten moves, whilst completing their own development?

Admittedly, seeing a 1600 player give such a comprehensive display does raise questions.

Seeing the game against Nick Pert, though. That really is dreadful. The 1600 played like a blithe spirit in the opening casting aside tempi as if he had not a care in the world, and then in the middle-game proceeded to batter a GM to blithereens in what can only be described as a game of two halves. A very clear example of assisted play, indeed, one can assume.

All of that looks right to me, but of course the problem is that it was the same player in each instance, which makes it harder to think of these two games as two separate cases. I missed this controversy at the time - did anything come of it?

that player and another player (both from Limerick chess club) were banned by chess.com
mention in the guardian here: scroll down
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/ ... ampionship

but

synopsis here from the main organiser:

Hi All,
I’m guessing that most people reading this will know who I am, and before I go on with my post here, I’d just like to point out that I am speaking privately here, I’m not speaking on behalf on the Bunratty Organising Committee. I’d like clarify a few things here, if I may….
• Bunratty announced before the event that prizes would not be paid out until up to 2 weeks after the event, this was to allow time for Chess.com to do their “deep dive” data analysis of the event
• While the event was going on, no member of the Bunratty Committee was involved in the running of the event in any way, Chess.com ran the event for us
• After Chess.com finished their analysis of the event, two players had their accounts closed due to breaches of the Chess.com Fair Play Policy
• One of these was Hari Prasad who withdrew from the event after his round 5 victory over Nick Pert GM, he was not ejected from the event
• The other player was Michal Surowka who did complete the event, ending up on 6/9
• As far as I know, both players are members of the Limerick Chess Club
I’d also like to say that it’s a bit disappointing to read through 3 pages of posts and find the only subject being discussed is possible cheating in the event. All the committee worked very hard to put this event together and we’ve had some lovely emails thanking us for this. We even had one of the prize winners refuse the prize, thanking us for a very enjoyable event and asking us to have a few drinks on him as a thank you. Personally, I think Diana Mirza’s Twitch channel coverage of her participation in the event was very good and captured the spirit of the event very well.

[JustinHorton]

that player and another player (both from Limerick chess club) were banned by chess.com
mention in the guardian here: scroll down
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/ ... ampionship

Sorry, I don't know if I'm missing something obvious, but what am I scrolling down to?