Carlsen resigns on move 2

[Paul Cooksey]

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[JustinHorton]

. I'm not inclined to do his research for him.

<shrug> It's really not me who's in need of practical examples to make my point, and nor is it me proposing theoretical models that are curiously short on detail.

One key aspect of this debate is the idea that players seeking to smart-cheat can have key, gamechanging moves (or the points at which they occur) identified for them during a game and that many extra points snd half-points can be gained in this way, and I think this is a very questionable notion indeed.

[Paul Cooksey]

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[Roger de Coverly]

But the posts made by many Indians on Twitter referenced him. Probably an important case in forming opinions.

His rating progress might be described as interesting. Up to his appearance in the Olympiad team, he gains shedloads of points. After that, he just loses them in most rating periods until he reaches around 2150 and doesn't play any more.

[Paul Cooksey]

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[JustinHorton]

Despite several GMs having said it is possible, including, for example Anand?

Some very strong players have been contradicting one another during this controversy, and I'm not seeing any good reason to accept the citing of big names as an adequate answer to the various practical problems set out above.

Really, if anybody wants to use "Anand reckons" as an argument" then they ought to be able to append what precisely Anand reckons, and then go on to show how robust what-Anand-reckons actually is. Otherwise it's just an appeal to authority, and not an especially good one - because I do not think Anand has much experience in cheating at chess.

[JustinHorton]

(I said this before on a cheating thread - ideally we need to hear from people who have cheated at chess - what they did and how they did it. They're the experts.)

[Roger de Coverly]

One key aspect of this debate is the idea that players seeking to smart-cheat can have key, gamechanging moves (or the points at which they occur) identified for them during a game and that many extra points snd half-points can be gained in this way, and I think this is a very questionable notion indeed.

Which bit don't you believe? That there are gamechanging moves or that being told where they are would be useful. If you play on a live board and look at the lichess or similar coverage afterwards it can tell you where in the game you missed a decisive winning shot, or even when you had a winning position without totally realising it and threw it away.

I can recall that when Kasparov was still playing, a position of considerable complexity arose perhaps in one of Anand's games, perhaps even against Kasparov. The opinion was that if you knew the assessment, you knew how to play the rest of the game,

[Paul Cooksey]

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[JustinHorton]

Which bit don't you believe? That there are gamechanging moves or that being told where they are would be useful

This has been gone into at some length upthread, but very briefly I think that identifying these moves during a game is not nearly as straightforward as some people may think. (There's also some side issues, which I can go through if you want.) I don't know that there's a better way of going through this than inviting somebody to list their possible criteria and method - they don't have to stick to them, it's just a starting point - and then we go from there.

[Angus French]

I'd argue that in matters of chess the onus is on the person who disagrees with Anand to prove their point. He really is an authority. But I will leave Roger to indulge Justin

Can you at least tell us what Anand said? A reference to his actual words would be useful.

[Paul Cooksey]

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[Paul Cooksey]

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[NickFaulks]

Perpetual Chess Podcast Angus.

From memory, it was that he would have only needed a few moves per event to win events. I was unwilling to look it up for Justin because I was annoyed. I'm just being lazy now you have asked, apologies.

May have gone by now, but my recollection is that he didn't even want a move, just a kick in the butt to alert him to the fact that something was up.

[JustinHorton]

As above, I don't agree we need to debate if it is possible to cheat because people have cheated in the past.

Although we don't as yet have any examples of the successful elite-level smart-cheating we've been talking about, and you understand this point very well.