Carlsen resigns on move 2

[LawrenceCooper]

Without knowing how reliable the list is it is worth mentioning that it is the American, not the English, Daniel Fernandez that is listed.

Tal Baron publicly admitted to online cheating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahkp9y9BVEg

[Geoff Chandler]

'Norwegian chess federation president resigns.'

Why did he resign? If he is good at his job who cares what he did at an online gaming site. Now someone who was not deemed good enough to do the job or did not want to do the job has to take his place. Madness.
Chess.com and Carlsen have succeeded in whipping up the world into a state of cheating paranoia and this is now interfering with how chess federations are run.

[JustinHorton]

Why did he resign?

For reasons that we all understand.

[Geoff Chandler]

Why did he resign?

For reasons that we all understand.

Hi Justin,

I’d understand it if he broke some civil law but this is getting out of hand.
Are the Norwegian Chess Federation going to let chess.com conduct the interview to pick who replaces him because that is infect who forced the lad to resign.
The game is getting flushed down the toilet by a company whose vested interest is surely to do away with OTB play because they don’t make any money from it. They have become bigger than FIDE.

I think everyone has gone mad. I'm considering imposing on myself a one month ban and when I return I expect all of this to have gone away. Either that or this forum will have been taken over by chess.com and I’ll need a new password. (good game today by Wes So v Sam Shankland in the US ch.)

[NickFaulks]

They have become bigger than FIDE.

That is certainly true. Previously there were three major commercial powers in chess - FIDE, Carlsen and chess.com. Now two of them have joined forces.

[Gerard Killoran]

I'm considering imposing on myself a one month ban

At last you've said something sensible on the matter.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Gerard,

I knew I be getting support for that one.

[MartinCarpenter]

Why did he resign?

For reasons that we all understand.

Hi Justin,

I’d understand it if he broke some civil law but this is getting out of hand.
Are the Norwegian Chess Federation going to let chess.com conduct the interview to pick who replaces him because that is infect who forced the lad to resign.
The game is getting flushed down the toilet by a company whose vested interest is surely to do away with OTB play because they don’t make any money from it. They have become bigger than FIDE.

I think everyone has gone mad. I'm considering imposing on myself a one month ban and when I return I expect all of this to have gone away. Either that or this forum will have been taken over by chess.com and I’ll need a new password. (good game today by Wes So v Sam Shankland in the US ch.)

Ah, no. Its messier than that. They may well now be more powerful than FIDE commercially but the online sites almost strictly need OTB play to retain the credibility of their top level tournaments.

Just imagine how suspicious everyone would be about someone playing at 2700+ purely online, and not playing FtF at all

What they would definitely like is for online cheating in serious events to have real world consequences - it would obviously help to keep people in line.

Niemann is an interesting case, because they do seem to have reasonable grounds to ban him from serious online play for a fair duration. If he gets strong enough OTB to get into the top 25 or so, then will that affect their online events if he's not there? Goodness knows.

Top 5/10 would be getting seriously embarrassing for all concerned.

[JustinHorton]

Oh, Face to Face. Took me ages, that one.

[JustinHorton]

Some useful questions ftom a guy on Facebook

[NickFaulks]

Some useful questions from a guy on Facebook

All good questions but, provided there is nothing retrospective, players could form their own view on whether continuing to play online is worth the risk. It is one way forward.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi,

Some interesting points in the Facebook post. IMO FIDE should not even consider banning an online cheat.
I'm not in the a cheat is a cheat school and can see no valid reason why an online cheat automatically means the same player would also cheat OTB.
There are, by chess.com's own admission, 292,000 online cheats banned every year. So going by the cheat is cheat reckoning that is 292,000 potential cheats a year being let loose on the OTB tournaments.
Even if 1% of that total (2,290) who succumbed to the same temptation that made them cheat online took their cheating habits to OTB tournaments we would be overwhelmed with OTB cheats.

Online cheating is stupid, it's easy to do and easy to get caught. One could say these people actually give genuine cheats, people who making a living from stealing money, a bad name.

[Pete Heaven]

On the victimless, trivial non-crime of online cheating which few people should care about, can I raise a few real-life points in opposition to it, though I guess most people know what I think.

- Firstly, you're wasting a lot of other people's time, especially if, say, you're a regular in 4NCL online, where games take a whole evening. Why are you so superior a person and why is their time so unimportant that it should be ok to do that?
- You get an inflated online ECF rating which will boost your ego..beyond bursting point in many cases. Certainly, you can look down on higher rated OTB players and abuse them in the online chat to make you feel better and them feel worse, in many cases quite angry.
- You get to become British Champion....that looks pretty good on your CV, as does having 'the highest ever initial rating in the history of chess' (or similar) look good on an OTB British cheat's CV.
- What about other tournaments, maybe where the prizes are less meaningful trinkets that people don't care about? Is it ok to cheat in these? After all, people have paid entry fees and probably want a chance of winning or at least giving up their weekend for five fair games.
- What if you are in a position of responsibility - CSC Regional coach maybe, an ECF President's award winner perhaps, a National arbiter, on the board of a national federation? Is it still ok, such that these minor non-transgressions are seen as acceptable examples to set to juniors, particularly those juniors who have just been cheated against. If not, is the offence still trivial?
- How about if you are an international junior and you are not cheating and yet you see other, cheating juniors of a similar or lower OTB standard being selected for prestigious online, hybrid and OTB international competitions? You may well think this is because of their cheating and be tempted to start yourself. The same has been happening in my country at a senior level.

I only wish these weren't real cases. For example, I got three winners of four sections of last year's British Championship banned on chess.com within 48 hours of the event completing. They're still British Champions on the ECF site though. Very little ego-deflation in their cases.

I do agree that it's a huge step from cheating online to cheating OTB. However, people who are innocent online will not cheat OTB. Not cheating online is a good place to start. And cheating OTB will only be scarce because it's harder and riskier; it won't be because people are suddenly more honest.

Incidentally, to fit in with another ongoing thread on a similar topic, of all the tiny number of people who have admitted to cheating online that I am aware of in the past 30 months, one claimed he was only cheating in the first 12-15 moves. It was absolutely clear that this was the only part of the game in which he wasn't cheating. So I'd take admissions of guilt with a large pinch of salt too.

The only difference between now and 2020 is that at least we have OTB chess to fall back on, where the vast majority of people won't countenance cheating, if only for the risk entails. Most people reading this will be ok with this...they don't know who the worst online cheats have been and don't feel as strongly as I do about it.

[Chris Rice]

Not sure how useful the questions on FB really are as FIDE have already stated that they are only acting in an ex-officio capacity this time essentially due to the level of public interest. So, whatever outcome FIDE come up with can't be legally binding on chess.com although it's in everyone's interest that all sides agree that due process has been done when the final verdict comes down.

Personally, I think that online chess and OTB chess are two similar but nonetheless different games with different rules. Some examples are, if you touch a piece in OTB chess you have to move it, if you don't and move something else, it's cheating, but not so in online chess. Online players can play on dead drawn games without worrying about arbiters (remember Kamsky's tantrums for instance). In OTB chess you are not allowed to have a mobile on your person, how would you check that is happening online?

Cheating is cheating so I've got no issue with Niemann being banned for online chess cheating but I think we need to see a smoking gun before we ban him from OTB chess as it's not a simple read across from online chess.

[NickFaulks]

On the victimless, trivial non-crime of online cheating which few people should care about

Is anyone actually saying that? I suppose one might think that Stephen Moss is, but he is a journalist and may not really believe what he writes.

I care, even though from a purely personal angle I am at the extreme "don't care" end of the scale. When I used to play a lot online, I never bothered about whether my opponent woohoo89 (2033) might be cheating. They were either an honest 2033 player or a 1200 player augmented by some computer assistance, so what? Either way I got a game. However, I understand that some people, such as Pete, take online chess much more seriously and are very keen to see cheating stopped there. That's fine, just don't in the process mess up my game, which is OTB chess and bears little resemblance to theirs.