Carlsen resigns on move 2

[Nick Ivell]

Good to see you back, Danny!

[Angus French]

I watched Yosha Iglesias's video early this morning and thought it looked interesting but there were a couple of things I was unsure about:
- what *exactly* is it that's being measured to produce the % scores? How *exactly* are the scores derived?
- (as others have said) what about the scores for other players - how do they compare? What I'd like to see is the scores for a number of top players over a decent number of recent events - just like the analysis presented in the spreadsheet for Hans Niemann.

I believe I read that someone had reported that Chessbase had a disclaimer on the Let's Check facility to the effect: don't use this tool for cheat detection. Did anyone else see that?

Boris Avrukh has an interesting comment about one of the games which was scored 100% for Niemann:

"No doubts very interesting video. No questions it’s high quality games , but I don’t get this 100% Let’s Check feature. I checked game vs Yoo 2020, if you check the opening of this game 8… Bd7 inaccuracy and 10…h6 significant mistake. White is +1.2 after that. How it’s 100%".

You can see that Niemann's 10... h6 is flagged as dubious in Yosha's video (starting just after 12:30 [corrected]), leaving White with an advantage.

[Geoff Chandler]

I’m not too sure about a 100% match up!
I'll stay with chess.com looking after their own site and not another sites' findings.
If they caught Hans with 100% ratio there would have been high fives all around
and we would have heard about first.

Ideally the cheat hunter must not know who they are looking at
and give the benefit of doubt to such an extent they are defending the player
from cheating not trying to trap them. Looking for any feasible excuse why
a series of top moves have appeared. They have to be sure and very careful,
their decisions really matter regarding peoples lives and reputations.

Yes Tim page 49 (a spin on Private Eye page 94) was a joke.
Arbiters have not been told to look out for false hearing aids, glass eyes and walking sticks being used as ariels.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Ideally the cheat hunter must not know who they are looking at"

There are some practical difficulties with that at the top level, but you're absolutely right.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Ah - Twitter world is a confusing place! Lol

It looks like some comparison data has been made available. Arjun Erigaisi's Let’s Check data since 2021. Only one 100% (apparently having a winning position after 10 moves following an opening trap), one 93% and no others above 90;
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... U/htmlview#

Looks like others to follow - Gukesh and Abdusattorov!

So where did the "a number of games at 100%" claim come from?

[Matt Bridgeman]

Ah - Twitter world is a confusing place! Lol

It looks like some comparison data has been made available. Arjun Erigaisi's Let’s Check data since 2021. Only one 100% (apparently having a winning position after 10 moves following an opening trap), one 93% and no others above 90;
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... U/htmlview#

Looks like others to follow - Gukesh and Abdusattorov!

So where did the "a number of games at 100%" claim come from?

Hans seems to have 10 of them on the database. Claim from Laird gambit-man of Linlithgowshire!

[LawrenceCooper]

Ah - Twitter world is a confusing place! Lol

It looks like some comparison data has been made available. Arjun Erigaisi's Let’s Check data since 2021. Only one 100% (apparently having a winning position after 10 moves following an opening trap), one 93% and no others above 90;
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... U/htmlview#

Looks like others to follow - Gukesh and Abdusattorov!

So where did the "a number of games at 100%" claim come from?

Hans seems to have 10 of them on the database. Claim from Laird gambit-man of Linlithgowshire!

Hikaru is having fun comparing his games and finding even his best efforts are in the 50s and 60s so nowhere near Hans at his peak.

[LawrenceCooper]

Tweet from Magnus: https://twitter.com/MagnusCarlsen/statu ... 88/photo/1

[NickFaulks]

Tweet from Magnus: https://twitter.com/MagnusCarlsen/statu ... 88/photo/1

He's said it - he really is claiming that Hans cheated against him in that OTB game. They're off!

[Joseph Conlon]

Some thoughts:

1. I don’t believe statistical analysis would ever be sufficient as an anti-cheating device at the top level. All statistics comes down to signal and noise, and small amounts of signal buried in large amounts of noise is extremely hard to detect. Neither Danny Rensch or Ken Regan has superpowers. I could get more technical about this, in terms of detectability, but there is no magic algorithm to get round a small signal and bring it above the detection threshold (One way to illustrate this - suppose someone cheated enough to turn their Black expectancy into their White expectancy - effectively, they play White in every game. On results alone, they would need to play 1000 games or so to pick this up - but turning Black into White is a significant benefit)

2. I think chess has not been *that* serious about nailing down technological cheating. For all the joking about Elon Musks suggestion, it seems perfectly technically feasible - a vibrating object concealed within the body which vibrates subject to radio transmission from an accomplice. For all the Carry On jokes, such objects exist and could be used. Which arbiter would have the balls (if I may use such an expression) to search for them? None. And for all the ho ho ho about signalling Porn moves, it really isn’t hard to see how the equivalent of Morse code could be used to signal critical moves, best engine moves etc, or simply when the opponent has blundered. For elite arbiters: if someone did this, could you detect it?

3. For business purposes chess.com etc may wish to claim infallible powers, but the assumption should be that an elite player with an engine can improve themselves by 100 elo points without being detected (which is a huge difference at the sharp end of the rating list)

4. As long as chess is played by humans, the assumption should be that there exist people who will cheat if they can, especially at the highest level.

5. Other high-level activities accept physical intrusions to keep events clean (e.g. for drugs tests athletes have to urinate into bottles *in full sight of an official* even if U18). Elite chess may need a change in culture here.

6. As Paul said up-thread, move delays in transmission, airport-style scanning, Faraday cages etc should become standard at elite events. Spectators with a live view of the board should never have phones and should be scanned in a similar way.

7. None of this claims that Hans Niemann has ever actually cheated OTB - but it’s abundantly clear that the suspicion of cheating is almost as bad as the fact, and nailing down the possibilities of doing so is clearly the right thing.

[JustinHorton]

"At this time I am limited in what I can say without explicit permission from Niemann to speak openly."

I genuinely have no clue what this means - what am I missing?

[JustinHorton]

the assumption should be that an elite player with an engine can improve themselves by 100 elo points without being detected

Are you able to set out your reasoning?

[Kirk Gornall]

I thought the organizers of the Sinquefield Cup had cleared Hans of any cheating.

[Simon Rogers]

Hans certainly seems to be having an unusual reaction to all the drama. Kind of revelling in the fact a who’s who of chess has blocked him on Twitter. He puts their names up loud and proud. Appears to be in open warfare with Carlsen. Firing off dancing frog gifs at Yosha today, who is getting a fair bit of play for her analysis in the Norway press today, and even got linked by the New York Times as well for her efforts.

I think you are getting hans confused with this guy https://twitter.com/pacificwondrlnd/sta ... 09/photo/1 who is a known troll who tries to get everyone to block him. I deliberately have not blocked him so as not to play his game.

Good to see you back on the forum Danny.
Are you playing at the Scarborough Congress?

[NickFaulks]

I thought the organizers of the Sinquefield Cup had cleared Hans of any cheating.

Evidently Carlsen thinks they missed something.