Carlsen resigns on move 2

[LawrenceCooper]

Look at the amount of money in the major online events these days though.

I know very little about online chess, which are these big money online events? I don't mean Titled Tuesday, which is just pocket change.

$650,000 prize fund in the chess.com Rapid Chess Championship.

$1,000,000 prize fund in the chess.com Global Championship, although the final is at a single venue and the organisers have reserved the right to play it as an OTB event.

There was also a LiChess bullet arena in January, open to everyone, where the first prize was the equivalent of one Bitcoin. From memory around $30000. Hikaru won the event. It crashed mid way through, possibly due to there being around 20000 players, and was restarted at a later date.

[Gerard Killoran]

It's by no means clear what chess.com are prepared to divulge.

Well quite so - would FIDE investigators (if that's not overdoing it) have a free hand? But also - it was discussed above that, if Danny Rensch is to be believed, individuals outside Chessdotcom who have seen confidential materisl have signed NDAs. If they are required, how are public judgments going to be made on that basis? (And once again, is this only going to apply to Hans Niemann?)

In his latest video - https://youtu.be/tDsLu3ISqJQ - Ben Finegold makes some revealing statements.

1. He and his wife, Karen, have been given view of Chessdotcom's anti-cheating measures and signed NDAs.

2. On the basis of which, he is inclined to believe that if Chessdotcom says someone has cheated, then that is the case.

3. Finegold is certain Niemann didn't cheat against Carlsen in any of their games.

As we know, Chessdotcom have had to admit falsely accusing people of cheating. It would be interesting to find out how many 'false positives' their system produces, as they cannot now claim it works 100% of the time.

[NickFaulks]

3. Finegold is certain Niemann didn't cheat against Carlsen in any of their games.

I don't believe that either, but we've seen a bit too much certainty lately.

[Paul Cooksey]

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[NickFaulks]

and chess.com have said they will share the results of their investigation: https://twitter.com/chesscom/status/157 ... 76/photo/1

Not just the usual edited highlights, then?

[NickFaulks]

Chessdom have tweeted a podcast by Ian Nepomniachtchi, although I think it is a week old. It is over an hour long, rather rambling ( he would clearly not resent this description ) but still worth a listen for anyone who wants to know how he is actually thinking. Do not just read Chessdom's executive summary. One thing that seems certain is that Ian is setting out his own position, to the extent that he has been able to form one, with complete honesty. I do not know him at all but, based on the opinions of people I do know and who know him, I would expect nothing else.

https://www.chessdom.com/ian-nepomniach ... field-cup/

My own executive summary ( but listen for yourselves! ) follows, with my own comments in square brackets

1. His own views are coloured by the fact that he knows that Niemann has a history of cheating online, perhaps a lot and perhaps against him. [ Why wouldn't they be? ]

2. He was upset that St Louis refused to apply a delay to moves until the Carlsen blowup. [ Again, he should be. To admit that they might be a good idea from round 4 is to admit that they might have been a good idea from round 1 ]

3. He accepts that "if you look for weird things you will find them".

4. He thinks it is suspicious that Niemann's upward progress has been very steady, punctuated by none of the poor tournaments typical with rapidly improving young players. [ Here I think he is wrong. Niemann's tournament results over the past two years show the level of variation that you would expect randomly. He also says that others in his peer group would normally show greater than random variability, but based on only a little dipping into the data I am not convinced about that. ]

5. He is surprised that Niemann produced mediocre results in Turkey immediately prior to the Sinquefield Cup and then played really well at that event. [ his 2697 performance in the Turkish League was not so bad and in any case, would this not be precisely the variability he wishes to see in a genuine talent? ]

I think Ian's podcast is very valuable as a guide to how elite players ( though not Carlsen ) are thinking at the moment. I hope others will listen to it and say if they think my own interpretations are wrong or if I have missed something.

[Paul Cooksey]

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[NickFaulks]

I know page 17 was a long time ago, but I think Nick is trolling me!

Certainly not, that one got by me.

And everyone else it seems, to judge by the total lack of interest shown when you posted it.

[Paul Cooksey]

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[NickFaulks]

“truth is probably somewhere in between”.

Clearly I am catching up here.

I did trip over Ian's comment above and didn't understand it at all. Either Niemann is cheating OTB or he isn't.

[Paul Cooksey]

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[JustinHorton]

has said about his methodology, I do not think it is sensitive enough to detect a 2700 GM cheating cleverly to raise their level to 2750.

I may have said this before, but while this may be true, it may also be that this is not an existing problem.

[Paul Cooksey]

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[JustinHorton]

Not necessarily, if I think (a) it would practically be very difficult (b) it is not clear that the proposed methods would actually be effective (c) if they were, it would be necessary to keep them up indefinitely.

[Paul Cooksey]

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