Carlsen resigns on move 2

[Keith Arkell]

It is certain that he was in a quandary about whether to pull out as he did not wish to play someone he was by then then confident was a serial cheat.

That could be plausible if only considering online play. But a credible accusation OTB should demonstrate the alleged method of how engine suggestions find their way back to the player. Frequent "toilet" breaks is one such method, but not suggested in this instance. Signalling from a connected party is another method, again not suggested.

I'm as curious as everyone else how the cheats manage to pull it off, Roger. But, for example, do ear pieces have to have metal in them?

[Matt Bridgeman]

You can get tiny nano earpieces that effectively sit next to your ear drum, that bizarrely you need a strong magnet to abstract. Presumably there are non metal variants on this. Not that I think chess players are going in for spyware but no doubt there is nano technology out in the world.

[Roger de Coverly]

I'm as curious as everyone else how the cheats manage to pull it off, Roger. But, for example, do ear pieces have to have metal in them?

I don't know whether an ear piece is always detected by the metal detectors. But to make ear piece cheating work, don't you need an accomplice to send suggestions? Unless you enlist the commentators by being able to tune in to their words. That's hit or miss as in tournaments they jump from one game to another.

[Ian Thompson]

Not that I think chess players are going in for spyware but no doubt there is nano technology out in the world.

This player is thought to have done more than 20 years ago.

[JustinHorton]

I'm not sure exactly which cheating he was removed for but as the removal was recent it's hard to believe that it was for cheating years ago.

Well we'd like to think so, wouldn't we, but it does have to be very recent, doesn't it? Otherwise it raises all sorts of problems.

(Also, don't I seem to recall an incident, perhaps in the last couple of years, where somebody got banned by chessdotcom and they said it was because of his play in a tournament long before? Sorry to be sketchy about this - he might have been Indian and it might have involved Nakamura somehow but both these notions might be wrong.)

I think the top players see no difference between OTB and Online cheating.

This is surely right, but in fact putting this into practice is likely to be deeply problematic, for reasons that need, I think, to be thrashed through. (I'll try and have a go at this a bit later, if I have some time.)

[Roger de Coverly]

Well we'd like to think so, wouldn't we, but it does have to be very recent, doesn't it? Otherwise it raises all sorts of problems.

Various people were banned or had their scores annulled by chess.com, lichess, the ECF or the 4NCL during the pandemic. Some still seem to be playing OTB chess in or for England without any sanctions. We only know about those where the name was leaked or could have easily been deduced,

[John Sellen]

todays Guardian

"The people who police chess cheats: ‘We built a crime scene analysis for every player in the world’
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/ ... -the-world

[Roger de Coverly]

"The people who police chess cheats: ‘We built a crime scene analysis for every player in the world’

That's chess.com whose accusations and bans have rarely if ever been challenged in a court of law. We do however know that they made a false accusation against a member of this forum which in my mind called into doubt the reliability of their methods. It was a fairly elementary error in failing to observe that in "daily" (postal style) chess, consultation of books was allowed, No stipulation is made that the books don't contain engine checked analysis, so a player following such analysis isn't cheating.

It's not "every player in the world". I'd imagine a sizeable number who've never used the chess.com platform.

[Gerard Killoran]

From the Guardian aricle:

The arbiters also ask the players to share their screens so they can see what programs they’re using, and point the side camera at their ears to inspect for bugs.

I'm guessing that the writer meant ear buds, not bugs. Otherwise chess cheaters are dirtier than we thought.

[Mick Norris]

todays Guardian

"The people who police chess cheats: ‘We built a crime scene analysis for every player in the world’
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/ ... -the-world

Thanks for the link John, interesting article which finishes with

As for Carlsen’s accusation? Sadler says his experience leaves him in disbelief. While Carlsen is still clearly the world’s best player, “my position still is that cheating at the top level just doesn’t really happen”, he said. “There’s an awful lot to lose. And chess is one of those games where you dedicate our life to it and it’s just a little bit hard to imagine the top players would throw that all away.”

[Paul Cooksey]

.

[Matt Bridgeman]

Nepo https://youtu.be/DT7WhzbZPmE?t=362

He says asked for extra measures at Sinquefield to make the tournament more safe and clean when the replacement players announced. "None of this done until after sad case of Magnus withdrawal".

A good summary on an associated Reddit thread;

Nepo was already very nervous when he learned that Hans was the replacement for Richard Rapport and tried to contact the organizers to tell them to increase their anti cheating measures. But nothing was done until Magnus withdrew.

Cheating in chess has been a thing for a very long time even before the age of computers. In youth championships and stuff, some coaches would try to find ways to tell moves to their students.

For online cheating, even back in the days of the Internet Chess Club (ICC), there were a few players who it seemed could play moves of a higher quality than what could be seen even in GM tournaments. There really was no way to do anything about it. There were people who would cheat with Fritz and Rybka.

For OTB chess, Nepo talks about a time when his coach warned him that sometimes the opponent’s coach might use some special coded signals like touching their nose or ears. He also talks about Igors Rausis (who was caught for cheating and banned for 6 years from Fide events) and a few other cases.

He talks about how hard it is to 100% detect prove that someone is cheating. He thinks more tournaments will implement/have implemented a delay in their broadcasting of moves. If you want 100% certainty, he thinks the delay should be 30 minutes or more, but 15 minutes is also really good.

He talks about a video (which may or may not be on YT, he is not sure.) where Dubov and another GM talk about how its possible to cheat such that its super hard to detect.
For a lot of young people who cheat, its easy to claim that they were just having a good day, or got lucky or that they have worked super hard and you can’t really prove that they are cheating.

He talks about how he came to know about Hans during the pandemic and that out of all the rising juniors, Hans was the only one he was suspicious about after having played him online. But he also says that this is just his intuition. Hans’ progress and the way his rating gains happened is very unusual and extra-ordinary. He seems to gain steady small gains over a very long period. For most rising talents, you would expect some plateaus, some mind-blowing runs as well as bad events.

He considers the interview to be quite weird, but also admits that its only circumstantial evidence.
He says that confirmation bias could also be a factor, and (Paraphrasing) “if you want to see something weird, you will see it, and if you don’t want to, you won’t.” He also says that he was ‘trust issues’ and that Levon’s statement about “most of my colleagues are paranoid”is “partially true”.

He cannot really come up with any obvious conclusions. Some of the things that have taken place is certainly suspicious, but he is not sure. But he also considers Hans to be quite talented based on his blitz skills and thinks that “truth is probably somewhere in between”.
He also apologizes for his bad English and hopes its understandable.

https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments ... the_drama/

[MJMcCready]

SO things are far from perfect then the whole world gets rocked by allegations.
It's a sorry state and not a good advert for chess. The chess world has had more than a few people chuckling of late. I don't find it funny though, it's just sad.

[JustinHorton]

He talks about a video (which may or may not be on YT, he is not sure.) where Dubov and another GM talk about how its possible to cheat such that its super hard to detect.

We're not talking about the Tkachiev video, where Dubov was the mark?

[MJMcCready]

Given the seriousness of the allegations and the fear factor generated by them, shouldn't cheating per se be looked at in closer detail. Some people would argue there are forms of cheating prevalent in the game already but no one is doing anything about them! I'm undecided here but the main form of cheating in chess is players wearing glasses rather than rely on their own eyesight. It's been argued they are gaining an unfair advantage over their opponent who -without goggles- probably has worse eyesight. This advantage can manifest itself in a number of ways. It can speed up moves and save time as the pieces are easier to see as well as the clock. Personally, I use glasses myself and although I don't think I am cheating, I do think I am bending the rules but where I draw the line is with people who use contact lenses. To me they are just vermin and should be thrown out of the game for good but anyway that's just my opinion on the matter. Another form of cheating is those players who use shiny pens. They know all too well they are a distraction and reflect light in all different directions -downright gamesmanship that is.