Carlsen resigns on move 2

[NickFaulks]

You say that, but when was he cheating and when was he removed?

I don't think you will get an answer to that. My impression is that chess.com has dossiers on a large number of top players, ready to be released as required.

Niemann is obviously not going to bring a lawsuit against Carlsen - he is just a teenager who wants to do nothing with his life but study and play chess. I hope someone does though, because then all of this stuff will have to be made public, in one go rather than selectively drip-fed.

[MJMcCready]

I am inclined to agree with you there but I do hope Niemann brings a law suit. Whatever happens, something should be done, and everyone should move on from this spectacle.

[Tim Harding]

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.

And as for the poor people who need hearing aids, they had better leave them at home/in their cars or hotel rooms before playing chess or they are sure to be accused of cheating?
But when I leave them out I cannot hear the arbiter's announcements...

[JustinHorton]

I am inclined to agree with you there but I do hope Niemann brings a law suit. Whatever happens, something should be done, and everyone should move on from this spectacle.

Well yes, taking it to the courts would certainly help in that respect

[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.

And as for the poor people who need hearing aids, they had better leave them at home/in their cars or hotel rooms before playing chess or they are sure to be accused of cheating?
But when I leave them out I cannot hear the arbiter's announcements...

Hearing aids? Do they pick up voices from the after world where spirits can be heard giving out analysis and offering up alternative moves? I think I should get one if so.

[NickFaulks]

Well yes, taking it to the courts would certainly help in that respect

You said yourself that we need to be told who knew what and when. Without a court order that will never, ever happen.

It would of course not lead rapidly to everyone moving on, but things have gone too far for that.

[JustinHorton]

Well yes, taking it to the courts would certainly help in that respect

You said yourself that we need to be told who knew what and when. Without a court order that will never, ever happen.

It would of course not lead rapidly to everyone moving on, but things have gone too far for that.

Oh for sure. I was just pointing out the contradiction!

[JustinHorton]

You say that, but when was he cheating and when was he removed?

I don't think you will get an answer to that.

I'm sure you're right on the no answer front. But I certainly got the impression that they didn't mean that Niemann had only just that moment been caught cheating (or even only just that moment exhausted their appeals process). Which is one reason why I would really have liked some journalist or other to ask them - is this for cheating right now, or for years ago? They wouldn't have to sask for specificdetails, just which of these two categories it fell into.

I am annoyed with myself for not being able to trace this (below) at all. I am sure I am not making it up.

(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.)

My impression is that chess.com has dossiers on a large number of top players, ready to be released as required.

Related to this - you referred to "the blackmail list" above, and it seems that a list of high-profile players who have apparently confessed to cheating is available to some other high-profile players, if I have not got hold of the wrong end of the stick. I hope I have, because if this is so - isn't that information which is supposed to be confidential between chessdotcom and the players concerned, as part of the deal which enables them to return to the site?

[JustinHorton]

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.)

Just getting back to this. One thing that needs to be stressed, and stressed again, is that you are really going to struggle to have online bans extended to OTB play unless the sites which issue those bans are prepared and able to make their methods known to the outside world.

I do not think there is any getting round this, because otherwise what you are asking is that chess federations ban players - bans that will have serious effects on the lives of those players, and perhaps their income and professional status - on the word, reliable or otherwise, of private organisations which currently, at any rate, are not prepared to share their reasons or show their working.

This is self-evidently a recipe for disaster. A federation will ban a player and will then be taken to court and then what are you going to do, because the chess site is absolutely, in those circumstances, going to have to reveal its secret methods, or fold in court. And if it folds in court, then everybody will understand immediately that these bans are not going to be upheld by the law.

(Related issues certainly got discussed at the height of the pandemic, when pretty much all chess was online.)

[MJMcCready]

Well it just can't work and online chess and OTB chess should be kept separate from one another.

[JustinHorton]

The general idea of thrashing through is the opposite from making definitive one-sentence judgments.

[MJMcCready]

Just in:
https://www.fide.com/news/1999

[Paul Cooksey]

.

[Ian Thompson]

I note two members of this forum are on the FIDE Fair Play Commission. I'd like to take the opportunity to wish them luck.

I doubt they'll have anything to do because FIDE's proposed investigation will only start "when the adequate initial proof is provided, and all parties involved disclose the information at their disposal."

[NickFaulks]

It is so obvious that this is one for CAS. If Niemann brought the complaint himself I think he would get a very sympathetic hearing, but he's not going to do that.