4NCL Online

[Mick Norris]

Looking at a screen i.e. 2D is different than looking at a board i.e. 3D; it may be those who have played OTB for a long time struggle more than those who have played online for a long time?

[Joseph Conlon]

The linked article is very nice and clearly written; to me it really hits the nail on the head in terms of posing the question that has to be answered (or the case for the prosecution).

There's one little statistical slip made though(ignore this if you dislike pedantry or discussions of p-values!). In frequentist probability, the p-value (1 in 30,000 for z=4 or 1 in 20 million for z=5.3 on p6 of the article) ISN'T the chance that no engine assistance was used. Instead it's the chance that a player of the given strength, playing without assistance, would produce that degree of move matching.

Falsifying the null hypothesis is different to establishing engine use, as that is only one of many ways to break the null hypothesis; other against-the-rules way would be account sharing (I would expect that if I played on my sons' accounts I would get a high z score without touching an engine) or consulting a database of GM games while playing down some theoretical line, while an in-the-rules way would be if the input rating was badly out for some reason.

But all in all, its a very nice piece.

[Mike Gunn]

Replying to Martin Carpenter: surely there may be some psychological effect on your play if your opponent never makes a mistake, always comes back with the perfect move?

[Thomas Rendle]

Replying to Martin Carpenter: surely there may be some psychological effect on your play if your opponent never makes a mistake, always comes back with the perfect move?

Certainly. In one of the few occasions that I'm sure I played a cheat online we played a 2 game mini-match. The first game I played well and was surprised to be crushed by a much weaker opponent. Then having to play a 2nd game I was definitely struggling to think clearly/calculate when it became clear it was rather pointless.

I'm not sure how much this would affect a player in a longer time control game (this was 10+2 rather than 45+15) but anything that distracts you can't be a good thing.

[Thomas Rendle]

I also thought the article was excellent. I don't think you need to be top 100 in the world to recognise from the games that there's cheating going on, and I think coaches, captains and team-mates need to think carefully when a player gets caught out, rather than blindly supporting a player. That doesn't mean that they should never support a player, but clearly this was handled badly in the first season.

Again, I'm really grateful the 4NCL are putting these events on and I'm actually confident things will work better next season. With no OTB chess on the horizon I'm certainly intending to play at least!

[MartinCarpenter]

Replying to Martin Carpenter: surely there may be some psychological effect on your play if your opponent never makes a mistake, always comes back with the perfect move?

Maybe Not really enough cheating going on to explain it in general though!

Utterly idle, but I suspect that it we saw the Z scores stratified by age groups you'd see a non trivial effect.

[John Reyes]

the question is why do people cheat?

it is a ego thing?

[Alan Walton]

the question is why do people cheat?

it is a ego thing?

It isn't just chess; happens in all forms of life (drugs, diving in football for example)

I think greater thinkers than myself have been analysing this for years and still no definitive answer

[Ian Thompson]

the question is why do people cheat?

Here's a paper on the subject - https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early ... 3.full.pdf, the abstract of which says:

Winning a competition engenders subsequent unrelated unethical behaviour. Five studies reveal that after a competition has taken place winners behave more dishonestly than competition losers. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that winning a competition increases the likelihood of winners to steal money from their counterparts in a subsequent unrelated task. Studies 3a and 3b demonstrate that the effect holds only when winning means performing better than others (i.e., determined in reference to others) but not when success is determined by chance or in reference to a personal goal. Finally, study 4 demonstrates that a possible mechanism underlying the effect is an enhanced sense of entitlement among competition winners.

The author says "cheating tends to take place when there’s a competitive element between participants — which leads to a sense of superiority." and "When success is measured by social comparison, as is the case when winning a competition — and by such a comparison, I mean to the feeling that I’m better than the rest — I learned that the potential for dishonesty increases.” (https://geekandsundry.com/science-expla ... -at-games/).

it is a ego thing?

Yes, according to the paper.

[Thomas Rendle]

the question is why do people cheat?

it is a ego thing?

There's the slightly separate question of why do people cheat in online chess (more so than OTB). I can think of several factors here:

1) Online cheating is perceived as 'not a big deal'. This maybe applies more to a younger demographic. In the world of online video games (both competitive and otherwise) there is often the ability to 'cheat' in someway. Some of these methods (for example stream sniping - watching a streamers live broadcast to gain an edge) are considered a low level nuisance rather than abhorrent.

2) Anonymised accounts: if you don't give a real name it doesn't matter so much.

3) Unlikely to be caught / even if caught can just claim no 'physical evidence'. We've seen a lot of this! In 'unlikely to be caught' there's also the idea that only checking a few moves (especially as a strong player) means the games won't get flagged.

4) 'Online' is a big place. There are lots of websites, and events you can play in - if you're banned from one then so what? Even if named with international events most players won't know you.

Now onto ways we can potentially combat this:

1) Put statements out making it clear online cheating is unacceptable. This should be done by tournament organisers, team captains, parents, team-mates and coaches. I've had to do this with some online groups I've worked with, it's important young players get this message early on!

2) Real names on accounts. At least for any accounts taking part in organised events,

3) Agreeing on an acceptable level of proof without physical evidence. Very tricky but I think we're getting there. Not everyone will be satisfied but at least we can agree when we enter an event.

4) I think this is easier to avoid with ECF events as players will know each other. The consequences for being banned is you're going to be identified by your peers fairly easily, more so than a big open event on chesscom or lichess.

I'm sure I'm missing some things out but this is already a long post. I do think it's time to look for pragmatic solutions though.

[Roger de Coverly]

I think this is easier to avoid with ECF events as players will know each other.

A couple of names of potential participants in the British Championship and Division one 4NCL have escaped. There may be more. What's the likely reaction to their future involvement?

[Phil Makepeace]

I think this is easier to avoid with ECF events as players will know each other.

A couple of names of potential participants in the British Championship and Division one 4NCL have escaped. There may be more. What's the likely reaction to their future involvement?

Mixed, if this poll is to be believed. Indeed, our latest episode goes into some detail about this from around the 14 minute mark.

[Ian Thompson]

I think this is easier to avoid with ECF events as players will know each other.

A couple of names of potential participants in the British Championship and Division one 4NCL have escaped. There may be more.

I did wonder if it would be possible to identify the players from the 4NCL online table given in the article if anyone could be bothered to do it. Presumably, the two players you refer to can be identified in the table. One precisely and the other to one of two possible rows. There is, I believe, only one player who scored 7/7 so there's another one identified.

[Thomas Rendle]

I think this is easier to avoid with ECF events as players will know each other.

A couple of names of potential participants in the British Championship and Division one 4NCL have escaped. There may be more. What's the likely reaction to their future involvement?

Good question. The titled players I've spoken to have generally been very unimpressed with what they've seen. I've personally said before that I'd be willing to forgive players for a one-off mistake if they admitted to it - but even when the evidence has been clear this hasn't happened. I wouldn't be surprised if one or two players simply don't return to high-level OTB chess, I guess we'll see eventually.

[Li Wu]

Just want to belatedly congratulate Alex Holowczak on an excellent article! Every precaution is taken to ensure innocent players aren't banned, and those that arouse suspicion are already outliers. And sites at least haven't been too hasty in dishing out bans in the ECF's experience.

Of course I don't know your salary or any financials with ECF or chess in general, but imo you guys went above and beyond what is expected during these special times.