Some thoughts on anti-cheating systems

[Steve Lovell]

Thanks Adam, I've dropped you an email.

[Matt Bridgeman]

I noticed the UK Chess Challenge Mega-Finals are playing this weekend on Lichess. It was a bit of shame the 2nd and 5th placers in the Under 14’s have received Lichess bans for using computer assistance post-tournament. Likewise the winner and 5th placer in the Under 12 Boys we’re also banned. There’s some good players being messed around by the cheaters.

[John Swain]

I noticed the UK Chess Challenge Mega-Finals are playing this weekend on Lichess. It was a bit of shame the 2nd and 5th placers in the Under 14’s have received Lichess bans for using computer assistance post-tournament. Likewise the winner and 5th placer in the Under 12 Boys we’re also banned. There’s some good players being messed around by the cheaters.

It was mentioned during the afternoon's Twitch broadcast that the games from the morning's under 12 sections had already been sent off for scrutiny by Ken Regan's anti-cheating software so presumably the process of detecting cheats is still underway. The organisers are obviously doing their best to root out cheats and it's better to detect them at the Megafinal stage rather than at the later Gigafinal or Terafinal stages.

There remains the issue of "false positives", discussed at length on the 4NCL thread and in the editorial of June's Chess magazine. Mistakes occasionally occur. There is a further Megafinal opportunity in a fortnight so presumably an appeal by an innocent player could be made to lichess, with reinstatement if the appeal is successful. However, proving innocence could be very difficult indeed, especially for youngsters whose parents are not chess players.

[Matt Bridgeman]

There’s a fair bit of money on the table in the Terra Final stage. Perhaps they should take a leaf out of Adam Raoof’s book, and have the final stage on Tornelo and Zoom?

[JustinHorton]

.

There remains the issue of "false positives", discussed at length on the 4NCL thread and in the editorial of June's Chess magazine.

Oh that's interesting, what does it say?

[Matthew Turner]

I noticed the UK Chess Challenge Mega-Finals are playing this weekend on Lichess. It was a bit of shame the 2nd and 5th placers in the Under 14’s have received Lichess bans for using computer assistance post-tournament. Likewise the winner and 5th placer in the Under 12 Boys we’re also banned. There’s some good players being messed around by the cheaters.

Matt,
Is there somewhere to look up the results? I am sure I am being stupid, but I couldn’t find them.

[Matt Bridgeman]

https://lichess.org/team/uk-chess-chall ... ompetition

[Matthew Turner]

Thank you.

[John Swain]

.

There remains the issue of "false positives", discussed at length on the 4NCL thread and in the editorial of June's Chess magazine.

Oh that's interesting, what does it say?

The section is found on pp.6-7 of the June edition of Chess under the telling subtitle "Guilty Until Proved Innocent". Malcolm Pein writes that "there is a huge amount of cheating" but persuasively points out that "platforms jealously guard the methods they use" and therefore "In practice, this makes it impossible, as things currently stand, to create a fair appeals procedure."

As one of the "Fischer Generation" I've been subscribing to Chess magazine since late 1971!

[Roger de Coverly]

There is a further Megafinal opportunity in a fortnight so presumably an appeal by an innocent player could be made to lichess, with reinstatement if the appeal is successful. However, proving innocence could be very difficult indeed, especially for youngsters whose parents are not chess players.

Do lichess allow appeals? Their bans are based in some instances on a handful of games.

What they put on the profile is

This player uses chess computer assistance

But don't we all? Not during the game, but before and after.

[JustinHorton]

Yeah, but we know what they mean, and they don't mean that.