Cheating in chess

[Jacob Ward]

[...]

John (and Matthew) - thank you for your explanations.

I think my nervousness about this comes from the fact that we are largely obliged to take it on trust that everything has been done properly and that the proof is there, whether that's by a platform or by Professor Regan. Professor Regan is considerably more open than the platforms, and I'm certainly not trying to suggest that he is not up to the job or has any improper motives; I heard an interview with him last year and he sounded entirely sensible and clearly an expert in his area. However there is not - at least to my knowledge - a community of similarly expert reviewers who can go through his code, methodology and data and confirm that everything has been done rigorously and justifies the conclusions being reached. Without that, the answers to a lot of questions effectively reduce to "Professor Regan says that the conclusion is robust", and I find myself uncomfortable at the prospect of FIDE or another governing body imposing significant sanctions on that basis.

Do you know whether there is any plan for FIDE to arrange for some form of ongoing peer-review of Professor Regan's work, if it is going to be more widely used?

[Matthew Turner]

Jacob,
You can go through the Twitch link I posted and see an example of evidence in a case. This uses PGNSpy as a detection mechanism. A simple google search will take you to the code behind PGNSpy, so you can see the sort of code that is used which is being reviewed all the time by experts.

[NickFaulks]

Do you know whether there is any plan for FIDE to arrange for some form of ongoing peer-review of Professor Regan's work

Not a chance, for reasons which should be obvious.

[Roger de Coverly]

and I find myself uncomfortable at the prospect of FIDE or another governing body imposing significant sanctions on that basis.

If there's a desire for more publicity on those detected as using external assistance, that's fighting against a reluctance of those imposing bans or making claims of wrongdoing to explain their methods and conclusions in terms lawyers can understand.

I don't think the story of "official" sanctions goes much further than confirmation that players caught consulting mobile phones in private during over the board games were playing moves that had a high correlation with engines according to the Regan analysis.

https://www.fide.com/docs/decisions-res ... cision.pdf

6. The ETH notes the written report with statistical analysis received from Prof. Kenneth Regan on 9 November (part 1) and 15 November 2019 (part 2). Prof. Regan’s findings indicate high z-scores for both a sample of 24 tournaments and a further sample of 60 tournaments (which included the first-mentioned 24 events) taken of games played by Mr Rausis during the period October 2014 until April 2019. Taken at face value, these scores represent an astronomical likelihood of cheating overall, albeit not in every event and certainly not in every game

however

9.1 In the light of the respondent’s confessions and admission of guilt, as set out here in above, it was unnecessary for the ETH to perform an evaluation of the statistical evidence presented by Prof. Regan or to base its verdict on the sufficiency and weight of such evidence.

[Matthew Turner]

Roger de Coverley wrote

"a reluctance of those imposing bans or making claims of wrongdoing to explain their methods and conclusions in terms lawyers can understand."

I think a lawyer could understand this
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/868118939?t=01h52m00s

Have you taken time to look at it yet?

[Roger de Coverly]

I think a lawyer could understand this

How about a synopsis?

I'm unaware that legal processes require sitting through hours of poor quality utube material.

[Matthew Turner]

That is interesting why do you think it is poor quality?

[Chris Rice]

I think a lawyer could understand this

How about a synopsis?

I'm unaware that legal processes require sitting through hours of poor quality utube material.

At Matthew's insistence I did watch it all and very interesting it is too. Basically the main thrust is the high percentage of matching of Maghsoodloo's moves with Houdini. In one of the games its claimed that both players were using Houdini and the game was only decided by a time trouble blunder. Though this clearly is circumstantial evidence the conclusion was that it was on the balance of probabilities that led to the decision that Maghsoodloo should be disqualified. Naroditsky as was mentioned in another post stopped short of saying Maghsoodloo cheated but went on to talk about how one can easily try cheating in one or two games and then become addicted to it. To date we don't know whether Maghsoodloo has appealed against the ban.

[NickFaulks]

At Matthew's insistence I did watch it all and very interesting it is too.

No doubt you could find a lawyer to punt this, but I expect they would want payment in advance. I would be sorry to see FIDE footing the bill ( or, hypothetically, the ECF! ).

[Matt Bridgeman]

The Mike Postle poker cheating scandal ended up in the courts and was a total mess. And this was a guy who allegedly spent whole poker games looking at a mobile phone sat between his legs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Postle

[Matthew Turner]

It would be a fun experiment to put Adams, Howell, Jones and McShane under assumed identities and see if they could win an online Major. Or would there be a few 140 level players ‘having a good run.’ ‘...no really, I’ve been practising in the lockdown!’ Lol

Interesting conversation on Chess24 with Peter Leko talking about his battle to get his online rating up from 1500 and getting crushed by 1800's

[Roger de Coverly]

And this was a guy who allegedly spent whole poker games looking at a mobile phone sat between his legs.

Perhaps fortuitously, FiDE had banned phones from being switched on during play, even before they became smart.

[Matt Bridgeman]

And this was a guy who allegedly spent whole poker games looking at a mobile phone sat between his legs.

Perhaps fortuitously, FiDE had banned phones from being switched on during play, even before they became smart.

It’s not so much the method (although of course what exactly, if anything, was conveyed to the player via that mobile phone was never established), I get the impression it was a struggle in court to convey that the way he played was cheating and not simply innocently explainable. You could imagine a court struggling with the same issue if the defence counter Prof. Regan with an expert of their own.

[Roger de Coverly]

You could imagine a court struggling with the same issue if the defence counter Prof. Regan with an expert of their own.

Objectively all the engine matching tests show is that the choice of the human player was the same as that of the engine. in the absence of physical evidence or admissions it's an inference that the reason is that the player consulted the engine during the game, rather than it was equivalent levels of skill, coincidence or the player working with the engine before the game and remembering moves or patterns.

[Matt Bridgeman]

You could imagine a court struggling with the same issue if the defence counter Prof. Regan with an expert of their own.

Objectively all the engine matching tests show is that the choice of the human player was the same as that of the engine. in the absence of physical evidence or admissions it's an inference that the reason is that the player consulted the engine during the game, rather than it was equivalent levels of skill, coincidence or the player working with the engine before the game and remembering moves or patterns.

This seems totally right and reasonable to people in the chess community, but walking into a court room and testing all that out is a different kettle of fish maybe. Being a police prosecutor out in Australia, you could have the most straightforward, slam-dunk looking case and the defence will drill down into the microscopic details, have voir dire upon voir dire on what you might think are irrelevant issues. Expert witnesses can be bent and swayed to say things you really wish they hadn’t. And the magistrate judgement is often totally unpredictable!