Cheating in chess

[Wadih Khoury]

It's the UKCC, so yes a junior event

There's a question of how quickly, presumably with coaching, a player could improve from raw beginner to acceptable standard ( say 80-100 ECF). The allegations are that players appeared to go from raw beginner one week to playing like Carlsen the next.

From the point of learning chess, 4 months is enough. I guess with lockdown and limited homework some could do it in 2 months.

[JustinHorton]

"It was disclosed that they only start looking after mainline positions."

I seem to recall that Justin was understandably unhappy that they looked at positions when he was still in book, and then they claimed that he must be cheating when he just played more "book" moves.

As per this.

[Simon Rogers]

It mostly shows that the cheats weren't worried about being subtle/intelligent about it. Which we should broadly be happy about, I would think.

Fair enough, but I think this takes positive spin a bit too far.

All we know about intelligent cheats is that we know nothing about them.

I think this is right, and potentially important. We know, to an extent, what crude cheaters do, but do we really know anything about how smarter cheaters operate? I mean know, not speculate. We could know because of personal accounts by people who cheat or used to cheat, and we could maybe know if we had enough solid evidence derived from the analysis of games, but we don't really have anything along these lines, do we?

Young Justin is absolutely right, talks at lot of sense and is very knowledgeable on this subject.
Regrettably I know someone who used to cheat on Chess.com and the anti cheating systems are not strong enough and their are ways around the system.

[Matthew Turner]

Justin,
What you say is very interesting and thank you for bringing that up. I agree there is certainly a lack of clarity about how anti-cheating methods deal with theory. I would though, make one comment, I think there is a big difference between a 'check' produced instantly after a game and a full Regan test using a couple of hours of super-computing power.

[Joseph Conlon]

There's a question of how quickly, presumably with coaching, a player could improve from raw beginner to acceptable standard ( say 80-100 ECF). The allegations are that players appeared to go from raw beginner one week to playing like Carlsen the next.

Somewhere online are the games of Carlsen’s first tournament. Looking at them, to my mind he seemed to make the above transition from the start of the tournament to the end.

[Wadih Khoury]

It's the UKCC, so yes a junior event

There's a question of how quickly, presumably with coaching, a player could improve from raw beginner to acceptable standard ( say 80-100 ECF). The allegations are that players appeared to go from raw beginner one week to playing like Carlsen the next.

I don't think it is helpful to look at the extremes; the key question is whether a player can go from, say, 120 to 160 with a few months of very hard work and coaching

Absolutely.
Top juniors routinely gain 20-30 points per 6 months, and that's with school. With more time dedicated to chess, some could also cruise to 40 point improvement.

The other thing to keep in mind, is that the old ECF grading has a very big inertia to it since it looks at a rolling 12 month period.
So when a junior that is growing at a rate of 20 per 6 months gets a grade of 100 on January 20th, that means he probably had a spot strength of 110 or more on December 31st. And when he plays a game in march, he probably gained another 10 points.
So you will have a junior of a spot strength of 120, beating a 130 player while having a published grade of 100.
This will raise a few eyebrows but is perfectly normal. This is even more pronounced when kids progress faster.

[JustinHorton]

Justin,
What you say is very interesting and thank you for bringing that up. I agree there is certainly a lack of clarity about how anti-cheating methods deal with theory. I would though, make one comment, I think there is a big difference between a 'check' produced instantly after a game and a full Regan test using a couple of hours of super-computing power.

Well of course there is. But then again we have no reason to think that chess.com or lichess, in the normal course of events (i.e. when not collaborating with any other body) do anything that equates to "a full Regan test using a couple of hours of super-computing power".

[MartinCarpenter]

It's the UKCC, so yes a junior event

There's a question of how quickly, presumably with coaching, a player could improve from raw beginner to acceptable standard ( say 80-100 ECF). The allegations are that players appeared to go from raw beginner one week to playing like Carlsen the next.

I don't think it is helpful to look at the extremes; the key question is whether a player can go from, say, 120 to 160 with a few months of very hard work and coaching

Also, the converse of course. Can a 120 armed with a 300+ strength engine convincingly play at 'merely' 160 strength?

That intuitively strikes me as really quite hard.

[Matthew Turner]

Justin,
What you say is very interesting and thank you for bringing that up. I agree there is certainly a lack of clarity about how anti-cheating methods deal with theory. I would though, make one comment, I think there is a big difference between a 'check' produced instantly after a game and a full Regan test using a couple of hours of super-computing power.

Well of course there is. But then again we have no reason to think that chess.com or lichess, in the normal course of events (i.e. when not collaborating with any other body) do anything that equates to "a full Regan test using a couple of hours of super-computing power".

I think it is clear that they wouldn't be performing something akin to a full Regan test (except perhaps in exceptional circumstances). However, it is also true that they would have lots of extra data in addition to the moves.

[Wadih Khoury]

There's a question of how quickly, presumably with coaching, a player could improve from raw beginner to acceptable standard ( say 80-100 ECF). The allegations are that players appeared to go from raw beginner one week to playing like Carlsen the next.

I don't think it is helpful to look at the extremes; the key question is whether a player can go from, say, 120 to 160 with a few months of very hard work and coaching

Also, the converse of course. Can a 120 armed with a 300+ strength engine convincingly play at 'merely' 160 strength?

That intuitively strikes me as really quite hard.

Yes.
You don't need a computer for that, just a brother/parent/friend who happens to be 160 and sits next to you. No software can detect that.

Hence why camera/audio should be a prerequisite for online tournaments.

[JustinHorton]

Justin, , I think there is a big difference between a 'check' produced instantly after a game and a full Regan test using a couple of hours of super-computing power.

Well of course there is. But then again we have no reason to think that chess.com or lichess, in the normal course of events (i.e. when not collaborating with any other body) do anything that equates to "a full Regan test using a couple of hours of super-computing power".

I think it is clear that they wouldn't be performing something akin to a full Regan test (except perhaps in exceptional circumstances). However, it is also true that they would have lots of extra data in addition to the moves.

Is it? What kihd of data and what do we know about its interpretation or the reliability of that interpretation?

[Roger Lancaster]

However, it is also true that they would have lots of extra data in addition to the moves.

I've largely given up on this discussion as neither side is going to convince the other through debate. However, it's hard to avoid observing that the most useful piece of "extra data" would almost certainly be someone's OTB playing strength, which is exactly what they don't have.

[Matthew Turner]

Well of course there is. But then again we have no reason to think that chess.com or lichess, in the normal course of events (i.e. when not collaborating with any other body) do anything that equates to "a full Regan test using a couple of hours of super-computing power".

I think it is clear that they wouldn't be performing something akin to a full Regan test (except perhaps in exceptional circumstances). However, it is also true that they would have lots of extra data in addition to the moves.

Is it? What kihd of data and what do we know about its interpretation or the reliability of that interpretation?

How reliable is the interpretation? Well, we know of quite a few high profile cases, but we haven't heard about any court cases yet. I find that surprising - surely that suggests the evidence in cheating cases is difficult to undermine.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Hence why camera/audio should be a prerequisite for online tournaments."

I'm not sure that helps. I can connect my laptop to a big screen, so someone could watch that and use their computer to find moves. I don't play normal time-control games online anyway, and the audio would probably mainly pick up the dog being angered by an intruder in the garden (e.g. postman, pigeon, squirrel).

[Wadih Khoury]

"Hence why camera/audio should be a prerequisite for online tournaments."

I'm not sure that helps. I can connect my laptop to a big screen, so someone could watch that and use their computer to find moves. I don't play normal time-control games online anyway, and the audio would probably mainly pick up the dog being angered by an intruder in the garden (e.g. postman, pigeon, squirrel).

A determined cheater will always find a way.
The point of audio and camera is to weed out opportunistic cheaters or incompetent cheaters.

Currently, nothing can catch someone being helped by someone 40 ECF / 300 FIDE higher. The move will look human, may flag as stronger but plausible, especially if the cheater is playing someone 200 higher. It is very plausible to win multiple times against a +200 in the same tournament.
At least a webcam forces them to change behaviours: either renounce cheating or go deeper in the infamy.