Cheating in chess

[Roger de Coverly]

17-year-old European Chess Champion gets 2-year ban for cheating

More on this from chess24

https://chess24.com/en/read/news/eyewit ... red-handed

[JustinHorton]

Meanwhile back at chess.com, a player with the handle PalenciaJulio was disqualified from a simultaneous given by Hikaru Nakamura, chess.com's favourite supergrandmaster, because a moderator decided he was cheating. The player complained and chess.com backed down and apologised.

Among the unpleasant aspects of the affair is that Nakamura covered the simul on his YouTube channel and - go to about 3:15 - both he and his sidekick Levy Rozman openly accuse PalenciaJulio of cheating. I am keen to see if they are asked to withdraw their remarks.

[Roger de Coverly]

The player complained and chess.com backed down and apologised.

From the linked piece

As you all know, we give our moderators the power to kick people from games for abuse. One of our mods used this power thinking that PalenciaJulio was cheating. This was a complete mistake.

Is it really right for the ECF to use a site with this attitude as host for a British Championship?

[Adam Raoof]

The player complained and chess.com backed down and apologised.

From the linked piece

As you all know, we give our moderators the power to kick people from games for abuse. One of our mods used this power thinking that PalenciaJulio was cheating. This was a complete mistake.

Is it really right for the ECF to use a site with this attitude as host for a British Championship?

Not at all. Was there a consultation with anyone about the dates, format, platform? Was there a tendering process?

[Jonathan Bryant]

Among the unpleasant aspects of the affair is that Nakamura covered the simul on his YouTube channel and - go to about 3:15 - both he and his sidekick Levy Rozman openly accuse PalenciaJulio of cheating. I am keen to see if they are asked to withdraw their remarks.

Since nobody thought it important that Nakamura should be asked about trying to take back a move against Aronian a while back, I much doubt he'll be under too much pressure here.

Unless PalenciaJulio was to launch legal action which would change things a bit. But even then I don't see the chess media saying much about it.

[Wadih Khoury]

The FIDE online World Cadets & Youth rapid chess championship was recently announced.

Good to see the anti-cheating measures implemented:

• Audio on
• Camera on, showing the door to the player's room (nobody allowed in the same room)
• Screen sharing
• Anti cheating algorithm (I suppose the Regan one as the tournament will not be held on chess.com or lichess, but rather on Tornelo.
• No other electronic devices allowed in the room

I think these measures should be the minimum standard for any "serious" tournament held online. If some players cannot materially comply, I would say it is unfortunate but a price worth to pay as it reduces the level of cheating and ensures fair conditions apply.

In particular, the first 2 measures reduce the ability to get human help from slightly better helper, which is extremely difficult to prove and root out.
The 3rd bullet point also makes it much harder for smart cheaters to get engine help.

[Roger de Coverly]

[*] No other electronic devices allowed in the room
The 3rd bullet point also makes it much harder for smart cheaters to get engine help.

I would have thought the fifth bullet point quite important as well even if It doesn't totally rule out the OTB method of phone in the cubicle.

[Joey Stewart]

No other devices or people in the room is not that easy to achieve in a household setting - it would mean online chess becomes more of an elite thing where only those who are single or rich enough to have an entire room of their house dedicated to tournament chess could play.

Still, if it stops the cheats then I'd be all for it - online tournaments are a bit of a farce when no one trusts each other and without some very draconic rules like this will never be seen as credible

[MartinCarpenter]

Potentially nearly impossible to have no electronics in its strictest sense I would think, especially if they're still living with their parents.
(Not that I imagine many people would fully apply that.).

I do wonder slightly how worthwhile it is. Even with all of this there's a variety of ways someone with effort/knowledge could still arrange to cheat.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"No other devices or people in the room is not that easy to achieve in a household setting"

Do you have to lock yourself in the bathroom?

I won't play standard play chess online as some people clearly are getting away with cheating. I don't care at Blitz, but at least I have only wasted a few minutes not an evening.

[Wadih Khoury]

I do wonder slightly how worthwhile it is. Even with all of this there's a variety of ways someone with effort/knowledge could still arrange to cheat.

It is nearly impossible to stop a smart and determined cheater online.

However these measures stop opportunistic cheating. The "innocent" help from a brother telling you you'll hang your queen, or the "I'll just check this move on an engine" or the "nobody will know, it's not that bad" type cheats.

And these are the majority of cheats. Very few will want to go through the hassle of overcoming these measures. And these are the most morally corrupt ones.

[Ian Thompson]

I do wonder slightly how worthwhile it is. Even with all of this there's a variety of ways someone with effort/knowledge could still arrange to cheat.

Wouldn't attaching a wireless keyboard, monitor and mouse, all located in a nearby room, be a pretty easy way of cheating by allowing someone else to play the game with access to whatever they liked.

[Wadih Khoury]

I do wonder slightly how worthwhile it is. Even with all of this there's a variety of ways someone with effort/knowledge could still arrange to cheat.

Wouldn't attaching a wireless keyboard, monitor and mouse, all located in a nearby room, be a pretty easy way of cheating by allowing someone else to play the game with access to whatever they liked.

I don't get the argument. It is similar to saying: with this measure, 1% of cheaters will still be able to cheat, hence this measure is horrible. Let's not implement it, and have 100% of cheaters cheat, because is a measure is not perfect, it's not worth having.

[Jacob Ward]

I don't get the argument. It is similar to saying: with this measure, 1% of cheaters will still be able to cheat, hence this measure is horrible. Let's not implement it, and have 100% of cheaters cheat, because is a measure is not perfect, it's not worth having.

I think you can make a more persuasive case than that. I am undecided about these types of measures, but one way of looking at it is:

1. This will deter or catch unsophisticated cheats, who would probably have been caught anyway
2. It is not difficult to evade, so a cheater sophisticated enough to evade the statistical tests will find a way to evade this as well (as demonstrated by forum members finding ways round it in a few minutes)
3. Meanwhile, a certain number of innocent players will be put off by the requirements or disqualified when a spouse or family member walks into the room. These measures all have costs for innocent players.

[Wadih Khoury]

I don't get the argument. It is similar to saying: with this measure, 1% of cheaters will still be able to cheat, hence this measure is horrible. Let's not implement it, and have 100% of cheaters cheat, because is a measure is not perfect, it's not worth having.

I think you can make a more persuasive case than that. I am undecided about these types of measures, but one way of looking at it is:

1. This will deter or catch unsophisticated cheats, who would probably have been caught anyway
2. It is not difficult to evade, so a cheater sophisticated enough to evade the statistical tests will find a way to evade this as well (as demonstrated by forum members finding ways round it in a few minutes)
3. Meanwhile, a certain number of innocent players will be put off by the requirements or disqualified when a spouse or family member walks into the room. These measures all have costs for innocent players.

I don't agree as:

1.a- those are the vast majority of cheats.
1.b- those are not caught when they get human help (e.g a 150 or 130 helping a 130)
1.c- they are caught AFTER the cheating is done, which means the rankings are impacted, the honest players' experience is soured, etc... It's the whole point of having a deterrence/detection upstream that can weed out most of the cheats.

2.a- I disagree, for most opportunistic cheats, this will deterrence enough. I think at the French junior championship, the cheating ratio was about 0.7% with these measures. Instead of god knows how much in tournaments with no audio/video/desktop monitoring.
2.b- What can you do if 1%, 5% or 10% are determine cheaters? Nothing. You at least make their life more complicated, and hope they get caught with the post game analysis. And as I said, if we prevent 80% of cheating, it's still better than having 100% of cheats.

3- that is indeed the main problem. Some will not be able to play with these measures. But the alternative is a cheat infested tournament, which nobody will enjoy. So it is better to have 100% of players play in a tournament infested with cheats, or 80% play in a much cleaner tournament, where only the very determined cheaters play hide and seek with the analytical reviews.

These measures work, have been in use in organised tournaments in England, Spain, etc..., used by foreign federations, now used by FIDE.
Yet some players still prefer no measures and rampant cheating rather than less cheating.