(I'm assuming the I/O power would be negligible compared to compute, since it'd run at very low duty cycle).
yes a cheater could have - for example - a subdermal implant that vibrates to update them with a killer mid-game line to go down, but, without the internet, it would be a huge uphill struggle to update the board with the moves. certainly not impossible, especially if you were very dedicated, but very, very hard to get right, especially without getting caught under such scrutinous circumstances
Chess notation is very compact, you don't even need to say where the starting piece was in most cases because it's implied by the move.
If you have 2 rooks on A1 and H1, and the move says rh4, only one of your rooks can legally make that move. However if the move was rc1, both rooks could make that move so you do need to disambiguate.
Now however Niemann is entering the moves, he's got more to type and more places he might make a mistake.
one I thought of is to rank all the squares from most-used to least-used, then assign each of them a Morse code, simplest first. 64 squares is 2^6, so the maximum length input you would ever need is six. given a usage frequency for each of the squares, you could calculate your average input length by the sum of all len(square_code) * square_frequency divided by 64.
assuming all squares are the same frequency (1/64), it's just the sum of all len(square_code) divided by 64, which I believe comes out at 322/64 = 5.03125, although I could be wrong about that.
this makes your maximum necessary input per move 12 bits, but your average will be lower, depending on the frequency distribution of squares. (ignoring castling and en-passant for a moment) this is 2 bits more than using a piece+target square technique
would that same someone be able to pull something like this off on their own, or would they need assistance building/programming/etc? At that point, how many people need to be involved before it becomes a secret too big to keep, or dead bodies start showing up within the cheater's orbit?
The players should be required to strip down to their underwear and wear elegant tournament-provided kimonos and slippers.
My brother and I did this magic trick and convinced our grade school we had ESP... the mark tells brother a secret number. I put my hands on brothers head and without communicating I tell what the secret number was. It was just the number of times he clenched his jaw.
While not trivial, it doesn't feel like the hardest part of that particular engineering challenge.
> A chess grandmaster has become the victim of an online rumor that he used a sex toy to defeat the world champion.
https://www.insider.com/chess-feud-hans-niemann-magnus-carls...
It's a small sample size of course but it's a pattern, not an exception.
People can analyze them and form their own opinions about whether he has been cheating or not. The question "how" need not even be considered.
Carlsen has of course already looked at the games, with the experience of having preiviously looked at millions of games between humans, and millions of analyses from computer engines. And he must have realised that Niemann has achieved something unique, he has conducted many absolute masterpieces, sometimes one after the other in the same tournament, while being rated 2400-2500. Performances so perfect, that no other human has ever accomplished.
Whether he is cheating or not, it doesn't make much sense for Hans either. Only one and unlikely outcome would be in his favor.
Cheater or not, he is A LOT more likely to lose to the current best player in the world. He won't gain anything from it. If he is a cheater odds are even lower. If he is honest and loses it would be devastating. If he is a cheater, it is a lot better for him to not take the deal and deny any wrongdoing.
With chess, at that level of play, you can't decide which player is better or worse by judging from a single game. Only the aggregate between many players playing between each other can tell you that - ELO system achieves that. So them sitting in a faraday cage naked after an X-ray and playing a single match would not tell much. If they played a whole lot of games against each other, it would more or less work but that is impractical and ridiculous.
Pr Kenneth Regan who is the leading expert when it comes to cheating in chess did indeed do a statistical analysis of Niemann performance during the past two years [0]. He found no indication of cheating whatsoever.
[0] https://en.chessbase.com/post/is-hans-niemann-cheating-world...
He is not some Pr Kenneth Regan. He is actually a recognised expert on statistical analysis when it comes to cheating in chess and has worked for FIDE multiple times. Plus it’s not like it’s only his words. He actually published a very valid engine based analysis of Niemann performance in the last two years. Is the issue that it’s showing the opposite of what you would like it to?
Meanwhile Magnus is actually a player in the game involved and the losing one at that. He has zero claim to objectivity.
I don't think that's very conclusive.
The thing is, there's still an element of luck[1] in chess. A lower-rated player can beat a higher-rated player, and a higher-rated player can dominate an even match.
[1] luck, not chance.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_197...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlsen_versus_Nepomniachtchi,...
Niemann might be cheating, but still capable of playing 2700+ without cheating. They can both be true.
>And also, the sport will have a spectacle like we've never seen before. Tell me you wouldn't pay to watch that match!
Magnus wearing one of those Speedo swimmer speed-suits would be worth the price of admission without the chess just for the sake of absurdity.
The faraday cage tries to equalize electrical field potential over space. It does so by allowing electrons to move more or less freely, typically inside a metal mesh.
But
a). metals (unless we use superconductors) have electrical resistance
b). electrons themselves have rest masses (i.e. don't accelerate infinitely quickly in response to force).
So, the movement of electrons is not instantaneous, therefore the electrical field cannot be equalized ideally. in effect we achieve attenuation of the signal, and not its complete blockage.
Secondly, the mesh must have some relation to the signal frequency (the wave-length), probably at 1:1 or 1:2 ratio. At some frequencies (terahertz, infra-red, visible, xray) you'll need pretty much a solid box to attenuate those.
And there's obviously tech which you cannot block/attenuate, like neutrinos. Producing and receiving such signals is however non-trivial and requires particle accelerators and large cavities filled with mineral oil and bulky detectors, so we can probably skip this :). Gravity waves belong to the same category.
You can also probably try to send and receive particles, like electrons or alpha particles if you use non-solid meshes.
The width of the walls scales relative to the wavelength of the frequency you're trying to stop. So it doesn't take much to block all useful signals.
You should realize that aluminum foil blocks visible light signals.
Yup, I mentioned the solid box earlier - a non-mesh metal container.
Reading through some more material, it seems that there are ways around it - one can use a static electric field to send signals, e.g. switching it on/off or changing its intensity. I suppose the differing el. charge of the opposing walls of such a cage/box would create en electrical field gradient within such box, which is easy to detect, if one's goal is sending some low-bitrate signals.
It's detectable (i.e. the fact of using it), but the communication scheme itself can be encrypted or encoded, so plausible deniability can be employed.
WCC is a dozen+ rounds. Even then if you were watching it in the 9th game, it may appear the one player is stronger than the eventual champion.
Second, as Magnus has said in the past, if he has the ability to consult an engine at a single point in the game (of his choosing) he would be unstoppable. The reason is that in each game there are relatively few 'critical points' at which the result is decided.
Also, from what I gathered, you can instruct most chess engines to supply you with a list of moves for the current board state. So instead of picking the best move all the time, pick another good enough move to avoid your suggestion.
I would have thought that chess fans would have seen this as a brave and perhaps even virtuous move?
So some see him as throwing a tantrum after an unexpected loss, and blaming it (implicitly) on cheating. We can't know if he's right, and we may never actually know. In the absence of confirmation, some people will think less of him for that.
I’m sure some people think Magnus is very brave and courageous for what he’s doing but my general impression is most people don’t approve of Magnus’s methods.
Now you'll see the Magnus hero worship you expected.
>I would have thought that chess fans would have seen this as a brave and perhaps even virtuous move?
There were many people who defended him withdrawing from Sinquefield but throwing a game is just embarressing, especially in the qualification stage.
Specifically, a Faraday Cage.
Magnus believes that Niemann is cheating via communication with a computer. Fine, let's completely remove the ability to communicate with a computer. Both men are searched on the way in. Heck, for fun lets have them play in tight sporting outfits so it's very clear what they are carrying and doing.
If Magnus destroys Niemann, he'll be able to pretty handily claim that Niemann can't win without communication to computers. If Niemann is competitive, or wins, it will be hard for Carlsen to make any more such claims.
And also, the sport will have a spectacle like we've never seen before. Tell me you wouldn't pay to watch that match!