After the win against Carlsen, chess.com removed him from one of their online tournaments, and a couple of chess.com adjacent streamers insinuated the online cheating. Under that pressure, Niemann mentioned a coordinated attack and admitted to to cheating at the age of 12 and 16, but not in prize money tournaments.

To see how easy it goes online, here is a video of Carlsen taking a move from Howell during a prize money tournament in Lichess:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NrOv8hxN6g

It can't be compared to deliberately using an engine, but clearly the standards are different online.

chess.com has announced that it will release an additional investigation into Niemann soon. The involvement of an online company into an OTB tournament is unprecedented and comes after the takeover of the "Play Magnus" group.

chess.com also released a private cheating conversation with Dlugy, from whom Niemann had taken lessons a long time ago.

So, out of the 50 cases only those who are "involved" in a win against Carlsen are being targeted. I assume that chess.com will keep the rest of the files for future "use".

FIDE, the real official organization, is investigating as well but will probably not find any OTB cheating cases.

So what? He was 16 yo kid who did a stupid thing playing online. How exactly does that relate to top-level over the board tournament with anti-cheating measures which organizers deemed sufficient to stop cheating? So far there is nothing but allegations.

If chess.com is to be believed this is not the case, and they have informed Niemann about it. According to them Niemann has cheated more often and more recently than he admitted, and lied about it when he made his statement.

> How exactly does that relate to top-level over the board tournament with anti-cheating measures which organizers deemed sufficient

Professional chess has a huge cheating problem: It is very easy to cheat, chess tournaments are under-funded, and anti-cheating measures are expensive. There are worlds between, say, chess and cycling, or chess cheating and card counting.

That sounds a bit conspiratorial - isn't it more likely that both Carlsen and chess.com take issue with cheating and they are in a business relationship, not because?

Isn't the point that finally there is a discussion what a due process looks like?

> Isn't the point that finally there is a discussion what a due process looks like?

What do you mean, 'finally'? People who were appalled by Carlsen's tantrums were insisting on it from the very start. If you have an evidence of cheating, present it. If you don't, stop behaving like a spoiled child and do not bully your opponent.

> What do you mean, 'finally'?

It literally took the world champion to throw a 'tantrum' to get a public discussion about cheating in chess: How should FIDE sanction (online) cheaters? What is the process? What type of evidence is required? What are the statistical methods to distinguish a super GM from a GM with engine help? What anti-cheating measures are necessary?

Regarding a 'tantrum' if Niemann is such a bad vile cheater, why did Carlsen start all this intimidation campaign only after losing? (and losing in a game where there were no obvious computer moves, just a solid play from Niemann and not the best play from Carlsen)

If he has some evidence of cheating, he should bring it to the table. Or just play according to the rules.

Again, I don't get the whole 'campaign' thing, it sounds like a big collusion.

Sure, had Carlsen won, he would maybe not have withdrawn (apparently he still felt uncomfortable with Niemann's inclusion, as did other GMs). But it's a logical fallacy to conclude that the cheating allegations are unfounded. My understanding is it simply was the straw that broke the camel's neck. Likely a false straw, but the bucket was already full at that point.

Maybe it's nothing, but it's not as nothing as you're making it out to be.

So what? Just because someone has cheated in the past does not in any way prove that they've cheated in this particular case. It only proves they've cheated in the past. Is it suspicious? Sure. But any accusations of cheating are still pure speculation.

> Officials literally found weights inside the fish. Both of those are in this story.

And I specifically mentioned this in my comment.

Getting caught for cheating has an impact on credibility. Credibility is a big deal and a hard problem. The boy who cried wolf is not a story of no wolves. Are you surprised that cheating impacts credibility?

In a court of law we might have standards like preponderance of evidence or reasonable doubt. In everyday human relations everyone is free to develop their own theories of credibility and to act upon their freedoms accordingly. You are free to judge whether Microsoft is trustworthy even without proof that they will betray your trust in the future, which nobody really knows.

It's your call if you wish ignore to medical credibility when evaluating your doctor's advice. Perhaps you'll engage in a discussion about how their medical credibility is not adequate evidence, but at that point, isn't it time to get a doctor you find credible?

where’s your evidence to the contrary?

i’m sure you’ll find fault with it as yet another arm chair expert

what evidence do you have for your position?

> He’s either the greatest chess player alive

Ridiculous, nothing about his play suggests he's the greatest chess player alive.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33085649

but i’m sure you have quite literally nothing to refute this with but the autistic cries from the ether

cc @dang

My position is that the statistical analysis is flawed: just think critically about it for a bit and you can understand why. It has been beaten to death already.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33085649

what analysis have you published publicly to be scrutinized?

i’d love to see any substantive comment from you though

But there should be a balance somewhere.

Lance Armstrong cheated in cycling and won 7 championships. The fact that he came out as a cheater later absolutely demolished the integrity of the whole sport. And I feel really bad for anyone who competed honestly all that time with zero chance of getting anything done given that the field is rife is cheaters.

So that extreme is also pretty devastating and chess lovers done want chess to fall into that state either

But in chess if you're outsourcing decision-making to the algorithm... why even have human players at all?

I agree with your assessment about Armstrong vs outsourcing decision-making. It wouldn't surprise/bother me to find out chess players are taking ritalin or whatever to increase their focus, but using a computer is troublesome. That would be like Armstrong riding an electric bike.

You usually don't get these with elections either, unless the cheaters are lazy and just add 1000 votes in a 100 citizen area. Usually, you'll see weird things that are very implausible which will lead to investigations, i.e. a perceived battle ground state going 99:1 to one side. It's possible, there's no clear evidence of cheating (yet), but it's extremely unlikely.

No one accused Stu of cheating.

https://www.pokernetwork.com/forums/main-noticeboard/28541-s... https://www.pgt.com/news/did-stu-ungar-cheat-at-the-wsop/

Also the cheating schemes are hard to understand sometimes. Here is an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_sorting

So.. is 3:45 the point where people think Robbi smacks the table and removes the ring?

It looks to me that the slap just moved the ring to the side. At 3:58 There’s something that appears to be the red ring still on her hand. Not to mention that before that moment, I can only make out one ring on her middle finger, and that ring band is still on her finger after.

I imagine they’ll look into that ring during their investigation. It’ll be interesting to see what comes of it.

This is definitely quite the statistical anomaly.

These players, especially in poker absolutely need to be paranoid or they will be robbed.

At a certain point we are going to need to subject suspicious players to cavity searches.

That doesn't make it right to accuse people of cheating without any evidence beyond "well a _normal_ person wouldn't have done something like this, so they must be cheating!".

It's much more nuanced than this. Magnus said that there's more he'd like to say but he'd want Hans' permission to speak openly - https://twitter.com/magnuscarlsen/status/1574482694406565888

Just because he can't immedially dump all the information that he has doesn't mean that he's obliged to keep playing chess against someone he believes is cheating.

> he's obliged to keep playing chess against someone he believes is cheating.

No one is obligated to play anyone, that much is true. Magnus has gone quite a bit further than that with his statements.

Show the metal detectors, finding a hidden device that transmits signals to her, about what the other person's cards are.

That is evidence. Nothing that you mentioned is actual evidence of cheating.

if you’re in a whiteboard interview and a candidate can’t explain their solution they regurgitated, do you think they know anything about that solution?

That would be actual evidence. Give the name of the person who was giving her signals, and then use the video footage, from the 30 different cameras that were pointed at everyone.

Show the video, of the hand signal. Directly say which person, in the room, was giving her info on her opponents cards. And explain exactly how it was done, with video evidence.

> why does she have to have a device? why does it have to be metal?

I was giving an example of what evidence would actually look like.

Ok great, have you looked at the device? You say it was a ring, then prove it. Show me the picture of the internals of the ring, and show me how the ring was giving her signals.

Thats evidence. A picture of you opening up the ring, and showing a hidden computer or whatever you think the cheating ring is doing, is evidence of cheating.

If you had evidence, you'd have shown it.

So things like a picture of the device giving her answers would be evidence.

A video recording of the specific other person in the room, giving her info on the other person's cards, would be evidence.

And now you just say "lol" proving that you do not have actual evidence here.

your responses indicate you’ve likely never played poker at a high level. you may have never even played in a casino. what basis do you have to defend this person?

i don’t think anyone in poker who won a hand they played badly just offered to return the cash. that alone tells me everything.

edit: someone also paid for her entry into this game and she’s an amateur playing with phil ivey and GMan. https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/1576643133583937537?s=2...

Imagine that we're flipping a coin and it keeps coming up heads every time, and I make a statement that I don't think the coin is fair. By your standards I shouldn't be able to speak until we examine the coin directly and no number of further flipping will convince you that the coin is biased (because it's technically possible that a fair coin does this too). Well, sometimes in real life we can't weigh/measure/scan the coin directly, we can only make judgments based on the flips that come out and we should be able to say that they look fishy.

But, I have yet to see any evidence besides Carlson's claims of cheating. I'm not even looking for "how", but I'd like to at least hear what Carlson thought was so strange in the match that it could imply cheating.

Him showing up for a single play of a rematch and then quitting after the first move seems mostly like a tantrum.

I'd be much not sympathetic to something like "these 4 moves we're so it of the ordinary that I can't see a way he would have taken them besides computer assistance"

The question is not whether Niemann cheated in this specific game against Carlsen (he likely didn't) but to what extent Niemann has cheated in the past, how (online) cheaters should be treated when it comes to over-the-board chess and if the chess profession will finally take cheating seriously, i.e. introduce anti-cheating measures similar to other professional sports or gambling.

As has been stated several times in this thread: Niemann has a history of (online) cheating, admitted to it, and while doing so likely lied about the extent and recency of his (online) cheating.

I'm not a chess expert at all but, from my understanding, he is known for some unconventional play. I could see Magnus having done a calculation ahead of time of a very unconventional opening and, seeing the counter being the exact optimal choice, being convinced of cheating.

All that I really know is he has a lot of credibility and the person he's accusing does not. I think it's a big story because it's dramatic no matter how it turns out.

There is neither of these, though. There is only people speculating that they MUST be cheating because they didn't behave exactly as they were expected to.

> By your standards I shouldn't be able to speak until we examine the coin directly [...]

I never made any such statement or made and indication of specific "standards".

We should absolutely look at the coin if it's behaving this way. But we can't just conjecture that it must be weighted with zero evidence of that.

I don't think any of the accusation that have been brought up in this thread have been with zero evidence. I think we have very different understanding of what's evidence and how much of it sufficient to speak up, and we're kind of talking past each other (the last part seems very likely).