Carlsen withdrawal after loss to Niemann

[AdminX]

Something is off:

Or as my dearly departed friend used to say, "Something in the milk ain't clean".

[DrCliche]

Security metal detectors typically aren't sensitive enough (or aren't configured) to detect small amounts of conductive materials. For example, I've never seen a detector alert on hearing aids, in-ear monitors, or even cheap earbuds. Obviously that's more than enough to cheat at chess, so there you go. "Undetectable" electronics and power sources are widely available. Go wild.

Security metal detectors also typically aren't sensitive enough (or aren't configured) to penetrate flesh very far. That's why you have to stand there with your arms out and asscheeks akimbo as you get wanded. You can hide metal in your pocket simply by putting your hand over it!

So it would be easy enough to use readily available products to make an undetectable covert communication device, or simply to hide a cellphone in rolls of fat or a body cavity. If you want to go full blown nutter, clearly the technology already exists to make a human-embeddable computer capable of running Stockfish. Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, there's also the option of just hiding your devices in places where metal is already expected to exist, like belt buckles, jewelry, the mouth, etc.

[towforce]

Security metal detectors typically aren't sensitive enough (or aren't configured) to detect small amounts of conductive materials. For example, I've never seen a detector alert on hearing aids, in-ear monitors, or even cheap earbuds. Obviously that's more than enough to cheat at chess, so there you go. "Undetectable" electronics and power sources are widely available. Go wild.

Security metal detectors also typically aren't sensitive enough (or aren't configured) to penetrate flesh very far. That's why you have to stand there with your arms out and asscheeks akimbo as you get wanded. You can hide metal in your pocket simply by putting your hand over it!

So it would be easy enough to use readily available products to make an undetectable covert communication device, or simply to hide a cellphone in rolls of fat or a body cavity. If you want to go full blown nutter, clearly the technology already exists to make a human-embeddable computer capable of running Stockfish. Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, there's also the option of just hiding your devices in places where metal is already expected to exist, like belt buckles, jewelry, the mouth, etc.

There are already spectacles than contain computers.

If they were using airport wand detectors (which I think they were), they'd only pick up chunks of metal - not "fingertip" size SOCs.

[towforce]

Has anyone analysed Hans Niemann's moves for the tell-tale signs of computer generation - or is computer detection something that can only be done over multiple games?

[lkaufman]

Boo hoo. I lost. He must have cheated.

Hmm, I hope we didn't get a new Fisher...

Funny you wrote "Fisher" and not "FIscher". I'm not talking about a spelling error, there is a real story here. About a decade ago, I played against a teenage player named Will Fisher (note the spelling) in the U.S. Amateur Team East Championship on first board. He had a US rating of about 2450, somewhat above my own (I think I was high 2300s then). He outplayed me and reached a clearly favorable middlegame position where I would be lucky to draw. However a draw would clinch the match for his team. I offered a draw (seeing no realistic hope of playing for a win) and he accepted. OK, I figured he was a team player, nothing odd about this. I proposed that we review the game, and he agreed. I asked if he took the draw for his team victory, and he replied to the effect that he had no idea who was better in the final position. To me it was inconceivable that a 2400+ player would not know that Black stood better. We went over the game together, and I had the feeling that he was well below my level, certainly nothing like 2450. I didn't think of cheating, since he only drew the game and had the higher rating, and no money was on the line, but I soon learned that he had been accused of cheating in multiple events by many players, and that suspicion centered around a watch that he carried. I don't know if he was ever officially banned for cheating, but the consensus was that he was maybe a 2100 to 2200 level player who had to cheat in almost every game to get a 2450 rating. The story came to an end a couple years later, when he committed suicide. It's not known whether this was due to the chess cheating allegations or to something else entirely.
So the question is whether Carlsen is the new "Fischer" or whether Niemann is the new "Fisher"! I really don't know.

[Guenther]

Boo hoo. I lost. He must have cheated. :lol:

You'll need to eat this post soon...

[lkaufman]

Has anyone analysed Hans Niemann's moves for the tell-tale signs of computer generation - or is computer detection something that can only be done over multiple games?

His moves matched Stockfish much more than Carlsen's moves did, but the match was not unreasonably high. He clearly was not cheating on every move, he did make several mistakes. Carlsen clearly played below his normal level. I think that the suspicion of cheating has more to do with comments by Niemann after this game and other games, as well as incidents in past online events, rather than on the game itself. It's easy to prove that a player is cheating if he is a weak player who needs to cheat on almost every move, but a 2600 level player could get a 2700 rating by just occasional cheating, which is very hard to prove just from looking at the moves played. That appears to be the suspicion in this case, rightly or wrongly.

[Cumnor]

Has anyone looked at Niemann's Fide rating progress https://ratings.fide.com/profile/2093596/chart

Interesting but by no means proof of anything.

[Damir]

Magnus quiet cause wants to be away when scandal comes...

He took his money...

bye bye..

[dkappe]

Security metal detectors typically aren't sensitive enough (or aren't configured) to detect small amounts of conductive materials. For example, I've never seen a detector alert on hearing aids, in-ear monitors, or even cheap earbuds. Obviously that's more than enough to cheat at chess, so there you go. "Undetectable" electronics and power sources are widely available. Go wild.

Security metal detectors also typically aren't sensitive enough (or aren't configured) to penetrate flesh very far. That's why you have to stand there with your arms out and asscheeks akimbo as you get wanded. You can hide metal in your pocket simply by putting your hand over it!

So it would be easy enough to use readily available products to make an undetectable covert communication device, or simply to hide a cellphone in rolls of fat or a body cavity. If you want to go full blown nutter, clearly the technology already exists to make a human-embeddable computer capable of running Stockfish. Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, there's also the option of just hiding your devices in places where metal is already expected to exist, like belt buckles, jewelry, the mouth, etc.

If you look at the scan, they appear to be using a metal detector wand and some sort of EM/Radio Wave detector.