Carlsen withdrawal after loss to Niemann

[Graham Banks]

Firouzja was banned from chess.com for cheating aged 11, then allowed back. Difference between Firouzja and Hans is that the former managed to become identified with the in-group, whereas Hans remained an outsider.

No, difference was Firouzja had not actually cheated whereas Hans did cheat.
But who cares about facts nowadays.

Don't forget that Carlsen would appear to have cheated as well.

Here is the full stream. The events in question are at 1:44:00. Lots of talk of cheating and banning.

Logical connection? You want to legalise cheating?

Of course not.
Just pointing out that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

[supersharp77]

GM & Economics Professor Smerdon Advises Against using Chessbase "Lets Check Analysis'" For Cheat Detection...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiHHSZfoJ0A

[AndrewGrant]

GM & Economics Professor Smerdon Advises Against using Chessbase "Lets Check Analysis'" For Cheat Detection...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiHHSZfoJ0A

Any one of the engine users on this forum could make a solid case against this method of cheat detection. Just run your 10 favorite engines, and then look at the combinations of the engines. You will be able to control the "level of cheating" by picking engines that happen to match closer or further from a player.

It is not so odd to me that many people have come out of the woods to do their own flawed and always incomplete analysis. Great time to get some content, some viewship, some ad revenue, etc.

I'm half tempted to get as many games as I can from a few super GMs + Hans, run them through SF10->15, + Ethereal 13-Dev, +the free Komodo versions, doing multi-pv analysis with 3 moves up to depth X. Then let you see how wildly the analysis changes when you pick different engines, or pick different depths. I'll even duplicate some engines and set just the hash to be different, and you'll see that change the results too.

Seems like a great chance to shamelessly plug Ethereal to a wide audience. And I could certainly use the money.

[lkaufman]

How often have top players falsely accused people of engine cheating?

When they feel something is not right, and they are not completely alone in this, there may well be a problem.

It’s arguable/probable that of all the 500(?) or so high rated players with a chance of fame or prize money or some other motive, some unknown number cheat in some way. Presumably more probable online than OTB, but non zero in either case.

It’s also arguable, for sure since Alpha Zero, that the threatened top GMs have this worrying possibility on their minds. At some point then, there’s going to be one or more upsets of strong GMs by newer entrants. What blows this up into a storm? And what doesn’t? Why not accuse or cast suspicion on any of the newer entrants? Well, Hans is the oddball, he’s disrespectful to the GM elite, he appears to keep himself to himself, a loner, seemingly comes from nowhere, he has teenager form, and looks a bit weird. Hans is not one of them.

Cue perfect storm. Could have been anyone, but it was Hans.

Couldn't be just anyone. Had to be someone who had been banned/suspended for online cheating, and who was invited to a top level OTB tournament. There have been some other pretty strong GMs caught cheating online, but perhaps none of them were invited to a top level OTB event recently, so I don't think this shows any singling out of Hans, unless you know of another player who was also banned/suspended for online cheating and invited to a top OTB event. Whether cheating online should result in banning from OTB play is a matter of legitimate debate; clearly Carlsen and some of the other top players think the answer is "yes". Of course the answer may depend on the degree and recentness etc. of the online cheating.

Firouzja was banned from chess.com for cheating aged 11, then allowed back. Difference between Firouzja and Hans is that the former managed to become identified with the in-group, whereas Hans remained an outsider. Peer group pressure is a thing and Hans was the ideal selection for victim. As you know yourself, being a part of the in-group confers certain advantages, your peers went out of their way to clear you, Larry Kaufman, while destroying your partner in Rybka development, Vas Rajlich. Remember the deliberate and unnecessary (?) “Larry Kaufman is squeaky clean” insert? If you’re one of them, you’re safe, if not, well, fearful competitors might strike. So, it could be just anyone, it’s subject to the vagaries of the lead-group, whoever and whatever that is.
What we do know is that chess.com is intimately involved. You work for them, no? They’re busy buying up commentators and chess sites. Chess.com is becoming a monopoly monster and they have all the data on everybody, something they are prepared to use or abuse, their choice to reveal “data” to Magnus, their choice to put out the condemnatory PR letter supposedly based on their data on Hans, their choice to lift or not lift their algorithmic(?) suspensions, their choice whether to like you or not. Maybe Hans displeased them? Maybe Hans declined some offer or deal or other? Monopoly corporations have a strong tendency to misbehave.
Yes, it could be anybody, but Hans was chosen.

To answer a couple of your points, I work "with" chess.com, not "for" chess.com. Chess.com is a 20% partner in KomodoChess and has rights to use our software for their projects, but although we co-operate on various projects we operate as independent organizations. If I thought chess.com was fabricating cheating claims against Niemann or other players, I wouldn't want to continue to work with chess.com. It is true that monopoly corporations often misbehave, but I have no reason to believe that chess.com has banned anyone for cheating that they didn't believe was actually cheating. That doesn't mean they don't make any mistakes, but I believe that their cheat detection is on a "best efforts" basis. I also don't believe that they would benefit from banning Niemann (if they didn't believe he cheated); he was rather popular, and if we disregard the cheating question appeared to be on track to become a star who would boost chess, especially American chess. Chess.com is an American company, and if they wanted to ban promising juniors without cause wouldn't they pick players from countries which are not American allies? There are plenty to choose from, but they picked an American.
Regarding Rybka, as far as I know the allegations all had to do with how Rybka got started, i.e. Rybka 1 (later versions were only included in the complaint because they retained code from Rybka 1, I believe). I joined Rybka team after Rybka 2 was already being sold, so I had nothing to do with the origin of Rybka. I assumed that this is the reason I was not criticized, not because I happened to be friendly with David Levy.

[M ANSARI]

Firouzja was banned from chess.com for cheating aged 11, then allowed back. Difference between Firouzja and Hans is that the former managed to become identified with the in-group, whereas Hans remained an outsider.

No, difference was Firouzja had not actually cheated whereas Hans did cheat.
But who cares about facts nowadays.

Don't forget that Carlsen would appear to have cheated as well.

Here is the full stream. The events in question are at 1:44:00. Lots of talk of cheating and banning.

Logical connection? You want to legalise cheating?

Of course not.
Just pointing out that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Graham ... really ... come on. I cannot for the life of me believe that you are saying that! You are comparing cheaters like Hans Nieman and Dlugy to Magnus Carlsen. They cheated and he cheated so they are the same and so we should stop talking about all this??? What's good for the goose is good for the gander! Really.

Let's put something in perspective as I find one of the most entertaining things on the internet is to watch MC stream live when he goes online to play the bullet tournaments. These are 1 0 tourneys with no increment and this tournament has a set time limit ... so say 2 hours then the games and challenges are over. You make a speed run and the person who has the highest points wins. MC sometimes enters these tournaments when they are halfway through, and he tries to catch up. Some tournaments he plays where he does not allow himself to castle ... so he handicaps himself and sees how well he can do. On other tournaments he plays the entire tournament playing the Bong Cloud opening and sees how his opponents deal with it. Many of the streams he is obviously drunk and so are many of the guys around him ... maybe you could say that alcohol is equivalent to a stimulant but not sure it is considered cheating. He plays with a laptop and touchpad (a huge handicap in bullet). Furthermore, every tournament MC wins, he asks that the winnings to get added to the next tournament so that the prize can be more interesting and attract more people to join. In this video that was being streamed live ... Howell blurted out that the queen could be trapped ... MC was outplaying his opponent and was probably winning pretty easily. Howell is a very honest person and I am sure if he was not drunk he would have thought twice about his actions. But it was not premeditated action to cheat and MC was not the one cheating. Howell is about 400 ELO points weaker than MC in bullet and if MC wanted to cheat I am sure there would be better ways ... and that maybe streaming it live is also not the best to avoid being caught. I play a lot of bullet mostly because it removes any handicap I might have if someone is cheating ... at 1 0 even if someone is playing with SF 15 and you feel he is cheating ... you just play quickly and close the position and generally you can flag him. For the life of me I cannot believe that someone is making a case about this episode with Howell as being equivalent to the premeditated cheating online (and most likely OTB) by Hans Nieman or Maxim Dlugy! That is like considering being a passenger in a car that got a parking ticket equivalent to someone who is a convicted serial murder and serial rapists! I know the saying that the "devil mixes some truth with lies to obfuscate" ... but really this is just ridiculous!

With regards to Firouzja, he did NOT get banned. He was autoflagged by Chess.com and his account was temporarily suspended until further review. This can happen if the software detects cheating .. OR if multiple titled players complain about a non-titled player. Firouzja was an untitled 11 year old kid that was crushing titled players ... and several titled players made multiple complaints about him. He was temporarily suspended, and his account was manually checked . No cheating was detected, and he was reinstated with an apology! I mean really ... to even equate that to Hans Nieman who was banned for cheating multiple times and was reinstated after he promised he would not cheat again ... then cheated again and banned again! I am not religious at all but ... mixing some truths with lies does come up.

On another note ... I saw this yesterday and thought it was interesting. I went to the Talisman website and it seems this cheating device is no longer available. Not sure if it is a scam or something that came up after the cheating scandal ... it does look fishy, but I do think it is not too difficult from a technical standpoint to create a device that would work if there is enough motivation. With prize funds reaching in the million mark, you could say that there could be more and more incentive to cheat.

[chrisw]

Firouzja was banned from chess.com for cheating aged 11, then allowed back. Difference between Firouzja and Hans is that the former managed to become identified with the in-group, whereas Hans remained an outsider.

No, difference was Firouzja had not actually cheated whereas Hans did cheat.
But who cares about facts nowadays.

Chess.com narratives are NOT facts. Narratives reference underlying data and the process/data is closed or only partially revealed. Whether your beliefs of narratives re Hans/Farouzja are true or not, they don’t negate that Hans is outside the group while Farouzja is in it. In/out group plays a large part in victim selection process, mostly in-persons are automatically safe, while out-persons don’t have such protection.

[M ANSARI]

Yes ... you could say that to be in the IN group you have to not cheat ... while if you cheat ... you are in the OUT group. Seems fair to me!

[chrisw]

How often have top players falsely accused people of engine cheating?

When they feel something is not right, and they are not completely alone in this, there may well be a problem.

It’s arguable/probable that of all the 500(?) or so high rated players with a chance of fame or prize money or some other motive, some unknown number cheat in some way. Presumably more probable online than OTB, but non zero in either case.

It’s also arguable, for sure since Alpha Zero, that the threatened top GMs have this worrying possibility on their minds. At some point then, there’s going to be one or more upsets of strong GMs by newer entrants. What blows this up into a storm? And what doesn’t? Why not accuse or cast suspicion on any of the newer entrants? Well, Hans is the oddball, he’s disrespectful to the GM elite, he appears to keep himself to himself, a loner, seemingly comes from nowhere, he has teenager form, and looks a bit weird. Hans is not one of them.

Cue perfect storm. Could have been anyone, but it was Hans.

Couldn't be just anyone. Had to be someone who had been banned/suspended for online cheating, and who was invited to a top level OTB tournament. There have been some other pretty strong GMs caught cheating online, but perhaps none of them were invited to a top level OTB event recently, so I don't think this shows any singling out of Hans, unless you know of another player who was also banned/suspended for online cheating and invited to a top OTB event. Whether cheating online should result in banning from OTB play is a matter of legitimate debate; clearly Carlsen and some of the other top players think the answer is "yes". Of course the answer may depend on the degree and recentness etc. of the online cheating.

Firouzja was banned from chess.com for cheating aged 11, then allowed back. Difference between Firouzja and Hans is that the former managed to become identified with the in-group, whereas Hans remained an outsider. Peer group pressure is a thing and Hans was the ideal selection for victim. As you know yourself, being a part of the in-group confers certain advantages, your peers went out of their way to clear you, Larry Kaufman, while destroying your partner in Rybka development, Vas Rajlich. Remember the deliberate and unnecessary (?) “Larry Kaufman is squeaky clean” insert? If you’re one of them, you’re safe, if not, well, fearful competitors might strike. So, it could be just anyone, it’s subject to the vagaries of the lead-group, whoever and whatever that is.
What we do know is that chess.com is intimately involved. You work for them, no? They’re busy buying up commentators and chess sites. Chess.com is becoming a monopoly monster and they have all the data on everybody, something they are prepared to use or abuse, their choice to reveal “data” to Magnus, their choice to put out the condemnatory PR letter supposedly based on their data on Hans, their choice to lift or not lift their algorithmic(?) suspensions, their choice whether to like you or not. Maybe Hans displeased them? Maybe Hans declined some offer or deal or other? Monopoly corporations have a strong tendency to misbehave.
Yes, it could be anybody, but Hans was chosen.

To answer a couple of your points, I work "with" chess.com, not "for" chess.com. Chess.com is a 20% partner in KomodoChess and has rights to use our software for their projects, but although we co-operate on various projects we operate as independent organizations. If I thought chess.com was fabricating cheating claims against Niemann or other players, I wouldn't want to continue to work with chess.com. It is true that monopoly corporations often misbehave, but I have no reason to believe that chess.com has banned anyone for cheating that they didn't believe was actually cheating. That doesn't mean they don't make any mistakes, but I believe that their cheat detection is on a "best efforts" basis. I also don't believe that they would benefit from banning Niemann (if they didn't believe he cheated); he was rather popular, and if we disregard the cheating question appeared to be on track to become a star who would boost chess, especially American chess. Chess.com is an American company, and if they wanted to ban promising juniors without cause wouldn't they pick players from countries which are not American allies? There are plenty to choose from, but they picked an American.
Regarding Rybka, as far as I know the allegations all had to do with how Rybka got started, i.e. Rybka 1 (later versions were only included in the complaint because they retained code from Rybka 1, I believe). I joined Rybka team after Rybka 2 was already being sold, so I had nothing to do with the origin of Rybka. I assumed that this is the reason I was not criticized, not because I happened to be friendly with David Levy.

There’s conflation here between the bannings at teenage time and the very public PR-ed ban announcement of Hans timed alongside the Magnus allegations. The teenage bannings were presumably a response to pressure (I don’t believe they were algorithmic at that time, but maybe I’m wrong) and the unbannings a response to counter pressure.
Fact remains that it was Hans who was singled out for the double jeopardy. Hans was already punished for the online misbehaviour. There is presently, as far as we can tell, no solid evidence of OTB misbehaviour, just suspicions and opinions from not exactly unbiased participants, ambiguous back up from the monopoly corporate and some now debunked analysis from random internet which failed to do the diligence on the data or tools they were using.
Fact also remains that for the moment nobody knows if and when any cheats OTB took place (by anyone btw). Suspicions and opinions are not facts until proven and so far, all attempts at proof have fallen flat. Question is should Hans have his career terminated and ability to earn money put on stop while the accusers fail to produce good evidence? In parallel with a criminal case, is there good enough evidence to charge him? Seems not. Are the accusers going to produce any good evidence? Seems not, given the time they had and failed so far. Until then, until good evidence, it’s not right to terminate Hans career in chess.

Btw, re Levy, it is not the case that “you were not criticised”, you were specifically singled out for clearance as in “Larry is squeaky clean”, you got that for being in-group, it’s unlikely some, let’s say Serbian collaborator would have got that. I state this simply to make the point that in-group/out-group status plays a large role in these types of crowd-trials. Hans is out-group

[Peter Berger]

I heavily disagree with your general assessment of the Niemann story, but I still think you have a good general point when it is about the process.
It is likely that Carlsen has had access to inner communication between chess.com and other players. So he is basically running no risk at all. This is ugly in its own way – so I have personally lost any interest in the whole story.

[CornfedForever]

Firouzja was banned from chess.com for cheating aged 11, then allowed back. Difference between Firouzja and Hans is that the former managed to become identified with the in-group, whereas Hans remained an outsider.

No, difference was Firouzja had not actually cheated whereas Hans did cheat.
But who cares about facts nowadays.

Don't forget that Carlsen would appear to have cheated as well.

Here is the full stream. The events in question are at 1:44:00. Lots of talk of cheating and banning.

Logical connection? You want to legalise cheating?

Of course not.
Just pointing out that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Graham ... really ... come on. I cannot for the life of me believe that you are saying that! You are comparing cheaters like Hans Nieman and Dlugy to Magnus Carlsen. They cheated and he cheated so they are the same and so we should stop talking about all this??? What's good for the goose is good for the gander! Really.

Graham can defend himself of course, but facts are facts.

David unfortunately offered advice when Magnus was ‘stuck’…Magnus asked “How?”…David (to some credit) would not come right out and tell him the move…Magnus thinks a couple of sec’s and realizes what David intimated and plays the move to trap the queen and win on the spot. THERE WERE OTHER MOVES AVAILABLE. Sorry, that IS..is cheating. Motives are irrelevant in making that point.

I’m not sure why you are on this warpath of equivalence or ‘degrees’.

To emphasize the point: Cheating on your wife is still cheating on your wife. You can parse it out by degrees or however you want if it makes you feel better, or you think it will get you back into her good graces...but it is what it is.