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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   44949 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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Chess World Controversy

After rising player Hans Niemann defeated world champion Magnus Carlsen as black (when wins are unusual), Magnus insinuated that Hans cheated and quit the ongoing tournament. Internet detectives and Magnus fanboys leapt at the opportunity to discover the truth and/or administer mob justice. Chess commentators, lead by popular Twitch streamer and top player Hikaru, analyzed Han’s post-game interview looking for clues. Lots of unsubstantiated claims followed: that he showed signs of guilt, that he made up a past game position in his analysis to hide that he cheated (later proven wrong), that Hans was faking his accent, that Hans was unable to justify his chess positions, and so on. The stronger evidence is that Hans claimed to have looked at the chess variation that Magnus chose as white, which is improbable (like 0.01%). However, Hans has a strategy of getting in opponents’ heads, and claiming to be able to predict the opponents’ preparations is a great way to do that.

The controversy goes on, and is made up of many parts.

  • That Magnus insinuated and withdrew has led to many now saying “he is kind of a dick”, as chess teacher Ben Finegold put it. Magnus had a pure reputation before, but it was known he handled losses poorly. Magnus’ withdrawal, due to a technicality in the tournament rules, means that he keeps his high FIDE rating, while Hans’ win is somewhat discounted. Magnus’ silence since his tweet is blameworthy.

  • Hans cheated online at chess.com when he was 12, and again when he was 17. He is now 19. The cheating two years ago was not in a competitive setting and was allegedly to increase his online rating to entice stream viewers. There has been no claim that he has cheated except in these two instances, and he has never cheated in a competition.

  • Chess.com has allowed him to continue playing since his 2017 cheating incident. But after this week’s (unevidenced) cheating claim against Hans, chess.com banned him from future tournaments, costing him significsnt career opportunities and prize moneys. What’s curious about this is that chess.com is buying out Play Magnus, a separate company that Magnus has a relationship with. Did Magnus apply pressure on Chess.com to ban Hans? This would be more serious than other parts of the controversy, as it would mean that Magnus is one of the worst sore losers in chess history, not just hurting an opponent’s reputation but using backroom influence to take away his opportunities.

  • Some chess players, like Hikaru and Naroditsky, leapt at the opportunity to accuse Hans, while others with greater reputation (eg Kasparov) defended him. There is now a stable opinion online that Hans did not cheat and that Magnus is in the wrong, but this took three days post-allegation to develop. Interestingly, it seemed like the chess players who were competitors to Hans were the ones eager to take him down, while the older greats defended him and pleaded for measured opinions.

  • It should be noted they Hans’ had a meteoric rise in rating over the past year, one of the greatest in history. At 19, he has years left of improvement. So we’re dealing with potential world champion material, not just a random contender.

  • There is rigorous cheating detection at this tournament (Sinquefeld Cup, St Louis), TSA-like security. Since the accusation they implemented even more security measures. The theories on how he cheated are truly bizarre, from Hans having an antenna in his hair, to having swallowed a chip that vibrated in morse code, to having inserted a vibrating ”device” sublingually to alert him on tactics, to Godfather-esque hidden bathroom devices. I’m not joking.

If I can don my conspiracy hat for a moment, Hans is opened his remarks after his Magnus win by talking about how he doesn’t want to be canceled for misspeaking (about Magnus having “tics”, when the PC term would be mannerisms). A keen eye would sense that Hans is not so progressive. Chess is political, with former champion Kasparov constantly in the news with his anti-Russian, Russian players banned from playing in certain tournaments, former leading chess players criticized (but not more) for claiming women cannot be as good as male players due to biology, etc. I wonder whether there are interests behind the scenes that do not want to see a Fischer-esque personality rise in popularity.

Links:

I think there's an important element that's being overlooked here. A few months ago Magnus announced that he would not be defending his title in the next Chess World Championship. This strongly suggests that Magnus is not as heavily invested in chess as he used to be. That would explain both why he was beaten by such a weaker player and why he so casually throws the integrity of the game under the bus.

Magnus has been voicing his displeasure with the WCC format for more than a decade, even before he became World Champion in 2013, and has repeatedly suggested along the way that he might no longer defend the title. It's really not a surprise that he called it quits after five defenses. He's lost games to weaker players before - Andrey Esipenko was lower rated than Niemann when he beat Magnus at Wijk an Zee. He's won most of the OTB and online tournaments he played in this year and decisively won Tata Steel for a record eighth time in January. Frankly, I think he deserves some benefit of the doubt before everyone decides he's gone Fischer.

Hans cheated online at chess.com when he was 12, and again when he was 17.

He was Caught cheating online twice. It is very unlikely that the only two times he cheated he was caught.

How does one cheat at a game hosted on a website? Is this all cheating by using AI to assist in games? I wonder how many people outside of chess think of that as cheating?

Even people outside of chess know that AI easily beats grandmasters in chess today. If that's not cheating then there's no such thing as cheating.

Considering that chess game engines are much better than any human there wouldn't be much point to playing chess if you were allowed to use game engines.

I'm not a chess pro but if I'm playing chess or any other game against you and you're letting an ai pick your moves, I'd consider that cheating. Compare aimbotting.

The tournament was OTB (over the board, as in with a real physical chessboard). Using a chess computer to feed you moves is the most well known way to cheat. But the other speculation is that Niemann somehow got access to Carlsen's prep materials so he new what he was going to play.

Using a chess computer to play the game is obviously cheating. You're not playing the game then, the computer is. It's really not dissimilar to using an aimbot in an FPS. It's certainly against the rules of every chess tournament.

The three times he was caught on Chess.com were the ones I was asking about.

The in person tournament seems like it's on the tournament organizers and players to come up with rules that satisfy them, like everyone wears specific clothes and dresses in the presense of judges. If they're organizing tournaments and not doing steps like that to prevent cheating, it seems like it shouldn't be much of a surprise that it happens.

Honestly, I'd rather watch an AI chess tournament with teams of grandmasters training the AI and no limits on human computer involvement. Maybe have classes set by what processors and their count that can be run.

https://tcec-chess.com/ has such a tournament

Honestly, I'd rather watch an AI chess tournament with teams of grandmasters training the AI and no limits on human computer involvement. Maybe have classes set by what processors and their count that can be run.

A world chess engine championship has existed since 1974: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Computer_Chess_Championship

Hans cheated online at chess.com when he was 12, and again when he was 17. He is now 19. The cheating two years ago was not in a competitive setting and was allegedly to increase his online rating to entice stream viewers. There has been no claim that he has cheated except in these two instances, and he has never cheated in a competition.

Gonna start using this example when kids ask about cheating. Cheating at 12 and 17 on chess.com seems pretty harmless but is coming back to haunt Hans now. Man, that's tough, but there are some things that follow you forever even if you were a stupid kid when you did them. Doesn't even matter if he actually cheated this time, people already think he's a cheater.

people already think he's a cheater.

He is a cheater. Did it when he was 12 and dumb, okay, first time offence. Did it again when he was 17, still dumb but he should have known better. And now, as you say, he's 19, pulled off a spectacular upset, and because he was stupid enough to do it again when he was 17, a whole lot of people think he cheated this time again.

And maybe he did, maybe he didn't, but the weighting due to the two previous instances of cheating are leaning towards "did it again". This is one reason why cheating, or lying is bad - even being a cynic about it, only bad if you're caught - because now you are a cheater or a liar, and now people will be inclined to believe accusations of "he cheated/lied yet again" because of prior experience.

A man is not guilty without proof. Doesn't matter if the whole world thinks he cheated if he is on camera showing that he is playing a fair game.

There are only two theories left, anal vibrating beads, or previously knowing the prep game. Anal beads is almost certainly not the case. Previously knowing the prep game has a small chance but it would only be the case if someone from Magnus inner circle gave up the goods beforehand. If no mole is found in Magnus circle then we can assume that no cheating took place.

A man is not guilty without proof.

That is true, and a principle I don't want to see tossed.

On the other hand - let us say there are two people participating in an event, Honest Hank who has never, ever, done anything wrong in his life ever, and Lying Larry who nobody would trust as far as they could throw him.

It is discovered that someone has cheated in this event. Now, who is it more likely that people will suspect - Hank or Larry? Sure, Larry could be innocent and it could be Hank who is the guilty party this time. But you can't say it's unreasonable that people would suspect Larry first off.

If you don't want the reputation of being a cheating cheater who cheats, don't cheat.

What you said makes sense in the scenario you created.

A man is not guilty without proof

Incorrect. It is perfectly possible for both of the following statements to be true...

  • Player A cheated

  • Player B is unable to prove that Player A cheated.

...and this is why things like established patterns of behavior matter.

And innocent until proven guilty matters to make sure you do not get the wrong guy based on your opinions.

In their individual lives yes, to pass judgement onto others outside their direct experience no.

At 17 and even younger Niemann was playing in high-level chess tournaments. Basically all GM and even IM players started playing high-level chess tournaments from a young age. Niemann and any high level chess player at that age should know better, even if it's just online matches in chess.com (if he's willing to cheat in low stakes, why not high stakes when winning actually matters?)

Chesscom has put out a statement today where they said they presented Hans with evidence that he downplayed the extent and seriousness of his cheating on their site, and are waiting for him to respond before they make a decision about whether or not to let him play on their site again. My impression is that we are just getting trickle-truthed by all parties and should wait and see what else comes out, probably after the Sinquefield Cup ends. There are probably contractual obligations restricting Chesscom and Magnus from making statements, and Magnus seems quite unbothered by the whole thing. This is not the first time a younger GM has defeated him, but it is the first time he's made an issue about it, which is notable in itself.

Hans is a distinctly unsympathetic figure because he's leaned into this whole vibe of being an enfant terrible, even though it really just comes off as him being a cunt and retreating to "I'm just a widdle boy, please" when someone calls him out on it. Even if he didn't cheat, I don't find it surprising that so many GMs were willing to believe the worst of him. There are probably 10 or 12 young prodigies I would have highlighted as potential WC material before I ever got to Hans Niemann.

Interestingly, it seemed like the chess players who were competitors to Hans were the ones eager to take him down, while the older greats defended him and pleaded for measured opinions.

Alternatively, the players who accused Hans are the ones who actually still play competitive chess, and Kasparov, Karpov et al have not played competitive chess for years.

to Godfather-esque hidden bathroom devices.

While noting that some of these theories were clearly jokes and not meant to be taken seriously, like Eric Hansen's suggestion that Hans implanted anal beads in his rectum that vibrated in Morse code, hidden bathroom devices are hardly an implausible method of cheating. People have actually been caught and banned for doing this.

How does one even cheat at chess? I'm not following that part. Let's say if one player somehow knew the other player was planning to employ a certain strategy in advance. Is it not the point of chess to see when your opponent has countered your strategy and pick a different one? I don't see how that would be considered cheating any more than being at the table and realizing "ah, he's using the x maneuver, so I will counter with y".

Other than that angle, which doesn't really strike me as cheating, I can't think of any possible way to cheat. In a casual game you could move your opponent's pieces while he wasn't looking, but I'm guessing in a tournament that isn't going to be possible. Same for making illegal moves that benefit you, of course. And there's no hidden info to uncover in chess, nor randomness to stack in your favor.

So I guess I'm just confused on how this guy is supposed to have cheated, as the game of chess seems pretty damn cheat proof to me.

You could be secretly using a computer chess program. You would just need someone with access to the program to play your opponent's moves, and a way to communicate the program's moves back to you. Hence the reference to various bizarre forms of communication that he maybe used.

Presumably, cheating can occur from having outside coaching during a match, either by having humans analyze your opponents' moves in real time, or by having a computer play the game for you.

Chess is not cheat-proof, and in fact it's very easy to cheat at chess. A computer program running on a smartphone will be better at chess than any human player who has ever existed or ever will exist. Anyone who finds a way to get the computer's recommended moves during a game will have a steep advantage.

No idea. I don't think we will find out until more information about why Magnus withdrew comes to light, which will almost certainly not happen until the tournament is over.

And it takes very little bandwidth to get the information back.

There was an incident a year or two ago in chess, probably involving one of the main parties here, where the match was being livestreamed and one player was doing moves that completely matched a popular chessbot -- right up until the livestream broke.

Figuring out how to smuggle that information into the match is a fun and interesting problem. But do not be surprised when the people running the matches decide they are sick of you.

Computers are much better at chess than humans so you can cheat by asking a computer what to do.

The primary method of cheating in chess is to use game engines to suggest better moves than a human could think of. Modern game engines are much, much better than any human players and at this level of the game it might only take a couple of key moves to sway the outcome.

Of course over the board tournaments have lots of rules and procedures to prevent this, so much so that many think Niemann could not have circumvented them and that if he cheated it must have been through spying. But the bandwidth of information that needs to be transmitted to and from an accomplice is so low that I don't think you could ever be 100% sure it didn't happen. Which is unfortunate because it means an accusation of cheating is essentially unfalsifiable.

I think you can cheat at chess if you have some outside entity feeding you moves. Especially in an online match I can imagine using some tool that analyzes the state of the board and tells you what to play. In an in-person match it seems harder. Unless you're, like, wearing an ear piece or actually manipulate your opponents pieces.

lichess.org not lichess.com

Yeah this thing is weird tbh, it's obvious that it looked super fishy, based on the way Hans played and followup analysis, but I think Hans was just extremely lucky that magnus fell into his prep, it's clear that he was basing it off of a game betwen magnus and so in 2019 not the 2018 game he said because of the way he played the opening, but it is still strange that Magnus blundered so hard in the middlegame and that Hans was even able to capitalize on the mistake.

It's one of those things that makes me question how good cheat detection is, and if we get more false positives than false negatives, (remember pipi in your pampers?

Humans are bad at compartmentalizing. Willingness to cheat in a case where there are no rules against it is associated with being willing to cheat when there are rules against it.

But that association is contextual, and loose, so there are many people who cheat in one context but not another. A lot of people cheat on tests in HS/college, is this that associated with general misconduct?

Based on what I know of cheaters in Magic: the Gathering, this sounds correct to me. In addition, most cheaters are not actually repentant. There are, of course, people who stupidly cheat in the moment and are caught or otherwise realize that's wrong and they shouldn't do that. People who cheat multiple times probably don't actually see anything wrong with it. The probably famous cheater in Magic, Alex Bertoncini, got banned multiple times, then posted a long apology and then proceeded to get banned for life for continuing to cheat anyway.

That all being said, there's no guarantee Hans did actually cheat in this case. Cheaters can also be good players (in fact, you often kind of have to--if you're bad, cheating won't save you; you can even cheat against yourself).

Seconding this: I cheated and griefed/trolled in Minecraft as a child but I wouldn't cheat in a competitive ranked online shooter game in 2022.

Is this being bad at compartmentalizing or good at pattern detection? I'd think that demonstrated cheating greatly increases the Bayesian priors on someone cheating in a future instance. Some people aren't cut out for engaging in social or moral transgressions and those that have demonstrated that they are cut out for it are going to get extra scrutiny and lose the benefit of the doubt.

I wouldn't be so sure of it. This might be one of those cases a control group doesn't exist at all. Good luck finding a child who never cheated. Does trying to peek through your hands covering your eyes when playing hide and seek count?

Saying all this because not a fan of moral highgrounds built on spurious priors.

Yeah, kids cheat and this is why we teach them not to do it.

If the one and only time he ever cheated was when he was 12, then this would be unfair.

But he cheated (and got caught) again when he was 17. That not alone makes it seem more likely he would also cheat again when he was 19, but that he may have been cheating (without being caught) in the meantime as well.

Is that unfair? Possibly. But it's what happens when you create a reputation for yourself as being unpleasant and caught out at cheating. People aren't willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, because you have pissed them off, and you've already shown you are willing to cheat if you think you can get away with it.

The worst thing would be if he did win this game fair and square, because he is that talented and he did have a flash of inspiration, but there will always be those who don't believe it was fair and that he successfully cheated his way to victory. That will always hang over his reputation and future games.

Whether those priors are "spurious" is the issue under dispute.

lose the benefit of the doubt.

This is dangerous, as it seems like a "guilty until proven innocent" sort of deal. Cheating in a low-stakes way is a far cry from the "social or moral transgressions" of cheating in a high stakes way. Should I be forced to undergo an in-depth audit from the IRS every year because I cheated at Monopoly when I was 12?

Cheating at a game when you're 12 deserves a boot up the backside and "don't do that again". If you continue to cheat when you're older, then it's more serious, because you are showing you are willing to cheat, despite getting a second chance, and there's not really any reason I should believe you promising cross your heart you wouldn't cheat in a serious game, just cheat for fun! It's like being a little bit pregnant - no such thing. Cheat once, get caught, keep your nose clean thereafter, okay. Cheat once, get caught; cheat again, get caught; yeah I'm coming down on the side of "cheat a third time" because you're a cheater.

Cheating in a low-stakes way is a far cry from the "social or moral transgressions" of cheating in a high stakes way.

I disagree with this analysis. In my experience how someone behaves in low-stakes scenarios is more illustrative of character than high-stakes. The question is "do you refrain from cheating because you value honesty" vs "do you refrain from cheating because you're afraid of getting caught". While similar in outcome they are not the same. The latter warrants a scrutiny that the former does not.

See also the old 4chan copy/pasta about how a shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for whether someone is capable of self-government.

In my experience how someone behaves in low-stakes scenarios is more illustrative of character than high-stakes

The extreme end of this line of thinking is that anyone who commits small infractions like driving 1mph over the speed limit is giving a clear indication that they're willing to commit the most serious crimes, like murder. Obviously this isn't true. The distance between previous crimes and the current allegations matter, e.g. if a person has a long history of violently attacking people to within an inch of their life, that would be clearly indicative that they're more likely to commit murder.

I'm not intimately familiar with the chess scene, Chess.com, or the current allegations, but from the brief stuff I've read it seems like cheating on Chess.com is fairly low-stakes. Perhaps it should raise peoples' priors on the likelihood of cheating in real tournaments slightly, but not much beyond that, and he certainly shouldn't "lose the benefit of the doubt" which is just a euphemism for "guilty until proven innocent".

For a non-chess example, remember that time Pewdiepie said the N word during a moment of clear frustration? Wokists and their allies in the media descended on him insinuating that anyone who would say it on stream like that was clearly a raging Neo Nazi in their private life, and such a person deserved to be cancelled. They didn't succeed, thankfully, but their actions should serve as a clear lesson to beware the slippery slope of deducing a person's entire moral compass from a few minor infractions.

Bayesian update is primarily about consistency. The fact that orgs admitted Hans in the first place, means they had decent enough prior for him at the moment.

On a different note, prior could easily be weaponized (Camus' "The Stranger" comes to mind). It's the current investigation (likelihood), which should make the decision.

4D chess for real? Interesting, thanks for the summary.

I am not an expert, but conceptually, taking Hans' ability to respond to a rare opening as evidence of cheating -- implies that no one can respond well to this opening? Why should this move be in a database, if top players go through so many private games, that a pure chance starts to play a role: you can't just say "Hans obtained Carlsen's private training data (p<0.05)", p would be much higher.

Also what this allegation means in the age of AlphaGo? How about setting up your AI-chess-assistant to imitate particular opponent and this way prepare for any plausible variations he is capable of. Would that be cheating?

PS: speaking of Kasparov:

There were allegations that Carlsen may have believed that his own preparations might not have been private. Long ago, during the 1986 world championship match, Garry Kasparov lost three games in a row to Anatoly Karpov, and dismissed one of his aides, Yevgeniy Vladimirov, for allegedly passing information.

I wonder whether there are interests behind the scenes that do not want to see a Fischer-esque personality rise in popularity.

I appreciate the attempt to link this to the CW, but, I really don’t see it here. I think Magnus just got pissed that he lost to someone he “shouldn’t” have lost to.

Personally I think you're really underselling how much circumstantial evidence there is against Niemann. Note I'm not saying Niemann is guilty or should be banned or blacklisted but just laying it out. I might get some things wrong, or miss somethings:

  1. As you already have mentioned, Niemann already has a history of cheating. Niemann also as a reputation of being a huge shit-talker and generally unpleasant player. In my personal opinion, he's exactly the kind of guy you would expect to cheat.

  2. Carlsen played 4.g3 in his opening, which as I understand it, is something that Carlsen has never played in OTB tournament chess before. The speculation is that Carlsen played such an unusual line specifically to test if Niemann was cheating. In Niemann's defence here, Carlsen played relatively poorly, perhaps as the result of his unfamiliarity with this line.

  3. Despite Carlsen never playing this line in his career, Niemann claims to have just so happened to prep against that line that very morning.

  4. Here I have to rely on opinions from GMs and experts, but apparently Niemann's post-match analysis of his own play was complete nonsense and suggests incompetence, getting many things completely wrong. Speculation is that Niemann was just playing engine moves, without actually understanding the position or why the engine is suggesting certain moves.

  5. As you mentioned, many, many top level players have voiced their suspicions about Niemann's play, and about Niemann generally. Though other have obviously defended him.

  6. Such a reaction from Carlsen (withdrawing from a tournament) is highly unusual for him, and he generally has good sportsmanship (I know some might contest this). Carlsen has lost to lower rated players than Niemann before and has never had this reaction. Which suggests Carlsen did suspect Niemann of cheating, though Carlsen may obviously be mistaken. To be 100% clear here, Carlsen has made no accusations against Niemann. All he did was withdraw from the tournament, and the chess community has speculated from there. You say he handles losses poorly, which is kind of true, but he never takes it out on his opponents, but on himself.

  7. As you mention, Niemann's rating has risen at an astronomical speed from 2500-2700 in the last year, near record-breaking as I understand it. But many top level players are suspicious of this and that cheating was involved too.

  8. Not really evidence, but the idea that you couldn't find some way to bypass the security is laughable.

In all likelihood this will never get proven one way or another. If Niemann did cheat, the most plausible explanation I've heard is Carlsen's prep getting leaked somehow to Niemann (some have tried to argue this doesn't constitute cheating anyway). In my mostly-worthless-very-casual-chess-player opinion it is probably more likely than not Niemann cheated, maybe ~60% confidence. But this doesn't mean Niemann should have his career destroyed on suspicion.

But this doesn't mean Niemann should have his career destroyed on suspicion.

There's some part of me that harkens back to the old "if you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'" adage when thinking about what the consequences should be for mere suspicion. I tend to have a gut instinct that's something in the ballpark of old school baseball ethics (or at least what I think of as old school baseball ethics). Basically, everyone expects that various forms of low-level cheating are ever present, and if you can't catch your opponent cheating, you don't really get to be much more than slightly mad at him. If Niemann cheated in a way that can't be detected, well, you're going to have to learn to deal with whatever he's doing by either improving cheating detection or adapting strategy. If you can't prove that he cheated, tough shit, basically.

From what I understand cheating in chess is pretty much all-or-nothing. As long as you have an opportunity for an unsecured channel, why bother with anything less than having the computer play for you? Strategy won't beat a modern chess engine.

Oh, that makes sense. Not much like sign-stealing then. I suppose this is why different games have different cultures.

To further your baseball analogy, old-fashioned sign stealing is an "acceptable" form of cheating, that everyone does to some extent and is accepted in the culture of the game. What the Houston Astros did was egregious cheating outside of the accepted culture that was universally condemned (except by the MLB, unfortunately).

Any cheating in chess effectively follows example #2 because of how strong chess engines are.

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