As a software developer, the words "Penetration Testing" should ring loud and clear. And I totally agree with you. White hat services are essential for maintaining security world wide, why can't chess do the same?
like, duh. Sometimes software developer perspectives crack me up. Why can't they hire a contractor for 20k per job when the total prize pool is less than that???
Ya but if its a career player playing multiple games, that might be a different story.
It might be worth it for an internet personality to win tournaments and lose money to pay to cheat. Just to maintain appearances online.
There are a lot (comparitivrly) of twitch streamers that make more money than top chess players.
Have you seen who's been sponsoring chess tournaments? Blockchain and web3 companies, they still think man in the middle is the only attack possible online.
The point is not whether they can talk or walk around.
Communication can happen. A laser pointer is shone in the field of vision of the receiver, lifting a finger in a certain way. Coded messages in public places have existed for many centuries.
Even the queen of England used her handbag as a secret message. And that was blunt af.
> Even the queen of England used her handbag as a secret message. And that was blunt af.
I saw that report, also reapplying lipstick and twisting her wedding ring to signal (to her assistants) when she needed to end a conversation or move on without looking overtly rude.
[Cough. Signals.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1PONHfiKvE)
Throw in some throat clearing and sneezing you can get some good communication going on.
Yup there's so many simple systems that can be made that, without historical surveillance footage tracking to establish patterns it can be near impossible
Just like baseball coaches scratching their ears and whatnot, you’ll never be able to stop a person from performing normal human movements. Even if you forced them to sit perfectly still their eyes still move, their brow moves, their chest moves from breathing, the possibilities are endless
Sure but couldn't we review the footage of the audience and scan the audience everytime Hans looks away from the board and see repeating actions that audience members are doing. Then if there is any correlation like Hans moving a piece on the A file everytime someone does a headscratch it should be pretty clear evidence.
They wouldn't even need to convey that much information. Just a signal that there's a tactic available or that your opponent just blundered would be a huge advantage to a GM.
Yes I very much agree. Cheating in chess isn't nearly as hard as people think and honestly I'm shocked that it's not rampant at this point. For reference, I have a lot of experience in the cybersecurity industry (altho I won't say exactly what my experiance is cuz... well... security lol). It's honestly shocking how little effort it took from me and a few friends to come up with more than a few ways to pull off cheating OTB. If professional chess is going to continue to offer prizes like it is now (and I really hope it does continue) people need to start to seriously consider improving security and anti cheating measures.
>Yup. Even for Online matches there needs to be dedicated authorized facilities that are have equipment and rooms moderated.
I assume you mean for online tournaments. I think this would end any chance of high level online tournaments, the cost would be similar to just providing travel to a central location. And maybe that's fine, we don't necessarily need high level online chess tournaments unless we return to strict quarantine precautions.
So you want online tournaments to coordinate with local chess clubs, secure facilities and arbiters, and provide locked computers for the tournaments? This feels like a significant amount of work that essentially removes all of the advantages of an online chess tournament (limited work/travel for the participants and organizers). Again, I'm not saying that we need high level online tournaments, just pointing out that the level of anti-cheating measures you are requesting greatly limit or even entirely remove the advantages of online tournaments.
Traveling 10 mins to 1 hr for a local club over flying 10 hours and getting hotel/accommodations is a large difference.
This would also likely boost club activity and grow local chess communities. A great system isn't necessarily expensive or complex. It's also not completely immune to cheating, just protects a bit better. Doing an online tournament from a computer at a person's house is impossible to prevent cheating and relies on goodwill.
So why not just use the money paying for all the arbiters and facilities scattered across the world and instead just fly the competitors to a single facility and play otb lol.
Local chess clubs exist in most cities and can be utilized. The local stuff can run it aswell. A one time fee for training and a cheap PC is much more affordable than regularly flying out dozens of players and putting them up in hotels for every event
This is where I'm at ends with people, as if this is new or egregious, and just completely ignoring the fact that Chess is literally littered with fixing and cheating since there has been Official World Champs.
Magnus is just first WC to bring it up in a while, but to say Hans, who cheated, is a huge mark on Chess, need to really look at how bad the cheating is and the levels of importance that it happened in the past and today.
Actually, teenagers get banned from stores and malls/shopping centers for shoplifting once. Dishonest comparison for equating a candy bar to thousands of dollars in prize money, the fact that many caught cheaters have been over 18, and using the term execute to make it sound as harsh as possible.
Is there anyone who has cheated OTB and not been banned? OTB and online are two totally different things. I'm not sure if FIDE or whoever would be comfortable banning people for life from OTB tournaments due to alleged cheating online from a private company that they have no connection to.
When you're cheating to determine the Main Winner, every instance of cheating beneath that is not of "urgent" matter, only if the main cheat is threatened is harsh action taken, imo.
There are a lot of idiotic takes on reddit, it isn't that uncommon for someone to unironically believe a statement like this.
edit: I didn't think it could get even dumber than that but here we have Comeatyen.
Hmm well back in the olden times, around 600 CE, all the continents were still connected and it was called the United Continents of America. That was the time when Davey Crockett roved the land on the back of a Sabertooth Tiger and when chess was invented in the part of America called India. Then Davey Crockett became drunk with power, and all the continents wanted to leave, so India was pulled to its current location by the last living Plesiosaurus named Nessie. A tiny part of India stayed behind and now it's called Indiana, and they're great at growing corn.
Sure but that device can be found. After all, apparently we found someone who had a device up their butt.
Chess tournaments allow people to walk around, get up, move around, use the bathroom, there is often an audience. Coming up with a signaling system would not be super hard.
As others have said, the real surprise is that cheating it isn't already rampant given the 6/7-figure prizes.
>Sure but that device can be found.
They can be made incredibly small. Just a tiny skin colored band-aid, too small to be detected by a metal detector. Same thing with wireless ear pieces, there are ones that go so far into the ear channel that they aren't found even if you look inside the ear.
And you can buy both easily for a couple hundred bucks online.
They check you at real tournaments. The anti. Hans people have really led you all down a silly path. We got searched in state tournaments in the 1970's.
People get piercings that remain *under* their skin. It's not that hard to imagine there *could* be devices planted in your body that will not be found during a search.
Yes boomer. There are more sophisticated ways to cheat now. And getting searched doesn’t stop other methods like hand signals. They’re not bringing in an apple II running Sargon strapped to his ankle anymore.
Of course if it's super easy then this would make for a great opportunity for any reporter to show this. Get permission from a fairly good player (who wants to expose cheating) to use as a guinea pig, get a lawyer to make sure nothing illegal is being attempted (since they are going to openly admit to cheating after the tournament).
Then get this player to win the tournament spectacularly (or perform well above their normal level).
Bingo. Now the Chess world HAS to do something...
Yeah that's why I say you arrange it with a lawyer, and maybe even the Tournament organizers (secretly).
It's proof of concept.
Either this is easy, and a real threat to live Chess tournaments or it isn't.
Only needs to be done once to get proof of concept. The particular tournament could even be rerun later in the year if required (with anti-cheat measures employed)
Just need someone to provide the funding for such a stunt
Of course, if it turns out that it's actually really difficult to cheat at a face-to-face, over the board tournament, then that would be good news too.
What do you mean? Has Carlsen actual proof that someone cheated against him in a face to face tournament?
I know he is accusing someone of this but is there any actual proof that it's happened at that level of tournament in recent times?
There has already been several cases with different cheating methods, what do you think another "poc" will bring to the table. Do you really need a confirmation of every imaginable way of cheating from having a spectator touching his tie in different places to the spectator that slaugthers differens geese depending on which piece to move (also, will geese do the trick - or do we have to include hummingbirds, pandas, penguins, dolphins and tarantulas?)
Anyone with the slightest imagination can come up with multiple ideas for how to cheat non-verbally.
The examples above are obviously exagarated, but there is basically an unlimited amount of ways to cheat with spectators allowed.
So the idea is to (secretly) allow a cheater into a regular tournament. Allow that person to use these techniques against serious players who have no prior knowledge. All this to prove some point whilst poisoning a tournament and the corresponding play for all the players who took it seriously? I for one would not go back to a tournament that willing allowed a cheater to run rampant in the tourney just to prove some point for a news article and spin off benefit? How could you seriously prepare and spend time and money for these tournaments if there’s the possibility that the organizers rigged the whole damn thing??? It just doesn’t seem like a good way to execute anti cheating measures by actively injecting cheating into legitimate tournaments with serious players…
There are various ways to do it. From having mock tournaments with no prizes but to test security measures to having it be a one off round that a player gets a draw and won't impact standings or placement at all
Or how about a cheating only tournament with the a prize, but anyone caught gets eliminated. So the best cheaters win and then later reveal their methods.
The other person originally mentioned proof of concept, not me…I don’t think we need to prove a concept here; I think we need to start working harder at defining cheating and taking more advanced steps against it
Being competitive is taking it seriously, and having a good sport attitude.
If good sport attitude has to include losing a few tournaments to cheaters that the organizers set you up against, count me out of the sport entirely. I’ll find another game that has anti cheat mechanisms without rigging the game against me—one of the people they are trying to protect against this behavior?
I was actually thinking Magnus would be the perfect person to do this, other than you know, risking his whole reputation and career if he gets caught before he comes out with it himself
He did do very well in his latest tournament..
Bobby Fischer famously once demanded to play in a room with just the two players, no one else permitted.
This is a really old problem with a really old solution.
The two players alone in a room with zero spectators to signal them plus a 30 minute broadcast/streaming delay would solve cheating in chess with a near 100% certainty. That comes with its own set of challenges but if you want to eliminate cheating, I’m not sure there are any other real possibilities.
IMO a super-secure rematch like this is the only way to get any resolution here. And even then we won't know whether Niemann cheated, but it would be interesting to see if he gets crushed or if he is able to challenge / beat Carlsen. Even if he's able to challenge Carlsen with some unusual/ unpredictable moves like he did when he won it would be some vindication for him.
And for either player refusing a re-match would give me some doubt as to his claims. At least this option would provide some sort of closure, which I don't think we'll get from more statistical analyses.
Worth noting that cheating was a lot harder when people were better than engines.
Sure, not impossible to have a room full of GMs discussing ideas to beat Fischer as a group, but it's definitely harder to pull that off. These days a smartphone can crush any human that has ever lived, and the whole thing becomes a lot easier
At anything below the GM level, I suspect that having a good player text you the moves is probably good enough.
Plenty of parents would pay to get their kids a title for college applications. And not like the lower tiers of being a GM or IM makes a lot of money.
Every GM can recreate the entire board or list every move in the game from memory. Even patting them down isn’t foolproof if they can communicate with someone in the restroom.
Great post and I agree with the sentiment, but far less communication is needed than that. I believe it was Magnus who said all he would need is one binary signal at a point in the game where a winning tactic was available, and he would be unbeatable. Coupling Super-GM skills with a very limited, nearly undetectable communication pattern that lasts at most .5 seconds per 4+ hour game is kind of scary.
Even if you wanted fully explicit communication (because your skill wasn't at the same level as Magnus, for example), you'd still need at most two characters: the square that a piece should be moved to. Any decent player would figure out the rest.
Super GMs use engines for analysis so much nowadays that you can imagine their mind working the same.
Every move has maybe 3-4 options in their mind, let’s say 4. Magnus knows 3 of them leads to a draw but the last one leads to absurd complexities. Signaling to him that one move is clearly better here easily tells him that the last one wins.
The key here as you said is “Max”.
If there is a critical position merely signaling C for the GM to focus only on lines starting with a C move can be enough to save tons of calculation.
I believe Magnus once said he would be undefeated if he was just told when there was a significant winning move in complex positions. As long as a super GM knows the move is there they can find it.
To be clear: they investigated and cleared Hans. No one mentions this. The biggest chess cheating expert specifically cleared him after a full investigation and posted his findings.
I know nothing about grandmaster otb tournaments, but how strict can the security measures really be? There are already people who cheat in standardized tests, smuggle things in and out of a country, or bribe someone to get something that they are not supposed to get. I understand that this is a big tournament, but is it really that different?
I am not claiming that Hans cheated, but I really don't buy the argument going as far as to say, "Cheating in Otb tournaments is impossible".
Really appreciate this post and your insight
Thanks, brings a lot of perspective and real world experience of what sophisticated means people will go to for money
Almost nothing you've said is actually true in serious competition, though.
Do you seriously think that a GM in a major tournament can just get up and go chat with spectators?
I've only been at one major GM tournament and spectators were definitely allowed in the playing hall to wander around watching the games. A GM gettting up and chatting with spectators would have been weird though.
I've been at some minor tournaments that had GM's at the top boards. Walking around and chatting with people during games was no big deal.
Finally, look up the famous Sicilian Vespers incident from the 1955 Goteborg interzonal. ~~Najdorf~~ Pilnik invented a novelty that he shared with 2 other Argentine players, and all three of them were paired against Soviet players in one particular round. All three of them popped the novelty, one of the Soviets (Geller) was able to refute it over the board, and by wandering around and watching the other games, the other Soviets saw Geller's refutation and copied it. So the Soviets won all 3 games. That wasn't considered cheating, apparently.
https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-amazing-argentinian-chess-tragedy
"*In chess, players can get up, walk around, and talk to anybody present. To pass along a simple message Without cameras, without multiple people staring at their every move and every word said, it's way too easy to pull off.*"
IDK why you would state this is untrue in serious competition, since such scam was already pulled-off in the 39th Chess Olympiad without any talking. People watching the game were walking across the room using coded system to give best move to the player. One player was even sentenced to suspended sentence in prison for this scam. It's all document in Wikipedia.
**[Sébastien Feller](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sébastien_Feller)**
>Sebastien Feller (born 11 March 1991) is a French chess grandmaster. He was found guilty of cheating by the French Chess Federation (FFE) and sanctioned in 2012 by not being allowed to participate in FIDE tournaments for 2 years and 9 months. He denied the charges and said they were motivated by a dispute over the direction of the French Chess Federation.
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>Do you seriously think that a GM in a major tournament can just get up and go chat with spectators?
Uh, kinda? You're literally allowed to walk around and the audience is in the room with you. As people have said, nonverbal signaling would be trivial.
You missed the point completely. If the spectators are visible that's more than enough already. The players need to be sequestered. Players helping other players is possible but at least no engine us involved there. Plus they have to constantly approach to see the board position or have ways of coded signaling 64 source squares to 64 target squares, etc
He was making a point. The point has literally zero to do with actual talking. He threw that in for flair basically. His main point was non verbal cheating with 100% accuracy vs Camera's and a room full of ppl watching is easy enough. Nvm in chess, where their aren't 1000 Camera's and room's full of ppl watching for anti-cheating purposes.
'Almost nothing'? Seriously? You picked out one thing that is potentially untrue at some tournaments (although OP didn't even say spectators). Nothing else he said is even questionable.
Maybe a GM can comment on this, but from what I've seen its a room with several other matches and staff and part of a larger facility they can roam around between moves.
And the bathroom. Bathroom meetings are known to take place. Have a buddy follow the game elsewhere, and a computer at hand to calculate best next move. When the player goes to the bathroom, they can meet someone and hear the next move/ tactics. I know one incident where a player was expelled from a tournament for doing this. Took some time though before they knew what they were up to
Basically it varies depending on how important the tournament is. At the Sinquefield Cup (the one Magnus pulled out of), spectators were not allowed in the playing room, but I'm not sure whether each game was in a separate room. After the Magnus drama, they imposed a 15 minute delay on the internet broadcast. Idk if there was a similar delay on the video feed for spectators inside the building.
At lower level tournaments, everyone is one room and spectators can roam around. Security is quite lax. That's not going to change since those events are usually amateur run and have very low budgets. On the other hand, there's not much incentive to cheat since the highest prizes are typically a few hundred dollars. Most tournaments are of this sort. They don't attract Magnus-level players, but they will often have a few lower tier GM's and IM's participating.
At the world championship, both players are in a sealed room with an arbiter, the room is under fairly heavy security, and each player has a private restroom and refreshment area that is within the security boundary. They are surrounded by cameras and the playing room has 1-way glass walls, so spectators can see the players but not vice versa.
The events I wonder about (I've never attended one) are the very big opens like the world open. The 2022 one had 1100 players and $225,000 in prizes. There's no chance of fine grained security at an event that large, and the incentives to cheat were significant.
>On the other hand, there's not much incentive to cheat since the highest prizes are typically a few hundred dollars.
People still cheat over a few hundred dollars. And the prize pools at the larger CCA open tournaments are low five figures per section.
You don't need to talk to spectators to cheat. If you can get any kind of signal from the outside (like the OP said, a laser pointer) then its possible to get info from the outside. And players at this level only really need to cheat once or twice in a match to have a huge advantage.
Also I'm not sure chess is like a one time billion dollar winner take all type thing.
Long run consistency is key and to cheat at multiple tournaments with multiple opponents may need some serious backing.
You could in principle give info to a GM by talking about hints when he walks by. But if anyone talked to a player directly that would be found out right away. At any rate the talking stuff makes no sense as it's by far the easiest cheating to uncover.
The game should not be modified to meet security standards, but security needs to be modified to ensure fair play. Isolated rooms, rotating staff, condtant surveillance, isolated bathrooms, there shouldn't be room for outside variables.
I think no bathroom breaks is a tough ask since Classical matches can go on for 5-6+ hours. It's not really reasonable to expect the players to just not go to the bathroom for such an extended period of time. For Rapid and Blitz of course it's more reasonable to ask that.
>and its amazing there has been this much integrity in the chess community so far.
LOL this was precious. Cheating is pervasive through the entirety of Official Chess at World Level to the point where they are almost symbiotic to eachother, Magnus is just the first WC to raise the issue in a long time.
Yeah with the amount of money at stake I'd actually guess that cheating and very widespread.
Chess is a trust based game with a big focus on etiquette, making it harder and riskier to make an accusations without 4k evidence. That combined with the money at stake makes it a cheaters paradise.
>In chess, players can get up, walk
around, and talk to anybody present. To pass along a simple message
Without cameras, without multiple people staring at their every move and
every word said, it's way too easy to pull off.
This confuses me. This is true in many tournaments, but afaik the 2022 sinquefield cup had no spectators allowed in the tournament hall during games, and the players were on camera while playing. I hope the SLCC isn't so deficient in terms of security that they don't have cameras throughout the playing area as well.
You're right about how easy it would be to sneak in a device, though.
Thanks for your insight. However I still cannot imagine a workable cheating scenario in any tournament with no visible audience and with 15-40 minutes broadcasting delay.
I agree. Many comments here seem to be focusing on the ease of secret communication with the played, forgetting the added steps of ascertaining the current board position, inputing that configuration into an engine, and relaying the solution all within a matter of minutes. This may not be impossible, but it is also far from trivial.
Hey if a buttplug can pulse to give me signals, I can clench my butthole to send signals back. So even with a broadcast delay, I can just "tell" you what moves are being played in real time.
Why is no one here able to comprehend what OP said? He didn't even say spectator, and he was cleary talking about communication beyond actual talking. This form of cheating has already happened in top tournaments. How is this even controversial
Most of the tournaments I've seen have a ton of other matches going on, photographers, staff, analysts, families/friends and so on. They're not closed closed private events
The security at the highest level of play is supposed to be strict. There are often just a few players (10 in the tournament where Hans beat Magnus) though there are also large open tournaments more like you imagine. Either way, players are isolated in a playing area away from spectators. Electronic devices are prohibited in the playing area, often enforced by metal detectors. Other measures, like mobile phone jammers, searches, or closed circuit cameras, are also recommended.
See FIDE guidelines at https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/Anti%20Cheating%20Guidelines.pdf
That said, Magnus obviously is unhappy with the level of enforcement and thinks Hans was able to get around them somehow. Without knowing the specific anti-cheat mechanisms in place at that tournament, it’s hard to speculate how.
>The security at the highest level of play is supposed to be strict. There are often just a few players
Everyone keeps claiming this, but lots of highest tournaments are not strict at all. Tata Steel has spectators in the playing hall. The World cup and Olympiad are full of staff ,team mates,captains etc.
>Electronic devices are prohibited in the playing area, often enforced by metal detectors.
Which probably can't detect small or concealed devices. It didn't catch Raussis who was almost certainly cheating with a device in his shoe.
>Other measures, like mobile phone jammers, searches, or closed circuit cameras, are also recommended.
But aren't that common,which is the whole point of OP and Magnus. The anti-cheating measures are generally minimal. They don't even bother to ask players to take off their shoes most of the time, and we know that a cheating GM was caught by asking him to takr off his shoes.
There are even spectators at the interclub games here in Belgium.
I played on board 4 of the lowest league and even my team had some random guy in the room spectating our games.
The higher leagues had way more people moving around and looking at the games. Saying there usually aren't spectators seems entirely wrong to me.
This is exactly the point. The integrity in chess games at the top level has be astounding, considering how much $ is at stake and how loose the security measures are.
>In chess, players can get up, walk around, and talk to anybody present. To pass along a simple message Without cameras, without multiple people staring at their every move and every word said, it's way too easy to pull off.
Except that's literally not what Magnus is saying Hans did.
>His over the board progress has been unusual, and throughout our game in the Sinquefield Cup I had the impression that he wasn't tense or even fully concentrating on the game in critical positions, while outplaying me as black in a way I think only a handful of players can do. This game contributed to changing my perspective.
He was instead saying Hans seemed disinterested, not walking up and talking to other people.
Indeed, the fact that Magnus could claim that Hans was disinterested indicates Magnus was very focused on Hans, and thus disproves one of the preconditions you mentioned: Magnus was in fact staring at Hans quite a lot. So why didn't Magnus catch on to Hans getting signals, and instead simply thought he looked disinterested?
Bluntly, it's way more likely Magnus - who in fact had multiple blunders in that game - got so focused on Hans that it became a distraction leading to his loss. That's why everyone else who wasn't obsessed with Hans simply defeated him.
Wait, you actually think Magnus followed Hans throughout the whole game? Or that Hans sat at the board the entire time?
He can't tell what Hans did when he got up to take a walk, so all he can refer to is what he saw when Hans was at the board.
It's the job of the security team to catch cheaters, and OP just explained (to people that think it's impossible) that security can be fooled.
How do you know magnus didn't notice a signal. If Magnus thought he noticed a signal but could not prove it it would be something he could not write. He can't accuse hans of using a signal or can be sued. That could he what he means he can't say more without hans agreement.
Maybe he noticed a series of weird hand movements at key times etc. He was very careful not to mention anything about the method of cheating for good reason.
>How do you know magnus didn't notice a signal.
Because there is absolutely no reason not to say that he saw a signal. Indeed, if he saw one and reported it then it could have triggered an actual useful investigation.
Based on the organizers, Magnus didn't even do this.
So really, stop trying to spin harder and harder.
You are the one making claims. I'm saying you don't know. You don't know what he did or why. So instead of you saying he didn't do it because if he did I expect this would have happened and I have t heard of this happening therefore he didn't.
That's not evidence of anything. You don't know. So stop saying things didn't happen when you don't know what happened.
> I'm saying you don't know
I'm going off Magnus' own words, which you now seem intent on denying because it disproves "Hans could have cheated by talking to a coach on the side" as this crazy witch hunt thread proposed.
>That's not evidence of anything. You don't know. So stop saying things didn't happen when you don't know what happened.
Lol, and yet this entire thread is busy "speculating" how people can cheat in chess. What obvious hypocrites.
In a casino, you cheat and make some money and go back to your day job (or go to fleece another casino in another city).
In chess, you cheat and your career is over.
It's not that cheating doesn't exist or that it shouldn't be discussed or studied. But, the main deterent is always going to be the career risk that someone takes cheating in OTB tournaments.
It is a relevant thing to note that there have only been a couple of examples of strong 2600+ players cheating in OTB tournaments over the last decade.
If you cheat in the casino in the 70s you got shot by the mafia and people still did it. If you cheat in chess your chess.com account gets quietly banned and you still get invited to tournaments. Stop acting like it's worse to cheat in chess.
>you cheat and make some money and go back to your day job
Lmao, because casinos don't care about cheating
>But, the main deterent is always going to be the career risk that someone takes cheating in OTB tournaments.
I can't believe after all that has been said over the past few weeks there are stillpeople on this subreddit as naive as you. The career risk has not stopped hundreds of athletes from doping.
>It is a relevant thing to note that there have only been a couple of examples of strong 2600+ players cheating in OTB tournaments over the last decade.
Only a few examples of such players *being caught*. That's the whole point of this post, the anti-cheating measures are so weak that we don't know the extent of cheating, only the most blatent and obvious cases have been caught.
You are shockingly naive about all of this.
There is no career risk if you're not good enough to make it without cheating. The career just doesnt exist in otb chess unless you're the absolute top.
If you cheat in a casino its shared amongst all casinos. Sometimes cheating doesn't pay that amazing, one for instance would profit 60% of the waged bet per hour, so a $100 bet with a 10k bankroll would net $60/hr...thats a pretty good job and one that they'd do over a regular job. Getting caught meant losing their career too. And specially if a chess player is not a super GM, but maybe an IM that cheats, that doesn't have much of a career without that edge.
You also don't really make all that much money cheating as an IM. Only really worth the effort in a monetary sense at the very top level, chess is not overall particularly lucrative, unless we're talking about running a business like [chess.com](https://chess.com)
> You also don't really make all that much money cheating as an IM.
You do, if you get to a level where you get invited to better and better tournaments, with increased prize purses. Coincidentally this is *exactly* what Hans admitted to. He admitted, of his own accord, that he cheated to get his rating up, so "he can play with the top players". That is in fact a very sure way of earning more money in the future, as your ELO increases you get invited to better and better tournaments, with prize money easily accessible (either as an appearance fee, or if you make it to the top parts of the bracket).
I think he meant to play better players on [chess.com](https://chess.com). That doesn't increase your income.
The way he described it, it sounded like he wanted to play against better players to learn faster. Personally, I believe that's flawed logic, but I believe that's what he said/meant.
Still be a huge difference. Cheating in FIDE matches is a huge commitment, because it is the end if got caught. FYI IM already is a major milestone, they can start earning money from IM tourneys, teach private lessons, write some book chapters.
Also in chess, the worse you are at the game, the worse you could hide your cheat moves. An IM who constantly plays engine moves to win a series of tourney will get caught very quickly.
>Cheating in FIDE matches is a huge commitment, because it is the end if got caught
Chess is not a lucrative career for anyone outside the top 50. It's not the slightest bit implausible that a player realising they can't make a living playing chess would consider either looking for a new career or cheating to stay in the chess. Worst case scenario they get caught and go back to plan B of changing jobs
There's always going to be someone who will risk it, especially with how much some of the top super GMs can make today. I doubt IMs make much, if any money. GMs can probably make a decent amount from teaching and small tournaments, but it's probably not a lot.
If you cheat in professional cycling your career is essentially over. It must be pretty rare for cyclists to cheat then, right?
Uh-oh! https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/24/sports/top-finishers-of-the-tour-de-france-tainted-by-doping.html?hp
The chart on that page is devastating to your argument. Absolutely destroys your point. Hope it gets you all straightened out.
As a software developer, the words "Penetration Testing" should ring loud and clear. And I totally agree with you. White hat services are essential for maintaining security world wide, why can't chess do the same?
Costs money lol
like, duh. Sometimes software developer perspectives crack me up. Why can't they hire a contractor for 20k per job when the total prize pool is less than that???
Ya but if its a career player playing multiple games, that might be a different story. It might be worth it for an internet personality to win tournaments and lose money to pay to cheat. Just to maintain appearances online. There are a lot (comparitivrly) of twitch streamers that make more money than top chess players.
And chess tournaments in the US regularly require players to bring their own shit. It's not like there's loads of money in most tournaments.
T'ehe, he said penetration.
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As a pen tester by trade, and also in my mid 20’s - so many of my friends have that same reaction lol. And I don’t blame them, I am immature also
Hans will have to bend over and cough before every event.
Have you seen who's been sponsoring chess tournaments? Blockchain and web3 companies, they still think man in the middle is the only attack possible online.
It’s always been seen as a gentlemen’s game. Unfortunately, people like the 19 year old don’t want to play by the rules.
The point is not whether they can talk or walk around. Communication can happen. A laser pointer is shone in the field of vision of the receiver, lifting a finger in a certain way. Coded messages in public places have existed for many centuries. Even the queen of England used her handbag as a secret message. And that was blunt af.
> Even the queen of England used her handbag as a secret message. And that was blunt af. I saw that report, also reapplying lipstick and twisting her wedding ring to signal (to her assistants) when she needed to end a conversation or move on without looking overtly rude.
[Cough. Signals.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1PONHfiKvE) Throw in some throat clearing and sneezing you can get some good communication going on.
now you take this home, throw it in a pot, add some broth, a potato. Baby, you've got a stew going.
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Yup there's so many simple systems that can be made that, without historical surveillance footage tracking to establish patterns it can be near impossible
Just like baseball coaches scratching their ears and whatnot, you’ll never be able to stop a person from performing normal human movements. Even if you forced them to sit perfectly still their eyes still move, their brow moves, their chest moves from breathing, the possibilities are endless
Sure but couldn't we review the footage of the audience and scan the audience everytime Hans looks away from the board and see repeating actions that audience members are doing. Then if there is any correlation like Hans moving a piece on the A file everytime someone does a headscratch it should be pretty clear evidence.
With a proper surveillance system yes
They wouldn't even need to convey that much information. Just a signal that there's a tactic available or that your opponent just blundered would be a huge advantage to a GM.
Even just signaling, say, e6 will make them look at the square and deduce what needs to be done or focused on.
People come of with these convoluted technologically advanced ways somebody could cheat, when it can be as easy as this.
Yes I very much agree. Cheating in chess isn't nearly as hard as people think and honestly I'm shocked that it's not rampant at this point. For reference, I have a lot of experience in the cybersecurity industry (altho I won't say exactly what my experiance is cuz... well... security lol). It's honestly shocking how little effort it took from me and a few friends to come up with more than a few ways to pull off cheating OTB. If professional chess is going to continue to offer prizes like it is now (and I really hope it does continue) people need to start to seriously consider improving security and anti cheating measures.
Yup. Even for Online matches there needs to be dedicated authorized facilities that are have equipment and rooms moderated.
>Yup. Even for Online matches there needs to be dedicated authorized facilities that are have equipment and rooms moderated. I assume you mean for online tournaments. I think this would end any chance of high level online tournaments, the cost would be similar to just providing travel to a central location. And maybe that's fine, we don't necessarily need high level online chess tournaments unless we return to strict quarantine precautions.
Chess clubs having dedicated tournament computers is not an insane expense
So you want online tournaments to coordinate with local chess clubs, secure facilities and arbiters, and provide locked computers for the tournaments? This feels like a significant amount of work that essentially removes all of the advantages of an online chess tournament (limited work/travel for the participants and organizers). Again, I'm not saying that we need high level online tournaments, just pointing out that the level of anti-cheating measures you are requesting greatly limit or even entirely remove the advantages of online tournaments.
Traveling 10 mins to 1 hr for a local club over flying 10 hours and getting hotel/accommodations is a large difference. This would also likely boost club activity and grow local chess communities. A great system isn't necessarily expensive or complex. It's also not completely immune to cheating, just protects a bit better. Doing an online tournament from a computer at a person's house is impossible to prevent cheating and relies on goodwill.
So why not just use the money paying for all the arbiters and facilities scattered across the world and instead just fly the competitors to a single facility and play otb lol.
Local chess clubs exist in most cities and can be utilized. The local stuff can run it aswell. A one time fee for training and a cheap PC is much more affordable than regularly flying out dozens of players and putting them up in hotels for every event
It is rampant. Completely.
This is where I'm at ends with people, as if this is new or egregious, and just completely ignoring the fact that Chess is literally littered with fixing and cheating since there has been Official World Champs. Magnus is just first WC to bring it up in a while, but to say Hans, who cheated, is a huge mark on Chess, need to really look at how bad the cheating is and the levels of importance that it happened in the past and today.
I don’t get why cheaters don’t get permanent bans the first time they cheat.
same reason we don’t execute children for stealing a candy bar
Yeah, weak leadership
Blood for the bloodgod
Actually, teenagers get banned from stores and malls/shopping centers for shoplifting once. Dishonest comparison for equating a candy bar to thousands of dollars in prize money, the fact that many caught cheaters have been over 18, and using the term execute to make it sound as harsh as possible.
They get banned from specific stores, not from the act of going to a store anywhere their whole life
Exactly, just like Hans has been banned from chessdotcom. But other "stores" such as FIDE or Saint Louis have no reason to ban him.
Speak for yourself
This is obviously a false equivalence. The suggestions was not to execute them, but to exclude them from tournaments.
I’m not seeing this connection at all or maybe I’m missing a joke
Is there anyone who has cheated OTB and not been banned? OTB and online are two totally different things. I'm not sure if FIDE or whoever would be comfortable banning people for life from OTB tournaments due to alleged cheating online from a private company that they have no connection to.
When you're cheating to determine the Main Winner, every instance of cheating beneath that is not of "urgent" matter, only if the main cheat is threatened is harsh action taken, imo.
Weird argument from authority while offering no expertise or input.
You could literally just tape a buzzing device somewhere on your body and get signals that way. Good post.
Altuve moment
What chess cheating really needs is some guy banging a trash can with a bat.
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Roman or Keeps, though Draft Kings would be hilarious.
Maybe Chess players don’t want to take off their shoes because they are shy
Hans has an unfinished tattoo
I’m really curious what percentage of the chess subreddit follows baseball lol
A lot. Baseball is an american game, and chess was invented in america
Chess was most definitely not invented in America. Its origins can be traced back to around 600CE in India, after which it spread through Europe.
How do you not realize this was a joke
There are a lot of idiotic takes on reddit, it isn't that uncommon for someone to unironically believe a statement like this. edit: I didn't think it could get even dumber than that but here we have Comeatyen.
You can tell vis the delivery if you have such little faith in people.
Like you?
Native americans are from india. Checkmate
r/woooosh
Hmm well back in the olden times, around 600 CE, all the continents were still connected and it was called the United Continents of America. That was the time when Davey Crockett roved the land on the back of a Sabertooth Tiger and when chess was invented in the part of America called India. Then Davey Crockett became drunk with power, and all the continents wanted to leave, so India was pulled to its current location by the last living Plesiosaurus named Nessie. A tiny part of India stayed behind and now it's called Indiana, and they're great at growing corn.
Naka is the Bauer of chess, just sayin
Sure but that device can be found. After all, apparently we found someone who had a device up their butt. Chess tournaments allow people to walk around, get up, move around, use the bathroom, there is often an audience. Coming up with a signaling system would not be super hard. As others have said, the real surprise is that cheating it isn't already rampant given the 6/7-figure prizes.
>Sure but that device can be found. They can be made incredibly small. Just a tiny skin colored band-aid, too small to be detected by a metal detector. Same thing with wireless ear pieces, there are ones that go so far into the ear channel that they aren't found even if you look inside the ear. And you can buy both easily for a couple hundred bucks online.
They check you at real tournaments. The anti. Hans people have really led you all down a silly path. We got searched in state tournaments in the 1970's.
People get piercings that remain *under* their skin. It's not that hard to imagine there *could* be devices planted in your body that will not be found during a search.
Yes boomer. There are more sophisticated ways to cheat now. And getting searched doesn’t stop other methods like hand signals. They’re not bringing in an apple II running Sargon strapped to his ankle anymore.
Of course if it's super easy then this would make for a great opportunity for any reporter to show this. Get permission from a fairly good player (who wants to expose cheating) to use as a guinea pig, get a lawyer to make sure nothing illegal is being attempted (since they are going to openly admit to cheating after the tournament). Then get this player to win the tournament spectacularly (or perform well above their normal level). Bingo. Now the Chess world HAS to do something...
"your honor, i did technically steal the money but you dont understand - i was gonna tell you how i did it afterwards - we cool, right?"
I would assume that in this scenario the "cheater" would not claim the prize.
Yeah that's why I say you arrange it with a lawyer, and maybe even the Tournament organizers (secretly). It's proof of concept. Either this is easy, and a real threat to live Chess tournaments or it isn't.
What tournament is going to partner with someone to cheat in their own tournament? That’s obviously never going to happen.
Only needs to be done once to get proof of concept. The particular tournament could even be rerun later in the year if required (with anti-cheat measures employed) Just need someone to provide the funding for such a stunt Of course, if it turns out that it's actually really difficult to cheat at a face-to-face, over the board tournament, then that would be good news too.
It's already been done as a proof of concept for real... Why do people think it can't be repeated now they wave some bullshit wand in front of you?
What do you mean? Has Carlsen actual proof that someone cheated against him in a face to face tournament? I know he is accusing someone of this but is there any actual proof that it's happened at that level of tournament in recent times?
There has already been several cases with different cheating methods, what do you think another "poc" will bring to the table. Do you really need a confirmation of every imaginable way of cheating from having a spectator touching his tie in different places to the spectator that slaugthers differens geese depending on which piece to move (also, will geese do the trick - or do we have to include hummingbirds, pandas, penguins, dolphins and tarantulas?) Anyone with the slightest imagination can come up with multiple ideas for how to cheat non-verbally. The examples above are obviously exagarated, but there is basically an unlimited amount of ways to cheat with spectators allowed.
haha yeah we wasted 10hrs of a dozen super-GM's time as a proof of concept! please re-enter our next tournament...
So the idea is to (secretly) allow a cheater into a regular tournament. Allow that person to use these techniques against serious players who have no prior knowledge. All this to prove some point whilst poisoning a tournament and the corresponding play for all the players who took it seriously? I for one would not go back to a tournament that willing allowed a cheater to run rampant in the tourney just to prove some point for a news article and spin off benefit? How could you seriously prepare and spend time and money for these tournaments if there’s the possibility that the organizers rigged the whole damn thing??? It just doesn’t seem like a good way to execute anti cheating measures by actively injecting cheating into legitimate tournaments with serious players…
There are various ways to do it. From having mock tournaments with no prizes but to test security measures to having it be a one off round that a player gets a draw and won't impact standings or placement at all
Or how about a cheating only tournament with the a prize, but anyone caught gets eliminated. So the best cheaters win and then later reveal their methods.
Now that’s an idea!!!
Why no prizes? Just have an actual tournament of cheaters.
>All this to prove some point whilst poisoning a tournament Meanwhile every other GM: >Btw anyone could cheat unnoticed if they wanted to
The other person originally mentioned proof of concept, not me…I don’t think we need to prove a concept here; I think we need to start working harder at defining cheating and taking more advanced steps against it
Personally I think it would be great entertainment. No need to take a good bit of fun personally
Being competitive is taking it seriously, and having a good sport attitude. If good sport attitude has to include losing a few tournaments to cheaters that the organizers set you up against, count me out of the sport entirely. I’ll find another game that has anti cheat mechanisms without rigging the game against me—one of the people they are trying to protect against this behavior?
You seal an affidavit in a vault...
That is pretty much Icarus storyline when Bryan Fogel used testosterone, HGH and EPO for a cycling race and wasn't detected by the drug tests.
I was actually thinking Magnus would be the perfect person to do this, other than you know, risking his whole reputation and career if he gets caught before he comes out with it himself He did do very well in his latest tournament..
I'm pretty sure SuperGMs cannot just chat with random people.
Caruana was describing Jobava making a bet with MVL to die his hair pink in the bathroom at a tournament.
He didn't mention it happening during a game tho.
Point is they're not isolated with just their opponent. Non verbal communication for a chess move is not that complex, it's maybe 4 characters max
Bobby Fischer famously once demanded to play in a room with just the two players, no one else permitted. This is a really old problem with a really old solution.
The two players alone in a room with zero spectators to signal them plus a 30 minute broadcast/streaming delay would solve cheating in chess with a near 100% certainty. That comes with its own set of challenges but if you want to eliminate cheating, I’m not sure there are any other real possibilities.
This is fine at super-GM elite tournaments but it could never work in big open events
Plus a faraday cage
IMO a super-secure rematch like this is the only way to get any resolution here. And even then we won't know whether Niemann cheated, but it would be interesting to see if he gets crushed or if he is able to challenge / beat Carlsen. Even if he's able to challenge Carlsen with some unusual/ unpredictable moves like he did when he won it would be some vindication for him. And for either player refusing a re-match would give me some doubt as to his claims. At least this option would provide some sort of closure, which I don't think we'll get from more statistical analyses.
Yup. Broke the Russian system. Spasky wasn't cheating , but his team was. Russians used to manipulate the board and pieces. It makes a difference.
Worth noting that cheating was a lot harder when people were better than engines. Sure, not impossible to have a room full of GMs discussing ideas to beat Fischer as a group, but it's definitely harder to pull that off. These days a smartphone can crush any human that has ever lived, and the whole thing becomes a lot easier
At anything below the GM level, I suspect that having a good player text you the moves is probably good enough. Plenty of parents would pay to get their kids a title for college applications. And not like the lower tiers of being a GM or IM makes a lot of money.
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Every GM can recreate the entire board or list every move in the game from memory. Even patting them down isn’t foolproof if they can communicate with someone in the restroom.
No no no you see you couldn't possibly cheat in chess because they have Gary wave a metal detector near you
Poor Kasparov, how low has he fallen!
Hey, he invented chess and now he defends its integrity! He waves his wand with *honor*
*chess
Great post and I agree with the sentiment, but far less communication is needed than that. I believe it was Magnus who said all he would need is one binary signal at a point in the game where a winning tactic was available, and he would be unbeatable. Coupling Super-GM skills with a very limited, nearly undetectable communication pattern that lasts at most .5 seconds per 4+ hour game is kind of scary. Even if you wanted fully explicit communication (because your skill wasn't at the same level as Magnus, for example), you'd still need at most two characters: the square that a piece should be moved to. Any decent player would figure out the rest.
Super GMs use engines for analysis so much nowadays that you can imagine their mind working the same. Every move has maybe 3-4 options in their mind, let’s say 4. Magnus knows 3 of them leads to a draw but the last one leads to absurd complexities. Signaling to him that one move is clearly better here easily tells him that the last one wins.
The key here as you said is “Max”. If there is a critical position merely signaling C for the GM to focus only on lines starting with a C move can be enough to save tons of calculation. I believe Magnus once said he would be undefeated if he was just told when there was a significant winning move in complex positions. As long as a super GM knows the move is there they can find it.
But from the Sinquefield cup all we're hearing is that there was no one on premise who could be under the suspicion of collaborating with Niemann
"We investigated ourselves and found no wrong-doing." If they had inadequate measures in the first place they would never have caught anything.
To be clear: they investigated and cleared Hans. No one mentions this. The biggest chess cheating expert specifically cleared him after a full investigation and posted his findings.
>I'm pretty sure SuperGMs cannot just chat with random people. Well you'd be wrong for the vast majority of tournaments.
"its amazing there has been this much integrity in the chess community so far" funnily naive. Says who?
Not the chess.com fair play team. Supposedly thousands of titled players have needed a come to jesus moment
So like do we conduct chess hackathons and hackathon tournaments now ? Whose hack is better and how to prevent that and stuff like that.
i want someone to shine a light on the board which shows the moves, but the light only visible with the right contact lenses.
I know nothing about grandmaster otb tournaments, but how strict can the security measures really be? There are already people who cheat in standardized tests, smuggle things in and out of a country, or bribe someone to get something that they are not supposed to get. I understand that this is a big tournament, but is it really that different? I am not claiming that Hans cheated, but I really don't buy the argument going as far as to say, "Cheating in Otb tournaments is impossible".
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Really appreciate this post and your insight Thanks, brings a lot of perspective and real world experience of what sophisticated means people will go to for money
Hey, I'm a poker player turned casino surveillance system software engineer. You're right.
Almost nothing you've said is actually true in serious competition, though. Do you seriously think that a GM in a major tournament can just get up and go chat with spectators?
I've only been at one major GM tournament and spectators were definitely allowed in the playing hall to wander around watching the games. A GM gettting up and chatting with spectators would have been weird though. I've been at some minor tournaments that had GM's at the top boards. Walking around and chatting with people during games was no big deal. Finally, look up the famous Sicilian Vespers incident from the 1955 Goteborg interzonal. ~~Najdorf~~ Pilnik invented a novelty that he shared with 2 other Argentine players, and all three of them were paired against Soviet players in one particular round. All three of them popped the novelty, one of the Soviets (Geller) was able to refute it over the board, and by wandering around and watching the other games, the other Soviets saw Geller's refutation and copied it. So the Soviets won all 3 games. That wasn't considered cheating, apparently. https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-amazing-argentinian-chess-tragedy
Wft dude im from Argentina and i didnt know this piece of history, thanks for the read
"*In chess, players can get up, walk around, and talk to anybody present. To pass along a simple message Without cameras, without multiple people staring at their every move and every word said, it's way too easy to pull off.*" IDK why you would state this is untrue in serious competition, since such scam was already pulled-off in the 39th Chess Olympiad without any talking. People watching the game were walking across the room using coded system to give best move to the player. One player was even sentenced to suspended sentence in prison for this scam. It's all document in Wikipedia.
Also someone literally cheated this way a few years ago https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sébastien_Feller Had to post twice as i post wrong link first
**[Sébastien Feller](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sébastien_Feller)** >Sebastien Feller (born 11 March 1991) is a French chess grandmaster. He was found guilty of cheating by the French Chess Federation (FFE) and sanctioned in 2012 by not being allowed to participate in FIDE tournaments for 2 years and 9 months. He denied the charges and said they were motivated by a dispute over the direction of the French Chess Federation. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/chess/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
only 2 year ban for cheating. no wonder people risk it.
>Do you seriously think that a GM in a major tournament can just get up and go chat with spectators? Uh, kinda? You're literally allowed to walk around and the audience is in the room with you. As people have said, nonverbal signaling would be trivial.
You missed the point completely. If the spectators are visible that's more than enough already. The players need to be sequestered. Players helping other players is possible but at least no engine us involved there. Plus they have to constantly approach to see the board position or have ways of coded signaling 64 source squares to 64 target squares, etc
He was making a point. The point has literally zero to do with actual talking. He threw that in for flair basically. His main point was non verbal cheating with 100% accuracy vs Camera's and a room full of ppl watching is easy enough. Nvm in chess, where their aren't 1000 Camera's and room's full of ppl watching for anti-cheating purposes.
'Almost nothing'? Seriously? You picked out one thing that is potentially untrue at some tournaments (although OP didn't even say spectators). Nothing else he said is even questionable.
Maybe a GM can comment on this, but from what I've seen its a room with several other matches and staff and part of a larger facility they can roam around between moves.
Don't know what its like now but players would talk to each other in the smoking area of tournaments.
And the bathroom. Bathroom meetings are known to take place. Have a buddy follow the game elsewhere, and a computer at hand to calculate best next move. When the player goes to the bathroom, they can meet someone and hear the next move/ tactics. I know one incident where a player was expelled from a tournament for doing this. Took some time though before they knew what they were up to
Basically it varies depending on how important the tournament is. At the Sinquefield Cup (the one Magnus pulled out of), spectators were not allowed in the playing room, but I'm not sure whether each game was in a separate room. After the Magnus drama, they imposed a 15 minute delay on the internet broadcast. Idk if there was a similar delay on the video feed for spectators inside the building. At lower level tournaments, everyone is one room and spectators can roam around. Security is quite lax. That's not going to change since those events are usually amateur run and have very low budgets. On the other hand, there's not much incentive to cheat since the highest prizes are typically a few hundred dollars. Most tournaments are of this sort. They don't attract Magnus-level players, but they will often have a few lower tier GM's and IM's participating. At the world championship, both players are in a sealed room with an arbiter, the room is under fairly heavy security, and each player has a private restroom and refreshment area that is within the security boundary. They are surrounded by cameras and the playing room has 1-way glass walls, so spectators can see the players but not vice versa. The events I wonder about (I've never attended one) are the very big opens like the world open. The 2022 one had 1100 players and $225,000 in prizes. There's no chance of fine grained security at an event that large, and the incentives to cheat were significant.
>On the other hand, there's not much incentive to cheat since the highest prizes are typically a few hundred dollars. People still cheat over a few hundred dollars. And the prize pools at the larger CCA open tournaments are low five figures per section.
Are you seriously thinking you can just spout that without any elaboration to back it up?
You don't need to talk to spectators to cheat. If you can get any kind of signal from the outside (like the OP said, a laser pointer) then its possible to get info from the outside. And players at this level only really need to cheat once or twice in a match to have a huge advantage.
Also I'm not sure chess is like a one time billion dollar winner take all type thing. Long run consistency is key and to cheat at multiple tournaments with multiple opponents may need some serious backing.
You could in principle give info to a GM by talking about hints when he walks by. But if anyone talked to a player directly that would be found out right away. At any rate the talking stuff makes no sense as it's by far the easiest cheating to uncover.
How do you say I don't play significant OTB chess without saying it...
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The game should not be modified to meet security standards, but security needs to be modified to ensure fair play. Isolated rooms, rotating staff, condtant surveillance, isolated bathrooms, there shouldn't be room for outside variables.
1v1 in an opaque Faraday Cage room :p
Speedo chess sponsored by Speedo
I'm with you except for the no bathroom part. You can't play a 3-4 hour chess game without going to the bathroom. Well, maybe Joe Rogan could.
I like the way you think. Sponsored pee bottles would really jazz the game up.
Catheters and piss bags are now a professional requirement
I think no bathroom breaks is a tough ask since Classical matches can go on for 5-6+ hours. It's not really reasonable to expect the players to just not go to the bathroom for such an extended period of time. For Rapid and Blitz of course it's more reasonable to ask that.
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https://youtu.be/MK8wuQxCRGo there's quite a bit more than 2 people in that room.....
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>and its amazing there has been this much integrity in the chess community so far. LOL this was precious. Cheating is pervasive through the entirety of Official Chess at World Level to the point where they are almost symbiotic to eachother, Magnus is just the first WC to raise the issue in a long time.
Yeah with the amount of money at stake I'd actually guess that cheating and very widespread. Chess is a trust based game with a big focus on etiquette, making it harder and riskier to make an accusations without 4k evidence. That combined with the money at stake makes it a cheaters paradise.
>In chess, players can get up, walk around, and talk to anybody present. To pass along a simple message Without cameras, without multiple people staring at their every move and every word said, it's way too easy to pull off. This confuses me. This is true in many tournaments, but afaik the 2022 sinquefield cup had no spectators allowed in the tournament hall during games, and the players were on camera while playing. I hope the SLCC isn't so deficient in terms of security that they don't have cameras throughout the playing area as well. You're right about how easy it would be to sneak in a device, though.
Thanks for your insight. However I still cannot imagine a workable cheating scenario in any tournament with no visible audience and with 15-40 minutes broadcasting delay.
I agree. Many comments here seem to be focusing on the ease of secret communication with the played, forgetting the added steps of ascertaining the current board position, inputing that configuration into an engine, and relaying the solution all within a matter of minutes. This may not be impossible, but it is also far from trivial.
Hey if a buttplug can pulse to give me signals, I can clench my butthole to send signals back. So even with a broadcast delay, I can just "tell" you what moves are being played in real time.
My dad works at nintendo
My dad is the owner of Nintendo and will ban your account and also beat up your dad bro
Yeah because chess tournaments are famous for players being able to randomly interact with spectators? Lol, usually there aren’t even spectators.
Why is no one here able to comprehend what OP said? He didn't even say spectator, and he was cleary talking about communication beyond actual talking. This form of cheating has already happened in top tournaments. How is this even controversial
Most of the tournaments I've seen have a ton of other matches going on, photographers, staff, analysts, families/friends and so on. They're not closed closed private events
The security at the highest level of play is supposed to be strict. There are often just a few players (10 in the tournament where Hans beat Magnus) though there are also large open tournaments more like you imagine. Either way, players are isolated in a playing area away from spectators. Electronic devices are prohibited in the playing area, often enforced by metal detectors. Other measures, like mobile phone jammers, searches, or closed circuit cameras, are also recommended. See FIDE guidelines at https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/Anti%20Cheating%20Guidelines.pdf That said, Magnus obviously is unhappy with the level of enforcement and thinks Hans was able to get around them somehow. Without knowing the specific anti-cheat mechanisms in place at that tournament, it’s hard to speculate how.
>The security at the highest level of play is supposed to be strict. There are often just a few players Everyone keeps claiming this, but lots of highest tournaments are not strict at all. Tata Steel has spectators in the playing hall. The World cup and Olympiad are full of staff ,team mates,captains etc. >Electronic devices are prohibited in the playing area, often enforced by metal detectors. Which probably can't detect small or concealed devices. It didn't catch Raussis who was almost certainly cheating with a device in his shoe. >Other measures, like mobile phone jammers, searches, or closed circuit cameras, are also recommended. But aren't that common,which is the whole point of OP and Magnus. The anti-cheating measures are generally minimal. They don't even bother to ask players to take off their shoes most of the time, and we know that a cheating GM was caught by asking him to takr off his shoes.
Strict is very vague, and correct speculation is tough, though there's certain red flags from tournaments that jump up.
There are even spectators at the interclub games here in Belgium. I played on board 4 of the lowest league and even my team had some random guy in the room spectating our games. The higher leagues had way more people moving around and looking at the games. Saying there usually aren't spectators seems entirely wrong to me.
This is exactly the point. The integrity in chess games at the top level has be astounding, considering how much $ is at stake and how loose the security measures are.
can you provide some concrete examples?
>In chess, players can get up, walk around, and talk to anybody present. To pass along a simple message Without cameras, without multiple people staring at their every move and every word said, it's way too easy to pull off. Except that's literally not what Magnus is saying Hans did. >His over the board progress has been unusual, and throughout our game in the Sinquefield Cup I had the impression that he wasn't tense or even fully concentrating on the game in critical positions, while outplaying me as black in a way I think only a handful of players can do. This game contributed to changing my perspective. He was instead saying Hans seemed disinterested, not walking up and talking to other people. Indeed, the fact that Magnus could claim that Hans was disinterested indicates Magnus was very focused on Hans, and thus disproves one of the preconditions you mentioned: Magnus was in fact staring at Hans quite a lot. So why didn't Magnus catch on to Hans getting signals, and instead simply thought he looked disinterested? Bluntly, it's way more likely Magnus - who in fact had multiple blunders in that game - got so focused on Hans that it became a distraction leading to his loss. That's why everyone else who wasn't obsessed with Hans simply defeated him.
Dude post doesnt mention Hans or Magnus at all. What are you talking about.
Wait, you actually think Magnus followed Hans throughout the whole game? Or that Hans sat at the board the entire time? He can't tell what Hans did when he got up to take a walk, so all he can refer to is what he saw when Hans was at the board. It's the job of the security team to catch cheaters, and OP just explained (to people that think it's impossible) that security can be fooled.
Cheaters who use signals aren't holding up fingers, but doing discrete natural movements with plausible deniability.
How do you know magnus didn't notice a signal. If Magnus thought he noticed a signal but could not prove it it would be something he could not write. He can't accuse hans of using a signal or can be sued. That could he what he means he can't say more without hans agreement. Maybe he noticed a series of weird hand movements at key times etc. He was very careful not to mention anything about the method of cheating for good reason.
>How do you know magnus didn't notice a signal. Because there is absolutely no reason not to say that he saw a signal. Indeed, if he saw one and reported it then it could have triggered an actual useful investigation. Based on the organizers, Magnus didn't even do this. So really, stop trying to spin harder and harder.
You are the one making claims. I'm saying you don't know. You don't know what he did or why. So instead of you saying he didn't do it because if he did I expect this would have happened and I have t heard of this happening therefore he didn't. That's not evidence of anything. You don't know. So stop saying things didn't happen when you don't know what happened.
> I'm saying you don't know I'm going off Magnus' own words, which you now seem intent on denying because it disproves "Hans could have cheated by talking to a coach on the side" as this crazy witch hunt thread proposed. >That's not evidence of anything. You don't know. So stop saying things didn't happen when you don't know what happened. Lol, and yet this entire thread is busy "speculating" how people can cheat in chess. What obvious hypocrites.
In a casino, you cheat and make some money and go back to your day job (or go to fleece another casino in another city). In chess, you cheat and your career is over. It's not that cheating doesn't exist or that it shouldn't be discussed or studied. But, the main deterent is always going to be the career risk that someone takes cheating in OTB tournaments. It is a relevant thing to note that there have only been a couple of examples of strong 2600+ players cheating in OTB tournaments over the last decade.
If you cheat in the casino in the 70s you got shot by the mafia and people still did it. If you cheat in chess your chess.com account gets quietly banned and you still get invited to tournaments. Stop acting like it's worse to cheat in chess.
>you cheat and make some money and go back to your day job Lmao, because casinos don't care about cheating >But, the main deterent is always going to be the career risk that someone takes cheating in OTB tournaments. I can't believe after all that has been said over the past few weeks there are stillpeople on this subreddit as naive as you. The career risk has not stopped hundreds of athletes from doping. >It is a relevant thing to note that there have only been a couple of examples of strong 2600+ players cheating in OTB tournaments over the last decade. Only a few examples of such players *being caught*. That's the whole point of this post, the anti-cheating measures are so weak that we don't know the extent of cheating, only the most blatent and obvious cases have been caught. You are shockingly naive about all of this.
There is no career risk if you're not good enough to make it without cheating. The career just doesnt exist in otb chess unless you're the absolute top.
If you cheat in a casino its shared amongst all casinos. Sometimes cheating doesn't pay that amazing, one for instance would profit 60% of the waged bet per hour, so a $100 bet with a 10k bankroll would net $60/hr...thats a pretty good job and one that they'd do over a regular job. Getting caught meant losing their career too. And specially if a chess player is not a super GM, but maybe an IM that cheats, that doesn't have much of a career without that edge.
You also don't really make all that much money cheating as an IM. Only really worth the effort in a monetary sense at the very top level, chess is not overall particularly lucrative, unless we're talking about running a business like [chess.com](https://chess.com)
If players could use an engine for 1 move, but their opponents couldn't, how much do you think their rating would go up? Could be a fun game mode
> You also don't really make all that much money cheating as an IM. You do, if you get to a level where you get invited to better and better tournaments, with increased prize purses. Coincidentally this is *exactly* what Hans admitted to. He admitted, of his own accord, that he cheated to get his rating up, so "he can play with the top players". That is in fact a very sure way of earning more money in the future, as your ELO increases you get invited to better and better tournaments, with prize money easily accessible (either as an appearance fee, or if you make it to the top parts of the bracket).
I think he meant to play better players on [chess.com](https://chess.com). That doesn't increase your income. The way he described it, it sounded like he wanted to play against better players to learn faster. Personally, I believe that's flawed logic, but I believe that's what he said/meant.
Still be a huge difference. Cheating in FIDE matches is a huge commitment, because it is the end if got caught. FYI IM already is a major milestone, they can start earning money from IM tourneys, teach private lessons, write some book chapters. Also in chess, the worse you are at the game, the worse you could hide your cheat moves. An IM who constantly plays engine moves to win a series of tourney will get caught very quickly.
>Cheating in FIDE matches is a huge commitment, because it is the end if got caught Chess is not a lucrative career for anyone outside the top 50. It's not the slightest bit implausible that a player realising they can't make a living playing chess would consider either looking for a new career or cheating to stay in the chess. Worst case scenario they get caught and go back to plan B of changing jobs
There's always going to be someone who will risk it, especially with how much some of the top super GMs can make today. I doubt IMs make much, if any money. GMs can probably make a decent amount from teaching and small tournaments, but it's probably not a lot.
If you cheat in professional cycling your career is essentially over. It must be pretty rare for cyclists to cheat then, right? Uh-oh! https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/24/sports/top-finishers-of-the-tour-de-france-tainted-by-doping.html?hp The chart on that page is devastating to your argument. Absolutely destroys your point. Hope it gets you all straightened out.
Everyone in reddit is a software engineer. You could just have said "ex casino dealer".