I am very sorry to see this position being posted. Niemann has been caught cheating in chess twice before, less than three years ago. He should never have been allowed to play in the cup. It was FIDE's decision not to collect the concrete evidence that would have caught him in the first place, and we must make do with the circumstantial evidence. As it stands, Niemann is a demonstrated cheater, and has more to gain by cheating in a game against the world champion than at any other time. It is very unlikey that Hans only cheated exactly the two times he was caught, and his failure to produce other instances than the times when he was caught are a mark against him.
Remember that we are not giving him the death penalty, we are just trying to establish which scenario is more likely. It is important to be able to render most likely judgments based on incomplete information. Its not a courtroom.
Niemann has admitted cheating, but only in online chess, not over the board.
That's not to say he should be allowed to play, but only to note that live play is kind of a different ball game compared to doing it online. Online, it's you alone in a room (with a second computer). Similar cheating over the board would require some kind of hidden communications device, and probably an assistant.
The largest state that we have successfully managed to isolate from communication with the rest of the universe is on the order of 15 qubits. I think you do not appreciate just how easy it is to get information through a channel. Or rather how difficult it would be to prove that such a channel was used.
This is, however, irrelevant. Hans Niemann is a chess cheat. Allowing him to set the narrative to "I've only cheated online" is the same as allowing him to set the narrative to "I've only ever cheated while wearing green clothes".
Yeah, but imagine if the CEO of the store goes on twitter and talks about you when you try and visit the store at 19, and your name and face is in the news for the rest of your life!
Edit: you've been breaking the HN guidelines a ton lately. If you keep that up, we're going to have to ban you. Please review the rules and stick to them so we don't have to do that.
I know the feeling, believe me, but from a mod perspective I can tell you that everyone always feels that way (myself included). It seems to be a hard-wired bias we all have. Therefore, everyone needs to make a conscious effort to follow the site guidelines despite that feeling (myself included). I appreciate your response!
We rate limit accounts when they post too many low-quality comments too quickly and/or get involved in flamewars. Your account is rate limited because it has done a ton of that.
All is not lost; if you use the site as intended for a while, i.e. posting substantive, thoughtful comments that follow the guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), you'd be welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and we can take a look and hopefully drop the rate limit.
Wrong. I've stolen things (I'm sure you have too - theft can be really small!) does that mean I should be labeled a thief in perpetuity? Beyond that, does it mean that I should be publicly shamed for it?
If you have a criminal record, you will not be hired into certain jobs. Try getting a job in a cloud vendor such as AWS, Azure or GCP. They do background checks for a reason — you will have access to customer data of banks, the CIA, and other high-risk data. These cloud vendors have controls, and one of the controls is to not hire people who don't pass background checks.
So yes, if you have admitted to cheating in chess in the past, you lose certain privileges, such as competing in world chess championship.
It is not possible to prove unless the Chess Federation subjects players to cavity search. I don't think the Chess Federation wants to set such an extreme precedent. So, the alternative is to exclude people who have admitted to cheating in the past. That's not wrong or immoral. Cheating is immoral. Losing some privileges goes with the territory and should be expected.
Correct, it is not possible to prove. If Magnus had anything - anything - other than "I felt this way" and "he seems too chill" I would suspect something. Those things could be:
- Hans was walking weird (something in his shoe)
- He was making weird movements
- He was distracted, or similar, indicating he's messing with some device
etc... then sure.
Magnus did not say these things, and that is telling.
What I believe happened is Magnus (someone who has presented a lot of anxiety in the past - see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR-4_ouXUV4 but easy to find other examples) was really nervous that Hans may be cheating, and that impacted Magnus's play (he played a very poor game).
"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."
---
Personally I don't think that's strong enough reason to convince me that Niemann is a cheat. However, I would love to see more evidence before I change my position on this issue.
I agree. But at the same time it's absolutely destructive for other players playing a known cheater, spending so much energy on "is he cheating against me now?"
With how Hans responded to Carlsen's unorthodox opening and his history, it made Carlsen unsure and wrecked the rest of his game. And given Hans couldn't even explain his moves later..
The somewhat-concrete evidence is that analyzers have now found many instances where Niemann's moves correlate highly with engine-suggested moves.
I don't know the details as to whether that claim is credible. Is this correlation really any more for Niemann than any other grandmaster of similar strength? Are the analyzers cherry-picking data points that fit the narrative? And of course it is possible that Niemann is legitimately that good.
Reddit's /r/chess has loads of viewpoints and speculation, if you want to read more there.
There is a guy named Ken Regan who is one of the leading experts in this question of whether the correlation with engine moves is at a normal or abnormal level. His statement is that he analyzed the last two years of Hans' games and found no evidence of cheating. So, yeah, the people on Reddit are probably cherry picking.
The counter to that is that it looks likely that a clever high-level player could probably use an engine once or twice in a game in a judicious way and not raise statistical alarm bells. But still, Ken's work tries to suss out things like that--e.g. does the player in question make good moves in 'key' positions. Plus, continued use of such techniques over time would leave a statistical trail.
Honestly, Magnus' statement of, "well, he beat me and it didn't look like he was thinking hard" is pretty thin. Magnus knows that Hans has a history of cheating in online games when he was younger and to me it feels like he's just seeing ghosts and deep into confirmation bias territory. Especially since the game in question took place at a high-level tournament with rigorous anti-cheating scanning, etc.
Fabi (for those that don’t know, he’s another one of the best chess players in the world) gave a statement along the lines of, “I know of at least one case where I was certain cheating happened, and Regan’s analysis missed it, so take any of his analysis with a huge grain of salt.”
So here we have a whole bunch of the world’s best chess players and chess.com believing that Niemann repeatedly cheats, in addition to Niemann’s own admission to cheating in the past, and Regan taking the opposite stance.
Fabi also said (during the same interview, I'm sure) that he doesn't think Hans cheated. Your last statement there is really misleading and even dishonest.
No, it is not dishonest. Fabi said don’t trust Regan’s analysis. He also said that he didn’t think Hans cheated in that one game given the moves played (before Magnus gave his reasoning, so perhaps Fabi’s opinion would change). Fabi never said “Hans is not a cheater.” Rather, he argued it’s possible to cheat, and detection methods FIDE uses are not sufficient. If Hans is cheating, Fabi implied that Regan’s analysis likely wouldn’t catch it.
Magnus, Ian, and Hikaru at the very least have pretty openly (given the legal threats flying around) said/implied they believe Hans cheats, and chess.com has very explicitly said this.
Maybe not all of their comments and beliefs focus on this particular OTB game, but that’s not how you catch a cheater, since it’s rare to find a smoking gun. You look at a pattern of behavior. Hans has cheated in the past, and many top players believe he is cheating in some way, in at least some games, on a continued basis… which is why Magnus refuses to play Hans, and why we’re even having this discussion.
> If Hans is cheating, Fabi implied that Regan’s analysis likely wouldn’t catch it.
He implied that maybe it would not catch it. I don't read it as a "likely", especially given the fact that he said he doesn't think Hans cheated in this case.
Yeah. All nuance is out the window with this drama. Either you're one side or the other. Fabi seems to have been trying to take a nuanced stance, but it is being interpreted as him saying he thinks Hans cheated, which is not true at all.
having a history of cheating in a game that is mostly otherwise honor bound is a very very very bad sign. Don't be fooled by the "when he was younger" bit. Everything that you did you did when you were younger, it has been less time since hans was last caught cheating than the interval between that time and the previous one.
Don't let the statisticians convince you that they know what they're doing either. Statistics, as a discipline, is essentially predicated on the principle that the objects of study do not know that they are being observed. Without this assumption, the domain is now more accurately described as game theory. Statisticians will happily and confidently ignore this and draw very wrong conclusions as a result.
> Statistics, as a discipline, is essentially predicated on the principle that the objects of study do not know that they are being observed.
There is no such "principle" in statistics. Statistics is based on statistical methodology, i.e. formulas, models, and techniques that are used in statistical analysis of raw research data, which is collected, organized, analyzed, interpreted and presented. The Hawthorne effect, "a type of reactivity in which individuals modify an aspect of their behavior in response to their awareness of being observed,"[1] arose from analysis of a statistical study.
> Without this assumption, the domain is now more accurately described as game theory.
Game theory is utilized for decision-making in strategic environments where rational agents interact with each other. Statistics, on the other hand, is employed for reasoning in non-adversarial settings where the samples are assumed to be generated by some stationary and non-reactive source.
> Statisticians will happily and confidently ignore this and draw very wrong conclusions as a result.
Contradiction. You've already claimed that statistics is "essentially predicated on the principle that the objects of study do not know that they are being observed." Yet now you're claiming experts "confidently" ignore their discipline's "essentially predicated" principle.
There is a difference between a subject that changes with observation and a subject that changes adversarially with your statistical methods. A qualitative difference.
Statistical methods may include observation during the gathering of data. Whether or not change is measurably different from adversarial change depends on the variables chosen. It is clear that two distinct disciplines can approach the same problem with varying results without invalidating the entire other discipline. There is a difference between sound argument and a straw man employing equivocation. A qualitative difference.
Sorry for the late reply, I had to collect my thoughts a bit and I'm quite busy.
First, I have not invalidated the discipline, I have said not to trust statisticians who are clearly acting outside the bounds of the fundamental assumptions of statistics, and that statistical methods DO NOT function on adversaries. Consider the following two scenarios:
1) Alice and Bob are sending messages to each other in a lanugage I don't understand, and I, using statistical methods, wish to find out what they are saying.
2) Alice and Bob are sending messages to each other and don't want me to gain any information about this messages. I, using statistical methods, wish to find out what they are saying.
In scenario 1, I am likely to succeed. In scenario 2, the consensus is that I'm fucked. In just about every way. I can't tell what they're saying, I can't tell that any message that I have discerned is meant to mislead me, or doesn't carry some additional message hidden in the entropy of the message that was meant to mislead me. I can't tell if the communication is just noise meant to distract me, and if we want to talk practically, I can't even tell if they can communicate. Basically the only inference that I can draw is that they can't communicate faster than the speed of light.
Here's another example: Gerrymandering. The scenario is that one party has a clear advantage in terms of number of representatives vs proportion of population. We must establish whether that number was arrived at fairly, or by cheating. We assume that the party in charge of drawing the borders knows what tests we can perform, because that is always the assumption that you give to an adversary.
The adversary has a very simple (though potentially computationally expensive) algorithm to run. Check all possible border configurations for both advantage and your cheat detection. Pick the one which maximizes advantage which does not pass the cheat threshold, or just whatever your utility is.
Statistics needs the assumption of good faith in order to operate. Anyone who uses statistical methods when that assumption that cannot be made is at best a bad statistician.
> statistical methods DO NOT function on adversaries.
I think this is the essence of your argument. This can be defeated with counter-example. Test cheaters are adversarial to any detection of their cheating, yet statistical analysis can expose the cheater without much issue.
i believe that we are on the same page about this claim, but it does not salvage statistics. Originally i claimed that what happens is it becomes game theory. That was a bit of a simplification, but it is illustrated by your example.
In this case, statistical methods cannot positively identify no cheating, and the extent to which they can identify instances of cheating, it is because the observed party was not acting adversarially.
The algorithm i presented anove for gerrymandering is very general.
> i believe that we are on the same page about this claim,
I don't see how that is possible
> but it does not salvage statistics.
Statistics does not need salvaging.
> Originally i claimed that what happens is it becomes game theory. That was a bit of a simplification, but it is illustrated by your example.
My cheating statistics example is a counter-example that defeats your argument.
> In this case, statistical methods cannot positively identify no cheating,
That is the entire point of cheating statistical analysis, to determine if cheating occurred. If cheating is not statistically identified, then the analysis shows "positively" that cheating hasn't occurred.
> and the extent to which they can identify instances of cheating, it is because the observed party was not acting adversarially.
Statistical analysis of cheating does not involve direct observation, and any cheater is adversarial by definition.
> The algorithm i presented anove for gerrymandering is very general.
On the contrary, it is not only specific, it does not support your argument. Politicians are not statisticians, and the depth of statistical analysis is notably shallow and has a single factor, party affiliation.
Statistics is a very old and complex discipline. It is technically a branch of mathematics. In advancing the argument that a biased statistician can produce incorrect results, or that statistics can not accurately study adversarial subjects, the underlying fallacy to these arguments is hasty generalization. As laymen, we can not invalidate an entire discipline or even speculate the limits of such a discipline based on such very specific and synthetic circumstances.
Nobody knows how he was cheating. Without a strip search there's no way to be sure.
It is known that it's not technologically impossible. There are ways to do it, some of them rather outlandish but not infeasible.
Unfortunately, that's as far as it can go. Either you start doing something really extreme to ensure that players can't cheat (that aforementioned strip search, making them play in a Faraday cage, etc), you'll never really know.
Even worse than that, the cheating may not have gone on during the match. It could have been as simple as old-fashioned spying: studying what preparations Carlsen had made, and learning their weaknesses before the match even starts.
You can't really prevent that. The best you can hope for is for a chess expert to opine that this move seems like an unlikely thing for a human to play without the assistance of a computer. Carlsen is just such an expert, but obviously his opinion alone is much too biased.
> Even worse than that, the cheating may not have gone on during the match. It could have been as simple as old-fashioned spying: studying what preparations Carlsen had made, and learning their weaknesses before the match even starts.
If your opponent is playing white and someone from their team tells you "He's going to open with X move", so that's the only one you have to prepare against, that goes a long way to eliminating white's advantage.
