I think the simplest answer to all of this is a cage match.
Specifically, a Faraday Cage.
Magnus believes that Niemann is cheating via communication with a computer. Fine, let's completely remove the ability to communicate with a computer. Both men are searched on the way in. Heck, for fun lets have them play in tight sporting outfits so it's very clear what they are carrying and doing.
If Magnus destroys Niemann, he'll be able to pretty handily claim that Niemann can't win without communication to computers. If Niemann is competitive, or wins, it will be hard for Carlsen to make any more such claims.
And also, the sport will have a spectacle like we've never seen before. Tell me you wouldn't pay to watch that match!
How many milliwatts would you need to run Stockfish at ~2900 strength under classical time controls, and what's the smallest extant gadget in that power range?
(I'm assuming the I/O power would be negligible compared to compute, since it'd run at very low duty cycle).
it's absolutely doable, especially for someone with the commitment of a chess grandmaster, but the main here issue wouldn't be having the processing power to calculate the moves, it'd be the input bandwidth to update the computer with the moves.
yes a cheater could have - for example - a subdermal implant that vibrates to update them with a killer mid-game line to go down, but, without the internet, it would be a huge uphill struggle to update the board with the moves. certainly not impossible, especially if you were very dedicated, but very, very hard to get right, especially without getting caught under such scrutinous circumstances
In tournaments that have broadcast without delay you don't even need a computer. You can have a script reading the game and calculating at home. You just need to receive signals which is a way easier task. As you don't need to do input nor the actual computation.
You joke, but the only tournaments Hans has performed well in (2700+) are coincidentally the ones where the boards are sharing the moves live online. He performs at a 2400 level when the games aren't available online.
The same happend at Sinquefield cup: 3050+ performance with no delay in broadcast. About 2640 performance once security measures were introduced (and he was very very lucky to score 2/6 as he was completely lost in 2 of drawn games but his opponents has unusual mental lapses allowing him to escape).
It's a small sample size of course but it's a pattern, not an exception.
I think the answer is not that difficult really. All Hans Niemann's moves, all his games, are public information.
People can analyze them and form their own opinions about whether he has been cheating or not. The question "how" need not even be considered.
Carlsen has of course already looked at the games, with the experience of having preiviously looked at millions of games between humans, and millions of analyses from computer engines. And he must have realised that Niemann has achieved something unique, he has conducted many absolute masterpieces, sometimes one after the other in the same tournament, while being rated 2400-2500. Performances so perfect, that no other human has ever accomplished.
Also from a game theory point of view, it doesn't make much sense. Magnus would have nothing to win from such an encounter but a lot to lose. In his position I would never take such a deal.
Whether he is cheating or not, it doesn't make much sense for Hans either. Only one and unlikely outcome would be in his favor.
Cheater or not, he is A LOT more likely to lose to the current best player in the world. He won't gain anything from it. If he is a cheater odds are even lower. If he is honest and loses it would be devastating. If he is a cheater, it is a lot better for him to not take the deal and deny any wrongdoing.
With chess, at that level of play, you can't decide which player is better or worse by judging from a single game. Only the aggregate between many players playing between each other can tell you that - ELO system achieves that. So them sitting in a faraday cage naked after an X-ray and playing a single match would not tell much. If they played a whole lot of games against each other, it would more or less work but that is impractical and ridiculous.
This comment is beyond playing fast and loose with reality. It’s actually counter factual.
Pr Kenneth Regan who is the leading expert when it comes to cheating in chess did indeed do a statistical analysis of Niemann performance during the past two years [0]. He found no indication of cheating whatsoever.
Hypothetically speaking, why doesn’t someone make a proof of concept. Cheat. Have an exhibition and try to get away with cheating. Best way to tackle cheating is to invite people to give it your best shot.
> If Magnus destroys Niemann, he'll be able to pretty handily claim that Niemann can't win without communication to computers. If Niemann is competitive, or wins, it will be hard for Carlsen to make any more such claims.
I don't think that's very conclusive.
The thing is, there's still an element of luck[1] in chess. A lower-rated player can beat a higher-rated player, and a higher-rated player can dominate an even match.
I attended the EM wave propagation lectures years ago at my Uni, so my knowledge is rusty, and the following might not be something that is true in practice.
The faraday cage tries to equalize electrical field potential over space. It does so by allowing electrons to move more or less freely, typically inside a metal mesh.
But
a). metals (unless we use superconductors) have electrical resistance
b). electrons themselves have rest masses (i.e. don't accelerate infinitely quickly in response to force).
So, the movement of electrons is not instantaneous, therefore the electrical field cannot be equalized ideally. in effect we achieve attenuation of the signal, and not its complete blockage.
Secondly, the mesh must have some relation to the signal frequency (the wave-length), probably at 1:1 or 1:2 ratio. At some frequencies (terahertz, infra-red, visible, xray) you'll need pretty much a solid box to attenuate those.
And there's obviously tech which you cannot block/attenuate, like neutrinos. Producing and receiving such signals is however non-trivial and requires particle accelerators and large cavities filled with mineral oil and bulky detectors, so we can probably skip this :). Gravity waves belong to the same category.
You can also probably try to send and receive particles, like electrons or alpha particles if you use non-solid meshes.
Electron rest mass is negligible to other effects. Notably electron rest mass adds to the same effect as inductance. You can calculate the effective inductance of a piece of wire coming from the electron's rest mass, and it is several magnitudes smaller coming from the actual inductance coming from generated magnetic of the same electrons.
This is a terrible mythbusters way to test a hypothesis. What’s the variance and how many samples are needed for say 95% confidence in disproving null hypothesis?
WCC is a dozen+ rounds. Even then if you were watching it in the 9th game, it may appear the one player is stronger than the eventual champion.
The funny thing is that at this level, if a player is told they are losing or winning in a very complex position, they are often capable of figuring out how they are losing or winning precisely. The bits of information a top player needs to cheat are so few that for the average viewer it is inconceivable.
Why not just let him play and run analyses on the moves? Surely they can, for example, input all the moves into known chess engines and see if there's a match with the alledged cheater's moves. Then the match will be annulled and the guy ousted.
It's much harder than it sounds. Firstly a top level player will match the top engine move 65+% of the time when playing legit, so it isn't that unusual to have a run of quite a few engine moves in a row (especially since they aren't independent, some positions are easier to play than others).
Second, as Magnus has said in the past, if he has the ability to consult an engine at a single point in the game (of his choosing) he would be unstoppable. The reason is that in each game there are relatively few 'critical points' at which the result is decided.
That'd be really funny. Chess then became all about making a good move, but not too good, lest it may accidentially match with a chess engine and get you disqualified.
The meta would then to put the opponent in a spot with only one viable move option: They either get disqualified on the spot, or slowly suffer because they now lost an important piece.
I was never really good at chess, but even when playing async games with friends over gameknot(?) I'd often used the "if opponent does X, do Y" feature because some moves were just obvious.
Also, from what I gathered, you can instruct most chess engines to supply you with a list of moves for the current board state. So instead of picking the best move all the time, pick another good enough move to avoid your suggestion.
Faraday cages don't block many types of communication, for example visible light, sound or low freq magnetic fields. And there are organic non metal receivers for that (eye, ear, bird magnetic navigation)
How much of all this could be just building-up the hype that'll end with a bigger payday for both?
You may gladly pay, and I'll bet they'll happily take the money you'll now pay.
This is a meta-game for Carlsen. He likes playing games with rules, and he is probably enjoying himself. How do we tell the difference between HN comments by people ignorant of this particular meta-game, and insightful commentary by highly skilled meta-players?
Wikipedia about Carlsen: “he reached the No. 1 spot on a Fantasy Premier League game, ahead of seven million other players, before eventually finishing the season in 10th place. In April 2022, Carlsen played poker at the Norwegian Championships Main Event and finished 25th out of 1050 players”.
Yeah but, why not just continue playing, lose, and have the analysts come up with the evidence the other guy is cheating? It sounds like he's just being rebellious now, refusing to play in the first place. If he loses against a computer, that's fine; if it provides evidence that the other guy is cheating, great. I'm sure Carlsen knows how to play in a way that makes known chess engines behave in a certain way.
There have been instances in chess where cheaters get caught and they receive light bans and many top players say the punishment is too weak. It's intuitive, if you've been caught cheating then you should be banned from competitive chess. I think that's more likely what Magnus thinks.
It should suffice that you can be proven not to be cheating right here and right now. Unlike doping, getting assistance helps you only exactly as long as you continue getting it.
I don't agree with the person you're replying to; it's unfair to permanently ban people from competitive play for online cheating they did when they were younger (although not that much younger in this case).
however, without overly expensive and invasive methods of detection, plus unpleasant rule changes, what you describe isn't feasible. there are too many ways to cheat, and people who are already smart enough to play at a grandmaster level are not only going to find these ways, but excel in them.
I don't have any evidence to back this up, but I would be extremely willing to believe that plenty of high-level OTB cheating has gone on over the years, especially with money on the line
Good sportsmanship is important in any competitive game or match. When you cheat you should be banned. Maybe not forever but for a significant amount of time. Say 2 years in chess would seem reasonable. Enough to sting but not enough to end a career.
I've been trying to follow chess events for the last couple years and I enjoyed it. Right now I have completely lost all the interest in chess because of this 16 and Pregnant level of drama.
I feel that Magnus has become so important in the world of chess that other top level chess players are too afraid to intervene in this "cheating" scandal. Even Hikaru who seemingly has equal(if not bigger) media share of the chess world chooses to make silly videos instead of actually having strong stance against this bullying.
> Now Magnus is required to play 1 move before resigning so he did so. He's basically saying: "I won't play with a known and admitted cheater, so I'm going to resign any game I'm forced to play with him" rather than doing a weird dance about skipping tournaments or forcing tournaments to not include Hans if they want Magnus to attend.
Note that the text you copied is not a quote of Magnus Carlsen. It's just a "fake" quote that a Reddit user imagined.
It will be interesting to see what Magnus does with other players around that 2600-2650 level who have been made to occasionally take breaks from online tournaments, e.g. Maghsoodloo. Or if this stance is only reserved for those who win against him as black.
Good gawd, that's some horrible video coverage. The commentators are not even talking about the game at hand. The person blabbering on has to be interrupted and told what has happened. The actual players are but a side bar to whatever this commentary is.
This was not a good introduction for me to this world.
There are two possibilities. Either Hans Niemann cheated, or he didn't. If he cheated, we will never know, unless he confesses. If he didn't cheat, it would be humiliating for Carlsen.
In any case, chess tournaments need to increase their security to make even the mere appearance of cheating impossible.
Yes, engine analysis shows that Magnus played extremely poorly. Niemann doesn’t even play that well, it’s just that Magnus plays worse.
The most surprising fact for me from this whole controversy is discovering that Carlsen actually has a rabid fan base who will gladly ignore reality if it goes against him. Chess is actually not that different from football.
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Specifically, a Faraday Cage.
Magnus believes that Niemann is cheating via communication with a computer. Fine, let's completely remove the ability to communicate with a computer. Both men are searched on the way in. Heck, for fun lets have them play in tight sporting outfits so it's very clear what they are carrying and doing.
If Magnus destroys Niemann, he'll be able to pretty handily claim that Niemann can't win without communication to computers. If Niemann is competitive, or wins, it will be hard for Carlsen to make any more such claims.
And also, the sport will have a spectacle like we've never seen before. Tell me you wouldn't pay to watch that match!
(I'm assuming the I/O power would be negligible compared to compute, since it'd run at very low duty cycle).
yes a cheater could have - for example - a subdermal implant that vibrates to update them with a killer mid-game line to go down, but, without the internet, it would be a huge uphill struggle to update the board with the moves. certainly not impossible, especially if you were very dedicated, but very, very hard to get right, especially without getting caught under such scrutinous circumstances
The players should be required to strip down to their underwear and wear elegant tournament-provided kimonos and slippers.
It's a small sample size of course but it's a pattern, not an exception.
People can analyze them and form their own opinions about whether he has been cheating or not. The question "how" need not even be considered.
Carlsen has of course already looked at the games, with the experience of having preiviously looked at millions of games between humans, and millions of analyses from computer engines. And he must have realised that Niemann has achieved something unique, he has conducted many absolute masterpieces, sometimes one after the other in the same tournament, while being rated 2400-2500. Performances so perfect, that no other human has ever accomplished.
Whether he is cheating or not, it doesn't make much sense for Hans either. Only one and unlikely outcome would be in his favor.
Cheater or not, he is A LOT more likely to lose to the current best player in the world. He won't gain anything from it. If he is a cheater odds are even lower. If he is honest and loses it would be devastating. If he is a cheater, it is a lot better for him to not take the deal and deny any wrongdoing.
With chess, at that level of play, you can't decide which player is better or worse by judging from a single game. Only the aggregate between many players playing between each other can tell you that - ELO system achieves that. So them sitting in a faraday cage naked after an X-ray and playing a single match would not tell much. If they played a whole lot of games against each other, it would more or less work but that is impractical and ridiculous.
Pr Kenneth Regan who is the leading expert when it comes to cheating in chess did indeed do a statistical analysis of Niemann performance during the past two years [0]. He found no indication of cheating whatsoever.
[0] https://en.chessbase.com/post/is-hans-niemann-cheating-world...
I don't think that's very conclusive.
The thing is, there's still an element of luck[1] in chess. A lower-rated player can beat a higher-rated player, and a higher-rated player can dominate an even match.
[1] luck, not chance.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_197...
Niemann might be cheating, but still capable of playing 2700+ without cheating. They can both be true.
>And also, the sport will have a spectacle like we've never seen before. Tell me you wouldn't pay to watch that match!
Magnus wearing one of those Speedo swimmer speed-suits would be worth the price of admission without the chess just for the sake of absurdity.
The faraday cage tries to equalize electrical field potential over space. It does so by allowing electrons to move more or less freely, typically inside a metal mesh.
But
a). metals (unless we use superconductors) have electrical resistance
b). electrons themselves have rest masses (i.e. don't accelerate infinitely quickly in response to force).
So, the movement of electrons is not instantaneous, therefore the electrical field cannot be equalized ideally. in effect we achieve attenuation of the signal, and not its complete blockage.
Secondly, the mesh must have some relation to the signal frequency (the wave-length), probably at 1:1 or 1:2 ratio. At some frequencies (terahertz, infra-red, visible, xray) you'll need pretty much a solid box to attenuate those.
And there's obviously tech which you cannot block/attenuate, like neutrinos. Producing and receiving such signals is however non-trivial and requires particle accelerators and large cavities filled with mineral oil and bulky detectors, so we can probably skip this :). Gravity waves belong to the same category.
You can also probably try to send and receive particles, like electrons or alpha particles if you use non-solid meshes.
The width of the walls scales relative to the wavelength of the frequency you're trying to stop. So it doesn't take much to block all useful signals.
You should realize that aluminum foil blocks visible light signals.
WCC is a dozen+ rounds. Even then if you were watching it in the 9th game, it may appear the one player is stronger than the eventual champion.
Second, as Magnus has said in the past, if he has the ability to consult an engine at a single point in the game (of his choosing) he would be unstoppable. The reason is that in each game there are relatively few 'critical points' at which the result is decided.
Also, from what I gathered, you can instruct most chess engines to supply you with a list of moves for the current board state. So instead of picking the best move all the time, pick another good enough move to avoid your suggestion.
Deleted Comment
(1) Niemann should not have been allowed into the tournament
(2) Due to sufficient cheating evidence, and that he
(3) Does not wish to make a statement to avoid any legal jeopardy.
His approach so far can be seen as better than skipping tournaments or trying to force tournaments to not include Hans if they want Magnus to attend.
Analysis of their last game together: https://lichess.org/broadcast/sinquefield-cup--grand-chess-t...
Wikipedia about Carlsen: “he reached the No. 1 spot on a Fantasy Premier League game, ahead of seven million other players, before eventually finishing the season in 10th place. In April 2022, Carlsen played poker at the Norwegian Championships Main Event and finished 25th out of 1050 players”.
however, without overly expensive and invasive methods of detection, plus unpleasant rule changes, what you describe isn't feasible. there are too many ways to cheat, and people who are already smart enough to play at a grandmaster level are not only going to find these ways, but excel in them.
I don't have any evidence to back this up, but I would be extremely willing to believe that plenty of high-level OTB cheating has gone on over the years, especially with money on the line
You have to consider not just the immediate effects of a rule, but the iterated systemic effects.
I feel that Magnus has become so important in the world of chess that other top level chess players are too afraid to intervene in this "cheating" scandal. Even Hikaru who seemingly has equal(if not bigger) media share of the chess world chooses to make silly videos instead of actually having strong stance against this bullying.
Innocent until proven guilty.
I think Hikaru also suspects Hans may be cheating.
> I'm going to resign any game I'm forced to play with him
He resigned because the opponent, not the match.
> Now Magnus is required to play 1 move before resigning so he did so. He's basically saying: "I won't play with a known and admitted cheater, so I'm going to resign any game I'm forced to play with him" rather than doing a weird dance about skipping tournaments or forcing tournaments to not include Hans if they want Magnus to attend.
Note that the text you copied is not a quote of Magnus Carlsen. It's just a "fake" quote that a Reddit user imagined.
This was not a good introduction for me to this world.
His silence is not playing strongly in his favor.
Extraordinary claims require Extraordinary evidence.
In any case, chess tournaments need to increase their security to make even the mere appearance of cheating impossible.
Wrong. Carlsen could have resigned in protest of the player and the current game doesn't matter.
Yeah, sure, but in this case, any player could cheat, not only Hans.
Magnus could have been cheating during all those years...
Did Magnus play badly?
The most surprising fact for me from this whole controversy is discovering that Carlsen actually has a rabid fan base who will gladly ignore reality if it goes against him. Chess is actually not that different from football.