Accusations of cheating in the highest tournament levels of chess

It is a bad lapse, but as you said there are many others who cheat online, to boost their rating. That he is only 19 makes this brutal, imo, since it is clearly taking a toll on his playing (now 3 loses in a row, and although it is a very long tournament, it will be hard to get back from that).
Besides, if it can't be established he has cheated over the board, this all started from a false premise already (Magnus throwing a fit because he lost over the board to him). And regardless of what is true or not, he is being searched all the time, so isn't cheating (and won some good games prior to this losing streak).

Yeah.

I had been under the impression Magnus had more than suspicions regarding his OTB play, given how Magnus is usually sporting and doesn't reflexively accuse people who beat him of cheating. When he finally made his big statement and it contained zero new actual allegations or evidence, I was very disappointed.

I am glad he is retiring as world champion because his heart clearly isn't in it anymore and it's also clear he thought he was doing the chess world a service by calling out a cheater. But unless he had actual evidence it's mainly a disservice.

The only positive I see is that cheat detection is being ramped up. That's a positive for everyone including Hans, since if he can succeed in a very secure format over and over it establishes his ELO is legit at least.

But singling out Hans was not the move. Resigning on move 2 wasn't the move, withdrawing from a round robin after it started wasn't the move. Lot of bad moves over this.
 
The attention to Hans’ persona is off the charts at the moment. That became part of the equation, whether by design or by accident. Anyone talks about Alireza Firouzja any more? They should. The man is also 19, briefly touched 2800 ELO , which is unprecedented. He also plays daring, attacking chess, always intriguing to watch. Clearly the next big man in chess. This Niemann business is not even in the same ballpark, with Hans stalling at 2700 at 19. So, he won against Carlsen. Big deal. Judith Polgar won against Carlsen in some park in Madrid few weeks ago. To be the chess champion one needs consistency - stellar physical and mental form and the ability to win against most people all the time, which translates to the highest rating. Niemann, self-admittedly, lives a recluse in hotels around the world, alone. Eats garbage delivery food. And tries to stir up controversy around himself, on occasion, and that is not a recipe for longevity.

Hans isn’t a natural contender for Carlsen’s throne, he might think he is, but he’s not. A strong 2700. I doubt his current strength is sustainable given the extremely hectic circumstances of Niemann’s life.
Still it was a d move to openly try to ruin his career, just on account that he won one game against you (and, of course, Hans has won single games against Magnus in the very near past too, but Magnus for some reason didn't care then).
 
There are bunches of other GMs who have cheated whose careers are not being singled out our ruined.

If they're allowed to play, Hans should be. It's a double standard just because Carlsen doesn't trust Hans to not cheat, that Hans should be singled out or career ruined.

Granted, it would have zero impact if Hans wasn't a notorious cheater already. But the point still stands.
 
As with most things I can only draw on my personal experiences for comparison.

Suppose you get infracted on CFC for saying something pretty nasty to someone, provoked or not in your mind. You get a time out and come back. Is it then fair for everyone to forever treat you like you are a jerk? Even if time passes, years even, and you apologize to the folks you attacked and promise not to do it again?

Probably not. You come back with the expectation that you will use your second chance wisely. If you admit what you did and say you won't do it again, most people, possibly even the person you insulted, will let it go once. Not always, and that's their prerogative.

Your reputation haunts you the most when you repeat the offense. Not when you're not repeating it. But here's where the example gets relevant: What if you're reported for being a jerk, but you did nothing wrong, and the mod on your reputation alone bans you?

That's not right, is it?

Essentially, Carlsen reported Niemann for cheating. Because he's got examples of cheating 2 years back and further back, it was taken seriously even without evidence and people wanted to take action. Carlsen himself will never play him again, and is calling him out.

It's not right to ban Hans here on no new evidence. It's not right to drag him through the mud on no new evidence. Questionable decision by Chess.com to ban him from an event shortly after Magnus' accusation. It's roughly fine because it deals with cheating on their own site and it's a repeated offense, but the timing is questionable.

It's similar to a ban for someone accusing you of being a jerk and reporting it when you said nothing infractible. Even if you did a bad thing in the past it's not okay now to be banned for doing nothing wrong.

It's gotta be based on something you really did wrong. You need to be afforded the benefit of the doubt and also, absence of evidence should be taken as innocence.

Not to a naive extent. Quietly look at it closely without further inflaming the situation or taking sides. But if there's nothing there, then there's nothing there.

That's responsible. And if the mods take no action and you have no evidence guy A was being a jerk you gotta stop saying he did, because it is slander at that point.
 
There are bunches of other GMs who have cheated whose careers are not being singled out our ruined.

If they're allowed to play, Hans should be. It's a double standard just because Carlsen doesn't trust Hans to not cheat, that Hans should be singled out or career ruined.

Granted, it would have zero impact if Hans wasn't a notorious cheater already. But the point still stands.
I think if you're caught cheating you should get a lifetime ban from chess.

Regarding the comparison to being banned for rudeness I don't think there's a comparison. Being a jerk is a matter of some subjectivity and sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

Cheating on the other hand is always unacceptable, there's never any excuse, it ruins the game.
 
It's roughly fine because it deals with cheating on their own site and it's a repeated offense, but the timing is questionable.

Timing is explainable. Niemann stated that he cheated twice. Storm rages on the internet, people pick up his old games, some of them turn out suspicious. Independent reviewers & Chess.com take a closer look and voila, he cheated "over a hundred times". OK, facts: Niemann is an online cheater and a liar. Why are we suddenly questioning chess.com for not taking a closer look few years back? I think they should be praised for spending resources to go deep into Niemann's history in order to establish objectivity in regards to his character and past deeds. Furthermore, they should be encouraged to take a closer look at some other titled games with their constantly improving anti-cheat.. Maybe anti-cheat was weak, so some grandmasters of old, ya know, also flew under the radar when it comes to online chess battles.

On a slightly separate tangent, during corona, FIDE lost a lot of power/influence. Internet portals are becoming de-facto centralized chess entities. I won't be surprised if chess.com starts handing out their own titles in time.
 
I think if you're caught cheating you should get a lifetime ban from chess.

Regarding the comparison to being banned for rudeness I don't think there's a comparison. Being a jerk is a matter of some subjectivity and sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

Cheating on the other hand is always unacceptable, there's never any excuse, it ruins the game.

Here's where you have a point I do agree with.

The example situation is not on the same degree of severity as cheating. Cheating is pretty severe. Cheating for money even straddles the line into possible criminal activity. It's a form of fraud, to me.

Where I was going with the comparison is consistency. If you are going to ban Hans for repeated cheating, others have to be as well. He's being singled out right now.

I support tougher enforcement IF that standard were applied universally.

What I hate in particular with regard to irregular enforcement is someone gets life in prison on a drug peddling charge and someone else doesn't get life in prison for a rape or a murder, they get 10 years or 20 years or I remember the egregious example of someone getting probation after being found guilty of a violent rape.

It drives me absolutely nuts that we treat some people with kid gloves and then throw the book at someone else for the same crime. When it comes to cheating in chess, a lot of leniency was shown to like 10 percent of all GMs who still play chess. Hans should get exactly the same treatment.

Mainly, because it's not about Hans. It's not about revenge, or a vendetta, or his attitude, or about Carlsen's need for this one cheater to get the book thrown at them. Justice doesn't have any concern for any of those things, it's about righting a wrong and limiting how likely it will occur in the future.

Justice has to be dispassionate and I see way too much passion behind the Hans thing. It can't be personal.

But yes, cheating is way worse than the comparison.
 
Timing is explainable. Niemann stated that he cheated twice. Storm rages on the internet, people pick up his old games, some of them turn out suspicious. Independent reviewers & Chess.com take a closer look and voila, he cheated "over a hundred times". OK, facts: Niemann is an online cheater and a liar. Why are we suddenly questioning chess.com for not taking a closer look few years back? I think they should be praised for spending resources to go deep into Niemann's history in order to establish objectivity in regards to his character and past deeds. Furthermore, they should be encouraged to take a closer look at some other titled games with their constantly improving anti-cheat.. Maybe anti-cheat was weak, so some grandmasters of old, ya know, also flew under the radar when it comes to online chess battles.

On a slightly separate tangent, during corona, FIDE lost a lot of power/influence. Internet portals are becoming de-facto centralized chess entities. I won't be surprised if chess.com starts handing out their own titles in time.

This one, I do have a good answer for. I need to put the kiddo to bed but putting a pin in this so I don't forget.
 
Ouch!
 
This one, I do have a good answer for. I need to put the kiddo to bed but putting a pin in this so I don't forget.
Here it is.

Chess.com has the same anti-cheat detection it has always had, and it hosted tournaments with cash prizes.

Why did it take Chess.com 2 years to look at every game in those hosted tournaments to detect cheating? The anti-cheating system needs to be used for every single game that has a cash prize associated with it, bare minimum.

Maximum underline that for emphasis, so I'm not shouting with all caps.

If Chess.com knew Hans was cheating 2 years ago, why did it take this long to ban him? That's not a good look.
If Chess.com did NOT know Hans was cheating 2 years ago, why did they not use their anti-cheating analysis on at the very least all tournament games with cash prizes? That's not a good look either.

And if what prompted the look into Hans was Magnus Carlsen saying he cheated over the board, that's ALSO not a good look, because Chess.com has a deal with Magnus regarding some intellectual property worth millions. His play Magnus app, I believe. There's a conflict of interest when there's millions of dollars associated with the guy who is claiming OTB cheating occurred, without evidence.

Now, suppose Chess.com knew Hans was cheating and didn't go public with it, but due to their relationship with Carlsen, Carlsen found out.

That's ALSO not a good look for Chess.com, because that (stuff) is meant to be private. It shouldn't be giving Carlsen extra special insight as to who is cheating.

Chess.com claims no communication took place between the two parties over this matter. Fine, but Carlsen accuses Hans of cheating, and Chess.com finally goes public with information that it knows Hans was cheating but hasn't banned him over it until now.

Which means they either were not checking for cheating during online games with cash prizes on the line, until years later, and then only when prompted.

What's the point of anti-cheat detection if you don't bother to use it until the world champion makes an UNFOUNDED accusation?

That's my gripe here.

It's a bad look for Chess.com no matter how they handled it. In literally every circumstance they're doing it wrong. very wrong.

This is no way to be handling cheating.

You need to check all games with cash prizes associated with it bare minimum and it shouldn't take you 2 years to find it, especially since they say he hasn't cheated online since 2020. That means they checked all those games too, but they must have done it just now, or they sat on info he committed fraud for two years.

It's either extreme negligence or a conflict of interest. There's no way Chess.com comes out of this looking either competent or not corrupt. one of the two will be associated with them.

Gotta assume incompetence until proven otherwise but it's still a bad look for a site with such advanced cheat detection to not use it in GM tournaments with cash prizes.

What are they using it on? Only people who report there might be cheating?

That's also terrible. People who are the least informed shouldn't be the cheat detection that then gets checked by the experts. The experts should be proactively catching it, not reactively catching it years later when it makes no difference.


To be clear, yeah, they needed to check Hans' history. It shouldn't have taken Magnus' prompting about an OTB game with zero evidence attached for this to occur. That's terribad.
 
In the very best case scenario here, Chess.com could claim "hey, eventually we'll get em, after the cash is long been spent and we've looked like dummies for 2 years. But we catch em sometimes, eventually!"

That's not great anti cheating.
 
Why are we suddenly questioning chess.com for not taking a closer look few years back? I think they should be praised for spending resources to go deep into Niemann's history in order to establish objectivity in regards to his character and past deeds.
They should've done it earlier when he cheated when money was at stake.

They're basically admitting they couldn't really be bothered to protect the prize money of other players but now that Magnus said something & they can get some publicity they're saying something.

Chess.com is a totally crap organization anyway. Play on lichess.

@Askthepizzaguy went into far more depth.
What I hate in particular with regard to irregular enforcement is someone gets life in prison on a drug peddling charge and someone else doesn't get life in prison for a rape or a murder, they get 10 years or 20 years or I remember the egregious example of someone getting probation after being found guilty of a violent rape.

It drives me absolutely nuts that we treat some people with kid gloves and then throw the book at someone else for the same crime. When it comes to cheating in chess, a lot of leniency was shown to like 10 percent of all GMs who still play chess. Hans should get exactly the same treatment.

Mainly, because it's not about Hans. It's not about revenge, or a vendetta, or his attitude, or about Carlsen's need for this one cheater to get the book thrown at them. Justice doesn't have any concern for any of those things, it's about righting a wrong and limiting how likely it will occur in the future.

Justice has to be dispassionate and I see way too much passion behind the Hans thing. It can't be personal.
I agree with all this. I hate selective justice. I think the hammer needs to be dropped much harder than it is on all cheaters.

Probably is online it's hard to prove but if it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt online or OTB a lifetime ban should be the result. Age shouldn't be an excuse. Kids understand cheating ruins the game & they need to be aware of the long term consequences if they do it.
 
Well, since we’re going deep theoretical, maybe chess.com didn’t want to ruin youngster’s career, so they didn’t go all out with the accusations 2 years back, instead handled it privately. Now that online chess evolved into a comparable, some would say, a larger entity than otb chess, it began to matter. Now you can no longer hush it up, give a third chance, etc. Evolution. Big money on the line demands fairness.

Chess.com is a totally crap organization anyway. Play on lichess.

I play on both. But more on lichess lately, they have all the same stuff, but free. :)
 
I find this situation remarkable because I wildly agree with almost everyone about aspects of it, and also disagree with almost everyone about something.

This is one of those really funky situations where no side is entirely right, no side looks entirely clean or virtuous.

I for one am glad we can all discuss it in a manner that is constructive and cooperative. I can't tell you how many places I've seen debate devolve into nonsense merely because people disagree and can't respect an opposing point even if it's a good one.

The team mentality behind mob justice is another gripe of mine. it's always a binary thing: Hans is entirely wrong, Magnus is entirely right, says many in Magnus' camp. Magnus is a sore loser and entirely wrong, Hans did nothing wrong, say many in the Hans camp. Chess.com can't be criticized, many feel.

I've noticed people often pick a side and determine what's right based on whether or not it helps their side. Nuance is lost, context is meaningless.

One of the reasons I'm even interested in this subject is because this is a clear example where there's no binary. There isn't a good guy or only one bad actor here. There's just people, and good behaviors and bad behaviors. And all the bad behaviors are bad, and all the people involved could be good if they just didn't engage in that bad behavior.

It's the team mentality that divides us and degrades us and drifts us away from being moral. Morality has to apply equally to everyone involved. No special standards, no double standards, no unequal treatment. If someone on your team did something wrong it's okay to say so. If someone you don't agree with or has a bad history actually has a point or there's an unfair attack against them, it's okay to say that's a good point, or it's an unfair attack.

I feel very comfortable airing these ideas here because basically all of you have been excellent about it. I'm grateful for that.

There's not many spaces I come across on the internet where I feel this way.
 
I play on both. But more on lichess lately, they have all the same stuff, but free. :)
I like that when you capture a piece on lichess w premove it doesn't cover the square totally, it's crazy chess.com w all it's resources didn't correct this (maybe they since have)

Chess.com reminds of a crap magazine, garish & full of ads, lichess is nice & neat like I'd imagine a science journal would be.
 
Your reputation haunts you the most when you repeat the offense. Not when you're not repeating it. But here's where the example gets relevant: What if you're reported for being a jerk, but you did nothing wrong, and the mod on your reputation alone bans you?

That's not right, is it?
it's not right, and unfortunately it extends far beyond chess, for example into the realms of criminal punishment/employment. presumption of innocence struggles to maintain a hold with in-group vs out-group scenarios even on a first accusation. if someone who is known to have wronged is again accused, this time without evidence, presumption of innocence is hard to find generally, despite the ethical problems with that.
Regarding the comparison to being banned for rudeness I don't think there's a comparison.
the relevant point of comparison is the matter of using good process vs bad process. banned from random forum vs banned from chess/professional career ruined vs wrongly jailed 10+ years are all obviously different degrees of bad. however, if the same bad process leads to these outcomes, we can still compare them in the context of the mistake that led to the bad outcome.
 
Here's my take on correcting some of the narrative in here.
Magnus definitely prefers Lichess to chess.com, so the idea that Magnus is like a chess.com insider/shill or whatever doesn't hold water.
If chess.com "took action" a year ago you could have easily complained they were too hasty.
Chess.com has already explained some of their delay - they were waiting for Hans to respond and to do a more thorough investigation besides the automatic process. Hans didn't express remorse. He didn't admit to the cheating he was accused of, instead he admitted to prior cheating which he wasn't accused of. This pissed off chess.com's CEO and led to their thinking that this didn't simply warrant a suspension.
Going after a verified GM and banning him for cheating is a potentially much bigger deal than a random internet troll.
You're all assuming there has been no behind the scenes discussion with FIDE. This is a bad assumption imo. In fact, FIDE has barely been mentioned in this whole thread when they are at the heart of this.
It's easy and cheap to say Magnus handled this poorly, that he should have contacted the proper authorities and gone through the proper procedure. This assumes there is a proper procedure and there are proper authorities. Very bad assumptions.
FIDE is an archaic and corrupt organization that is slow to change, has bumped heads against its top players many times in the past, and is primarily focused on holding onto their own authority/prestige.
FIDE's answer has been "Ken said he didn't cheat so he didn't cheat". It's not hard to imagine that they do not want to publicly verify that chess.com's anti-cheat detection is much stronger than their own.
The potential for cheating has exploded in the last decade with technological improvements allowing stockfish code to fit in a thimble. FIDE has not kept up. It might not even be possible to keep up, but it's certainly not possible if you don't try.
It was widely believed among top players that Hans is a cheater before this blew up. Super GMs invest a ton of time analyzing each other's games and have a much better understanding of when something doesn't make sense than you, I, or an algorithm does.
The clamor for absolute smoking gun court of law proof is not necessarily applicable to all fields or all assertions. If we only punished cheaters who were caught redhanded with a device in their ear, we'd only catch the very worst of the cheaters.
If a magician performs a trick, I do not need to know how the trick was performed to be 100% confident that the magician does not have superhuman powers.
The evidence as I understand it is based on:
- chess.com's algorithm.
- A performance record that suggests he went from a 2400 to a 2700 level player instantly, an unprecedented feat to say the least.
- A confessed history of cheating when he was younger.
- His coach is a cheat.
- Analysis that shows a non-normal distribution of accurate games, with a crazy outlier for how many 90%+ accurate games he's played. *I would say this requires some more details as to how accurate moves are measured (there can be more than 1 top move or top moves can vary based on engine and depth) as well as how it compares to a sampling from other top players. That said, this seems doable and I would hope is being done.*
- Suspicious moves. Arguably the strongest piece of evidence. Basically two types, small moves that don't actually execute on the plan the player has put in motion because that plan can't actually be stopped anyways. Or moves that violate intuitive chess principles, but a full 30+ depth analysis shows don't actually have any danger. These are perhaps the most damning. It's not as simple as "he found a good move, so what". It's that if showed the move to a GM they'd think it was a blunder. He's been accused of making moves like this, and most damning, playing them quickly and giving complete non-answer trolls as to why in interviews.
While it may not be fair to Hans to be banned from tournaments under mere "suspicion", it's also not fair to all the other players to play with a suspected cheat. It dramatically affects how you can play against them. You may want to play uberconservatively for a draw, as you expect him to see through any traps/tricks/tactics you're setting up. It can also send you into a deep think when he plays a strange move "what is stockfish seeing that I'm not".
Magnus is not "right" by virtue of being a chess prodigy, but he's certainly smart enough to expect blowback from this accusation. Ignoring/dodging the issue is easier. Staking your reputation for the good of the sport as you see it, is a selfless act, not a selfish one.
If you have multiple authorities such that a cheater is banned from one platform and not others, or suspended for some period of time and allowed back, you're providing that cheater with ample practice to hone their craft to become undetectable.
Hans is now ~2700. The "assumption" here is that he started cheating heavily around ~2400 to play more like a 2700, most likely by having some key moves/games that would be more like a 3000+ ELO and averaging out. If we take all that to be true, the most vulnerable time for him is the rapid ELO improvement from 2400 to 2700, unofficially "super GM" status. Once he's established as a top player it becomes more difficult to say "there's no way he played this game himself". It becomes more credulous that yeah, he's playing the best moves because he's the best player. It also means at 2700 he can get invited to basically any tournament no matter how selective.
Magnus' reaction wasn't a temper tantrum, but it was intentionally public and dramatic. It was a whistleblower action on FIDE dragging their feet.
If not now, when? If not Magnus, who?
 
I don't think Hans' performance now could be indicative of anything. Were he cheating he'd obviously tone it down or stop completely - not getting 'caught' matters more than any one tournament with a magnifying glass on him.
Even him doing super well or super poorly could be explained. He does poorly because being called a cheater affects him mentally. He does well because everyone's altering their games and freaking out because they think he's cheating. When the computer famously beat Kasparov, it was primarily because Kasparov was playing strangely (odd, bad openings) to try to beat the computer's opening database as opposed to playing the computer normally. That story just doesn't sell headlines.
 
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