Niemann - Carlsen

[Pargat Perrer]

That is a very strange standard. There are all sorts of "fanciful mathematical theories" we use to do more important things than catch chess cheats. DNA matching tests. Forensic accounting. Even weirder stuff like Benford's Law. Surely we cannot only convict miscreants if we "catch them in the act".

I would agree that using only statistics, particularly in the relatively new field of chess cheat catching, to prove guilt, seems sketchy. That doesn't appear to me to be what Regan is doing.

Hmmm.... "Surely we cannot only convict miscreants if we "catch them in the act""

The more we deviate from catching miscreants in the act, the more we do the reverse and convict innocents based on evidence that could be circumstantial or simply wrong.

I like however that you recognize the sketchiness of using only statistics to prove guilt (at least in the chess cheating domain).

Please read my post responding to Aris. Whatever methods Ken Regan is using, the key data points are when a player's move matches what a top engine would play. What other data points can he use? Cheating in chess is somehow getting a computer move and playing it.

Brad is so right to point out that the younger generation of chess players, just from using engines so much, must be developing the abilities to play more like engines. And if that is happening, then there are bound to be many false positives from Regan's methods.

EDIT: I really give Brad kudos for stressing that we simply MUST catch this miscreants in the act. That is what we should be stressing, not using mysterious statistics that only a few people understand.

As an example, would you like Tom to be accused of robbing a Brinks truck when it showed up at a bank simply because statistics showed that so many times when that Brinks truck showed up, you happened to be in the bank?

[Pargat Perrer]

Brad, easy man. What Sid wrote right here is essentially correct. Regan's statistical methodologies do not catch people "playing more like engines" (I don't know if anyone's ever figured out how to apply any kind of measurability to that) However, going back to something like mid-1800s games, his work is simply (not simple) massive statistical crunching. I humbly believe that Regan is The Man.

Hi Aris. I have been doing that kind of measurability with my Game Performance Rating work. The engine used is Stockfish 15.

I found that often in top level chess, neither of the two players are playing for a win. In this case, they will each play entirely computer moves and the result will be a short or medium-length draw. Their GPR will skyrocket because they are matching Stockfish move for move. I have to discard the game, on the premise that neither player showed any initiative.

The whole basis of cheating at chess is that in a critical position, you somehow get the move that the engine would make and you make that move. The engine would most likely be Stockfish 15, since it is apparently the best among all the minimax engines (AlphaZero would be another possibility except it requires very expensive hardware to run).

So any "statistical anomolies" that Ken Regan is searching for is based on a player making the move that an engine would make. That is the key data point. That is the definition of cheating, that you somehow get that computer move and use it.

Regan has to use statistics because the player in question is not cheating on every move (if he's careful, that is). But still, whatever statistics he is using, that doesn't matter. What matters is matching moves to the engine.

Therefore Brad is correct in saying the basis of Regan's work is finding players who are "playing more like engines". And Brad's idea that the young players and top players of today's generation are bound to be playing more like engines is also absolutely correct.

[Aris Marghetis]

Your interpretation of Ken Regan's work is incorrect. The idea is to look for statistical anomalies and variances from the norm. Ken Regan actually posted in this thread, and your insulting tone is uncalled for.

Brad, easy man. What Sid wrote right here is essentially correct. Regan's statistical methodologies do not catch people "playing more like engines" (I don't know if anyone's ever figured out how to apply any kind of measurability to that) However, going back to something like mid-1800s games, his work is simply (not simple) massive statistical crunching. I humbly believe that Regan is The Man.

[Tom O'Donnell]

Tom, suppose a cheater looks at a computer analysis and rejects it. This is still cheating. The police will not be able to detect that the person cheated. I will never accept fanciful mathematical theories as an acceptable means of accusing cheaters. Catch them in the act.

That is a very strange standard. There are all sorts of "fanciful mathematical theories" we use to do more important things than catch chess cheats. DNA matching tests. Forensic accounting. Even weirder stuff like Benford's Law. Surely we cannot only convict miscreants if we "catch them in the act".

I would agree that using only statistics, particularly in the relatively new field of chess cheat catching, to prove guilt, seems sketchy. That doesn't appear to me to be what Regan is doing.

[Sid Belzberg]

Thank you, Sid.

I did not suggest that we abandon all principles of science. I only called Regan a fraud. I do not like Justin Trudeau and have voted against him in every election. I am not little. Learn to read, stop accusing without any reason, stop speculating when you have no idea what you are talking about, and you might gain respect. With respect to your racist comments, it is true that the other racist started it, but two wrongs do not make a right. I am an anglophone who has been living in Quebec for 15 years. I have been subject to racist comments from French people a number of times. I never responded with racism of my own, I rose above it.

I agree, I can be vile when I want to be.

respect to your racist comments

I only called Regan a fraud

I never responded with racism of my own, I rose above it.

Up your ass Brad, I never made a "racist" comment to anyone in my life. Someone that makes comments to me that are antisemitic slurs will be called a Nazi by me.
I had several relatives who were persecuted during WW2, including my Dad's cousin, who spent a year in a nice place
called Auschwitz. Many more were flat-out murdered. Don't lecture me about turning the other cheek in the face of antisemitism
because your life experience is not even remotely applicable. NEVER AGAIN!

You call a distinguished professor of computer science a "fraud" and many other terrible comments who also is a member of this forum and has been for many
years without properly understanding his work.

By the way, I happen to have a good memory. Here on chess talk, you took a swipe at the Jewish religion by implying that Jewish people consider themselves ethnically superior because of the phrase "chosen people." Just like with Ken Regan, you did not take the time to study the subject matter in detail but instead only superficially and then proceeded to open with your invective and hateful vitriol. For your information,

"While the concept of "chosenness" may be understood by some to connote ethnic supremacy,^[3] the status as a "chosen people" within Judaism does not preclude a belief that God has a relationship with other peoples—rather, Judaism held that God had entered into a covenant with all humankind, and that Jews and non-Jews alike have a relationship with God. Biblical references as well as rabbinic literature support this view: Moses refers to the "God of the spirits of all flesh",^[4] the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) also identifies prophets outside the community of Israel and the prophet Yonah (Jonah) is explicitly told to go prophesize to the non-Jewish people of Nineveh":

Good on you that you don't support Trudeau, but you are still a vile hypocrite that made a libelous statement about another member of this
forum, Ken Regan.

[Brad Thomson]

Tom, suppose a cheater looks at a computer analysis and rejects it. This is still cheating. The police will not be able to detect that the person cheated. I will never accept fanciful mathematical theories as an acceptable means of accusing cheaters. Catch them in the act.

[Brad Thomson]

And that is based on what exactly? Yes, let's abandon all principles that science is based on because the great philosophical genius Brad Thomson says so! Those that dare to have a different view on this are labeled a "fraud' by Brad.
As far as insults go, on this forum, for the last two years, the insults have been responses to insults that have been in line with your great hero Crime Minister Trudeau who labeled all; COVID dissidents "racist, misogynist, unacceptable views, take up space, and should not be tolerated" for having dissenting views on COVID. You yourself said I should be permanently banned for responding in kind to one of those insults. What a vile little hypocrite you are.

Thank you, Sid.

I did not suggest that we abandon all principles of science. I only called Regan a fraud. I do not like Justin Trudeau and have voted against him in every election. I am not little. Learn to read, stop accusing without any reason, stop speculating when you have no idea what you are talking about, and you might gain respect. With respect to your racist comments, it is true that the other racist started it, but two wrongs do not make a right. I am an anglophone who has been living in Quebec for 15 years. I have been subject to racist comments from French people a number of times. I never responded with racism of my own, I rose above it.

I agree, I can be vile when I want to be.

[Tom O'Donnell]

"... A player who cheats only once or twice per game could still gain an advantage without tripping his wires. Likewise, a single game doesn’t contain enough data to catch a cheater; Regan typically needs to review at least four games to spot a pattern. (It’s not unusual for a top-level player to have a “perfect game,” in which every single move matches the computer’s.) Regan says that as a general rule, he could catch someone who cheats three times per game over the course of nine games. However, he says, if there’s any pattern to the cheating, no matter how occasional, he’ll discover it in the long run. ..."


The obvious thing to take this from the theoretical to the practical is to run a test.

Example:
10 player RR at a time control of say 30+5.
Have 1-3 players cheat using computer aid for say four to six moves per game on average. They would not be hiding this, as all players would know this in advance, and it could be verified on-site by the organizer/arbiter.
Submit all games to the cheating detectors.
Their job is to find out who cheated.

The purpose of the tournament would be creating a suitable sample for testing, not the results of the tournament.

[Sid Belzberg]

Searching for "statistical anomalies" proves nothing. Sometimes people have hot runs, sometimes they have cold runs, sometimes they get better, sometimes they get worse. Regan is an insult to anyone with half a brain if he thinks we are going to buy into his cockamamie theories. You, Sid, have long been one of the most insulting people in this forum. And your insults are normally directed toward other posters, mine in this case are directed toward a fraud who is doing terrible damage to the game of chess.

Searching for "statistical anomalies" proves nothing

And that is based on what exactly? Yes, let's abandon all principles that science is based on because the great philosophical genius Brad Thomson says so! Those that dare to have a different view on this are labeled a "fraud' by Brad.
As far as insults go, on this forum, for the last two years, the insults have been responses to insults that have been in line with your great hero Crime Minister Trudeau who labeled all; COVID dissidents "racist, misogynist, unacceptable views, take up space, and should not be tolerated" for having dissenting views on COVID. You yourself said I should be permanently banned for responding in kind to one of those insults. What a vile little hypocrite you are.

[Brad Thomson]

Your interpretation of Ken Regan's work is incorrect. The idea is to look for statistical anomalies and variances from the norm. Ken Regan actually posted in this thread, and your insulting tone is uncalled for.

Searching for "statistical anomalies" proves nothing. Sometimes people have hot runs, sometimes they have cold runs, sometimes they get better, sometimes they get worse. Regan is an insult to anyone with half a brain if he thinks we are going to buy into his cockamamie theories. You, Sid, have long been one of the most insulting people in this forum. And your insults are normally directed toward other posters, mine in this case are directed toward a fraud who is doing terrible damage to the game of chess.

[Sid Belzberg]

Interesting ideas Pargat. I believe that most if not all promising young player are already learning to play like computers. Everyone is plugging their games into computers; therefore it only stands to reason that over time even bad chess players will become more computer-like in their play. How much more must this apply to the elite players? Why would they not try to learn from and play like computers when computers player better than people? And so now we get idiots who want to accuse anyone who plays "too much" like a computer of cheating on the basis of the absurd and untenable implicit assumption that humans by themselves are not capable of learning from and emulating computers?! I hope/suspect that chess will wake up and only accuse people of cheating when there is legitimate evidence and not simply because a certain player is good at learning from computers and is able to outplay other humans by playing like a computer. Regan, Carlsen and anyone supporting these clowns is doing serious damage to chess.

Implicit in Regan's sickening drivel is the preposterous assumption that humans are not capable of watching computers play, learning from them and then emulating their play. Only thus may Regan conclude that the more a top-level grandmaster plays like a computer the more likely it is that he is cheating. This idiotic hogwash jeopardizes careers without any evidence whatsoever. Regan should be ashamed of his stupidity, and he should disavow his own bullshit immediately.

Your interpretation of Ken Regan's work is incorrect. The idea is to look for statistical anomalies and variances from the norm. Ken Regan actually posted in this thread, and your insulting tone is uncalled for.

[Brad Thomson]

Interesting ideas Pargat. I believe that most if not all promising young player are already learning to play like computers. Everyone is plugging their games into computers; therefore it only stands to reason that over time even bad chess players will become more computer-like in their play. How much more must this apply to the elite players? Why would they not try to learn from and play like computers when computers player better than people? And so now we get idiots who want to accuse anyone who plays "too much" like a computer of cheating on the basis of the absurd and untenable implicit assumption that humans by themselves are not capable of learning from and emulating computers?! I hope/suspect that chess will wake up and only accuse people of cheating when there is legitimate evidence and not simply because a certain player is good at learning from computers and is able to outplay other humans by playing like a computer. Regan, Carlsen and anyone supporting these clowns is doing serious damage to chess.

[Pargat Perrer]

Implicit in Regan's sickening drivel is the preposterous assumption that humans are not capable of watching computers play, learning from them and then emulating their play. Only thus may Regan conclude that the more a top-level grandmaster plays like a computer the more likely it is that he is cheating. This idiotic hogwash jeopardizes careers without any evidence whatsoever. Regan should be ashamed of his stupidity, and he should disavow his own bullshit immediately.

I have for quite some time believed it is possible for a young junior who has great potential and is being propelled towards professional chess by his parents might be for a year ot two held out of human tournaments and spend all his or her time playing against nothing but the top computer engines. Maybe even 2 years or 3 years. Then, the parents may bring him or her back onto competitive chess, and see if this "training" has turned their prodigy into an absolute monster who can defeat even the top level super-GMs.

So far it hasn't happened. I haven't heard anything about Neimann going through such a training. But surely some parents somewhere should figure this out. Why go through all the trouble and hassle of sending their prodigy around the world to play GMs and IMs when there are computer engines so much stronger?

Well, Brad, you are elucidating the reason. It is because if the training succeeds and the prodigy does indeed play like a computer, the only result will be accusations of cheating and being blacklisted from tournaments. I guess the parents have figured that out too.

The result is that no young promising player SHOULD learn to play like a computer, even if it does result in the best improvement in their play. They will only be removed from competitive chess.

Perhaps this is even what the whole cheating thing is really about. If it is possible for all young chess prodigies to learn to play like a computer, the result could be the end of competitive chess, because the draw rate plus the lack of dynamic play would reach levels that would remove all interest from competitive chess. In fact, this has basically already happened in competitive correspondence chess.

But we do have to ask, is this a bad thing? If humans are coerced into NOT playing like computers, they will continue to play more "dynamic" and "risky" chess and competitive chess will survive. As Hans Jung pointed out in another recent thread, competitive chess has apparently never been so good at the top levels.

[Brad Thomson]

Implicit in Regan's sickening drivel is the preposterous assumption that humans are not capable of watching computers play, learning from them and then emulating their play. Only thus may Regan conclude that the more a top-level grandmaster plays like a computer the more likely it is that he is cheating. This idiotic hogwash jeopardizes careers without any evidence whatsoever. Regan should be ashamed of his stupidity, and he should disavow his own bullshit immediately.

[Brad Thomson]

Regan presents nonsense. Great players play more and more like computers all the time. This was inevitable once they surpassed humans as chess players. So now the better copiers of the way computers play are going to be labelled as cheaters without any evidence? This is totally nuts.

The term "fideism" comes up in the article. Do not confuse this with FIDE. Fideism as a philosophical theory contends that reason will always lead to contradictions and conundrums that can only be resolved by faith, specifically fair in the inconceivable, or faith in the incomprehensible. To be sure one needs to be a fideist to believe the junk that Regan barfs.