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describes how Dr. Ken Regan at the University of Buffalo is using computer analysis to see if someone is cheating in their chess games. Toiletgate, the French players and last year’s Canadian Open are mentioned.
"The models can also be used to clear someone. At the Canadian Open last year, a player whose rating was 2,100 (a candidate master) beat three international masters, whose ratings are usually at least 300 points higher.
After analyzing the games, Dr. Regan said, “I was able to prove that his intrinsic rating was in the 2,100s and the international masters had just played poorly.”
Xu, Haizhou (2151) defeated: IM Meszaros Michal, IM Macak Stefan and IM Calugar Arthur
Last edited by Andrei Botez; Tuesday, 20th March, 2012, 10:10 AM.
includes an interesting claim relevant to claims about rating "inflation":
"According to his analysis, the player now ranked No. 40 in the world plays as well as Anatoly Karpov did in the 1970s, when he was world champion"
the 40th rated player is just above 2700; from 1976-84 Karpov's rating ranged between 2690-2725. Inflation or improvement?
Yes, that caught my eye too. The context of the article implies that he is claiming there is no inflation, which is a significant result, especially considering that it is a by-product of his research on what to many chess fans is a less important topic. But I guess I'll have to read the more detailed link that Stuart posted.
It's also interesting that he can compare games played at different time controls. In 1976, the world was still using 40 moves in 150 minutes, plus 16 moves for every hour thereafter. If a 2700 at today's time controls plays as well as a 2700 from 1976, does that imply rating deflation?
Re: Detecting Cheating in Chess by Computer Analysis
I have added a link from my "Fidelity" site to the related papers, which were also linked from my stem page. These have answers to some of the questions.
The paper with Guy Haworth and GM Bartlomiej Macieja includes at the end an in-depth study of the entire Canadian Open, including individual details and "Intrinsic Performance Ratings" of all players who started the event with CFC ratings of 2400 and above. I've been intending to post on that here---for privacy reasons not posting the entire spreadsheet but rather inviting others to e-mail me for those details if they wish. This is however pending an upgrade to my methods (computing a certain piecewise integral exactly rather than approximately) which I may-or-may-not achieve this weekend.
In particular I wanted to take part in the recent thread here on FIDE ratings, as our paper concludes that FIDE ratings of Canadian players are depressed relative to the IPR's, and actually had a post half-written in my window a week ago Friday in reply to Anton Kolvalyov, but was just blitzed for time. (Besides this and my "regular" research on computational complexity, I'm a blogger at http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/.) This contrasts with the fact that my IPR's come out low over tournaments in the 2700+ range, including all Cat 20+ standard RR events to date. It is possible that the slope of my current fit is a tad too shallow, but then again my IPR's for all the rated world championship matches average to almost exactly spot-on. So I'm keeping to the conclusion about CFC players unless a methodology and data upgrade yields otherwise. As the paper says, I am indebted to Hugh Brodie and David Cohen for making the full set of games available, sooner than they originally intended. It took 45 days on the computing resources I have available to analyze all 624 games.
Last edited by Kenneth Regan; Tuesday, 20th March, 2012, 05:46 PM.
Reason: Verb-tense change, "actually having"-->"and actually had"; added sentence at end.
"The models can also be used to clear someone. At the Canadian Open last year, a player whose rating was 2,100 (a candidate master) beat three international masters, whose ratings are usually at least 300 points higher.
After analyzing the games, Dr. Regan said, “I was able to prove that his intrinsic rating was in the 2,100s and the international masters had just played poorly.”
Xu, Haizhou (2151) defeated: IM Meszaros Michal, IM Macak Stefan and IM Calugar Arthur
"The models can also be used to clear someone. At the Canadian Open last year...
Nevertheless, there was probably some cheating at the 2011 Canadian Open!
My opponent who was posting his moves to the internet via one of those Monroi devices,
began running out of the hall after every move once he got a lost position.
He won that game.
I also noticed this happening with one other player using a Monroi recorder.
Neither the organizers or the TDs prevented such players from entering and
exiting the hall repeatedly. Either player could have gotten advice from
someone watching over the internet, such as happened at the Dubai Open
not long ago.
In that case, the player was caught because of steps taken by the organizers there.
No such luck here.
Last edited by Ed Zator; Wednesday, 21st March, 2012, 04:49 PM.
Reason: sp
Nevertheless, there was probably some cheating at the 2011 Canadian Open!
My opponent who was posting his moves to the internet via one of those Monroi devices,
began running out of the hall after every move once he got a lost position.
He won that game.
I also noticed this happening with one other player using a Monroi recorder.
Neither the organizers or the TDs prevented such players from entering and
exiting the hall repeatedly. Either player could have gotten advice from
someone watching over the internet, such as happened at the Dubai Open
not long ago.
In that case, the player was caught because of steps taken by the organizers there.
No such luck here.
Would you post the game and say the move at which you think this started?
I don't have much to keep me busy since I retired from playing and I wouldn't mind running the game on a fast multi core computer with various software.
By the way, a lost position is simply that. The player of the won position has to make an error for the other player to win. Still, I wouldn't mind seeing the game.
Nevertheless, there was probably some cheating at the 2011 Canadian Open!
My opponent who was posting his moves to the internet via one of those Monroi devices,
began running out of the hall after every move once he got a lost position.
He won that game.
I also noticed this happening with one other player using a Monroi recorder.
Neither the organizers or the TDs prevented such players from entering and
exiting the hall repeatedly. Either player could have gotten advice from
someone watching over the internet, such as happened at the Dubai Open
not long ago.
In that case, the player was caught because of steps taken by the organizers there.
No such luck here.
I don't have a Monroi device, but I thought it communicated only with the local (in the tournament) server and was not directly connected to anything else... I don't see how a player could get information from or using the Monroi device - your opponent must have had some other source: a friend in the hallway (who could easily look at the Monroi and offer some quick analysis I guess) etc.
Having a portable representation of the current position (the Monroi) is the problem here (since the above scenario would require the ally to observe the game in person and meet your opponent on a regular basis). I guess if I paid that much for a device, there is no way I would leave it at the table while I went to the washroom or out of the tournament hall for any other legitimate reason.
I don't have a Monroi device, but I thought it communicated only with the local (in the tournament) server and was not directly connected to anything else... I don't see how a player could get information from or using the Monroi device - your opponent must have had some other source: a friend in the hallway (who could easily look at the Monroi and offer some quick analysis I guess) etc.
The player at Dubai using the same device phoned his help in Iran watching on the Internet.
That was easy to do here also as the banks of phones were right behind
the book stall area at the 2011 Open.
These days, top organizers often hire the same spies that do the loss
prevention at stores catching shoplifters.
Cheating at chess tournaments is here to stay, and unless the organizers
take proper countermeasures, there is not much point in playing in
tournaments with big prizes.
Dr. Regan's methods might catch cheaters after the fact (a similar method
exposed Clemens Allwermann), but is impractical as a way to protect players.
Nevertheless, there was probably some cheating at the 2011 Canadian Open!
Evidence, please.
My opponent who was posting his moves to the internet via one of those Monroi devices,
began running out of the hall after every move once he got a lost position.
He won that game.
I also was posting my moves to the internet via one of those Monroi devices and I did manage to win a game against an IM where I was totally lost but if he had taken my rook instead of my queen he would have won. He also happened to walk into a similar tactic that had been covered in a chess lesson I had two weeks prior to the game. Accusing someone of cheating without proof is wrong. It would be simple enough to stop cheating of the kind that you are alleging. Ban cell phones at tournaments. I don't own one so my win against the IM must have been accomplished with some kind of telepathy.
I also noticed this happening with one other player using a Monroi recorder.
Neither the organizers or the TDs prevented such players from entering and
exiting the hall repeatedly.
Did the organizers or TDs prevent you from entering and leaving the hall repeatedly when you were playing with a person with a Monroi? The Monroi puts the game on the internet so by your logic then the organizers should have prevented you AND your opponent from leaving the room. Couldn't your opponent allege that you gained your advantage by cheating in the first place?
If the organizers had prevented me from leaving the room they might have been faced with a situation similar to the one that happened in an Ottawa tournament a few years ago. When you gotta go, you gotta go. In addition, I probably could have made some extra money with a human rights complaint.
Either player could have gotten advice from
someone watching over the internet,
And so could their opponent, which means that your initial advantage against a superior opponent could put you under a cloud of suspicion of cheating.
such as happened at the Dubai Open
not long ago.
In that case, the player was caught because of steps taken by the organizers there.
No such luck here.
The player at Dubai using the same device phoned his help in Iran watching on the Internet.
That was easy to do here also as the banks of phones were right behind
the book stall area at the 2011 Open.
These days, top organizers often hire the same spies that do the loss
prevention at stores catching shoplifters.
Cheating at chess tournaments is here to stay, and unless the organizers
take proper countermeasures, there is not much point in playing in
tournaments with big prizes.
Dr. Regan's methods might catch cheaters after the fact (a similar method
exposed Clemens Allwermann), but is impractical as a way to protect players.
I see what you meant (now). The idea of an enforced delay of -n- minutes for an internet 'live' broadcast has been floated for some time... I don't know whether any organizers have implemented that delayed broadcast or not. I don't know if the Monroi server software offers that as an option.
More or less every person interested in chess engines knows that Rybka is not the strongest commercial engine today (the article is quite fresh). Learn a new name - Houdini.
More or less every person interested in chess engines knows that Rybka is not the strongest commercial engine today (the article is quite fresh). Learn a new name - Houdini.
Posted on the Canadian Chess Consulting Service FB page on Feb. 29:
The Fastest Chess Computer In The World! ( February 21, 2012 article )
It is now official. A website in Austria has confirmed that the Vortex F6 computer by Liquid Nitrogen Overclocking is now the holder of the world's fastest chess computer title. Here is the link to the background to this fascinating fact: http://www.liquidnitrogenoverclocking.com/news_17.shtml
Canadian Chess Consulting Service - Bob Armstrong, Coordinator
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knows that: "Houdini 2: The World’s strongest chess program (current CCRL rating is 3347)"
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