This is relevant to today's events because Magnus Carlsen just withdrew from a tournament[1] after yesterday's loss to a significantly lower rated opponent who had previously been suspended for cheating on chess.com. The tournament organizers have also implemented additional anti-cheating protocols starting today.
Whatever comes out of these accusations, the chess world will sure enjoy its new infusion of drama.
Wow, somehow I missed this. Pretty wild accusations from Magnus and Hikaru on this. Hans just had a horrific tournament in his last attempt, which makes this whole thing pretty interesting.
Hans didn't play engine perfect lines when beating Magnus in the Sinquefield Cup, though he obviously played extremely accurately.
Do computers play like top humans? Or different stylistically?
ie - if you were a top player and looking at the moves of an opponent, could you discern if the style was more similar to a top rated human or a top rated computer?
I don't understand why a GM would need to explain some of his moves precisely and with a deep understanding of the position as some commentators here point out. Why is that so indicative of cheating? It's known that classical chess has a lot of theory, and Hans himself admits that he checked an engine line the evening before the game. So what? Here's the quote:
"
I didn’t guess it, but by some miracle I checked this today, and it’s such a ridiculous miracle that I don’t even remember why I checked it. I just remembered 12…h6 and everything after this, and I’ve no idea why I would check such a ridiculous thing, but I checked it, and I even knew that 13…Be6! is just very good. It’s so ridiculous that I checked it.
"
https://chess24.com/en/read/news/sinquefield-cup-3-niemann-b...
I know some fairly high rated players who've had accounts suspended for cheating because they got angry and used an engine to cheat a cheater. So you can be a good player and a cheater.
Edit: For clarification, after losing to an obvious engine user, they used an engine themselves to strike back.
Is there any evidence Hans Niemann was suspended specifically for cheating? I’ve seen multiple unsubstantiated claims, but no source that definitively states he was suspended for cheating.
I'm not sure why wasn't that blatantly obvious until today. Chess is an extremely unsuitable sport for online because you are 100% free to use the strongest computers on it without 100% no cheat protection at all. It should be ..100% restricted to person-to-person tournaments for keeping score.
I considered that you could have vibration sensor plates under player's feet but I can imagine several ways this "doesn't work":
1) Feet could be stimulated using electrical voltage (low level shocks).
2) Cheaters could put one foot on their knee and the system would only activate vibration when it was near a 90-degree rotation.
3) Cheaters could incorporate a vibration-damping polymer like sorbothane, probably a particularly low durometer to absorb vibrations between shoe insert and floor plate.
I believe the answer is going to have to be establishing a "secure" zone that can't be crossed by anyone without a full x-ray scan of all personal effects and mmWave scanners. If clothing blocks the mmWave scan, people would have to don lighter / more form-fitting clothing while going through the mmWave scanner, send their preferred clothes through the x-ray machine, and then swap into their desired clothes in a secure changing room/bathroom.
The main downside to this is increased cost; I'm not even sure how much this would cost to operate. And for which events would FIDE make this extra cost a requirement? Every FIDE rated event seems completely unreasonable - many of these are small local events with very little budget and lots of 1200 rated players. Perhaps any rated event which includes any of the top-10 players? Is there enough money at that level of chess to fund a requirement like this?
Still some potential for hiding cheating devices in relatively private areas like bathrooms, changing rooms, utility closets, or even "planting" large objects like potted plants/etc with hidden compartments. Most likely I'd imagine the player wouldn't grab these, they'd have someone they trust hide them in the weeks before the event and have a person retrieve these and then drop them in a secure bathroom stall/etc. These would be, for example, identical shoes to the ones they came in with.
Perhaps worth having players go through the scanners again right before they sit down at the table, including in the middle of the match if they take a bathroom break/etc. Maybe that would work, but I'm still concerned about the price -- that would need a separate analysis. How much money is available for each of these matches?
The stakes right now are pretty personal but if nations governments get involved in the cheating for reasons of national pride like they do for the Olympics[0] then I'm not sure anyone would be able to stop the cheating.
Another strategy might be to change the format of the top level of chess to "allow" cheating by giving everyone access to whatever engine they want, powered by identical hardware and watt-limited. So the competition would be "man+machine" vs "man+machine". There's been some chat about this but I'm not sure that matches wouldn't be so insanely even that you'd need 300+ games to build a reasonable confidence interval so that you can even determine which player "won". Currently the TCEC (highest level engine vs. engine championship) uses 22 games per matchup to determine a clear result. Even that would be excessive.
Those saying it he got banned on chess.com, it was total bullshit, here it is of how it happened live on Han's stream when he was an IM: https://livestreamfails.com/post/84343
Alireza was also banned on Chess.com for cheating but there was none. I don't think HN crowd realizes how easy it is to falsely get banned on Chess.com, don't assassinate someone's character based on that: https://www.chessdom.com/alireza-firouzja-was-banned-for-che...
Though I'm not much of a poker player myself, I am friends with many professionals who have found success both online and offline, in games from pot-limit omaha to no-limit hold-em.
Cheating in online poker has been around for many years, with varying success by online gaming companies to implement anti-cheat measures in their software. With recent developments in AI, there is renewed discussion about cheating as the best AIs have no trouble beating anything from PLO to NLHE.
It was only a matter of time before this started to spread offline, and just a few weeks ago, I heard a story from a friend of a friend who caught a player using a device similar to this during a private game he was hosting. It's only a matter of time before these sorts of devices continue to spread, and I'm not sure how the world will respond.
It would be a huge deal to cheat at events like the World Chess Tournament, but the consequences of getting caught will likely stop at complete disgrace. Cheating at events like the World Series of Poker, with tens of millions of dollars on the line, or even worse, private events with potentially billions of dollars at stake, could lead to a hell of a lot worse.
About 20 years ago (before the crackdown on online poker in the US), I had a friend who made a good living playing online poker. His cheating strategy was to use an engine to watch every single game being played on the server. Once he accumulated enough data on players, he would simply play at tables where there were really bad players. He would have insight into each players strategy, and could counter easily. He made quite a bit.
Oh yeah. Mike Postle was 100% cheating and getting fed moves from a confederate. But even if he wasn't, this type of setup with communication could simply maximize imperfect information, run it through a "solver" (which is what poker players call their game engines), and return the best plays.
More on the Mike Postle thing in this twoplustwo thread, or of course, Google:
In my circle of friends I have one or two that will take the option to cheat, to this day. This was fine during school days, but, as an adult, I question the behaviour.
This is at cards (Bridge) and Scrabble with some quick hands of normal card games if there is a break or insufficient time for a 'Bridge Rubber'.
My counter strategy is to win fairly and squarely. My cheating friends are obligated to spend a lot of effort planning the cheat and not getting caught. After the sleight of hand they also need to monitor the table to make sure nobody has noticed. They also need to be watching for others cheating.
With Scrabble in particular, total focus on the task in hand is, for me, a much better strategy. The dopamine hit is being able to lay down all the letters, calmly and without commotion, to get maximum points, doing it again on the next round from a fresh rack of letters. This can be done with an 'open' game, where opportunities are given to competitors instead of made a priority to deny. Done well, this feels like you have just put together e=mc2 each play.
Because of gambling mentality, the stakes get higher and higher. I am not in it for the money and feel troubled by taking what was other people's money from the table, more so if they cheat because I feel sorry for them. If it is a legitimate game then the stakes are representative of the situation, the prize can be fairly claimed.
Of consequence is reputation. If you cheat and lose then that is going to be remembered by your peers for decades. However, if you play a monster game where people you have not played before start out with the assumption that they are just going to be battered, then that reputation is short lived. Which is good because people will still play you, even the cheats.
Yeah I'm fairly sure there's security checks at these tournaments and the environment gets tightly controlled; I wouldn't be surprised if they go as far as have everyone and everything that goes into the playing room go through a full-body X-ray.
I wonder why everyone focuses on electronic communication and wearable devices.
There are tons of acoustic side channels if an accomplice watches the live stream outside of the playing venue. Set up construction site and use a hammer just loud enough to be just barely heard from the inside. Bird sounds, music, the possibilities are endless.
Very few bits of information need to be transmitted for the best three moves.
Then chess games will be held inside windowless, purpose built sound proof rooms with only staff members inside, and the players will be forced to leave their shoes and socks at the door and wear tournament-provided slippers. Construction work around the building will also be stopped during the tournament.
example: Moon Ribas, an artist, has a small vibrating sensor embedded permanently in her feet that communicates wirelessly and vibrates whenever there is an earthquake somewhere in the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Ribas#Seismic_Sense
The idea can be extended to an implanted device that receives subtle signals from the user to have a representation of the game state and communicates back through gentle sensations.
Computer-assisted chess cheating has been going on for over a decade now.[1]
It's getting to be embarrassing for humans, that small battery powered devices now win against strong players. At world championship level, at least you still need a laptop.
Does the size of the device really make it more or less embarrassing? If anything, I think it's pretty awesome that a small battery powered device -- designed and programmed by humans -- can excel at games like chess.
For those who may not be aware, the author reinvented a device (one of many really) that has been used in casinos to cheat at games of chance and table games.
Don't actually use something like this. You will always get caught, sooner or later. Depending on who lost money on your match, you will either be tossed out of the tournament, thrown in jail, or killed. Maybe some mix of those will happen. These sorts of things have been used literally for decades.
Honestly a Faraday cage should be a very good defense against most attacks including this one. Moderately expensive for a good quality one, probably only affordable for high stakes tournaments (it shouldn't be expensive in terms of materials: a very simple sheet metal cage with adequate electrical connection technique should be enough, but I assume it's too specialized to be cheap -- plus care must be taken with openings and ventilation).
Edit: I believe at the moment it's still necessary a fairly large device to run the best engines which can't be concealed (?).
Edit2: Oh the engine is running on the Pi 0! Impressive.
Could you hide a bone-conducting bluetooth speaker in your big hair? This way the computer could speak the instructions and confirm the inputs.
How about the controls being inside your mouth at the top. The tongue is very agile. But it might be difficult to tolerate. You could use a local anesthetic spray before.
>Could you hide a bone-conducting bluetooth speaker in your big hair?
You don't really even need that. You only need to communicate a handful of bits. Morse code using small zaps/pressure anywhere on/in your body is sufficent.
1993 had the John von Neumann affair (I played in 1994 World Open so missed out on the fun) where the player had huge dreadlocks, presumably hiding headphones.
"At the World Open 1993 in Philadelphia a completely unknown player appeared, unsubtly calling himself John von Neumann. He played excellently, drawing against GM Helgi Olafsson in the second round. But in round four he suddenly stopped at move nine and lost on time."
"Von Neumann won a prize in the category of players without an Elo rating. Naturally people had become suspicious of this unknown and highly unorthodox player. Before the organisers handed over the $800 check they asked him to solve a simple chess puzzle. He refused, turned and left, and has never been seen again at chess tournaments"
Who was he and who was his assistant? Personal computers were not quite at the GM level in 1993.
If I was the tournament organizer, all games would be held inside windowless, sound proof rooms doubling as Faraday cages with thick concrete walls, electronic jammers outside to prevent any radio communications, and no one but cleared staff members inside. The players would also be subjected to multiple rounds of metal detectors.
If one really wanted to cheat with a computer, I imagine it would be better to only carry around enough hardware to communicate wirelessly with it, rather than the whole thing.
This would be harder to detect as the amount of hardware would be much smaller, and it would allow using a more powerful computer.
Cheating seems easy to deal with. The players should go into a dressing room with supervision. They take off all of their clothes and don new clothing for the event. They then go out and play. They also probably need to be accompanied to the bathroom with an observer.
Of course, this all sounds crazy. But it's not that different than what athletes have to do (if you've ever had to stand around naked waiting to pee into a bottle after a race you know what I'm talking about).
Yes, they still could have some kind of in-body thing (tiny earpiece, or weirder thing in some other part of their body), so they probably have to also be scanned for electronics (or, the game has to take place in a location where there is no way to electronically communicate).
Very interesting, lots of room for improved UX with more sensors to more efficiently communicate opponent moves - "long presses", double and triple taps, "shake your foot", rolls, heel lifts ... if you could get this down to < 2 seconds I think you're in real business.
Also for things like "captures-captures" or "only move" some shortcuts would be handy.
Maybe some hand and brain style options where you or it select the piece and the other suggests a move ...
Wiring up each toe and mapping to a piece type could expedite move suggestion inputs ...
I'd be interested if any HN members consider James Stanley a 'cyborg' with the shoes on?
From what I've found on Wikipedia, it sounds like wearing the shoes is an, "integration of some artificial component or technology that relies on some sort of feedback."
This got me thinking that the Nike shoes Marty wore in Back to the Future 2 could also be considered a cybernetics enhancement.
To what degree does a device need to be integrated with a human body for that human not to be considered a human any more?
In artificial hip definitely makes you a cyborg, and I like to imagine by contact lenses as cybernetic vision enhancement devices, though I can see people err-ing on that. But I don't think I would consider my glasses to be 'cybernetic'.
In my opinion the difference is whether it sits inside the body (imo, inside the eyelids counts). Pacemaker, insulin pump, cochlear implant. Otherwise, you could claim our phones are cybernetic memory and knowledge enhancements (which isn't entirely wrong)
Though I think many of these simply bring you back towards 'baseline healthy human'. For many, the term cyborg requires you to _exceed_ baseline human to be worthy of the term.
So if he implanted this device that made him inhumanly good at chess, I think it would count. This is just using a very inefficient keyboard.
Inserts self-promotional link to a "Scrabble board solver on a smart watch that can analyze the game board using the smart watch's camera, the tiles you currently hold, and the optimal word to play" and then walks away whistling.
Just wait until innocuous looking smart glasses show up.
Really can't stand Niemann's arrogant attitude, but cheating is a whole new level, if this is proven, and if this is indeed what Magnus is hinting at. Whatever the outcome, it's not a pretty picture for chess overall. Publicity it will get for sure.
This is only legitimate as a prank ("Can you teach my kid Chess?") or as part of some elaborate Ocean's-11-style Rube Goldberg heist. Also for James Bond if the fate of the free world is not at stake.
We need a tournament that allows for engines. That way the humans are merely avatars of NNs, and may the best engine win. This may also uncover lots of useful insight for the "all-natural" human tournaments.
How would this solve the problem of cheating? What is "the best engine"? An Engine requires rules as well. Cheating is always involved when there are rules. That's why it is called cheating.
The idea of professional cheating is not to tell anyone about it. That's why undetected case are usually higher.
Is there a precise, published-in-advance definition of cheating in the chess contest rules, or are the contest organizers allowed to shift goalposts as they see fit, and ban a player from future contests because of any arbitrary reason they come up with?
My naïve definition would be: a player was probably not cheating if they would have been able to come up with the same moves even if they had played in an isolated room with only basic supplies (such as water and sugar for human players and electricity for computer players). Thus a player who is consulting a chess book, a friend, the web or a computer is cheating, because those are not available in an isolated room.
Yes, if it's a FIDE tournament, there is a precise definition about what is allowed. Of course, this will be applied as interpreted by the arbiters.
12.3 a. During play the players are forbidden to make use of any notes, sources of
information or advice, or analyse on another chessboard.
12.3 b. Without the permission of the arbiter a player is forbidden to have a mobile phone
or other electronic means of communication in the playing venue, unless they are
completely switched off. If any such device produces a sound, the player shall lose
the game. The opponent shall win. However, if the opponent cannot win the game
by any series of legal moves, his score shall be a draw.
You don't need to be born into wealth to pick up chess as a hobby. It only gets expensive for very high level players (having to attend international tournaments to progress, if you're from a small country where the player pool isn't big enough)
Very interesting article. I like reading about cheating and how people try to trick everyone, especially in chess. It seems unusual to me that there’s only 89 points, but I guess thats temporary.
For this sort of thing you have to always tell some authority first, before doing it, and have them approve of the reason. Like a judge of the Law, a grandmaster, something like that. And if she/he refuses don't ask anybody else, no forum shopping, you can ask the same authority again after many intervening interactions a single second time, or allow him to return to you. Or put it on the blockchain, there has to be a commitment is the term of art. It's cheating after all, there has to be integrity from before the fact.
You have any idea what happens when you dogmatically refuse to cheat?
sharedfrog|3 years ago
Whatever comes out of these accusations, the chess world will sure enjoy its new infusion of drama.
[1] https://twitter.com/MagnusCarlsen/status/1566848734616555523
icelancer|3 years ago
Hans didn't play engine perfect lines when beating Magnus in the Sinquefield Cup, though he obviously played extremely accurately.
fasthands9|3 years ago
Do computers play like top humans? Or different stylistically?
ie - if you were a top player and looking at the moves of an opponent, could you discern if the style was more similar to a top rated human or a top rated computer?
veidelis|3 years ago
" I didn’t guess it, but by some miracle I checked this today, and it’s such a ridiculous miracle that I don’t even remember why I checked it. I just remembered 12…h6 and everything after this, and I’ve no idea why I would check such a ridiculous thing, but I checked it, and I even knew that 13…Be6! is just very good. It’s so ridiculous that I checked it. " https://chess24.com/en/read/news/sinquefield-cup-3-niemann-b...
queuebert|3 years ago
Edit: For clarification, after losing to an obvious engine user, they used an engine themselves to strike back.
zibby8|3 years ago
avip|3 years ago
epigramx|3 years ago
bumbledraven|3 years ago
HOW TO CATCH A CHESS CHEATER Ken Regan Finds Moves Out of Mind Chess Life, June 2014 https://cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/personal/JuneCLarticleKWR.pdf
runnerup|3 years ago
1) Feet could be stimulated using electrical voltage (low level shocks).
2) Cheaters could put one foot on their knee and the system would only activate vibration when it was near a 90-degree rotation.
3) Cheaters could incorporate a vibration-damping polymer like sorbothane, probably a particularly low durometer to absorb vibrations between shoe insert and floor plate.
I believe the answer is going to have to be establishing a "secure" zone that can't be crossed by anyone without a full x-ray scan of all personal effects and mmWave scanners. If clothing blocks the mmWave scan, people would have to don lighter / more form-fitting clothing while going through the mmWave scanner, send their preferred clothes through the x-ray machine, and then swap into their desired clothes in a secure changing room/bathroom.
The main downside to this is increased cost; I'm not even sure how much this would cost to operate. And for which events would FIDE make this extra cost a requirement? Every FIDE rated event seems completely unreasonable - many of these are small local events with very little budget and lots of 1200 rated players. Perhaps any rated event which includes any of the top-10 players? Is there enough money at that level of chess to fund a requirement like this?
Still some potential for hiding cheating devices in relatively private areas like bathrooms, changing rooms, utility closets, or even "planting" large objects like potted plants/etc with hidden compartments. Most likely I'd imagine the player wouldn't grab these, they'd have someone they trust hide them in the weeks before the event and have a person retrieve these and then drop them in a secure bathroom stall/etc. These would be, for example, identical shoes to the ones they came in with.
Perhaps worth having players go through the scanners again right before they sit down at the table, including in the middle of the match if they take a bathroom break/etc. Maybe that would work, but I'm still concerned about the price -- that would need a separate analysis. How much money is available for each of these matches?
The stakes right now are pretty personal but if nations governments get involved in the cheating for reasons of national pride like they do for the Olympics[0] then I'm not sure anyone would be able to stop the cheating.
Another strategy might be to change the format of the top level of chess to "allow" cheating by giving everyone access to whatever engine they want, powered by identical hardware and watt-limited. So the competition would be "man+machine" vs "man+machine". There's been some chat about this but I'm not sure that matches wouldn't be so insanely even that you'd need 300+ games to build a reasonable confidence interval so that you can even determine which player "won". Currently the TCEC (highest level engine vs. engine championship) uses 22 games per matchup to determine a clear result. Even that would be excessive.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus_(2017_film)
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Chess_Engine_Championship#....
systemvoltage|3 years ago
PowerPlayChess covered the game, it was a magnificent performance but also not perfect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n27zd_dVtFw
Those saying it he got banned on chess.com, it was total bullshit, here it is of how it happened live on Han's stream when he was an IM: https://livestreamfails.com/post/84343
More info here, if he was really cheating he would have been banned for life. It was a suspension for 60 mins: https://twitter.com/boomer_chess/status/1566872068922265606
Alireza was also banned on Chess.com for cheating but there was none. I don't think HN crowd realizes how easy it is to falsely get banned on Chess.com, don't assassinate someone's character based on that: https://www.chessdom.com/alireza-firouzja-was-banned-for-che...
michaelwm|3 years ago
Cheating in online poker has been around for many years, with varying success by online gaming companies to implement anti-cheat measures in their software. With recent developments in AI, there is renewed discussion about cheating as the best AIs have no trouble beating anything from PLO to NLHE.
It was only a matter of time before this started to spread offline, and just a few weeks ago, I heard a story from a friend of a friend who caught a player using a device similar to this during a private game he was hosting. It's only a matter of time before these sorts of devices continue to spread, and I'm not sure how the world will respond.
It would be a huge deal to cheat at events like the World Chess Tournament, but the consequences of getting caught will likely stop at complete disgrace. Cheating at events like the World Series of Poker, with tens of millions of dollars on the line, or even worse, private events with potentially billions of dollars at stake, could lead to a hell of a lot worse.
cortesoft|3 years ago
icelancer|3 years ago
More on the Mike Postle thing in this twoplustwo thread, or of course, Google:
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/mike...
Theodores|3 years ago
This is at cards (Bridge) and Scrabble with some quick hands of normal card games if there is a break or insufficient time for a 'Bridge Rubber'.
My counter strategy is to win fairly and squarely. My cheating friends are obligated to spend a lot of effort planning the cheat and not getting caught. After the sleight of hand they also need to monitor the table to make sure nobody has noticed. They also need to be watching for others cheating.
With Scrabble in particular, total focus on the task in hand is, for me, a much better strategy. The dopamine hit is being able to lay down all the letters, calmly and without commotion, to get maximum points, doing it again on the next round from a fresh rack of letters. This can be done with an 'open' game, where opportunities are given to competitors instead of made a priority to deny. Done well, this feels like you have just put together e=mc2 each play.
Because of gambling mentality, the stakes get higher and higher. I am not in it for the money and feel troubled by taking what was other people's money from the table, more so if they cheat because I feel sorry for them. If it is a legitimate game then the stakes are representative of the situation, the prize can be fairly claimed.
Of consequence is reputation. If you cheat and lose then that is going to be remembered by your peers for decades. However, if you play a monster game where people you have not played before start out with the assumption that they are just going to be battered, then that reputation is short lived. Which is good because people will still play you, even the cheats.
bravura|3 years ago
illwrks|3 years ago
Naked poker/chess etc...
kfrzcode|3 years ago
eganist|3 years ago
Cthulhu_|3 years ago
pedrosorio|3 years ago
What are these? Elon Musk - Jeff Bezos head to head?
nlzoperand|3 years ago
There are tons of acoustic side channels if an accomplice watches the live stream outside of the playing venue. Set up construction site and use a hammer just loud enough to be just barely heard from the inside. Bird sounds, music, the possibilities are endless.
Very few bits of information need to be transmitted for the best three moves.
Tangurena2|3 years ago
https://millionaire.fandom.com/wiki/Coughing
Aperocky|3 years ago
Victerius|3 years ago
jletienne|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
weare138|3 years ago
https://nautil.us/claude-shannon-the-las-vegas-cheat-6397
J. Doyne Farmer and Norman Packard from UC Santa Cruz also developed one in the late 70s as part of a group called The Eudaemons.
http://physics.ucsc.edu/people/eudaemons/layout.html
Bluecobra|3 years ago
https://archive.org/details/breaking-vegas-s-1-e-08-beat-the...
Wingman4l7|3 years ago
Worth mentioning the book, entitled "The Eudaemonic Pie: The Bizarre True Story of How a Band of Physicists and Computer Wizards Took On Las Vegas".
Balgair|3 years ago
markwkw|3 years ago
example: Moon Ribas, an artist, has a small vibrating sensor embedded permanently in her feet that communicates wirelessly and vibrates whenever there is an earthquake somewhere in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Ribas#Seismic_Sense
The idea can be extended to an implanted device that receives subtle signals from the user to have a representation of the game state and communicates back through gentle sensations.
Underqualified|3 years ago
Animats|3 years ago
It's getting to be embarrassing for humans, that small battery powered devices now win against strong players. At world championship level, at least you still need a laptop.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheating_in_chess#High-profile
ziddoap|3 years ago
Does the size of the device really make it more or less embarrassing? If anything, I think it's pretty awesome that a small battery powered device -- designed and programmed by humans -- can excel at games like chess.
faeriechangling|3 years ago
eunos|3 years ago
Andrew_nenakhov|3 years ago
No you don't. A very simple smartphone from 2016 will do.
IncRnd|3 years ago
Don't actually use something like this. You will always get caught, sooner or later. Depending on who lost money on your match, you will either be tossed out of the tournament, thrown in jail, or killed. Maybe some mix of those will happen. These sorts of things have been used literally for decades.
yuubi|3 years ago
gnramires|3 years ago
Edit: I believe at the moment it's still necessary a fairly large device to run the best engines which can't be concealed (?).
Edit2: Oh the engine is running on the Pi 0! Impressive.
crtasm|3 years ago
seirim|3 years ago
323|3 years ago
How about the controls being inside your mouth at the top. The tongue is very agile. But it might be difficult to tolerate. You could use a local anesthetic spray before.
Tenoke|3 years ago
You don't really even need that. You only need to communicate a handful of bits. Morse code using small zaps/pressure anywhere on/in your body is sufficent.
sireat|3 years ago
"At the World Open 1993 in Philadelphia a completely unknown player appeared, unsubtly calling himself John von Neumann. He played excellently, drawing against GM Helgi Olafsson in the second round. But in round four he suddenly stopped at move nine and lost on time."
"Von Neumann won a prize in the category of players without an Elo rating. Naturally people had become suspicious of this unknown and highly unorthodox player. Before the organisers handed over the $800 check they asked him to solve a simple chess puzzle. He refused, turned and left, and has never been seen again at chess tournaments"
Who was he and who was his assistant? Personal computers were not quite at the GM level in 1993.
https://en.chessbase.com/post/a-history-of-cheating-in-che-2
Victerius|3 years ago
EGreg|3 years ago
https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/01/28/239657/lasers-ca...
FartyMcFarter|3 years ago
This would be harder to detect as the amount of hardware would be much smaller, and it would allow using a more powerful computer.
grog454|3 years ago
Upvoter33|3 years ago
Of course, this all sounds crazy. But it's not that different than what athletes have to do (if you've ever had to stand around naked waiting to pee into a bottle after a race you know what I'm talking about).
Yes, they still could have some kind of in-body thing (tiny earpiece, or weirder thing in some other part of their body), so they probably have to also be scanned for electronics (or, the game has to take place in a location where there is no way to electronically communicate).
harryvederci|3 years ago
I'm working on an alternative that can be inserted in your underwear.
Still thinking of a good name, hmm...
davidguetta|3 years ago
kthejoker2|3 years ago
Also for things like "captures-captures" or "only move" some shortcuts would be handy.
Maybe some hand and brain style options where you or it select the piece and the other suggests a move ...
Wiring up each toe and mapping to a piece type could expedite move suggestion inputs ...
icu|3 years ago
From what I've found on Wikipedia, it sounds like wearing the shoes is an, "integration of some artificial component or technology that relies on some sort of feedback."
This got me thinking that the Nike shoes Marty wore in Back to the Future 2 could also be considered a cybernetics enhancement.
To what degree does a device need to be integrated with a human body for that human not to be considered a human any more?
jetbooster|3 years ago
Though I think many of these simply bring you back towards 'baseline healthy human'. For many, the term cyborg requires you to _exceed_ baseline human to be worthy of the term.
So if he implanted this device that made him inhumanly good at chess, I think it would count. This is just using a very inefficient keyboard.
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
justinlloyd|3 years ago
Just wait until innocuous looking smart glasses show up.
JBanis|3 years ago
projektfu|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
sgjohnson|3 years ago
Would one be able to clear a metal detector with this? I doubt it.
mda|3 years ago
e.g. on 3nm node it s possible to fit 300million transistors per mm2.
smnplk|3 years ago
[Player] --> [Strip naked] --> [Manual cavity search] --> [Puts on only tournament robe and slippers] --> [Sits at the table]
travelhead|3 years ago
guipsp|3 years ago
mensetmanusman|3 years ago
Not many great solutions to this.
stripykitteh|3 years ago
nebulousthree|3 years ago
sgjohnson|3 years ago
We do. It's called the World Computer Chess Championship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Computer_Chess_Champions...
_the_inflator|3 years ago
The idea of professional cheating is not to tell anyone about it. That's why undetected case are usually higher.
ptspts|3 years ago
My naïve definition would be: a player was probably not cheating if they would have been able to come up with the same moves even if they had played in an isolated room with only basic supplies (such as water and sugar for human players and electricity for computer players). Thus a player who is consulting a chess book, a friend, the web or a computer is cheating, because those are not available in an isolated room.
superhuzza|3 years ago
12.3 a. During play the players are forbidden to make use of any notes, sources of information or advice, or analyse on another chessboard.
12.3 b. Without the permission of the arbiter a player is forbidden to have a mobile phone or other electronic means of communication in the playing venue, unless they are completely switched off. If any such device produces a sound, the player shall lose the game. The opponent shall win. However, if the opponent cannot win the game by any series of legal moves, his score shall be a draw.
Linda703|3 years ago
[deleted]
wombatcringe|3 years ago
[deleted]
sgjohnson|3 years ago
jonas-w|3 years ago
vlle|3 years ago
daniel-cussen|3 years ago
You have any idea what happens when you dogmatically refuse to cheat?