OT: Magnus Carlsen brouhahas

[pilkoids]

this anal beads thing might unseat the richard gere/gerbil story as most apocryphal

[dirkdiggler4177]

If the player does moves that make no sense to anyone, except the simulation computer do the same. I don't watch chess, but I remember watching it one time and all the commentators were confused by the computer prediction, but then it all made sense in the end.

Yeah this is pretty much it. Get a bunch of master-level players (or even a few of them, really) to analyze a player’s moves and they’d be easily able to tell you which ones are humanlike and which ones are unnatural.

No this is not how it's done. There are programs to compare games played by humans with what Stockfish (the best chess computer) recommands. It calculates a score how often you make 'bad' moves (differ from Stockfish' moves). If you score very low it gets suspicious. If you score much lower than Carlsen does in many games, it gets to a point to think it's not possible for a human being. Certainly from a guy who was not very well known in the chess world until recently.
Chess.com uses softeware like this to ban players, so they use it as evidence.

But would it not be pretty easy to just lower the level of the computer to just be a bit better than the best human (Carlsen)? Also, if you know how to analyze it, just pick the most human-like move.

[leolozon]

I'm not sure magnus has said a word about this post some tweet with nothing really clear about it. All the more people are speculating. Magnus might have been saying he need to take a huge dump and people heard cheating.

He said today "I have to say I am very impressed by Neiman's play and I think his mentor Maxim Dlugy must be doing a great job" which people are reading as a further veiled accusation of cheating bc Dlugy is a shady character and suspected cheater

Or he thinks he's a good player and played well...

Come on, he said two sentences and name dropped Dlugy who was banned from chess.com in 2017 for allegedly cheating during a tournament.

It's pretty obvious what he was infering. There was no need to mention Dlugy when Niemann himself doesn't talk about him.

Two guys caught cheating in the past teammed up. Even if they didn't cheat this time, it does look bad. Add the fact that Niemann is setting records in terms of ELO inprovement for a player his age and at this rating. Not by much, but still.

[dhsilv2]

He said today "I have to say I am very impressed by Neiman's play and I think his mentor Maxim Dlugy must be doing a great job" which people are reading as a further veiled accusation of cheating bc Dlugy is a shady character and suspected cheater

Or he thinks he's a good player and played well...

Come on, he said two sentences and name dropped Dlugy who was banned from chess.com in 2017 for allegedly cheating during a tournament.

It's pretty obvious what he was infering. There was no need to mention Dlugy when Niemann himself doesn't talk about him.

Two guys caught cheating in the past teammed up. Even if they didn't cheat this time, it does look bad. Add the fact that Niemann is setting records in terms of ELO inprovement for a player his age and at this rating. Not by much, but still.

I think Magnus is having a field day with offering up cryptic comments and seeing how wild the internet goes with it. Again...we have people implying this guy had anal beads buzzing to tell him how to move lol.

[CraftylikeaFox]

There's enough here for Magnus to privately ask for an investigation into Niemann. The previous cheating history, the counter play to his opening, the inability to explain play. But it should've been behind closed doors because there is no proof (at surface level) of any cheating. Doing it this way is pretty petty.

But for me as someone who doesn't give AF about chess this is the most I've ever found it interesting and I also just recently discovered the Botez sisters because of this so thankful for that lol.

[art_tatum]

Sore loser. Just bc he lost in a classical.
Hans while I don't like him has worked hard and is hitting his prime. He cheated once at 12 online and 16 online in an unrated game.
He did his "time". So have a lot of GMs actually. Cheating over the board is a different animal.

Besides it's not like Carlson is unbeatable. The game he played against Hans wasn't that brilliant. Also Wesley So destroyed him in Fischer random championships which imo has more pure human chess involved.

This is the logic I don’t understand that I’ve seen from the “he’s a sore loser” angle. As you said he’s not unbeatable, plenty of games he loses, so he just randomly decided he’s going to be a sore loser about this one game?

Pretty clear that Magnus believes there was some foul play involved, whether there actually was or not is secondary. This isn’t about Magnus being a sore loser, kind of clear by now he believes he was cheated.

Believing that doesn't mean he's not a sore loser. he can't believe a below 1700 player at the time beat him in that format, a format he hasn't lost in 2 years ( bc he tends to be able to draw a game if at a disadvantage).
I'm sure Magnus believes Hans cheated bc for him there's no other way he would lose. Instead of the Occam's razor conclusion that he just lost. Instead he is permanently ruining a guys career, Reputation ( especially to the general public), and mental health.
Magnus has no evidence or any actual idea of how he cheated. Everything he will say will be conjuncture.

[raptor jesus]

My opinion of Magnus has sunk quite a bit over this. I obviously can't say that Hans is 100% innocent, but Magnus putting him in the hot seat without offering any evidence or even a statement to shed some light, and letting it linger this long, is super unjust imo.

[madmaxmedia]

Does competitive chess feel like a big deal anymore? I feel like player empowerment is ruining the game.

[LuDux1]

Does competitive chess feel like a big deal anymore? I feel like player empowerment is ruining the game.

Just rooks forgetting who brings bread to the army

[CobraCommander]

Yeah this is pretty much it. Get a bunch of master-level players (or even a few of them, really) to analyze a player’s moves and they’d be easily able to tell you which ones are humanlike and which ones are unnatural.

No this is not how it's done. There are programs to compare games played by humans with what Stockfish (the best chess computer) recommands. It calculates a score how often you make 'bad' moves (differ from Stockfish' moves). If you score very low it gets suspicious. If you score much lower than Carlsen does in many games, it gets to a point to think it's not possible for a human being. Certainly from a guy who was not very well known in the chess world until recently.
Chess.com uses softeware like this to ban players, so they use it as evidence.

But would it not be pretty easy to just lower the level of the computer to just be a bit better than the best human (Carlsen)? Also, if you know how to analyze it, just pick the most human-like move.

But you can’t ensure a slightly better computer would just out play Magnus - a slightly better computer would have to make “intentional errors” like it does when you play a weak program.

I suspect Han is getting one or two moves when he gets to some complex positions and he got caught because the computer found something too early for a human to analyze- also they can tell Hans hasn’t been this good… it’s like he pulled a Ben Johnson…

Hans is definitely a good player - a true GM but people don’t think he is a super gm… thus they suspect cheating - even tho Ben F doesn’t think he cheated… so there is that

People acting like Hans cheated a decade ago… when it was 2+ years ago… this guy should be banned… even tho Magnus is acting like a primadonna

[CobraCommander]

My opinion of Magnus has sunk quite a bit over this. I obviously can't say that Hans is 100% innocent, but Magnus putting him in the hot seat without offering any evidence or even a statement to shed some light, and letting it linger this long, is super unjust imo.

I agree - but I don’t think there is a way to prove it AND now HaNs in these guys heads no matter what

[CIN-C-STAR]

Sounds like sour grapes from Magnus to me.
I think he didn't take the match seriously because he assumed he'd win, then followed a not-great opening with a bad play or two, lost, and now he can't accept defeat.
Or, you know, maybe the guy was getting secret missives via vibrating anal beads during the match

[CobraCommander]

Sounds like sour grapes from Magnus to me.
I think he didn't take the match seriously because he assumed he'd win, then followed a not-great opening with a bad play or two, lost, and now he can't accept defeat.
Or, you know, maybe the guy was getting secret missives via vibrating anal beads during the match

I would agree but Hans interview afterwards where he was explaining his play was weird. Like he couldn’t explain why he did anything. Does that sound like a GM that just out played the best ever - Hans said prep but as I understood it Magnus didn’t play that line enough for it to be reasonable for Hans to prep for it.::

[JonFromVA]

Sore loser. Just bc he lost in a classical.
Hans while I don't like him has worked hard and is hitting his prime. He cheated once at 12 online and 16 online in an unrated game.
He did his "time". So have a lot of GMs actually. Cheating over the board is a different animal.

Besides it's not like Carlson is unbeatable. The game he played against Hans wasn't that brilliant. Also Wesley So destroyed him in Fischer random championships which imo has more pure human chess involved.

This is the logic I don’t understand that I’ve seen from the “he’s a sore loser” angle. As you said he’s not unbeatable, plenty of games he loses, so he just randomly decided he’s going to be a sore loser about this one game?

Pretty clear that Magnus believes there was some foul play involved, whether there actually was or not is secondary. This isn’t about Magnus being a sore loser, kind of clear by now he believes he was cheated.

Believing that doesn't mean he's not a sore loser. he can't believe a below 1700 player at the time beat him in that format, a format he hasn't lost in 2 years ( bc he tends to be able to draw a game if at a disadvantage).
I'm sure Magnus believes Hans cheated bc for him there's no other way he would lose. Instead of the Occam's razor conclusion that he just lost. Instead he is permanently ruining a guys career, Reputation ( especially to the general public), and mental health.
Magnus has no evidence or any actual idea of how he cheated. Everything he will say will be conjuncture.

Or maybe Carlsen believes he cheated because he's a chess genius who analyzes his opponents and understands what they are and aren't capable of without some form of help?

The fact he's being cryptic about it doesn't actually help anyone understand what he's thinking or saw, but he clearly understands talking more about this doesn't help him and we can see why in this thread.

[CIN-C-STAR]

Sounds like sour grapes from Magnus to me.
I think he didn't take the match seriously because he assumed he'd win, then followed a not-great opening with a bad play or two, lost, and now he can't accept defeat.
Or, you know, maybe the guy was getting secret missives via vibrating anal beads during the match

I would agree but Hans interview afterwards where he was explaining his play was weird. Like he couldn’t explain why he did anything. Does that sound like a GM that just out played the best ever - Hans said prep but as I understood it Magnus didn’t play that line enough for it to be reasonable for Hans to prep for it.::

That's a fair counter and admittedly I didn't see the interview.

[CobraCommander]

This is the logic I don’t understand that I’ve seen from the “he’s a sore loser” angle. As you said he’s not unbeatable, plenty of games he loses, so he just randomly decided he’s going to be a sore loser about this one game?

Pretty clear that Magnus believes there was some foul play involved, whether there actually was or not is secondary. This isn’t about Magnus being a sore loser, kind of clear by now he believes he was cheated.

Believing that doesn't mean he's not a sore loser. he can't believe a below 1700 player at the time beat him in that format, a format he hasn't lost in 2 years ( bc he tends to be able to draw a game if at a disadvantage).
I'm sure Magnus believes Hans cheated bc for him there's no other way he would lose. Instead of the Occam's razor conclusion that he just lost. Instead he is permanently ruining a guys career, Reputation ( especially to the general public), and mental health.
Magnus has no evidence or any actual idea of how he cheated. Everything he will say will be conjuncture.

Or maybe Carlsen believes he cheated because he's a chess genius who analyzes his opponents and understands what they are and aren't capable of without some form of help?

The fact he's being cryptic about it doesn't actually help anyone understand what he's thinking or saw, but he clearly understands talking more about this doesn't help him and we can see why in this thread.

I think the fact that no one has really come out and explained what happened and analyzed the game enough to just say..: Magnus made this mistake or Hans was brilliant when he did that is pretty telling as well. By now people have analyzed all of Hans and Magnuses games enough to have found something in the way that they play that this outcome could be foreseen. For people that don’t know, Magnus losing games against other GMs isn’t uncommon. He doesn’t sweep the guys in the WC, he wins and draws enough to out point his competion. So it’s not that Magnus lost- it’s who he lost to and how he lost that’s suspicious.


One thing I wonder is that if someone could predict what Magnus would play well enough prepping with a computer that they could beat him ONE time… like could someone ranked 1700 on paper actually catch Magnus taking him lightly, play white, push a predictable line with Magnus and catch him slipping… just once… and if that 1700 was actually playing at 2500+ level would the surprise and the fact that Magnus was on auto pilot during the opening and beginning of the middle game give the player that’s SMURFing a chance to put Magnus into an unwinnavld game….

Problem is Magnus knew who Hans was and knew his rep… so there is that

[ice9]

Hans is a self admitted cheater. While he admitted to cheating twice (the two times he was caught), chess.com banned him and released a statement that his cheating was more extensive than he admitted. You can say he was just a kid....but the most recent incident was in 2020, not that long ago.

In addition, Hans's mentor, Dlugy, is a known cheater.

In addition, Hans claims to have studied Magnus's line 20 moves deep just that morning. I believe Magnus had gotten to that position via transposition, but had never played that move order. Hans also referenced the wrong tournament (although that would be a fair mistake). I believe his analysis that didn't make sense was against Alireza, though. Still, terrible analysis.

It will be impossible to prove he cheated OR didn't cheat in that match. There is enough there to warrant suspicion, however. Magnus does somewhat have his hands tied where he can't explicitly say anything for legal and/or FIDE reasons. He has lost and does lose to other young players, he often blames himself or gives them credit.

Cheating would not be terribly difficult, it would just require 1-2 nudges or hints a game and could not be detected by post game analysis since they would be moves that someone would play. Which, of course, could be communicated through anal beads. Also, auto correct tried to change that to analysis beads, which I hereby do trademark.

Sent from my SM-G996U1 using Tapatalk

[slick_watts]

irrespective of hans' cheating or non-cheating, magnus' choice on how to handle this is weird and imo unbefitting his station.

[TheSuzerain]

I wish Hans won today so that they would collide in the semi's but alas...

[jirrit]

My opinion of Magnus has sunk quite a bit over this. I obviously can't say that Hans is 100% innocent, but Magnus putting him in the hot seat without offering any evidence or even a statement to shed some light, and letting it linger this long, is super unjust imo.

Yea I’m there too. At first I was in camp Magnus but he’s really handling the situation very bad IMO.

Hans now again played a super solid attacking game against a big GM. His behaviour and his history do make him ‘feel’ suspicious. I’m pretty much torn and I think whole the chess community is. This is not helping anything.