I'm really sursprised that cheating isn't discussed on LG and there is nothing happening against it. I am a FIDE Master, and yet I can't get past rating ~1750 because of tons of cheaters. On other chess sites, cheaters at least try to hide, don't admit, don't play all top engine moves etc. And LG had reached a point where such things happen:

Me: Are you using an engine?

Opponent: Yes

Me: Do you realise it is cheating and you should hget banned for it?

Opponent: Yes

This is sickening. I have yet never seen cheaters behave like that. So my question is: will anything ever be done against cheating? Or are we just supposed to sit waiting until there are more cheaters that fair players? Or is Richard trying to do something, but it is hard and time-consuming?

I have also noticed that the number of people cheating in chess is probably the bigest of all LG games. I don't know if I should continue playing chess here…

One more question, is it allowed to post names of cheaters in forums? On some sites it isn't.

Continuing the conversation:

Me: Is you = xxxx?

Opponent: sure

Cheating is a big problem and I wish Richard would at least ban obvious cheaters before they got their ratings high enough to give them satisfaction.

That being said, My rating is in the 1700s these days and used to be in the 1800s and my USCF OTB strength is also no higher than the 1700s. Maybe I'm making better use than you of a correspondence environment, analyzing position by myself. But I'm certainly not using an engine and these days I'm not even working hard at analysis. If you're really 600 points stronger than me OTB and no better here, you must be playing a remarkably high proportion of your games against rising (and likely but not necessarily cheating) opponents.

Chess is boring, anyway - play other games instead!

If you have firm evidence that multiple accounts are either the same person (“sockpuppets”) or are at least collaborating, then please do present your evidence (which will necessitate naming them). Similarly, if you identify moves that humans would be very unlikely to consider but the best engines suggest, again, present your evidence.

I'm not saying anything will be done, but at least others will have the opportunity to evaluate the evidence, and perhaps blacklist those players if it is convincing. Similarly, the Tour of Little Golem has a strict policy, with the ability to kick out known cheaters, so please make these things known.

As you know from my mistakes, not all evidence is 100% bulletproof, so be moderate in any accusations.

three points:

1. it is quite easy to slip in cheating mode - I guess for most 'cheaters' it started that way, just using a program to see where they went wrong, and then using it to make sure you don't miss an obvious blunder, and then let's see if the program has another idea, and then… oops.

2. is there free software out there that automatically analyses a game versus program answers? Like, I load a complete PGN from the site here, feed it in the program, and (after an hour running) get a result like: '99% best three moves used, so probably cheater'? I would be willing to spend some time analyzing like the first league.

3. ever thought about an amnesty? everybody who declares that he cheated in the past, and wants to became clean again, is considered a 'refound son' and excused? Or would this be too much? Maybe that removes a bunch of them?

P.S.: Today is coming-out day, I heard!

I suggest, at the risk of repeating myself, playing a game where the human players still beat the best programs. That protects you from engines. Hex is such a game. And I don't think there are collaborating accounts (“sockpuppets”) in Hex. Havannah is another such game.

I know of no other 2-person game with perfect information and no chance (hence theoretically deterministic) that has both chess's scope for creativity in a single game and chess's wide variety of very different-feeling paths that a game may develop (thanks mostly to the different combination of pieces that may be left when other pieces are traded off). So even though cheating is a problem, I will continue to play the game that first brought me to Little Golem and is still the one I enjoy the most.

If you don't like chess, you don't speak for everyone. There's no reason to say that cheating doesn't matter just because it's not your preferred game.

“There are many cyclists using steroids.”

“Then do archery or sailing.”

Does this make any sense?

At a different site I caught a player cheating at reversi. It turns out he's a famous player in a different game, has won on-the-board tournaments in that particular game, has invented several variants of that game, and he's the founder of the American Federation for that particular game.

Yet he feels the need to use a software program to win reversi games online. WTF?????

Cheating has been a big problem on LG - actually, these days the problem is significantly smaller than what it used to be! And somar96, if you think chess has the biggest problem, you probably don't plaay Reversi! :-)

I suggest, as FatPhil does, that you name the cheaters you find - but preferrably after confronting them with the accusation and being pretty sure about their cheating. Such information is valuable to others who want to avoid playing against cheaters, and also it enables us to have tournaments like the Tour where we ban cheaters. Additionally, some cheaters might read the post, become embaressed and stop playing here. There's also a small but probably non-zero chance that Richard finds the evidence so strong that he bans the cheater from LG - but I wouldn't bet on it…

Dimo admitted to me he was a cheater. He didn't say as much, but he is a Mahmoud.

That's 17383 (currently Dimo games) and of course (current name) MM, who's 16932 and (current name) Time Lost, who's 16931. 17386, whose current name is j, and 21128 (Abo_Mostafa) are also Mahmouds.

The people are talked about yesterday are exactly Dimo games, Mahmod and MM. The one with whom the dialogue I posted in 1st post is Mahmod aka MM. The re surely the same cheaters, and should be banned straightaway.

I asked Dimo as well, and he said “only in the opening”. Which is cheating as well. You are just allowed to use a book/game explorer, which is different to an engine. And then opening has different meaning :-) But I am not 100% sure it's the same person.

Another dialogue:

Me: Do you use an engine?

Opponent: If I do use engine I need more time per move.

How would he know how much time is needed if he didn't use an engine? :)

Aganju, the software is here:

http://www.chess.com/download/view/chessanalyse-26

I haven't tried it though, I don't install much stuff on my computer.

And I heard about the day as well :)

To anyone who doesn't like chess, I am hopin and planning to make a living from chess in the future, and no way you can do that in other games I think :) An the cheating problem doesn't appear OTB (at least now).

Marius Halsor, I'm like a 1200 player in reversi and there is no way I can tell if someone is c ehater or not, but I can in chess in most cases.

For the sake of completeness, many people in the world make a living out of Go :-)

Yes. Every time you pass GO you get $200.

What does it mean to “pass GO”?

That's a phrase from the game “Monopoly”, somar. The start area is dubbed “Go”, and then you move round and round the board, and everytime you pass “Go”, you get $200. It's just a joke :-)

I agree that suggesting you try another game is not a solution to your problem. The ideal solution would be that Richard banned known cheaters, but that's unlikely to happen. You COULD of course play only against players you trust, but that means no MCs or Championships. You can create user tournaments with passwords, and invite people you trust to join you. If you invite the top non-cheaters, that may even be considered a “shadow championship” or something. Then there are always other sites, of course, but who wants to leave LG?

Unfortunately you're almost right about only chess being suitable to play for a living among the games on LG. But only almost, as pointed out above - there are also professional GO-players. To my knowledge we have no professional Hex-players yet, but who knows?

Ok, I don't remember having played english monopoly, even though I like the game.

I would volunteer to help Richard with the bannings, but I don't think that will happen. Now I'm at least hoping for Richard's answer to this thread…

And it would be hard to make sure there are no cheaters in tournaments, there are also occasioanl cheaters which are almost undetectable…

You can't avoid all cheaters, but as you play a lot, you eventually come across many people whom you trust. Invite THEM to tournaments. I can not prove this, but I am very confident that in the Monstership (chech the forum for details) there were no cheaters, only honest, very good players.

I think absolutely differently. Cheaters who behave and pretend to be nice, honest people are as bad cheaters as the blatant ones. And I have no membership to make tournaments. Actually I will time out all of my games probably because I'm leaving for World Youth Championships in 5 days.

The main form of cheating Mahmoud does in man-in-the-middle, though maybe he's now doing a lot of relying on engines, too. When you play any of his aliases, you are very likely really playing an opponent of one of his other aliases, or perhaps someone he's supposedly playing on another site. He just relays the moves back and forth.

@somar: The link you gave me cost me a lot of time already, and all for naught. First, I needed to install it as 'admin', which forced me to close all open browsers and programs (not that big a deal, but I di that once a month normally). Then it claimed I need .NET 3.5 first. That cost half an hour to download and install. Then it claimed I need the SP1 for that .NET stuff. Another hour (why is the SP 1 double the size of the original??). Then, it crashed whenever started.

After some reboot and fiddling, I could run the program, but it cannot read LG PGN files. And it is a 'free' demo version only and wants 40 $ before doing anything useful.

So all for naught…

Does anyone know how to massage a LG-PGN in a Chess-Analyze-2.6-readable PGN?

oh, and in addition, it 'works with any engine', but doesn't bring one. So even after paying 40 $, and being able to convert PGNs to PGNs, it is no use, as I would still need to get a chess engine.

crafty is a good free engine. At least it's good enough for my purposes, which is to use a few times a year to go over a finished game where during play I felt just slightly out of my depth. You don't need any particular front end for it. You can run it by itself, but a front end may make it more pleasing.

somar: I agree that “Cheaters who behave and pretend to be nice, honest people are as bad cheaters as the blatant ones”. However, after playing here for several years, I have learnt to know several of the players. And I trust them. Just like I trust my friends in real life when playing otb. When you've been around for a while, I'm sure you'll understand what I mean.

Dvd, if you haven't looked at Stockfish, please make it a point to do so. Stockfish is also a free engine, also with open source code, and runs circles around Crafty.

The latest 40/40 rating list (http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/) lists the 1.7 version of Stockfish as rated 281 points higher than Crafty.

The latest 40/4 rating list (http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/) indicates Stockfish 1.7 as 371 points higher than Crafty!

Note that Stockfish version 1.9 was recently released, which is almost certainly a tiny bit stronger than 1.7.

I use WinBoard as my front end, most of the time. (I also have the Fritz12 program, which I can use with Rybka and Stockfish and all the others, but I usually prefer WinBoard.)

I haven't used that ChessAnalyse, so sorry about that Aganju :( I know it works by some other people, and you can still do quite a lot for free. I have no idea why it doesn't work, too many possibilities…

And yes, Stockfish is much better than Crafty.

And mahmoud is certainly using an engine, I can see that.

Ed, I'm not sure why I need a stronger engine. I suspect for what I use it for, anything over (at most) 2500 is superfluous. But if I do need one, why Sotckfish over the free version of Rybka? Is the free version crippled enough that Stockfish is better? Or is it just a preference for open source programs?

@Dvd - here's RoRoRo's latest Sons-of-Mahmoud list:

SonOfMahmod members #16929 mahmod

16931 Time_Lost

16932 MM

16933 WHY

16935 Back Again

16944 Alexander

16945 Vin

17383 Dimo games

17384 Black Horse

17385 July

17386 j

17954 No Problems

I've not investigated 21128 yet, if the evidence is compelling, I'll add it to the list (and it's worth checking ids +/-1 too, as you can see from the above.)

How does RoRo do it? I agree with July, j, no problems, they are all cheaters no matter if they are all the same person. The rest I haven't played against.

Banning this one person shouldn't be much of a problem…

and Vin too

And how about http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/info/player.jsp?plid=21926 ?

Regarding choice of engine - the best engine to use in order to detect cheaters is the same engine as the cheater! So that probably means the most popular program on the most popular platform. Strength is mostly irrelevant, and an engine that's too strong may even deviate significantly from what the cheaters' engines are doing, and thus not flag a match.

@somar - rororo simply maintains the database, he relies on me to tell him what to store.

Yes, but does it see the it by ip address?

I've thought about getting RoRoRo to sniff out IP addresses, but that requires him to play against the cheaters. He therefore becomes susceptible to feeding them ratings points. There are other techniques that I could use, but they would be considered hacking, and I'd rather not go down that route.

This is the kind of thing that should be addressed at the server level, I'd like to assist Richard in coming up with some kind of solution.

I'd like to see how a completely above-board bot, using the best available engine for long time controls, would do in chess here. I think its rating would help us humans understand what our own ratings mean in the context of this server. There are some problems, though. It would be unfair for the bot to compete in the championships or monthly cups and MiM cheaters would engage it as much as possible in random rated games.

Banning cheaters is the best solution :)

ok, I spent another three hours, and got a bit of that analysis program running.

Main issues (and I'm looking for solutions):

- the PGN files generated by LG do not contain '+' for check, but the analysis program considers this an error. I have been going through all the games one by one and adding the + but that is tedious at best.

- only 100 moves of a player can be analyzed (or pay 40 $ for full version)

- only the best move is compared, not second best etc.

- only 60 games can be analyzed (or pay 40 $ for full version)

Anyway, I got it running. I started on the top league of the running chess championship (15.1.1).

For example, I looked at one game each of Henrik and YHW (just a random pick from me); they come in at 50%/41% matches. I also run a full analysis on KARPOV (also just a random pick from me, no implications!), and found him to be in the 50-55% range of matches; and 'janowol' (also full analysis) 73.1% of a total 308 moves. In addition, for janowol, I looked at the difference distibution, and found several moves up to 0.5 worse than the best move, even a bad engine would never be so far off.

All done with 5 secs/10 plies limit per move, using the Rybka 2.3.2a engine.

Does it tell us anything yet? I don't think so. I should analyse a 'known cheater' to get a baseline, so give me known bad one. And then I need to learn to read the numbers. It will not be black/white, I'm afraid.

I analyzed a game Spasski/Fischer, they had 38-41% both.

I also analyzed a game I knew was played by an engine, and it came to 61% (same settings as before). Just as some input data.

@somar96: remember our game 1198868? Your value there is 53%.

Ug, I briefly considered trying to bolt stockfish into RoRoRo, but then I downloaded stockfish-191-linux.zip only to find this:

phil@geespaz:tmp$ unzip stockfish-191-linux.zipArchive:  stockfish-191-linux.zip   creating: stockfish-191-linux/  inflating: stockfish-191-linux/changes.txt    creating: __MACOSX/   creating: __MACOSX/stockfish-191-linux/  inflating: __MACOSX/stockfish-191-linux/._changes.txt ...

and this:

phil@geespaz:stockfish-191-linux$ more src/mersenne.cpp/*   A C-program for MT19937, with initialization improved 2002/1/26.

and decided that I really didn't want to touch their code. (99.9% of people who use the mersenne twister know nothing about random numbers, and I taint the other .1% with the same brush in the hope that the stigma causes them to rethink its usage.)

Dvd,

I should probably take this conversation out of this forum and start another, since it's starting to get off topic.

When I analyze my tournament games, or games of GMs, I like to use the strongest engine available, even though many of my weaker engines, of course, are still also much stronger than I am!

And why NOT use the strongest engine available? For many positions, a 2500 engine will do what you need it to, just as a 3000 engine would - it will show you the tactics you missed. There are, however, many quiet positions the stronger engines “understand” better, and it's those type of positions that I like to use them for. Also, some of the stronger engines see more deeply “faster”, meaning the best line of play is revealed more quickly and you don't have to spend as much time analyzing.

Of course, using SEVERAL engines, and comparing the moves and lines they ALL suggest, is almost certainly ideal. I've seen many positions where the fastest win is found by other engines much faster than Rybka finds it, believe it or not.

Crafty is fine… I have a copy of the latest version and I've been using Crafty for many years. But if I was going to use just one engine only, I'd pick Stockfish over Crafty, simply because it is noticeably stronger. I want the best and I would always feel I might be missing out on something otherwise.

I don't know how Stockfish 1.9 compares to the free version of Rybka. That's a good question and maybe for fun, I'll set up an automated tournament in the near future and have a match between these two. If so, I'll report the results here. I'm pretty sure though, the latest Stockfish is probably stronger. The latest version of SF ranks right up there in strength with Deep Rybka 4, and I believe Deep Rybka 4 is noticeably stronger than the free version of Rybka. And no, the free version of Rybka, to my knowledge, is NOT crippled at all. It's the very same free version that existed back when Rybka was free, several years ago. If SF is stronger, is because SF is much more recent. As you know, with each year the engines are all slowly getting stronger, thanks to both hardware and software advances.

I had a lot of fun earlier this spring and summer downloading engines, comparing them, setting up tournaments against each other, analyzing games and positions, with all of these engines, running automated test suites on them and comparing the results, etc. While I was away at work my home computer was often hosting matches between my chess engines. I had it set up where the results of the games would then be posted to my website, automatically. At work I could then peek in and check to see how the tournament was progressing! Fun stuff.

Note: I have zero losses in my last 8 over-the-board tournament games! (6 wins and 2 draws.) I KNOW all this fun I've had playing with my chess engines has made me a stronger player.

Fischer Spassky didn't have any engine to help prepare, more apropos would be the very recent longplay games of carlsen/anand/topalov/kramnik/etc as almost every serious player uses them to improve.

Stockfish 1.9.1 is clearly stronger than the free Rybka!

If you read the rybka forum you might find some ready to disagree as to whether rybka is crippled and that is the current version they consider crippled. Rybka is selling a rental of the latest version and it is necessary for in for it to be a lot stronger than Deep Rybka 4 if people are going to be willing to pay for it as a rental!

Other free strong engines Protector 1.3.6, critter0.8, thinker (WB), Spark0.5c/spark0.4!

@Aganju: 5 seconds per move seems low. Wouldn't an engine user be letting his engine run longer than that? I guess it's a question of how often the move found after 5 seconds is different from the move found after 1-3 minutes.

@FatPhil: Mersenne twister? What does a chess-playing program want with the Mersenne twister? I can see why this would give you pause.

@MarleysGhost: Right; I was assuming (and that assumption might well be wrong) that the result will be indicative with a short time already.

I made it quick mainly because I wanted a result quickly - consider that analyzing ~45 games with ~80 moves for about ~3 min each makes nearly 8 days of continuously running.

I would consider running it longer once I have established a process and defined the other parameters (min/max # of plies, do we consider the opening?, how do we remove obviously 'pre-draw' games, where the two players make 15 or 20 useless moves and then agree on a draw).

No problem with 8 days of net computing time, even though the process is semi-manual; I would need about five mins of setup and result readout per participating player, and the computer can run through the night.

The standard settings of analysis and results are:

Engine: Rybka 3 or 4, Houdini or Stockfish (newest version)

30 or 40 seconds per move (5 is too little)

A clear cheater: 60% top choice, 75% top 2, 85% top 3 (+/- 5%)

If it is included in this +/- 5%, it is probably a cheater, but not 100% sure.

Spassky/Fischer would get 50-55% top choice

ok, I run again with 30 secs per move, no depth limit. Takes a lot longer though.

Still for the top league of the current championship, 15.1.1.

I started with Johubber this time; result: 82% (231 of 291) match to the engines best move (again, the demo version doesn't compare 2nd and 3rd best).

More will follow in good time.

82% is over 22% above the human line…

82% is a calculated fact that can be verified independently.

I'll let everybody draw his own conclusions from the presented information.

Wow - we've got a player better then Fisher or Spasky on the sight?!!?!?!!

We should feel honoured!!!!! :-o

well taht is one way to interpret it…

Updated Summary

Chess Championship League 15.1.1

Comparing player's move to engine (Rybka 2.3.2a, 30 secs, no ply limit), starting with move 6 (first five moves of both sides are ignored);

% of moves that match the engine's best move:

Johubber: 82% (231 of 291)

KARPOV: 75% (139 of 201) (1)

(1) not counting an obviously 'agreed draw' in lost position (-9.4 according to Rybka); otherwise it would be 69%

…to be continued…

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=1212341

Strange point to agree a draw!

@Fatphil

Maybe because they can SEE further with extra time available lol :P!

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=1212341

Strange point to agree a draw!

@Fatphil

Maybe because they can SEE further with extra time available lol :P!

Updated Summary

Chess Championship League 15.1.1

Comparing player's move to engine (Rybka 2.3.2a, 30 secs, no ply limit), starting with move 6 (first five moves of both sides are considered 'opening' and are ignored);

% of moves that match the engine's best move:

Johubber: 82% (231 of 291)

KARPOV: 75% (139 of 201) [1]

jano_wol: 81% (221 of 273)

Alexander: 72% (189 of 262)

joerg: 69% (169 of 246)

YHW: 72% (113 of 156)

[1] not counting an obviously 'agreed draw' in lost position (-9.4 according to Rybka); otherwise it would be 69%

…to be continued…

KARPOV, Alexander, YHW are all of those mahmod, MM etc. accounts, so of course cheaters. The rest seems as blatant as them.

Chess Championship League 15.1.1 (Complete)

Comparing player's move to engine (Rybka 2.3.2a, 30 secs, no ply limit), starting with move 6 (first five moves of both sides are considered 'opening' and are ignored);

% of moves that match the engine's best move:

Johubber: 82% (231 of 291)

KARPOV: 75% (139 of 201) [1]

jano_wol: 81% (221 of 273)

Alexander: 72% (189 of 262)

Henrik Sjol: 81% (124 of 154)

joerg: 69% (169 of 246)

YHW: 72% (113 of 156)

bones: 67% (28 of 42)

dimitris: never made a move

[1] not counting an obviously 'agreed draw' in lost position (-9.4 according to Rybka); otherwise it would be 69%.

So, if somar's ranges are correct, we would have a computer championship. No humans.

Comments? What now?

IS COMPUTER CHEATING CONTROL NECESSARY AT LG CHAMPIONSHIP?

TOURNAMENTS?

There was a case when I suspected cheating of my opponent. He played too fast in very difficult position. It is possible but it was suspicious because he used to come out after some quick moves. I wanted also to play quickly in order not him to go away and get the help from outside. We should cope with the problem of the computer help. I see the boy that got caught cheating is young. This is even worse. This shows that since we are young we try to use Busch devices. When the dude grows up he will be more creative and find new cheating methods. So a ban here is the most logical thing.

Certainly, we need to learn how to cope with computer cheating till it hasn’’t get the big resonance in the chess world. The most cheating in chess nowadays goes in the online chess servers. And they cannot stop it.What now?

cheating has no place in chess

Cheating in chess is not a good thing and should be battled against. You sit down behind the board to prove your abilities there, and what do you get? You can prove against a computer at home. Chess is a battle of minds. So it should be played behind the board without computers.To prevent this it is necessary to search the players before entering the playing hall. I believe that if a player uses computer assistance, it will be difficult to play with him at the board. That is why a grandmaster shouldn’’t treat the searching before the game as something humiliating.

Moreover, there should be all kinds of jammers and the things like that. Only under all these conditions we can approach the situation when cheating, not only with the help of a computer, will become impossible. It is clear that in this case the medicine could be worse that the illness. Anyway as Sasha told if a man is using the computer help it would be not possible to play with him and all our attempts to avoid the cheating would be ineffective.

Thus, a simple way of checking to make sure that the next move did not involve a major blunder would give any computer a big advantage. What would be the basis of your protest? Errors are supposed to be corrected when they are found. You might have requested that the game be backed up to the Na3 move again and restarted from there with the castling status set up correctly, but none of this suggests 'cheating'. A computer might seem intelligent, but it is not aware of what it is doing, with no sense of self or consciousness. This raises the question of whether he might have been running two computers simultaneously and using one to check the other.

I assume you have _other_ data. But since you need game scores to show that cheating occurred, I smell sour grapes and baseless accusations once again.

You know they succeed to make a really good game. Why don’t we give a chance to them some creating virtual worlds? I don’t think that they are planning to make astronomic prices for subscriptions. And it looks very democratic for their own site " They say, it will like a real world, you cannot start a management with Premiership, etc. "

Finally, I think that they have some chances to create a really good dream. And I support them.

I'm really interested in your numbers, Aganju. Are you and somar96 saying that all of those people are chess cheaters? Maybe you should send a PM to all of them to ask for a comment on this thread.

I refrained from explicitly drawing the conclusion, as it is partly based on data I couldn't (didn't) verify.

The numbers (percentages) I posted are reproducible by anyone who cares, so they are facts.

somar96 gave some thresholds that supposedly are an established standard, but I did not verify that. Assuming that's true, yes, the whole first league would consist of computers/cheaters (except dimitris, who did not show up).

I would not be surprised, as I talked personally to some players that struggle to get even close to a 2000 rating, but are in the FIDE master area in the real world (which I verified on the FIDE page).

So we have >40 active chess players on LG that are either cheaters or play stronger than a typical FIDE master.

So far the facts, draw your own conclusions.

I'm getting some doubt on the mentioned thresholds, as for example Henrik Sjol is listed as player on the FIDE pages, with a FIDE rating of 1856. This makes him #383 in Norway, certainly an accomplishment and proof of playing strength. I calculated 81% for him.

So is he a cheater? Why would somebody like him cheat? Also, it could be someone different who just chose that LG name.

After finding that information, I'm not sure if the data is conclusive in any way.

:-/

Henrik is certainly not a cheater.

I would very much like to know where that:

> 82% is over 22% above the human line…

comes from. Somar?

So far the facts, draw your own conclusions. I think that when “official” ratings are at stake (or say online prize money), there must be a very high priority to keep the playing field as “level” as possible. Chessbase I think had to retract prizes from some events prior to “freestyle” because of evidence of cheating. So they created the freestyle mode, which doesn't have this concern.

So basically a no-holds barred format (“freestyle”) where it is not against the rules to use engines or even assistance from others, is probably the only way the game can be “levelled” when the stakes are high - e.g. prize money/ official ratings. This also forms part of the criticism aimed at independent servers for having a “token” anti-engine policy - because when you are playing someone very high rated and get crushed, you probably didn't have much of a chance no matter what you did. So we have >40 active chess players on LG that are either cheaters or play stronger than a typical FIDE master.In ICCF you could feel free to ramp up your Brute-force power - e.g. buy a super-computer, hire a team to investigate each candidate move, get a few GM's working for you, etc, etc.

The term for this kind of chess when Chessbase organises it is “freestyle” - it can lead to very high quality games. However it does create some distance in the relationship between a person's intuitive understanding of chess, and their rating. The rating becomes more a measure of resources, than talent. But then there is always the choice of playing Over-the-board chess under more controlled conditions.

I have to slightly disagree with you about just being about computer power. Playing on the Engine room of the Playchess server as an experiment, I once reached into the top rankings (within top 20) on a friends Quad-core machine, but found it very difficult to progress higher. Even with the latest version of Rybka, and some basic tablebase installed, many of the games were decided by the *opening*. Getting an advantage in the opening is critical - independent of the amouint of “brute force” you have at your disposal. So there is still room for creativity, and perhaps the battle shifts significantly in the engine arena for research around the opening sequences. Also of course you need to have your tablebases installed - and keep up if it goes to 6 or 7 piece. So you need masses of disc space for this.

I have another view though for independent servers which is essentially this: When you play correspondence chess, you might assume you are playing a correspondence chess “entity” in any case, because in the opening a person can quite legally refer to gigantic databases. It is not essentially their own “talent” but actually the amount of research they put the effort for doing in the opening stage - whether this is ICCF or independt server [LG].

What if the view is taken that essentially you have a broad spectrum of opponents across the rating range from say 600 to 3000, and you really are given options to just not play people say over 2500. Then those people that feel they must use every resource at their disposal in the “no holds barred” context can happily play each other. Your “view” of the server is just opponents who you have a good time playing with. I think this “restricted view” model, with as many options given to say organise your own tournaments, etc, may be better than say the model of one server which is in the extreme to publically ban people for evidence of computer abuse.

The notion of publically banning engine users would seem to act as a deterrent, but given that there are more than 100 engines on the market, and in the opening phase you could legally refer to IECG or ICCF games which were computer assisted, it means that if a person wanted to not be easily detected as an engine user, perhaps they could keep throwing in the odd blunders here and there, using different engines, etc. Just being more subtle about it. So essentially the public banning model might just encourage cheaters to be more subtle?!

The “restricted view” model also has the advantage that if you fancied your chances one day to play a very strong correspondence entity, then the opportunity is there - just invite some 2500 to a game, and make it a different kind of game called “How many moves can I last before getting mated”. So there might be fun to be had from playing these super-charged resource guys… do they have to be publically banned from a server?!

Feedback welcome from all

My favorite Chess Playing Web Site is right here at LittleGolem. LG is a very highly secure WEB private data, and information is protected by international laws. This is a great excellent site for improving your chess game overall.

Love of the game is not enough to make up for lack of competence. Here I am not refering to anyone named by you; however there are several servers out there where competence simply does not exist. I think we should be redirecting our flames that way instead of doing harakiri to each other… The argument would be how to determine competence. Well, this could serve as starting point in a real discussion!

You are true. I personaly know some people on this site. They have FIDE rating 2100-2300, but on this site they have 1600 - 2050.

1. Henrik Sjol is certainly a cheater. 450 point lower than me OTB, and 500 point higher here. 950 points difference. Impossible.

old rating: 1734

newrating: 1724

rating position: 196th

So I am around 200 on LG, and possibly the best (and certainly in the top 5) OTB player. (2303 FIDE).

Wakai Yushi. You ahve ebaten and drawn many cheaters, mostly all thise mahmod accounts. You are rated 200 points higher than me. You have 85% wins. It would be really interesting to analyse you!

Ypercube, the 82% being 22% over comes from an estabilished line of 60% found after analysing 30,000+ moves of World Champions OTB and CC pre-computer era.

Somar, I don't know why you're rated only 1750 here. But it's not simply cheaters. Maybe you just make moves as you would in speed chess or something. I suppose my rating might be a little higher because I resign against cheaters as soon as I recognize them, usually before the first move, so the game isn't rated. But I still play the pool of players who do play the cheaters, so my rating should be depressed like everybody else's. But I have, without cheating, about the same rating you do here and I'm so far from being a FIDE Master I couldn't even see that goal on the horizon on beautiful clear day. Furthermore, though MiM might not get you as high, anyone who consistently used an engine should be at least around 2000 here, from what I think I've seen. So something with your accusations doesn't add up.

Maybe part of what doesn't add up is that styles of play may have become more computer-like, even where that is only as good as older moves not made by the engines; I don't know. If that's true, it would affect your percentage comparisons. A better baseline than Fischer-Spassky would be a random collection of 2300-level play from today. In any case, stop signing up for monthly cups against Mahmoud, resign when paired against him, and if your rating doesn't rise, it's probably because your'e not giving correspondence chess the attention it deserves,

I probably will start doing it after I'm back from World Championships, when probably I will time out all my games and go down to 1500. I haven't met many fair players over 1800 from whom I could get rating points. And of course some timeouts. But I doubt I will be able to go over 1850-1900.

And the cheating lines are absolutely sure to be correct.

You say And the cheating lines are absolutely sure to be correct. I don't know what you mean by “lines” in this case. Nor do I know how seriously to take your absolute assertions. But I do know that my last USCF rating was 1555. My rating here is 200 points higher. Your rating here is 600 points lower than OTB. An 800 point difference. So am I supposed to “certainly” a cheater, like Henrik Sjol, or is there a world of difference between 800 points and 900 points?

By “lines” I mean the thresholds for fair players. And with resigning against cheaters, thinking a lot etc. you can gain 1700 here. However, with the LG rating system which is much different than FIDE, the 300 points FIDE (or USCF) difference should mean maybe 150 points here, and with you and Henrik Sjol it's 500. And I have seen his wins against other cheaters - not something a human would do.

LG uses Elo, same as FIDE, right?

I have no idea why, but I'm sure KARPOV and perhaps Alexander have blipped very briefly on my radar, but without any concrete proof of any cheating. I still think there's no evidence that they're mahmods, even if they do use engines to assist their play. YHW is certainly not a mahmod sockpuppet.

It would not surprise me to see engines used by good players as a 'defence' against the more notorious engine users. The use of an engine to follow what-ifs can assist the learning process. However, it's externally indistinguishable from just cheating to win.

Why do you say YHW is not Mahmod? I'm quite sure it is.

About ratings: on LG the difference between lowest and highest rated active players isn't do big. The lowest active (playing in MC, tournaments, not just championships once per a few months) I have seen is 1300, the highest 2100, so it's 800 points. In FIDE, the lowest is 1200, and the highest is 2800. So my estimate would be:

FIDE -> LG

1200 -> 1300

1400 -> 1400

1600 -> 1500

1800 -> 1600

2000 -> 1700

2200 -> 1800

2400 -> 1900

2600 -> 2000

2800 -> 2100

I may be underrated because of timeouts and fast play, but not too much. And long thinking and not playing rated against cheates like Dvd Avins makes him a bit overrated. But it seems to work.

If you're good enough to take 10 game points out of 11 against someone, you'll be rated 400 rating points higher than them. Here or OTB.

I should be able to et 10 out of 11 against you OTB. Not sure here, we can try when I'm back.

somar96

> with the LG rating system which is much different than FIDE

Not really much of a difference. Only in the number of players.

no, the difference between lowest and highest rating

somar, your “translation” assumes that the same quality of players are present at LG as they are in the World Chess population. I'm pretty sure that's just not true. The top chess players in the world probably don't play here. Also, I would think that the “worst” players don't play here either - or only play very rarely, and thus are not “active” by your definition.

I'm not saying that the LG rating equals “real world” rating - I'm pretty sure it doesn't. However, I _AM_ pretty sure that the difference is close to a constant - that is, if a 1500 rated LG player is really a 1600 rated “real world” player, I'd expect a 2000 rated LG player to be a 2100 “real world” player. That is how the rating system is supposed to work.

Hi,

First, I haven't read the entire thread, but what I read seems like a very simplified discussion. The best players are using rybka or computational help and that should be the only reason.

I remember a player named “Time_Dilation” who said that he was playing with rybka. He was unbelievable strong and totally unbeatable. He lost only 2 games withn 2 years. He had more than 2450 points and the distance to the 2nd best player was more than 150 (as I remember). If everyone or the top ten players are using Rybka, why was/is he so unbelievable strong compared to all others? Did he use a supercomputer?!

I don't know much about chess and I didn't know what rybka was before this thread was started.

This is what I get from Wikipedia: “Rybka is a computer chess engine designed by International Master Vasik Rajlich. As of February 2010, Rybka is top-rated on chess engine rating lists and has won many official Computer Chess Tournaments including the 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 World Computer Chess Championships.”

Questions:

1. Are you saying that all players in championship 1 (including yourself) use this program or another program?

2. How is that not cheating? I heard some interesting explanations from top LG word-games players, but I'm really interested in this one.

3. How far down the ladder is the use of software program in the LG chess world well established?

4. What is the purpose of playing using a software engine against someone else using a software engine?

5. Is playing at LG using just one's brain (in chess or any other game) considered stupid?

@MH - “That is how the rating system is supposed to work. " - yes, on the assumption that people play the same way in both environments. Weaker players may rely more on opening books here than in OTB play. Or, a little “assistance”.

From my perspective - apart from one small subset of the players ratings here seem to be pretty uncorrelated to OTB ratings. That subset being me and those like me - crap and can't be bothered do obtain even the slightest edge through any means at all. Don't mock - we're happy there.

I will spent some time to analyze another league, if there are people who think it helps. What about a 3.rd league? To see what the ration of matches there is?

I assume that enforced moves like exchanges or chess or other 'zugzwang' situations are included in these stats. That could be a reason why joergs matches are also close to 70% without beeing a cheater. But how many moves without alternative are coming up within a typical game? That depends on the variant surely. So all players prefering exchange variants should automatically get a higher percentage matching value independent of the chess engine used for the analyzes. So you should maybe better analyze the endgames.

If you have the time and energy I would be interested in seeing the results of that. From talking with one of the players involved in league one I get the impression that the use of software chess engines is a lot more widespread that we believe. And, more importantly, the players who use them during a game don't see anything wrong with that. Maybe LG should become an engine-only gaming site and players who use only their brain should be banned. Maybe Ja_ma_ica was right after all.

A 400 point difference here means that you play well enough here to beat the way someone else plays here 10 times out of 11. A 400 point difference OTB means that you play well enough OTB to beat the way someone else plays OTB 10 times out of 11.

YHW, the forced moves like checkmate, caputures etc. are 2,8% of all moves.

From http://dcook.org/compgo/human_computer_team.pdf :

“The experiment began, in 2002, with a couple of questions: How much stronger

would using computers, and lots of thinking time, make the author. And secondly,

what is the strongest opening move on 9x9? We have answered the first

question, and gained some good evidence to suggest an answer for the second.

2.2 Experiment Set-up

The experiment has been conducted solely on Little Golem, a turn based server,

where players get 240 hours initially and then 36 hours per move. Multiple games

are played simultaneously. There are various types of tournaments, including a

championship where players are organized into divisions. Japanese rules, and

5.5pt komi, are used. There are currently 1,400 registered go players, with a

little over 260 of those playing in the championship. An alias (“sm9”) was used

for our player, and no hint that computers were being used was given. For more

information see [7].”

Cheating in the name of science. Still cheating, I think. I don't see much difference between this and Jamaica and Rororo at Dvonn… different degrees of openness, but it all comes down to using an AI that is as strong or stronger than good human players to be near or at the top of a particular game. (Havannah, I think is a different case, as the AIs are still not that good at it…)

I agree - still cheating, and very bad behaviour! Using the LG population for experiments without our consent. That experiment was an extremely bad idea.

Unbelievable.

Ingo Althöfer is named as a professor in there, so he would have known of it too.

Maybe we can sue them? Doesn't that violate our rights, being put under psychological pressure in 'the name of science'?

Remember that other guy that killed himself in 2007 because he lost?

People like that give science a bad name, treating humans like lab rats.

Worst of all, I see very little “science” in that. There was no control. Even the software being tested changed during the period of the test.

And “computer and human together play better than either individually” is about the least revolutionary discovery in the history of mankind. Breaking news, water is wet.

So much for “if you don't like playing reversi because of the cheating why don't you play go?”

What this person has done has no excuses and I'd like to know too why Ingo Althofer said nothing if he knew about the paper.

I don't think players can sue, but the owner of the site probably could. The only problem is: is there actually any rule written anywhere at LG about cheating?

Shocked.

he wouldn't have to sue because of cheating per se, but simply because this “experiment” damages the reputation of the site.

Probably it's ethically wrong, but I don't think any explicit rule has been violated. I mean, I dislike playing “hidden” bots, for sure, but is it written anywhere that bots have to declare themselves?

For the lack of rules on this site probably none were broken.

Nevertheless the experiment clearly should have been announced. If the author somehow feared that would have influenced the outcome he still could have told here after publishing the paper. That is the minimum I'd expect. (Thanking the site owner and the opponents in the acknowledgements would have been good style too, but good style seems too much to ask for.)

Following the link at note #7: “The human-computer team nature of the account has not been revealed, except to a couple of players (“Gregario”, “nao”), who were asked to keep quiet the team aspect of sm9. This was to avoid complaints, and keep the experimental data as unbiased as possible.”

Such experiments should NOT be conducted without the consent if the involved players, in my opinion! Everyone should have the option of NOT being part of such experiments.

Sadly no rules outside the tour about “cheating.”

The site can't sue if there are no rules/terms of service being violated.

If someone cheated to win the tour, I guess you could feasibly argue that the site should be able to sue and get the value of the banner saying user A won tournament X at a minimum and maybe some other kind of compensation.

Most other site have a clear policy laying down the law. Rules against sockpuppetry/gangs, machine assistance and rating manipulation.

This experiment shows the need for such rules.

Sadly no rules outside the tour about “cheating.”

The site can't sue if there are no rules/terms of service being violated.

If someone cheated to win the tour, I guess you could feasibly argue that the site should be able to sue and get the value of the banner saying user A won tournament X at a minimum and maybe some other kind of compensation.

Most other site have a clear policy laying down the law. Rules against sockpuppetry/gangs, machine assistance and rating manipulation.

This experiment shows the need for such rules.

I'm glad I wasn't put in the kind of position that Gregorio and nao were put in. I don't think we should be pointing fingers at them, they probably didn't know what to do with the knowledge, and wished that they didn't have it. I wonder why those two people were informed of the experiment at all - there seems no reason to leak that to anyone.

Again, a sloppy approach to “science”.

I'm just guessing here, but my guess is that Gregorio and nao probably accused sm9 of cheating in in-game messages, and sm9 admitted the facts to avoid accusations in the forum. But that's just my speculations.

“Yes, I am cheating, but could you please keep it quiet? I'm doing a scientific experiment.”

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/info/player_game_list.jsp?gtid=go9&plid=1057

I can't see any games against Gregorio (“Gregorlo” presently). I see many against Nao, which of course might taint their data-set. Alas a habit of move-1 resignations would have raised suspicions, (and even accusations against Nao, which we wouldn't have wanted).

FYI: I'd wager that joerg and jot are the same person, though that's only a good conjecture, not known with certainty. And someone who'd cheat by having two accounts would be more likely to also cheat by using an engine, but again, that's only a conjecture. Time_Lost and j are definite Mahmouds.

I have heard that expression a lot: what's a “Mahmoud”?

I think I got you. Last try:

Chess Championship 15 - League 15.1.1 NameIDPercentJohubber1870082%KARPOV1842675%jano_wol1589781%Alexander1694472%Henrik Sjol967781%joerg1023269%YHW1207572%bones1447667%dimitris151830% Chess Championship 15 - League 15.3.1 NameIDPercentTime_Lost1693166%j1738660%eaeaeapepe459162%duvelman1252656%Marius Rombout van Riemsdijk1019333%milosz.582645%Dvd Avins228435%comatosekidd2134918%bennok28830%

Mahmoud is the presumed name of a player who created lots and lots of IDs and used them to engage in Man in the Middle cheating. Most of his early names were variations of Mahmoud Mostafa Saad, which may be taken to be either his real name or an underlying fake name identity that he uses while engaging in cheating. This parasite now primarily uses an engine as his host, rather than other players.

It's likely that this is the sad creature who can't play chess and has nothing better to do with his time than the electronic equivalent of knocking over the pieces of other people's chess games.

Hello,

ypercube was so kind to inform me about this discussion,

where also questions on me had been asked. The following

is meant to clarify my role in the process.

\* In February 2010, Darren Cook informed me

about his activities with sm9 and asked

if I would be willing to comment on a draft

of a paper he was writing on this.

\* I found it very interesting to see an experiment

over such a long period of time: sm9 started

early in 2002 and won its first 9x9 Championship

on Little Golem in Summer 2002; at that time 9x9 go

bots were really weak. Early in 2008 sm9 won its

second Championship (no. 17.1.1), now with the help of

Monte Carlo bots.

\* I did not start to discuss the question of ethics

of using computer help in go tournaments on LG, for

two reasons: On the one hand I myself had used computer

help here in nine 9x9-go games in the last few months

of 2008 (I wanted to get a coarse understanding about

the strength of Monte Carlo bots in go with long

thinking times). Observe: this was well before Darren

Cook contacted me. So, I had no moral right to throw

stones at him.

On the other hand, Darren had told me that his experiment

would not go on forever, but finish before the conference

of Kanazawa (which was at the end of September 2010);

and that he would inform the public about the true nature

of sm9.

Ingo.

“The experiment has been conducted solely on Little Golem, a turn based server, where players get 240 hours initially and then 36 hours per move. Multiple games are played simultaneously.”

“On the one hand I myself had used computer

help here in nine 9x9-go games in the last few months

of 2008 (I wanted to get a coarse understanding about

the strength of Monte Carlo bots in go with long

thinking times).”

It's not a gaming site. It's a lab and we are the white mice. Let's just hope we get a nice piece of cheese at the end.

no, mice get the needle and tossed in the Bio-Hazard box. Cheese times are over.

somar96: My last moves: In one game I exchanged the queen and in one another a bishop. The typical number of moves in my matches is 50. So my single last moves are 2% of the entire game. Each program would prefer such moves.

not sure what this last post refers to, but yes, most games have several obvious and forcing best moves in their flow; but that is equally true for OTB world championships. Whatever the threshold value is, I think being over it in the average proves something's fishy.

What the threshold is - I'm not sure. There is a lot of inconclusive information around.

“A sound plan makes us all heroes, the absence of a plan, idiots.

-- Alexander Kotov

The Battle Of Chess is the continue quest for the truth. Creating clarity about what is true for you, regardless of what someone else has told you, using your own eyes and inborn intelligence, is where your individuality will spring from. Understanding human nature and how people think is also a skill chess players use in their own behavior. They may dress in either of the manners discussed above, to fool the other players into thinking they are something they are not. They might play quick, so other players don't have time to think. They may play slow, to frustrate the other players. They might distract them with mindless chatter unrelated to the game. Everything they do is to keep the other players from noticing what they are really doing, put under psychological pressure in 'the name of science'? changing the other players perception of what is going on. They play off human nature and preconceptions to manipulate what other people think or perceive.

Does that mean that you never want to listen to what someone else has to say?

Of course not. It does mean that you check with your own experience and with your own intelligence and find out what is true for you.

NOT experiment be conducted without the consent if the involved players, Not blindly accepting ideas just because people around you have. The great chess-playing competition between Robots and humans over the last couple of decades has been between the regular action middle game of the best humans and the rule-based procedures of chess programs; slowly the programs are winning. If human brains were better at behavior-specific action, then that, I would guess, is how chess masters would now be playing. the experiment clearly should have been announced, I encourage the robots on…., though, just as long as they present themselves as robots.

Unfortunately, there was no “next step”: they are trapped in subspace, trying to handle the constant motion and deafening noise there. They tried to take refuge in the C.H.E.S.S Systems of other races that are technologically advanced, hidden from both the expedition and the AI Rankas id #1, systems. They even tried AI Rankas id #1, systems, but left due to the unpleasantness. Eventually, RoRoRo broke free and was able to find her way to LG, as the city is the only real way to achieve ascension. She requests to be allowed to send her consciousness into a body, but LoCXcwvWA refuses. The notion of publically banning engine users would seem to act as a deterrent, but given that there are more than 100 engines on the market, and in the opening phase you could legally refer to

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/info/player_game_list.jsp?gtid=chess&plid= The “restricted view” model also has the advantage that if you fancied your chances one day to play a very strong correspondence entity, then the opportunity is there - just invite some 2500 to a game, and make it a different kind of game called “How many moves can I last before getting mated”. Who can isolate, in the speech of an orator, his ideas, his feelings, his method? is his lambent clarity a feature of the thought that utters and creates? Or is it the effect of some special AI device, or architectonic, that he (consciously or unconsciously) employs?… but is it written!!

Now it could be objected here that a coded message unlike an uncoded message does not express anything on its own. It requires knowledge of the chess notation's codes. But in Reality there is no such thing as an uncoded message, there are only messages written in more familiar codes and messages written in less familiar codes. If the meaning of a message is to be revealed it must be pulled out of the code by some sort of mechanism or isomorphism. It may be difficult to discover the method by which the decoding the all chess board should be done; but once that method has been discovered the message becomes transparent as water. And if you wish chess life to be fun you've better focus on what you want and not on what you don't want. It might be a crazy idea, almost certainly is, and it might not be workable at all. Peripheral Perceptions,,,“Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

The joy of winning and the agony of defeat are two imposters that sometimes take away from the spirit of this wonderful game.

This experiment shows the need for such rules. The joy of winning and the agony of defeat are two imposters that sometimes take away from the spirit of this wonderful game.

A ghost who's managed to recreate himself in a gaming world threatens Melinda when she tries to determine who he is, and when a young girl is threatened by an online predator in the same game she and Eli find themselves in a race to find her before the unthinkable occurs. The point is to, hopefully, show, that it is possible to beat computers. “These records show that while the chamber boasts on ICC Internet Chess Club…Ref: (1) guest 301 (38); (2) guest 888; “There are a few times in your career when you come across an actor who you know was born to play a role, but that was the case as soon as I met …. LinuxKnight 2920 and NetCafe-JO 2887(34) on BLITZ..THAT'S RIGHT. I WON!! COMPUTER CAN BE DEFEAT..I DO AGREE WITH YOU 8X8 % =64 G. Do I have the right to known ALL my opponents?

“Let us say that a game may be continued in two ways: one of them is a beautiful tactical blow that gives rise to variations that don't yield to precise calculations; the other is clear positional pressure that leads to an end game with microscopic chances of victory. I would choose the latter without thinking twice. If the opponent offers keen play, I don't object; but in such cases I get less satisfaction, even if I win, than from a game conducted according to all the rules of strategy with its ruthless logic

Again, I think that they have some chances to create a really good dream. And I support them.

Please Robot who ever you are come forward and identified yourself. I don't want nobody or a robot to steal my HALLOWEEN candies..OR MY CLOCK”

(9.16.98) Sorry for any confusion! I had to move the 666. Q~BPc2 - Q~BPc4, site. Haven't done much work on Ghost lately, I'm still adjusting to graduate school. Still, if you need any help, feel free mail the ghost list and I will be happy to reply.

Status

The following list is meant to kept people informed of new events. When Ghost news happens, they will be inserted here and a note will go out on the mailing list.

SonOfMahmod members #16929 Mahmoud

16931 Time_Lost

16932 MM

16933 WHY

16935 Back Again

16944 Alexander

16945 Vin

17383 Dimo games

17384 Black Horse

17385 July

17386 j

17954 No Problems

Henrik Sjol refuses to let him rest, but one of his drones breaks the window of a vending machine, allowing somar96 to ravenously eat the candy bars inside. Somar96 sees his bedraggled reflection in one of the shiny, candy bar wrappers and is ashamed by his appearance . . . is there a world of difference between 800 points and 900 points?

could someone tell me the point of the last 2 posts in plain english?

the only points in Wakai Yushi's posts are on the i's.

Now I can get my two cents worth in. It's about time you guys got with the program!

Stop Whining… It's Free

I can't believe that so many people are complaining about this. It is just a format change… get over it. If you have to complain about it I would consider taking up a few new hobbies if you have so much free time on your hands that you have to complain about being bothered by a format.

somar96, when you return to civilization from the “uncivilized” Chalkidiki, please answer:

You may be a 2303 FIDE player. You claim so. Yet, we can't be sure about that, as you don't have your name here, only a nick which doesn't give us a clue about your real identity (name, country, etc.)

Then you attack some players like Dvd Avins and Henrik Sjol who have been playing years at Golem, with their real name, have met face to face with a few other players and have not been accused before for anything near cheating.

Your logic that “supports” the acclaimed cheating is flawed. You may be a 2303 FIDE chess player but that doesn't mean that you use logic coherently in other areas besides Chess. Chess players are well known for such behaviours. Take Fischer, Kasparov and many more as examples. It seems that the more you climb the FIDE Elo stair, the less logic is used for other things outside the chessboard :)

Flawed logic, example 1:

---———————

somar96> Henrik Sjol is certainly a cheater. 450 point lower than me OTB, and 500 point higher here. 950 points difference. Impossible.

Well, possible. You and Henrik are example of this. Which makes it possible. We have find many reasons for such diferences:

You play much better OTB than OTI (Over The Internet).

Henrik may play much better OTI than OTB.

You may not give the attention to Golem games than you give the OTB ones.

Henrik may do (as I think he has stopped playing many OTB games).

You may be timing out too often.

He may not.

You may have played not enough games here to reach your “real” golem rating.

Henrik may have.

Flawed logic, example 2:

---———————

somar96> 82% is over 22% above the human line…

somar96> Ypercube, the 82% being 22% over comes from an estabilished line of 60% found after analysing 30,000+ moves of World Champions OTB and CC pre-computer era.

30.000+ moves or World Champions OTB and CC pre-computer era play 60% compared to what the computer era computers calculated!

Would you find some analysis of how computer era champions compare to computers?

Is there a comparison for example of how Carlsen moves compare to Chess engines moves?

That may be of better value than the 60% that comes from (Alekhin?, Capablanca?, Kasparov?, Karpov? and who else knows moves) …

Because with this logic, Archimedes took weeks to find the Pi in 20 decimal places while a kid of age 11 can find it in seconds with a calculator. And a few kids may find it even with paper and pen. That doesn't make them smarter than Archimedes.

@ypercube, I have always been deeply impressed by the accomplishments of the ancient Greeks, but I was astonished to read that Archimedes found Pi to 20 decimal places. So I googled for it and all the sources (e.g. NOVA) say Archimedes calculated Pi to 3 decimal places, namely between 22/7 and 223/71.

“You play much better OTB than OTI (Over The Internet).

Henrik may play much better OTI than OTB.”

I don't know either player, but this is the crux of the matter.

What makes a player better at OTI than OTB?

Is it just the issue of time?

Or is something else that is not allowed OTB?

Is the OTB player justified in calling the OTI player a cheater because he/she uses help that is not allowed OTB?

Or is the OTI player justified in making the claim that the OTB player does not understand the Internet environment?

What's the line between “getting help to improve” and cheating? Is there one?

MarleysGhost, you are right that Archimedes did calculate up to the values you mention, that Pi was

223/71 < Pi < 22/7

Beginning with a hexagon, he worked all the way up to a ploygon with 96 sides. But I think he mentions that this technique can be continued with polygons with increasing numebr of sides (192, 384, etc…), giving increasing accuracy to Pi.

So, he didn't actually calculate to 20 digits but he could have (in weeks or more :)

Yper, I don't think Somar has accused me of cheating; he has made statements that if carried to their logical conclusion would make me a suspect, which I think demonstrates a flaw in his reasoning, but was not his intent. He has accused Henrik. I'd like to hear from Henrik, but I think it entirely possible that Henrik plays without assistance against honest players but uses an engine against players he is confident are themselves using one. And Somar, rash as he is, fails to consider that distinction (though Wakai, in a rare moment of internal clarity to go with his outward obfuscation, did point it out).

As for the purported 2300+ rating, I'm skeptical until a known 2300+ player contacts us and says he is Somar.

And I don't have Somar's certainty about YWH being a Mahmoud incarnation, but I've long wondered.

I have no religion, religion requires faith I require evidence.

IM Kacper Piorun, Poland, born 24 November 1991. Now rated 2489, http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?…

Have you read the Bible somar? Or should i said scottygr8

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/forum/topic2.jsp?forum=1&topic=1022

Ayurveda for Teenagers healing Goddess Plan

All the ghouls and freaks will be out on Halloween weekend. Where will you be? Come to Somar dressed to impress. Will you be the sexiest or the scariest? Last year we had appearances by Lady Gaga, the Incredible Hulk, Captain Jack Sparrow, and even Cleopatra! Don’’t miss who shows up this year. It’’s going to be a Carn-evil so be ready!

Very rarely, a person is equally balanced by all three doshas, called soma or … Tutoring in Witchcraft, chess, guitar, English grammar and writing, history, or computer …

www.teenwitch.com/healing/ayurveda/ayurveda.html Â·ï¡ Cached page

Somar ACTS A Windows 95 and Windows NT system utility that sets your computer's internal clock. Size: 80KB

Most humans are a dual type, combining two of the three doshas: vata-pitta, vata-kapha, and pitta-kapha. More rarely, a person is a pure type: vata, pitta, or kapha. Very rarely, a person is equally balanced by all three doshas, called soma or tridosha.

Not only chess champions but also scientists and cultural scholars have to jump through hoops to get the media attention that nowadays is indispensable to the funding of their work. The team that did the excavations in Butrint got plenty of media attention after finding their “chess piece”. As I said, you cannot be sure. The thing might be what they claim it to be. I certainly do not want to pass as an expert on chess history, but it seems to me that chess has been taken for a ride.”

http://www.chesshere.com/player.php?id=411065

somar96

FIDE Master, 2303 ELO

Real Name: Kacper

Premium Member: Yes

Member Since: 2009-11-28

Last Login: 11 days, 2 hours, 42 minutes ago

Age: 14

Country: Poland

REALTIME

CHESS (4 games)

0 Medals

1458 CORRESPONDENCE

CHESS(61 games)

0 Medals

1668

1400 1458 1400 1669

My Friends (1) See all..

npiotr

My Interests

FIDE Master, 2303 ELO??????????????????????????????????????

http://www.chessclan.com/UserDetails.aspx?u=9ccf3a97-6202-464f-ac18-4a55dddd663f

http://www.chessclan.com/gameHistory.aspx?u=9ccf3a97-6202-464f-ac18-4a55dddd663f

http://gameknot.com/stats.pl?somar96

2010-08-26

scottygr8 When the box opens

You may be a 2303 FIDE player. You claim so. Yet, we can't be sure about that, as you don't have your name here, only a nick which doesn't give us a clue about your real identity (name, country, etc.) Please Robot who ever you are come forward and identified yourself. I don't want nobody or a robot to steal my HALLOWEEN candies..OR MY CLOCK”

Has anyone noticed that light always enters or overcomes the darkness?

The same thing happens when you turn on a lamp or light a match in total

darkness. This is always the case - darkness has no power

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/forum/topic2.jsp?forum=1&topic=

2200FIDE Master, 2303 ELO. Not accepting new challenges at the moment.

http://www.chesskid.com/members/view/AllegedPiece

trick or treat!!

I'm deeply impressed by the mathematics of Archimedes and some other Greek philisophers…. they didn't even have a comfortable numerical system (like “our” wonderful positional system… and by “our” i mean indian).

just impressive!

http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=1136720

Yes, that's me… you say you don't believe me? I am just back from World Championships. I scored 7 out of 11 and I got 19th place, worse than I expected I have to admit. And I didn't log to LG for those 2 weeks except ~8 days ago when I went on for a while so I don't time out. And all those posted nicks are mine too, but they are mostly sites where I don't have many games, sometimes 0, sometimes 5 etc., here I have 190. And the chesshere stats say I am a premium member, which I am not from what I recall! :-)

I don't know scottygr8, and I don't see why I would be him. Can someone tell him?

I didn't accuse Dvd avins, he was clrealy human in our game played some 3 weeks before when I won in less than 30 moves (I think). About Henrik Sjol - he may be using an engine just against cheaters, I don't say no. But as all the championship 1 players are cheatres, he uses it all the time! :-)

Please also tell me what I am yet to answer.

oh and yes I read the Bible every day

Impressive!

Can I point to this page Jan Timman where this young champion won against an older champion (bottom of page).

Kacper, don't even bother reading wakai's posts ;o)

I don't, just when I see a shorter line/sentence I read it. or if some word catches my eye

Who is Kacper?

Kacper = somar96

And judging from his credentials I would say he knows what he's talking about.

Yes and no. I'm 100% sure somar96 is Kacper, and never had any doubt that he was both a highly skilled chess player and prodigiously young (#1 under-14 in Poland, that deserves some respect). However, I don't think he has enough experience of people and how people do things to be able to evaluate many situations as well as he evaluates chess board positions. It's too easy to jump to conclusions given limited evidence. You only know what your margins of error are after you've mucked up a few times.

“[An] honest disagreement [can be] a good sign of chess progress.” –me

http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/4148–titles-approved-at-the-80th-fide-congress

We are usually not as trapped in a yes-no, win-lose situation as we think. Start with the seed choices and see if there are in fact more options. me

“I think that only daring speculation can lead us further and not accumulation of facts.”

Henrik Sjol is certainly a cheater. 450 point lower than me OTB, and 500 point higher here. 950 points difference. Possible…!? “The trouble with chess isn't that there is no answer, it's that there are so many answers. “Everything in chess that irritates you about others can lead you to an understanding of yourself.” –you

Note: Scroll down to find the current week!

“Keep on asking and you will be given what you ask for. Keep on looking and you will find. Keep on knocking and the door will be opened.” –Matthew 7:7 (NLT)

When somar96 started this thread I was very skeptical of what he was saying. I became more interested when Aganju went through his simulations and posted those numbers. At that time I was playing a game against one of those people in the list and I started talking to him about somar96's allegations. It was an eye opening experience and it fully vindicated somar96's statements.

It turns out that people like me who are playing games al LG without the use of software, opening databases, bots, books, or extra boards are actually ruining the experience for those players who are using this site “to learn the game.”

Personally I have decided to start reducing the number of games I play here and limit myself to championships and an occasional tournament here and there. Since I play in all lower level championships (in many cases third, fourth, and fifth level) I don't risk ruining the experience for anyone who is here “to learn the game.”

I'm also very thankful to somar96 for starting this thread and Aganju for crunching those numbers.

An old story might tell you some of the mindset you ought to apply when studying martial arts:

A young boy traveled across Japan to the school of a famous martial artist. When he arrived at the dojo he was given an audience by the Sensei"What do you wish from me?” the master asked. “I wish to be your student and become the finest kareteka in the land,” the boy replied. “How long must I study?” “Ten years at least,” the master answered. “Ten years is a long time,” said the boy. “What if I studied twice as hard as all your other students?” “Twenty years,” replied the master. “Twenty years! What if I practice day and night with all my effort?” “Thirty years,” was the master's reply. “How is it that each time I say I will work harder, you tell me that it will take longer?” the boy asked. “The answer is clear. When one eye is fixed upon your destination, there is only one eye left with which to find the Way.”

How this related to chess: cut & paste say Gregorio

These two types have the characters of truth-seekers. In science there is a corresponding division in the theoretical physicists and the practical lab-physicists.

Well I like chess better than Go, but i am using Go as awarenes in chess thanks to LG and the go prayers that show me and they manages To convence me to it, Wakai Yushi = Andres Villasante , wakai was my son, before he went to Iraq War, Do I really have 85% wins. As corr. chess has taken away my complete spare time in the last years. Wakai Yushi = Andres. I have beaten and drawn many cheaters, mostly all those Mahmoud accounts. But GO is not enough, I need a micro-ship transplants in my old brain, and I am almost blind in both eyes, And I don't want to compete against your computer either. You only know what your margins of error are after you've mucked up a few times. And I also presently I am not active in any game to limit my future games to a minimum as corr. chess has taken away my complete spare time in the last years. but i am just over 60 years old chess player, that was my escape …It can't go on like this. We stand on the heads and shoulders of previous generations of ideologies. The evolution of style is a path of generalization and later finding useful exceptions.

Chess is more about finding the truth in positions - and an 'It all depends' attitude to positions - where anything goes if it works. And with computers, the truth and greater resources of the game are only just starting to be revealed. That's why the concretist Kasparov is called “the monster with a thousand eyes” - he sees every variation. But the Schools of chess lay a positional and intuitive foundation for the game. The Internet has spawned a new way of playing chess with thousands of enthusiasts playing online. Excellent sites like www.chessworld.net have emerged. Innovations spread very quickly due to the game scores each week being collated by news sites like For OTB chess research, Computers have enable players to find amazing new resources and ideas in the openings, and make game preparation much more detailed than before. When we are preparing the stew called a specific style of a specific chess art, joyful to prepare implies that we must constantly be measuring our means against our ends. Your chess style has no art if it is just a hodgepodge of errant principles and movements but does not take you where you want to go. Chess arts differ because of intended emphases. If your stew is supposed to taste like self-defense, your recipe is serviceable only if it will produce that taste. If your stew is supposed to taste like aerobic internet conditioning, the formula for putting it together must take this as its highest priority. Post-mortem analysis with engines can help find the slightest tactical inaccuracies. Our focus should be on what I want to call differential technological development: trying to retard the implementation of dangerous technologies and accelerate implementation of beneficial technologies, especially those that ameliorate the hazards posed by other technologies. Although it's easy to think of evolution as leading from simple to more complex life forms, we should not uncritically assume that this is always so. It is true that here on Earth, simple replicators have evolved to human beings (among other things), but because of an observation selection effect the evidential value of this single data point is very limited (more on this in the section on estimating the probability of existential risks). STYLE OF THE ART, ART OF THE STYLE Everyone has his/her own way to cook a stew–his own special spices, her own preference of ingredients, his individual method of applying heat, her favorite cooking utensil, his temperature, her timing, etc. This is style. The elements of style are usually the same, but the specifics vary. The style of the art of making stew is not as important as the stew itself. We don't currently see much evolutionary development in the human species. This is because biological evolution operates on a time-scale of many generations, not because it doesn't occur any longer Biological human evolution is slow primarily because of the slowness of human reproduction (with a minimum generational lag of about one and a half decade). If one encounters a concretistic player one is often struck by his clear-sightedness and technical efficiency. The concretist takes a firm grip on the immediate problems of the position and he seldom blunders. The concretistic player, on the other hand, wants to solve the problems of the position by finding the correct concrete variations. He could also be called the technical type. It was an eye opening experience and it fully vindicated somar96's statements.

Wakai, what is your point? I really would like to answer you but I got stuck on the 3rd sentence.

I would be happy if all those mahmoud accounts were banned and not allowed to come back somehow, it would stop MCs from getting spoiled, which would also make more people play in it. Out of 4 opponents there are either 1 or 2 mahmouds, so I don't play there at all. I have also started resigning against cheaters, so hopefully my rating will go up.

Someone could organize a private tournament and give the password only to known non-cheaters (if there are any), for Chess, Reversi, and whatever other games are subject to engines, MitM and/or aliases.

I have a theory. Wakai is a bot. Input to the bot includes a few key words (e.g., chess, go, biology) and a length (e.g., 500 words) and output is as seen above. Remember Eliza, anybody? :)

@somar: could you tell us your relationship to engines? do you play a lot against them for training, designing new opening ideas…? Isn't it frustrating at your age and your level to be consistently beaten by them or don't you see it that way?

How many “good moves” would you say chess has on average closed positions, are you looking for an original one, a trap, or just the best move like engines do? I mean is there a risk ratio to be taken into account?

I have a theory. wanderer_c is a bot. :) (One that passes the Turing test more easily than Wakai)

@Carroll: When you ask how many good moves there are, is it with the idea of establishing an upper limit to how often a good human player's move would coincide with an engine's move?

No because you can't consider it is just a random pick among good moves, so I don't see how to derive a statistical measure…

It was more about the difference between best human player moves and engine moves, I have the impression that if you know something about your opponent's psychology, some moves may be better than the standard “best” one.

I play engines a lot. LG, chess.com, several other sites are full of cheaters who have no chess skill and just follow their engine. I may get 1 draw out of 10 after following a drawish opening line, no more. And it's frustrating. I'm not sure about the good moves, but there are stats for percentages there, e.g. if the difference between top 1 and top 2 move is 0,1 points, 0,2, etc. etc. All of that on chess.com…

> I analyzed a game Spasski/Fischer, they had 38-41% both.

Yes but this OTB match. More interesting will be analyse games from old ICCF championships.

> will anything ever be done against cheating?

I am not able do something against computer assistance. ICCF is for example powerless too.

> KARPOV, Alexander, YHW are all of those mahmod….

KARPOV, Alexander yes. YHW no.

> in Man in the Middle cheating

There is no one game with MIM cheating now.

Because cheating is very easy (You can copy and paste PGN from LG to Chessbase, Fritz or to Sigma Chess) from next week will be PGN available only for finished games.

Hello Richard! Just for information, ICCF *allows* computer assistance. We don't encourage people to act as “mailmen only” for their engines, but players on the championship level *have* to possess good “human chess skill” in order to succeed.

Personally, I don't know how anybody could possibly get any satisfaction from being “a computer mailman” or a “MIM addict”, but obviously there are nutcases who enjoy this…

Again, my personal suggestion would be that LG explicitly states that computer use (in any game) is NOT cheating, this would at least improve the atmosphere here in the sense that no one could after that be accused of “cheating” regardless of how “computer-like” they play!

For chess, I'm quite sure that the LG champions are not merely mailmen, even if it seems some of them do use computer assistance. In other games where computers are by now virtually unbeatable, maybe we could try to change these games into a not-yet-analysed version, or simply drop them from the agenda?

An excellent example is LoA, where the black-hole variant has made the game fun again. Richard, let us skip “standard LoA” altogether and play only black-hole LoA in the future - not only in championships!

As for chess, if someone really hates playing against computer-assisted people, maybe Richard could implement one of the chess variants, like Grand Chess or Capablanca?

“my personal suggestion would be that LG explicitly states that computer use (in any game) is NOT cheating”

It turns out that Ja_mai_ca was right and we were all wrong.

Progress is not always beneficial.

Thank you Richard for the response. The SPasski/Fischer and old ICCF games had very similar matchup rate, 55-60% (that 40% came from little thinking time for engine).

Maybe YHW is not, but the rest is, and they are the accounts that can be easily banned.

Many sites use logs of who and when downloads PGNs as one of the methods of finding cheaters.

Yes ICCF allows engines, but this is exceptional I think.

Fighting cheating is quite easy, people aren't powerless. Just the cheaters who use an engine in the most complicated positions from time to time are hard to spot. I don't think you have a chess.com account, but there are many ways of fighting cheating explained and easy to understand&use. It seems that Aganju is willing to analyse games, I have experience from chess.com, so we can help (I hope)! :-)

Hm, I'm currently playing against KARPOV. In the last 5 moves I had to move my king out of chess (with no alternative move in my opinion). Afterwards, I exchanged light figures and took one pawn. It would be interesting which player or engine would not play the last combination…

I would expect that the percentage number of matches (with engine moves)is high if the difference in playing strength between both players is high - especially if the match is in fact lost for one player and if it is not noticed by him. Assumed your opponent would remain some unprotected figures and you could capture one after another, all good players would have an increased matchup rate due to such combinations caused by errors. The more significant errors in a match the higher the matchup rate. Fischer and also Spasski should have a higher matchup rates against worse players.

Check not chess

Pieces not figures

The players (engines) here are all similar skill so your last sentences don't make sense for me. Maybe I don't understand them…

Somar96 - There are languages where “check” and “chess” are the same word. There are languages where “pieces” and “figures” can be the same word. You might be perfectly familiar with the English terms, others may be far more comfortable with their local terms, and not care so much about the English terms.

I interpreted the last sentence to be compatible with the whole paragraph - in games where one player is weaker, the stronger player will have more obvious best moves. (And therefore will chose the same as an engine more often.) Fischer and Spasski may only chose one of the top engine moves 55% of the time when playing against other top players, but would matc h the engines recommendations more often when playing rabbits. It's a believable hypothesis, and I presume one that's verifiable or deniable with publically available data, given enough effort.

I agree, it is at least a worthy hypothesis.

I don't think that it will significantly change the percentage, but that is only my gut feeling, and not supported by any numbers.

I don't have a way to do mass analysis of such games (what I did above is relevant effort per analyzed game, for 100 games I would have to spend ten to twenty hours of work or so (which I'm not willing to), so if anyone wants to volunteer?

Until then, it looks like we need to postpone any conclusions…

The difference depending on level of opponents would be about 5% maximum. That is one of the reasons the threshold is 60% +/- 5%

Aganju, I don't mean massive analysis. But what you have donw already is enough to ban the league 1 players.

Two questions:

On what basis or according to which rule on this page you want to ban anyone?

What exactly is your intention here at LG? You tried more than 20 different games here on LG but your winning quote is much lower than 50% in all games or even 4/80 in all go variants. Your winning quote in EWN is under 30%. It should be easy to get a 50% quote for a good chess player. Are you really a FIDE rated player or are you simply the typical troll of forum?

YHW, let me ask you two questions:

1. When you play a chess game here at Little Golem do you or do you not use a software program to monitor the game while in progress?

2. Which of these two players should not be playing at Little Golem?

Someone like me who has a losing record in virtually every game.

Or someone who has a winning record because he/she plays with the help of software programs?

Hello YHW,

you asked question to somar96.

It is not me but I can assure you that he is real,

he is no troll, he is a Fide Master in OTB chess,

and he is a clear enrichment for the LittleGolem

community.

Rating points are not all in life, neither on LG.

Ingo.

And somar96's low winning quote (in all games) is actually due to games lost on time.

Yes, at the beginning I timed out a lot in all LG games, and now I mostly play the games I like, that is chess, EWN, streetsoccer, and in the rest just occasional championships or user tournaments, so I didn'tplay enough to get m rating back up. Chess, EWN and SS are the 3 games where I played enough to get the rating to the proper place.

And I was told by many members that cheating isn't allowed here, so it should be somewhere in any rules.

And YHW, you are not alone, this is what cheaters usually/often say.

Any news, Richard?

:(

Image: 3D Video Capture with Kinect (YouTube)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QrnwoO1-8A&feature=player_embedded

Who can isolate, in the speech of an orator, his ideas, his feelings, his method? is his lambent clarity a feature of the thought that utters and creates? Or is it the effect of some special AI device, or architectonic, that he (consciously or unconsciously) employs?… but is it written!!

For OTB chess research, Computers have enable players to find amazing new resources and ideas in the openings, and make game preparation much more detailed than before. When we are preparing the stew called a specific style of a specific chess art, joyful to prepare implies that we must constantly be measuring our means against our ends. Your chess style has no art if it is just a hodgepodge of errant principles and movements but does not take you where you want to go. Chess arts differ because of intended emphases. If your stew is supposed to taste like self-defense, your recipe is serviceable only if it will produce that taste. If your stew is supposed to taste like aerobic internet conditioning, the formula for putting it together must take this as its highest priority. Post-mortem analysis with engines can help find the slightest tactical inaccuracies. Our focus should be on what I want to call differential technological development: trying to retard the implementation of dangerous technologies and accelerate implementation of beneficial [chess technologies, especially those that ameliorate the hazards posed by other technologies…]….!?

I finished my last chess game in this site. Goodbye, cheaters…

someone quoting Gerald Abrahams? ;-)

Hey, here’s an idea: How about creating an avatar by copying a face from a photo and pasting it onto a randomly generated avatar? Then a video conferencing service could put your brand new (or old) face, along with those of your friends, into one of several rooms, where you could all chat by voice. You could even display live video from your webcam or computer on the walls.

Mingleverse in a Minute (and a bit) …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqh7HFWpVAo&feature=player_embedded

ICC is an eternal, Chess illusory party, under surveillance and recorded for all time. Its structure invites you to first replicate and then enhance your really social structures, replicating your experiences on your own personal “chess screen space.†Everyone should have the option of NOT being part of such experiments. It would not surprise me to see engines used by good players as a 'defense' against the more notorious engine users. The use of an engine to follow what-ifs can assist the learning process. However, it's externally indistinguishable from just cheating to win.

Chessbase I think had to retract prizes from some events prior to “freestyle” because of evidence of cheating. So they created the freestyle mode, which doesn't have this concern. You are true. I personally know some people on this site. They have FIDE rating 2100-2300, but on this site they have 1600 - 2050. When you've been around for a while, I'm sure you'll understand what I mean.

In this unending chess binary gene party, you meet and join old and new friends, acquaintances and relatives. As with most parties everything is private, or restricted to the invited ICC’s guests, but has the potential to become public, if accidently shared. Here the guests' activity and interests are also recorded through their posts in different formats and media (pictures, movies, trips, preference, comments). Are you and somar96 saying that all of those people are chess cheaters? I have also noticed that the number of people cheating in chess is probably the biggest of all LG games. I don't know if I should continue playing chess here . . . What is the purpose of playing using a software engine against someone else using a software engine?

Maybe you should send a PM to all of them to ask for a comment on this thread. After finding that information, I'm not sure if the data is conclusive in any way. :-/It's an induced immaterial labor with instant gratification. Guests produce content by indirectly answering the question “who am I?” and what’s my chess rating? …they get new friends and feedback in the process.

In fact, ICC’s subliminal chess mantra seems then to be “be personal, be popular, never stop.“That subset being I and those like me - crap and can't be bothered doing obtains even the slightest edge through any means at all. Don't mock, but we’re happy there. This is sickening. I have yet never seen cheaters behave like that. If you're really 600 points stronger than I OTB and no better here, you must be playing a remarkably high proportion of your games against rising (and likely but not necessarily cheating) opponents. He didn't say as much, but he is a Mahmoud.

The price the ICC’s guests are unconsciously paying is that they are giving away their (constantly updating) virtual identity . . . ICC, an endlessly cool place for so many chess prayers, becomes at the same time a goldmine for identity theft and dating - unfortunately, without the user's control. Most other sites have a clear policy laying down the law. Rules against sock puppetry/gangs, machine assistance and rating manipulation.

But that's the very nature of ICC and Internet chess media in general. If we start to play with the concepts of identity theft and dating, we should be able to unveil how fragile a virtual identity given to a proprietary platform can be.

And how fragile enormous capitalization based on exploiting social systems can be and this experiment shows the need for such rules.

More will follow in good time.

ref:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhJySvh-Fi8

http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6963

http://www.echecs.asso.fr/

Man - I see, I see! Forgive me, since I'm relatively new here (since Fall 2010), and I posted a different cheater thread before - not much response there though - apparently everything has been said. Or has it?

At any rate, I'm now involved in a Chess tournament featuring 'Time_Lost' and 'J'. Noting that 'they' drew against each other on move 3 (really, move 2 in Chess terms), I became immediately suspicious - AND THERE 'THEY' ARE, prominently displayed in the 'sons of Mahmoud' list in this thread!

I did a little research, and I see that this dude always draws against himself; but frequently one of his identities wins tournaments.

OK, then - what's going on? If he's simply using software (jerk that he is), then there'd be no real need for the double (or more) identities. Do I take it, then, that he'll play a game as white using one identity, another as black, and then just play the innocent opponents against each other? That could work some of the time - though in that case, one identity should be losing, one should be winning. Both of these identities are rated pretty highly.

Frankly, knowing that I'm playing a cheater is somewhat disheartening. I'm naturally expecting to lose - I mean, I'll play the game out - just as I would against software, and resign once it's clear that I'm getting the crap beat out of me.

But that's for now. What do I do in the future? Do I just resign these games immediately, so as to not give the jerk the satisfaction? Naturally, resigning means taking a rating hit - not that it matters all that much, since there's no stakes. But one of the reasons I like to try to keep my ratings higher is the chance to play REAL people of reasonably equal strength. I mean - I'm happy enough to beat up on beginners - give them the useful practice and experience - and I HOPE the reverse is true - that stronger players are happy enough to beat the tar out of me! And note that this applies to ALL games; not just Chess.

But this cheating nonsense??! It's really off putting, let me tell you. I've already read enough of these threads - it appears to be impractical for Richard to start banning members by IP address. Good enough then - but might it be possible for individuals like myself to REFUSE to play in tournaments (or withdraw WITHOUT RATING PENALTY) when it becomes apparent that cheaters are present?

I don't know - what have you guys been doing? I know this stuff has been going on a long, long time - hate to bore you, but I'd appreciate some feedback.

(meow)

Note: if you resign in your first move, the game is unrated. So if you want to, you can just resign against them whenever you encounter them

You still lose the game, though, and thereby the chances to get promoted into higher leagues.

yes it's a pain. And I could not come up with anything to do against it. I stopped playing all the word games because of this, and I'll probably stop chess after this Championship.

Note: if you resign in your first move, the game is unrated.

I did not know that. Thanks for the info. I'll consider that option - along with a few other options that I'm considering, which would be somewhat nastier.

(meow)

Darren Cook here, aka “sm9”. ypercube just informed me of this thread, which I'd been unaware of. Specifically the posts around 2010-10-21. I'm sincerely sorry that anyone felt offended, or like lab rats. I'd like to answer a few of the points brought up.

Fat Phil: “computer and human together play better than either individually” is the least revolutionary discovery…
—> Try doubling the number of programmers on your team, and see if you write code twice as quick. Team co-operation is a non-trivial problem. “No stronger than the strongest member of the team” would have been a very reasonable hyphothesis to make.

Re: Gregario and Nao. I came into contact with both players outside of LG, and explained the difference between myself and sm9 to them. Gregario and I exchanged pro 9x9 game collections. Incidentally no-one I've ever spoken to about sm9, in any of the years, has ever been offended or reacted negatively: this thread is the first vitriol I've heard.

“Ethically wrong”: If I had used my real name, and claimed I was this strong, I would agree. I chose an alias deliberately.

Incidentally no-one was ever simply playing against a computer. They were playing against a human using all the tools his imagination could think of and his resources could supply. The opening book was one of sm9's strengths: most games were already won when we exited the book. The bots weren't asked their opinion until this happened, however strong they got.
(I'm not sure if it is in the paper, but it is pointed out in the talk - the first large increase in strength came still using a single 10-kyu program and before MCTS became mainstream; I believe this strength increase and a chunk of what follows, is down to the evolution of my opening book.)

Yes, computers were used to store and help me analyze the book. They are also used to produce the go books you read and improve from. I know there are at least a few players on the site, using their real names, who play out sequences on a go board before playing their move (the cleverer ones do it in their head), and who look life & death positions up in books (the cleverer ones have a photographic memory and don't need to walk to the bookshelf). Defining cheating as something black and white is going to be hard work.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for the games, and the knowledge we discovered in those games.

Hello Darren, and thanks for posting here.

I'll comment on what you just wrote. First, I definitely agree with FatPhil: It seems rather trivial that in a game like GO, a mix of computers and humans will play better than either separately. Computers are great for creating and looking up opening books, and for avoiding blunders in the endgame, while humans generally are better at the “strategic” middle phase. The results seemed rather obvious.

Was what you did cheating? Well, the only reason why it can be said not to be so, is because of the lack of written rules here at LG. It is the greatest flaw in this otherwise magnificent site. And why is it magnificent? Because of the people why play here. But when the people here starts using computer aid, or even collaborating with other humans in their game, it stops being a good site. Reversi has almost been ruind due to this.

I don't see at all why you think it's less wrong when you didn't use your real name. The experience for us REAL players are the same. I even think what you did was worse than “ordinary” comuter useage, for at least two reasons: 1) Not only did you use computers, you also got advice from several humans. If I was to ask Maciej Celuch for advice for my hex games, I'm pretty sure most players would consider that cheating. 2) You actually benefitted from your results BEYOND the “fame” of achieving a high rating. You got a publication out of this, which I am sure is good for your career. So, you actually earned from doing this, unlike all the other cheaters (who seem to ruin the site for the rest of us just for the fun of it).

“Yes, computers were used to store and help me analyze the book. They are also used to produce the go books you read and improve from. I know there are at least a few players on the site, using their real names, who play out sequences on a go board before playing their move (the cleverer ones do it in their head), and who look life & death positions up in books (the cleverer ones have a photographic memory and don’t need to walk to the bookshelf). Defining cheating as something black and white is going to be hard work.”

This is a statement I disagree with very much. Having great memory is part of your skill when playing these games. Spending lot of time analyzing your games is also not problematic. But having a computer analyze the game for you, be it by looking up opening books or analyzing the game, is a very different matter. If you think you can achieve the same results by MANUALLY using opening books, go ahead. I have no problem with that. But we all know you're not even gonna get close to the same results that way.

Most people here see computer analysis as cheating, despite the lack of written rules. It ruins the tournaments, and the fun for many players. It used to be great to play Reversi here, but some morons destroyed that experience completely.

No one here agreed to be part of your experiment. I find it very inappropriate that you have used us in this manner without our consent. You may not have broken any law, or even rules (since this site doesn't have any!), but I, at least, consider this very bad behaviour.

If instead of “sm9” the chimera had played as “Valkyriesm9 bot”, would that make any difference? That is, LG seems pretty tolerant of bots identified as such, so why not of bots aided by humans?

As for playing against bots, what's the difference between losing to a bot, to a bot/human chimera or to Maciej Celuch?

There are ways to enter bots into certain games without other players getting too upset, I think. The most successsful/accepted bots have

A) Identified themselves as bots
B) Stayed away from games where bots are clearly superior
C) NOT been “off the shelf” software, but a fresh bot in a game where bots are not yet very good
D) Asked the forum what they thought about the bots (should they play in championsips, only in MCs/TCs or only by invitation, for instance) and followed the advice given in forums

To me, there IS a difference between playing a person and playing a bot. And it depends on which game I'm playing. In most championships, I like to “test my strength” against other people. Then it is not fun if bots take up lots of the spots in the top leagues. If I want to play against wzebra in reversi, I simply do that - on my own PC. Playing 5 different “faces” of wzebra in a reversi championship is really not that fun.

Again, these are MY opinions. There are no written rules on this site. But if you read through the forums (which is NOT a small task :-) ), you'll probably find that others have quite similar views.

LG is pretty resilient, like Gaia. While Reversi, LoA and Chess may be ruined by (commercial?) software, there remain Hex, DandB, Slither, Go19 and TwixtPP(?) where winning software just doesn't exist, and EWN and Havannah where a lively community of developers is pushing the envelope without, AFAIK, raising hackles.
(Not to mention other games where I don't know what the story is.)

But bots could be a consideration in whether to implement Backgammon. State-of-the-art Backgammon software is superhuman.

Since the topic of cheating is discussed again these days, I though it worthwhile to revive this thread.

I did not even remember that I created this thread 5 years ago (back when I was a 14 year kid). Now I see that while I was correct all the way, I often had problems explaining my claims or giving sufficient proof in English.

@Marius, what do you mean by “since the topic of cheating is discussed again”? I assume you mean places other than LG?

I came back to play a few championship games recently; I see that nothing has changed. In my championship 2 group only 4 (+/- 1) players out of 9, including me were human. Even in championship 3 one player is probably a cheater.

Meanwhile, chess.com has been banning several cheaters every day, and only the smartest ones (who often play human moves to bring their engine matchups lower) sometimes manage to survive.

And why doesn't it surprise me that chess.com has over 10 million users, while LG is almost empty, with a bunch of ghost engine users playing each other all over again?

It was discussed in the General forum, somar - in the thread T_O_C_H, I think.

Found it. I see that T_O_C_H cheated in chess as well. My guess that it is some human-computer team, because he beats other cheaters (and chess is a game where simply following the engine's choice is not always the best move). Anyway, he is just one of hundreds on LG.I guess that when this thread was created, not that many bots existed for different games, and not all of them could beat a human. Now it's changing, and there are less and less games where a human can fight an engine. It's sad to see a website die, and I think that cheating is one of the main reasons. Of course, there will always be some people playing here - but they will be limited to resigning against cheaters on move 1, and playing less and less numerous human opponents.

Play Twixt.  There are no computer programs that are any good at Twixt.

I don't think the solution is for humans to huddle together in the dwindling number of games without good software, especially if you have invested some time and effort in getting reasonably good in, say, Chess or Reversi, or whatever.  Like many others on the site, I prefer to pit my wits against other humans, even when the bot is identified as such. I don't know what the solution is.

@mtbikesman: If tons of players (and with them money) flow to Twixt, stronger bots will appear. Go bots were a joke some ten years ago, now they are playing at amateur dan levels. There are still plenty of humans capable of beating them, but how long that will last? Another ten years?

And suppose somebody have written a bot capable of beating top human players at Twixt. Would you immediately abandon Twixt for some other game?

I play Hex, a game without strong AI for now, but i would also like to play chess here. Why not set up a voting mechanism to erase accounts here and update all rating and cups data when enough trusted players vote for it? Is it too costly to implement? I'm willing to give some small monetary contribution to author of this website to implement it…

Maybe something easier to implement and equally good is this: once a player is widely agreed to be a scammer on the forum, all his past games are marked as losses for him. This way there isn't the complication of erasing or hiding accounts.

For what it's worth, this sort of conversation took place on the dots and boxes forum about 8 years ago and Richard never did anything about it. I stopped playing dots and boxes here, in the end. 8 years ago computers could analyse a game on a standard 5x5 board completely from around move 14-15, and I found it very frustrating to pour 2-3 hours into a move, which I would sometimes do back then, when the result I'd get was a reasonable but imperfect analysis, and I was pretty sure I was playing against someone who was using a machine that could do a perfect analysis in around 20 minutes.

wccanard, thanks for reporting.

I guess we could create a list of people that will become paying members if this feature (voting based cheating detection) is implemented…

i'd like to be able to erase my own account before erasing others.