Bunratty 2021 On-Line Event

Just to note, I've been following online events over lockdown - several ICU players, Irish and non-Irish (not that I think that should be relevant), banned for cheating.

If people are cheating online should they be allowed join the ICU or play in Irish tournaments? We don't need these kind of people.

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup wrote: »

wtf I know the name of that cheater. He won money in the minor competition in Bunratty 2020 (pre-covid so OTB) and is rated similiarly to me. I know his Lichess account as well which is still active.

This is an unfortunate episode. If he owns up to it, I say let him play OTB. Lets face it, there's cheaters everywhere online and there's not much you can do about it. It's a massive difference between cheating online and attempting to cheat OTB.

I'm not sure that there is any difference between an online cheat and an OTB cheat. If a person is doing it to try and win money then they are a thief and a thief will take every opportunity that presents itself whether it's through chess or not. It is hard to imagine what other motivation there can be for cheating online, I don't see how anyone could possibly derive any satisfaction from it but obviously people do it for whatever twisted reason and if it fulfills their needs in some perverse way then I wouldn't trust them over the board either.

cdeb wrote: »

I think there is a difference, albeit that both are wrong of course.

In general, there's a much greater preponderance of cheating online, in part because it's so easy, but also because when you're playing a screen, there's a disconnect from your opponent, so there's a greater feeling that you're not really cheating anyone.
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I play golf, it is very easy to cheat if a person so wishes and possibly because you are usually only playing with two people at a time there is a similar detachment from the rest of the competitors in a tournament as you mention with online chess BUT the vast majority of people do not cheat because they have integrity a conscience and a degree of sportsmanship so I don't buy your argument. It takes a particular mentality to cheat at chess and I don't think that that kind of person should be welcome at our events.

brilliantboy wrote: »

You have to laugh , an unknown player (who is actually well known in the region and certainly known to the organisers of Bunratty) shaking the foundations of the chess world by crushing the leading lights of Nick Pert and England's most famous junior. Stop the presses :rolleyes:

Looking at the accuracy of all his/her games against all, but especially much higher rated opponents in the competition, his / her accuracy is always in the 95-100 range. While we can all play a near perfect game from time to time, it's much more of a rarity for someone who started the Bunratty with a 1592 chess.com rating to do so 6 times in 9 games with the other values being 91.7, 88.2, and 93. This is pretty obvious cheating by any metric. Sad to see but pretty much impossible to defend, (S)he's averaging Anish Giri, MVL etc. numbers right there!





and for comparison a bit of everyone's favourite chess twitter troll's recent games!

Inquitus wrote: »

Looking at the accuracy of all his/her games against all, but especially much higher rated opponents in the competition, his / her accuracy is always in the 95-100 range. While we can all play a near perfect game from time to time, it's much more of a rarity for someone who started the Bunratty with a 1592 chess.com rating to do so 6 times in 9 games with the other values being 91.7, 88.2, and 93. This is pretty obvious cheating by any metric. Sad to see but pretty much impossible to defend, (S)he's averaging Anish Giri, MVL etc. numbers right there!

Using accuracy figures in isolation as a smoking gun is extremely dangerous. It's not that hard to be accurate when the other guy gives you 3 free pieces as his round 1 opponent did. Then he plays some Italian and the black side of a London where the most natural moves tend to also be the best. Besides, I don't think we even know how chess.com calculates their accuracy figures. In my experience 90+ is not that unusual to see. Mr. Giri is also playing much better players on average.
IM Bulmaga makes an error early on in an anti-Sicilian that for all we know is familiar to him and it's plain sailing from there. He develops his pieces and gives some checks. The most suspect moment for me is the Pert game where he plays the Be2 tactic after an 18 second think and then blitzes out the following sequence and plays Rb8 ignoring the win of a pawn, but maybe he was just playing too fast to spot it?

Again, I don't want it to seem like I'm defending him. Just want to make clear the situation is not as black and white as it seems. I also think it's sad to see talented players throw their toys out of the pram when they don't perform as expected. The speed at which he was removed by suggests that he was flagged to admins by either an opponent or the organisers themselves, and chess.com don't give two flying ****s about closing the account of an unknown player.

cdeb wrote: »

It should be noted the player's ICU rating is sub 1200, and has been for the past three years. Sub 1200s do not reach 5/5 in a tournament of this strength. One result could be a freak win (as you say, black really did mess up that Sicilian). But three results -beating 2100, 2550 and 2440 in succession - no. Literally impossible.

Somehow I don't think the same level of skepticism would exist if he were a promising junior from Gonzaga or St.Benildus. Lets not forget we're living in a different world. Some people are playing more chess than ever (and others, like myself, far less) and have been doing so for a solid year. ICU rating means very little in this instance and the resumption of otb chess should reveal a lot about who has been grinding and who has relaxed. I know the player in question has been extremely active (and as far as I can see, honest) on lichess and like many others only opened the chess.com account to play Bunratty so even that 1700 rating might not be the entire story.

Edit: Re: chess.com accuracy rating.
https://support.chess.com/article/1135-what-is-accuracy-in-analysis-how-is-it-measured

It is important to note that high CAPS is not any signifier of cheating, and in fact plays no part in the cheat detection process!

Edit 2: I've just found out that his chess.com account was in fact created in early 2020, not before the Bunratty tournament as I stated above. Which does mean any cheating detection analysis run by chess.com would have a more significant sample size at least.

I'm going to dip my toes in here because I know a little of the background.

The player I'll assume you're talking about did not get kicked out of the event from what I saw during the event and what I heard in the aftermath. They scored 5 wins from 5 and then left the event. Certainly was no "banned" banner on their page at any time that I saw. There was a second player who was removed for breach of fair play rules.

Anyone can point out an IM can play a bad game - however, that IM said that they played miserably and didn't suspect anything really. This is a similar story to a recent Irish OTB board cheating incident where some players didn't suspect anything because they found they played miserably; but others did and they were proved correct.

If this was a Gonzaga or Benildus junior, I'm pretty sure this thread would still be up in arms; possibly more so than just 3-4 commenters.

Players are not found to be cheating on chess.com, they are found to have "breached chess.com's fair play policy" or words to that effect.

The chess.com accuracy score is kind of a nonsense, but probably is telling as to the system they use for detection. Arbiters are specifically trained in online event anti-cheating measures- nowadays - I should know having done the test before Christmas. The main anti-cheating measure for online events is the score created by Prof Ken Regan because most of the time you won't be in the physical venue with the player and even cameras can only tell so much. If you're scoring something in the .7 range of performance, you're either playing short draws, having a cracking event and/or are to be monitored. Certainly nothing black and white there. If you score above .8, you are using assistance. If you score a .9 or above, you are stockfish.

I think most of the main arbiters will preach to you that these scores will have to be believed eventually if we are to have any online opens in the future with any degree of confidence; and that these scores should be actioned upon and that terms and conditions should point to these in advance of you playing an event (the 4NCL online does this). These will not catch you for spotting one tactic legally or illegally but, over the course of an event, they will catch you for 3000 standard play.

"Using accuracy figures in isolation as a smoking gun is extremely dangerous." I mean, this is kind of true for the chess.com metric but also the entire problem with online chess - there are no better way to catch an online cheat than using Prof Regan's metrics. There is also precisely zero other ways of telling someone is cheating when they are in a room by themselves with no camera. If you don't want to believe the accuracy figures then you are also accepting that cheating will go on without repercussion. if you want everyone on camera, then you'll need arbiters to monitor every 5 or 10 boards; and even still won't catch some cheats during the game given what we learned from that incident over summer.

To the other points calling for OTB bans for online cheating - I agree that this may be a necessary deterrent because anyone banned online can just create a new account and have at it again. However, two points on this - I believe the ones saying it are also the ones who would say that online chess and otb chess are totally different animals from almost every perspective. So it would be like handing down a rugby ban for a foul in a football match because the IRFU have a stake in Lansdowne road. And this would also require a huge amount of ICU/FIDE manhours to monitor, research and hand down these bans. I'd go as far as to say that this would become the biggest project of any chess organisation.

Edit:
I did mean to mention there somewhere along the line that I'm sure I'm not the only arbiter to keep a mental note of suspicious play from event to event. I also keep a mental note of those who have accounts shut online. Strangely, there has been no crossover as yet between the two lists. But we're talking about small samples.

cdeb wrote: »

I wouldn't read much into an online rating - lichess in particular has big discrepancies between ICU ratings and (particularly) blitz ratings; often a couple of hundred points. My own online blitz rating is 200 points higher than my ICU for example. 1600 on chess.com (which is what this player was) is not 1600 in ICU; it's probably much less.

The difference is wayyy more than that. My lichess blitz is 500 higher. My lichess classical/rapid is ~900 points higher than my ICU!

Retd.LoyolaCpt wrote: »

The player I'll assume you're talking about did not get kicked out of the event from what I saw during the event and what I heard in the aftermath. They scored 5 wins from 5 and then left the event. Certainly was no "banned" banner on their page at any time that I saw. There was a second player who was removed for breach of fair play rules.

I'm aware his account wasn't closed until later but is it possible the organizers asked him to not play any further games? Or maybe it was a sudden pang of guilt after all.

Anyone can point out an IM can play a bad game - however, that IM said that they played miserably and didn't suspect anything really. This is a similar story to a recent Irish OTB board cheating incident where some players didn't suspect anything because they found they played miserably; but others did and they were proved correct.

It's not meant as a slight against any player but merely the pervading attitude that a 1700 player catching an IM or a talented junior napping must be cheating. Then you get the pompousness of the Guardian article portraying it as some sort of masterpiece only Tal could manage without an engine, when in reality any competent 1700 player, known or unknown, would likely do the same. The Bulmaga game probably wouldn't even be considered in any cheat detection analysis because a winning position was achieved after a few opening moves.

The chess.com accuracy score is kind of a nonsense, but probably is telling as to the system they use for detection. Arbiters are specifically trained in online event anti-cheating measures- nowadays - I should know having done the test before Christmas. The main anti-cheating measure for online events is the score created by Prof Ken Regan because most of the time you won't be in the physical venue with the player and even cameras can only tell so much. If you're scoring something in the .7 range of performance, you're either playing short draws, having a cracking event and/or are to be monitored. Certainly nothing black and white there. If you score above .8, you are using assistance. If you score a .9 or above, you are stockfish.

The chess.com accuracy score is certainly evidence, I'm aware of that. It is engine based after all, but it's not a simple exhibit of how often the top engine move was played and I just wanted to clarify that in case some users are confused. I don't know enough about either the chess.com system or the Reagan method to say how similar they are but Danny Rensch does say in the link I posted above that the accuracy score has nothing to do with their actual detection method.

I think most of the main arbiters will preach to you that these scores will have to be believed eventually if we are to have any online opens in the future with any degree of confidence; and that these scores should be actioned upon and that terms and conditions should point to these in advance of you playing an event (the 4NCL online does this). These will not catch you for spotting one tactic legally or illegally but, over the course of an event, they will catch you for 3000 standard play.

"Using accuracy figures in isolation as a smoking gun is extremely dangerous." I mean, this is kind of true for the chess.com metric but also the entire problem with online chess - there are no better way to catch an online cheat than using Prof Regan's metrics. There is also precisely zero other ways of telling someone is cheating when they are in a room by themselves with no camera. If you don't want to believe the accuracy figures then you are also accepting that cheating will go on without repercussion. if you want everyone on camera, then you'll need arbiters to monitor every 5 or 10 boards; and even still won't catch some cheats during the game given what we learned from that incident over summer.

I would assume chess.com, the other platforms and anyone applying these advanced detection methods has their **** together and have gotten pretty good at catching them by this stage. The rest of us should probably stay out of it but cheating accusations can cause serious harm and the only issue I have is that borderline cases are possible and in such cases maybe chess.com etc. are more likely to side with a known player (note: I'm not saying this is a borderline case). Personally I would have zero issue agreeing with those terms before playing in any online open as I'm unlikely to play well enough to even become a borderline case Agreeing to play in front of a camera likewise I'm all for.

To the other points calling for OTB bans for online cheating - I agree that this may be a necessary deterrent because anyone banned online can just create a new account and have at it again. However, two points on this - I believe the ones saying it are also the ones who would say that online chess and otb chess are totally different animals from almost every perspective. So it would be like handing down a rugby ban for a foul in a football match because the IRFU have a stake in Lansdowne road. And this would also require a huge amount of ICU/FIDE manhours to monitor, research and hand down these bans. I'd go as far as to say that this would become the biggest project of any chess organisation.

Edit:
I did mean to mention there somewhere along the line that I'm sure I'm not the only arbiter to keep a mental note of suspicious play from event to event. I also keep a mental note of those who have accounts shut online. Strangely, there has been no crossover as yet between the two lists. But we're talking about small samples.

I agree that an otb ban is going a bit too far for what seems like an isolated incident but probably would have gone for an analogy involving the legal system instead as cheating in a chess tournament is closer to crime, although I suppose that depends what football team you watch :pac: It's good to hear that arbiters are keeping a keen eye on what goes on though and it should lead to an increased level of monitoring those players when otb play resumes.

brilliantboy wrote: »

I'm aware his account wasn't closed until later but is it possible the organizers asked him to not play any further games? Or maybe it was a sudden pang of guilt after all.

I don't think the organiser will mind me saying, they had nothing to do with it.

brilliantboy wrote: »

The chess.com accuracy score is certainly evidence, I'm aware of that. It is engine based after all, but it's not a simple exhibit of how often the top engine move was played and I just wanted to clarify that in case some users are confused. I don't know enough about either the chess.com system or the Reagan method to say how similar they are but Danny Rensch does say in the link I posted above that the accuracy score has nothing to do with their actual detection method.

I would assume chess.com, the other platforms and anyone applying these advanced detection methods has their **** together and have gotten pretty good at catching them by this stage. The rest of us should probably stay out of it but cheating accusations can cause serious harm and the only issue I have is that borderline cases are possible and in such cases maybe chess.com etc. are more likely to side with a known player (note: I'm not saying this is a borderline case). Personally I would have zero issue agreeing with those terms before playing in any online open as I'm unlikely to play well enough to even become a borderline case Agreeing to play in front of a camera likewise I'm all for.

I agree that an otb ban is going a bit too far for what seems like an isolated incident but probably would have gone for an analogy involving the legal system instead as cheating in a chess tournament is closer to crime, although I suppose that depends what football team you watch :pac: It's good to hear that arbiters are keeping a keen eye on what goes on though and it should lead to an increased level of monitoring those players when otb play resumes.

The feeling of the top arbiter I know is that if they've been banned - they aren't borderline - they're in that .8 and above category I referenced in my previous note. I'd imagine that platforms can't afford to mess around with borderline calls given the litigation that could follow.

I am one of the people who would say that online chess, OTB chess, rapid and blitz are all different animals but they are all forms of chess so a chess cheat is a chess cheat in whatever arena he is cheating and since it is impossible to stop players playing online the only sanction can be an over the board one so I reject the football analogy. I don't see what is so harsh or OTT about a ban, if a person doesn't want to get banned then they shouldn't cheat.