Bunratty 2021 On-Line Event

tedjennings · 19-01-2021 10:07pm #1

Hi, all
We have decided to mark Bunratty 2021 with a on-line blitz event on the 20th. Feb
Entry is open to anyone who has played in Bunratty before and/or a current ICU paid up member.
The event is being hosted by chess.com
Full details on bunrattychess dot com
Ted.

tedjennings · 19-01-2021 10:23pm

Did I forget to say entry is FREE!!!!

DmanDmythDledge · 04-02-2021 12:44am

How is the prize fund going to be split?

tedjennings · 10-02-2021 1:08am

DmanDmythDledge wrote: »

How is the prize fund going to be split?

We will not know until we until we have the full entry, but we hope to split it across all rating sections
Ted.

Inquitus · 27-02-2021 12:31am

Seems there was some nefarious cheating going on, with this 1700 rating player going on a bit of a rampage before being banned by chess.com.

https://www.chess.com/member/hariprasad-agent007

Even made a mention in the Guardian

David Howell won with 8/10, half a point ahead of Gawain Jones and Svidler, who were placed second and third on tie-break. The talking point was an unknown player rated below 1700, though still in the top half of the very large entry, who in rounds three to five defeated, no, trounced in succession England’s best-known junior, Shreyas Royal, 12, Romania’s No 1 woman, IM Irina Bulmaga, and England’s No 8, GM Nick Pert.

Then, on 5/5 with one of the top seeds due as his next opponent, the player … withdrew from the tournament. It remains to be seen what, if any, repercussions follow. The game against Bulmaga looks like something from Paul Morphy or Mikhail Tal.

3712: 1 Qd7+! Kg6 (if K other the mate is trivial) 2 f5+! Qxf5 3 Qg7+ Kh5 4 g4+! Qxg4 5 Qh7 mate.

cdeb · 27-02-2021 9:09am

Interesting to look through the given game - white took 15 seconds for the first 18 moves, which I would have thought was too quick to be cheating (unless they'd hooked their computer to their account to make moves automatically, which I've seen done)

Black made an arse of things too.

Inquitus · 27-02-2021 2:25pm

cdeb wrote: »

Interesting to look through the given game - white took 15 seconds for the first 18 moves, which I would have thought was too quick to be cheating (unless they'd hooked their computer to their account to make moves automatically, which I've seen done)

Black made an arse of things too.

To cheat it only really take 3 seconds odd a move, 5 seconds for a bit more depth, and 15 seconds and you are getting up into 3000 ELO territory!

cdeb · 27-02-2021 2:36pm

Well you've got to put the move into Fritz/Stockfish/whatever, let it think a second, and then play the move on the screen in that time too.

The computer can cheat that quickly, but the human is the weak link there.

sodacat11 · 01-03-2021 5:12pm

How did the cheat get into the tournament without revealing his identity? Whoever he is he should be named shamed and then banned. Incidentally, is there a list of the prize winners in the different sections anywhere? All I saw was the list in the top section

cdeb · 01-03-2021 5:48pm

He didn't; the full entry listing (user name and real name) is still online.

He's a foreign player I've never heard of (albeit playing under an Irish flag on chess.com). Looks similar to the issue at the Easter Open in 2019 (which was a foreign exchange student, I think)

sodacat11 · 01-03-2021 7:37pm

cdeb wrote: »

He didn't; the full entry listing (user name and real name) is still online.

He's a foreign player I've never heard of (albeit playing under an Irish flag on chess.com). Looks similar to the issue at the Easter Open in 2019 (which was a foreign exchange student, I think)

I wonder if he is a foreign player. He would have had to have said when he competed in the Bunratty Tournament proper on his entry form so someone probably knows who he/she is. It is actually pretty sick when you think about it that anyone would even think of doing what they did, some sorry individual with twisted self esteem issues no doubt.

Retd.LoyolaCpt · 01-03-2021 7:50pm

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.

cdeb · 01-03-2021 9:06pm

That's true.

By "foreign" I really mean a name I don't know at all btw. As opposed to a foreign name that's a regular on the Irish circuit.

Edit - actually, I think they're on the ratings.icu.ie site playing regularly for the last three years. I presume the one name is just a fuller version of the other. Don't recognise it at all.

The sooner otb is back, the better though. I know it's impossible to get rid of cheating entirely, but it's indisputably much harder.

sodacat11 · 01-03-2021 11:20pm

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 · 02-03-2021 1:39am

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.

sodacat11 · 02-03-2021 9:19am

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 · 02-03-2021 11:21am

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.

That's not to excuse it, but I think it has been shown that it's a genuine factor in online cheating being more common than OTB cheating, so I'm not sure they should necessarily be treated the same. I agree that you don't gain anything from it apart from a brief but pointless thrill.

Of course, the player has been openly highlighted in the Guardian and that'll be known at a club and local level.

sodacat11 · 02-03-2021 11:52am

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.
.

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.

Eugene Donohoe · 02-03-2021 10:15pm

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.

WTF? No way. If a person is a cheater and they are proven so and caught cheating, there should be a sanction. Banned. There has to be an ethical standard bar. Cheating is so far under the bar, only a professional limbo dancer could go lower.

Eugene Donohoe · 02-03-2021 10:20pm

Retd.LoyolaCpt wrote: »

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.

That's sad and disappointing to read. I hope it doesn't contaminate OTB playing when it resumes.

brilliantboy · 03-03-2021 11:18am

Inquitus wrote: »

Seems there was some nefarious cheating going on, with this 1700 rating player going on a bit of a rampage before being banned by chess.com.

https://www.chess.com/member/hariprasad-agent007

Even made a mention in the Guardian

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:

The game against IM Bulmaga looks like she simply made a huge error in some unfamiliar gambit line, after which it's hard for White to even make an objective mistake, although if you look at the engine analysis he does succeed in doing so. Tal never had it so easy. The other games don't exactly look like perfect play either.

I don't know if he was cheating, it's certainly not a good look and I agree that online chess (Irish included) at the moment is plagued by cheaters, but the elitism on display is gobsmacking. Maybe these players should stop playing like 1700s if they don't want to lose to 1700s.

Inquitus · 03-03-2021 12:07pm

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!

cdeb · 03-03-2021 12:09pm

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.

That's not elitism; that's simply what the Elo system says.

Interestingly, there's Elo ratings for all national football teams. A 1200 beating Nick Pert (1300 point rating gap) is comparable to San Marino beating Brazil. Now maybe if the keeper was sent off in the first minute conceding a penalty and there was no sub keeper and there a heroic backs-to-the-wall defence, it could happen. But three times in a row?

brilliantboy · 03-03-2021 1:18pm

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.

sodacat11 · 03-03-2021 1:44pm

Brilliantboy your comment about Gonzaga and Benildus is completely wrong and has been proved to be so in a well publicised case.

cdeb · 03-03-2021 1:51pm

Actually to be 100% computer accurate when your opponent gives you three pieces is still quite a feat. The computer will still find computer moves a player won't, and will win the game in a different way. (Actually, it can be less likely you'll match computer moves in that situation as a computer will head for mate while a human player might "blunder" an exchange to simplify things). Who you play is also irrelevant - a computer move is a computer move if your opponent is me or you, or the type of player Giri plays.

I don't see anyone throwing their toys out of the pram. And I think if a talented (but 1200-rated) junior from Gonzaga put in that performance in consecutive rounds, there would (and should) absolutely be questions asked. This player isn't a junior and their rating has been 11xx for the past two years despite being very active in that time, so they're not even an improving player.

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. Casual players will inflate the lower end of the ratings scale online.

There are issues with online cheat detection - a particular issue I have is the lack of any real appeals process. You can be deemed guilty and to appeal you have to prove you weren't (which is the opposite to how it should be), often without access to the evidence used to convict you in the first place. That's wrong.

But in this case, I could allow that an 1100 puts in work during lockdown, rises to 1600, then plays a gambit line against a strong player who clearly messes up in a short time control and self-destructs. But it's very very hard to make the case for them beating 2100, 2500 and 2400 in succession with near 100% accuracy, and then suddenly withdrawing from the tournament and being banned from the site.

brilliantboy · 03-03-2021 2:24pm

sodacat11 wrote: »

Brilliantboy your comment about Gonzaga and Benildus is completely wrong and has been proved to be so in a well publicised case.

I'm well aware of the case I'm just saying that junior players from the aforementioned schools are allowed to make a marked improvement both online/otb but when it's an "unknown player" from god knows where the first assumption is cheating.

cdeb wrote: »

a computer move is a computer move if your opponent is me or you, or the type of player Giri plays.

This is true but the lesser the player the more likely it is a position in which any move is a good move will arise.

cdeb wrote: »

And I think if a talented (but 1200-rated) junior from Gonzaga put in that performance in consecutive rounds, there would (and should) absolutely be questions asked.

I agree there should but I respectfully disagree that there would. More likely we would have to listen to nonsense about how impressive his/her bullet rating is

cdeb wrote: »

But in this case, I'm sorry, it's very very hard to make the case for a 1200 beating 2100, 2500 and 2400 in succession with near 100% accuracy, and then suddenly withdrawing from the tournament.

Fully agreed, if the 1200 player is actually a 1200 player, which in this instance it does look the case. But a 1700-1800 doing so doesn't seem so outlandish when you inspect the actual course of the games themselves. And a dedicated 1200 player improving by a few hundred points in the span of a year where he has nothing to do but play chess also doesn't seem so absurd to me.

Regarding his withdrawal from the tournament, I had assumed the organizers kicked him (on the recommendation of the affected players?) and later reported the matter to chess.com who performed their own analysis and closed his account. Or maybe there was a chess.com admin observing the whole thing and decided to act, in which case I'm seriously impressed.

Retd.LoyolaCpt · 03-03-2021 2:31pm

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.

Inquitus · 03-03-2021 2:59pm

My attempt here s not to bust this person's balls incidentally, I just thought it worth a mention as it made the Guardian's chess page!

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup · 03-03-2021 3:15pm

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!

cdeb · 03-03-2021 3:26pm

Retd LoyolaCapt has already given a good reply, but just two other quick points to add -

brilliantboy wrote: »

This is true but the lesser the player the more likely it is a position in which any move is a good move will arise.

Not really relevant - it's still likely that a player will not play the computer move.

Take the first game where the opponent gave away three pieces. Say the computer scores +9. The human will look for the easiest win - that might start by saccing an exchange to stop any tricks the opponent has, even if the position is now "just" +6. The computer will look for the shortest win, and will evaluate and nullify those tricks. The computer will score the exchange sac a blunder - and a bigger one than you'd typically see in a winner's game.

brilliantboy wrote: »

Fully agreed, if the 1200 player is actually a 1200 player, which in this instance it does look the case. But a 1700-1800 doing so doesn't seem so outlandish when you inspect the actual course of the games themselves. And a dedicated 1200 player improving by a few hundred points in the span of a year where he has nothing to do but play chess also doesn't seem so absurd to me.

I've two problems with this. First, there's no indication this player is a 1700-1800. Their ICU is sub 1200; their online was sub 1600 at the start of the tournament (and online seems to be quite inflated generally). Where are you getting the extra 200 points from?

In any event, actually a 1700-1800 putting in these results would be outlandish. Again, the game against the WIM who made a hames of things I could allow. But 1800 v 2500 is, in football terms, Brazil v the UAE. Slightly more likely that the UAE might take something off Brazil once than San Marino. But three times in a row? Still no.

Bunratty 2021 On-Line Event

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