Cheating at Chess—Not Again

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2022-09-22 04:30:04

Play the opening like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the end game like a machine — Rudolf Spielmann

Kenneth Regan is my dear friend and co-writer of this blog. He obtained his doctorate—technically D.Phil not PhD—in 1986 for a thesis titled On the Separation of Complexity Classes from the University of Oxford under Dominic Welsh. He has, however, been enmeshed this month in a story quite separate from complexity classes. It was Ken’s birthday just last week and we wish him many more. Cheating at Chess Ken was the 1977 US Junior co-champion and once held the record of youngest USCF Master since Bobby Fischer. He holds the title of International Master with a rating of 2372. Ken is perhaps the strongest chess player ever with a doctorate in complexity theory. He is certainly the world best at both complexity theory and cheating at chess. Ken is one of the leading experts in detecting cheating in games played in real tournaments. He has, however, been occupied by a major story that erupted after the world champion, Magnus Carlsen, lost to the American teenager and bottom-rated participant Hans Niemann in the third round of the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis. The next day, Labor Day, Carlsen abruptly withdrew from the tournament with no explanation beyond a cryptic tweet. This was widely regarded as an insinuation of some kind of cheating. Ken was involved daily monitoring the event and was cited in a subsequent press release as having found nothing amiss. Nevertheless—really everthemore—this has sparked renewed discussion of cheating at chess and measures to protect tournaments at all levels. Let’s go into that. Detecting Cheating How does one cheat at chess? Imagine Bob is playing a game in a live chess tournament. Bob is a strong player but is not nearly as strong as his opponent Ted. How does Bob cheat? The basic idea is quite simple: Bob uses a computer program to make moves for him. He types Ted’s moves into and then makes its moves. The reason this is so powerful is that the ranking of the computer program is likely much higher than Ted’s. It could be ranked at 3000 or even higher. This means that Bob is likely to not lose to Ted but perhaps even beat him. The challenge for Bob to cheat in this manner is that he must ask the program for its moves without being detected. Bob is not allowed to have a digital device like a phone or a laptop to ask the program for its next move. This is the challenge that Bob, the cheater, is faced with. He must enter Ted’s last move and then follow ‘s move without it being noticed that he invoked the program . This is the challenge that the cheater must solve. The cheater may be able to send the moves to the program in various ways. In some cases Bob has been found to use some hidden device to get this information to . He also may use clever ways to get the moves from . Why Is Detection Hard? Ken is one of the world’s foremost experts on using predictive analytics to help detect computer-assisted cheating in chess tournaments. Why is this hard? There are several reasons that this is difficult: But the central point is expressed by Alexander Grischuk who notes that “only a very stupid Bob who stubbornly plays the computer’s first line” is likely to get detected. Let’s examine what Grischuk means. Bob as above is trying to use ‘s moves to defeat Ted. Grischuk’s point is that Bob is stupid if he blindly uses the first move that the program suggests. Programs often suggest more than one move that is safe to play. This makes detection much harder. An even more powerful point is that what if Bob consults more than one program. Perhaps Bob checks the top moves from several programs . This could make the detection of his cheating even more difficult. Bob could use similar ideas to make the detection that he is consulting a program even more complicated. This is why Ken’s checking to see if cheating occurred is so difficult. He tries to stay ahead on the detection end. For instance, his model is not predicated on identifying which program was used, and the provisionally-deployed ideas explored with his students here quantify departure from human predictivity apart from any programs. Consult this for a recent claim that Niemann used anal beads to signal moves. Even Elon Musk raised this possibility. Just an extreme example of why detecting cheating is tough. Losing in Translation The chess story took another twist when Carlsen and Niemann faced each other on Monday in the Julius Baer Generations Cup, an online tournament sponsored by Carlsen’s own organization. Carlsen played one move and then resigned the game—again giving no comment. Much effort has been expended in trying to translate exactly what Carlsen meant by losing in this manner. Two years ago, a story in the Guardian newspaper subtitled “paranoia has become the culture” featured Ken and efforts to avert cheating in tournaments that were moved online on account of the pandemic. Its quoting Ken included an example of translation from English to English: “The pandemic has brought me as much work in a single day as I have had in a year previously,” said Prof Kenneth Regan, an international chess master and computer scientist whose model is relied on by the sport’s governing body, FIDE, to detect suspicious patterns of play. “It has ruined my sabbatical.” What Ken actually said was, “It ate my sabbatical.” Now Ken was mentioned in the Guardian yesterday and again today. Today’s mention linked a longer article on the ChessBase site explaining his methods and conclusions to date. Ken may have more to say after the developments—and ongoing media contacts—settle down. Open Problems How will chess come out of the current controversies? I hope Ken had a happy birthday in the meantime. Share this:Reddit Facebook Like this:Like Loading...