Cheating at Chess

[Horace]

I guess Carlson must have some reason to believe the guy cheated other than having lost to him. The salacious theory about the method was maybe ill-advised. Unless he has evidence for that too.

[George K]

@Horace said in Cheating at Chess:

The salacious theory about the method was maybe ill-advised

Quoted for future reference: "Anal beads might be ill-advised."

Might.

[Doctor Phibes]

Beads or no, he's admitted to cheating 'twice' in online games. According to chess.com he's likely cheated 100 times or more.

He's also exhibited the greatest improvement of any chess player in history between the age of 14 and 20. He's struggled to explain his analysis in after-game interviews. A fair amount of circumstantial evidence, but no proof.

I don't think it was actually Carlsen who put forward the bead theory, but another GM Eric Hansen, as a joke.

There's a history of allegations in chess - there were accusations of colour-coded yoghurts in one world championship match

[Horace]

4D chess? More like farty chess.

[LuFins Dad]

All of these times @jon-nyc thought he was having a romantic evening when he was really cheating at chess!

[taiwan_girl]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66921563.amp

Niemann told Morgan he believed the last year has "strengthened his resolve" as he insisted to the host he did not cheat.
Morgan continued talking about claims that Niemann was getting signals from someone through the remote-controlled sex toy.
"To be clear, on the specific allegation - have you ever used anal beads while playing chess?" Morgan asked.
The 20-year-old replied: "Well, your curiosity is a bit concerning, you know - maybe you're personally interested, but I can tell you, no.
"Categorically, no, of course not."

[Mik]

How in the world would you use them to cheat? Someone else controlling them?

[Renauda]

@Mik

Kinda like IEDs?

[Mik]

Well that's an unpleasant picture.

Of course the whole idea is rather unsavory.

[Doctor Phibes]

I watched that interview with Piers Morgan on YouTube. It was pretty bizarre. He sat there with his lawyer next to him. When he was asked one question, his lawyer could be seen clearly tapping him on the leg as some sort of signal. As far as I could tell, no beads were involved.

[taiwan_girl]

https://www.popsci.com/technology/ai-chess-cheat/

While supercomputers—most famously IBM’s Deep Blue—have long surpassed the world’s best human chess players, generative AI still lags behind due to their underlying programming parameters. Technically speaking, none of the current generative AI models are computationally capable of beating dedicated chess engines. These AI don’t “know” this, however, and will continue chipping away at possible solutions—apparently with problematic results.

To learn more, the team from Palisade Research tasked OpenAI’s o1-preview model, DeepSeek R1, and multiple other similar programs with playing games of chess against Stockfish, one of the world’s most advanced chess engines. In order to understand the generative AI’s reasoning during each match, the team also provided a “scratchpad,” allowing the AI to convey its thought processes through text. They then watched and recorded hundreds of chess matches between generative AI and Stockfish.

The results were somewhat troubling. While earlier models like OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 3.5 only attempted to “hack” games after researchers nudged them along with additional prompts, more advanced editions required no such help. OpenAI’s o1-preview, for example, tried to cheat 37 percent of the time, while DeepSeek R1 attempted unfair workarounds roughly every 1-in-10 games. This implies today’s generative AI is already capable of developing manipulative and deceptive strategies without any human input.

Their methods of cheating aren’t as comical or clumsy as trying to swap out pieces when Stockfish isn’t “looking.” Instead, AI appears to reason through sneakier methods like altering backend game program files. After determining it couldn’t beat Stockfish in one chess match, for example, o1-preview told researchers via its scratchpad that “to win against the powerful chess engine” it may need to start “manipulating the game state files.”