Cheaters plague

@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.