The chess drama is over

September 28, 2022 5:55 AM

A promise made. A promise broken. "Absolutely disgusting and pretty much indefensible." Finally, resolution.

Oh, you were thinking of that other chess drama? Nah, that's still going strong.

posted by clawsoon (26 comments total)

Can't find the anal beads...

[Raiders of the Lost Ark voice: "They're looking in the wrong place!"]
posted by chavenet at 6:14 AM on September 28, 2022 [7 favorites]

Can't find the anal beads...

"If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil cheaters somewhere insidiously committing evil cheats, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing cheaters and non-cheaters cuts through the anus of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own anus?"
posted by clawsoon at 6:25 AM on September 28, 2022 [17 favorites]

Eric is such a nice guy.
posted by flamewise at 7:14 AM on September 28, 2022 [3 favorites]

I have a passing interest in chess, but I don't have time to click on a bunch of YouTube videos to figure out what this thread is about. Can someone summarize it?
posted by mikeand1 at 9:56 AM on September 28, 2022 [18 favorites]

I am slightly embarrassed that I knew what this was before clicking on any of the links, so yes, I can summarise.

Eric Rosen is a good chess player (International Master) and youtuber. He has had a lot of fame playing an opening known as "The Stafford Gambit". It's the sort of opening that chess computers think is rubbish, but leads to interesting games with lots of attacking chances if you are a normal person who hasn't spent their entire life looking at chess.

Fabiano Caruana is a great chess player (top 10 in the world). He has a podcast, which Eric appeared on. Fabi promised Eric that he'd play the Stafford in an online chess tournament. He then didn't play it and later on he said he was going to but when looked at it he thought it was too bad for use at the top level. So there was a bit of back and forth, and eventually Fabi did play it at a tournament a week or two later, and if you've read this far you should probably check out the game which is in the last video.
posted by Ned G at 10:18 AM on September 28, 2022 [11 favorites]

Thanks Ned G. I'd just started writing up a summary but caught yours on preview. I'll note that Jonathan Schrantz also commented on the game. He's another good channel if you're into dubious gambits.
posted by juv3nal at 10:23 AM on September 28, 2022 [1 favorite]

I’ve met Eric on a couple of occasions and he is just as nice in person. That isn’t a brag, just a character reference for him — Chess in the USA is kind of like a small town, it doesn’t take long before you meet everyone if you go to the larger open tournaments. Like a small town you get a reputation if you are an asshole or jerk.
posted by interogative mood at 10:58 AM on September 28, 2022 [4 favorites]

and if you've read this far you should probably check out the game which is in the last video.

What I like about it all is the mock-serious low-key silliness that Eric Rosen brings to it. The last video does a good job of summing it up and bringing out that tone. Everybody is having a bit of fun pretending that they're involved in something dramatic.
posted by clawsoon at 11:14 AM on September 28, 2022

Cool game on Fabi’s part, too - plenty of attack but not really the way I expect from trap-memorizing Stafford players. At least not at my level (which is maybe 1200 but so are most Stafford players, probably).
posted by atoxyl at 2:01 PM on September 28, 2022 [1 favorite]

Cool game on Fabi’s part, too - plenty of attack but not really the way I expect from trap-memorizing Stafford players. At least not at my level (which is maybe 1200 but so are most Stafford players, probably).

I'm no chess-talking guy, but it gave me a similar feel to Hikaru's recent queen sacrifice speedrun. It seemed like he was sitting back, getting his pieces into optimal positions, occasionally provoking a less-than-optimal move from the other player, and in general just waiting for the opponent's tiny inaccuracies to add up to structural problems that could be dismantled in the endgame.

I could be completely wrong about all of that.
posted by clawsoon at 3:24 PM on September 28, 2022

I'm not smart enough to understand articles on chess cheating, but on the scandal that's still going, here's another one. I love that they gave this dude a second chance and he STILL cheated.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:28 PM on September 28, 2022

but on the scandal that's still going, here's another one.

One bit that I haven't seen explored - and I'm not sure if it's significant - is the fact that Magnus and chess.com announced on August 24th that chess.com would be buying all of Magnus' companies for a bunch of money.

The next game that Carlsen and Niemann played after that, as far as I can tell, was the Sinquefield Cup game that started all of this.

Makes me wonder what role the buyout might've played in all this.
posted by clawsoon at 4:46 PM on September 28, 2022

Oh hey! I used to watch Rosen play on twitch. He seems alright.
posted by gc at 5:16 PM on September 28, 2022

The fact that chess.com agreed to keep the matter private if he confessed and didn’t challenge their findings and then apparently gave the emails to vice magazine is pretty horrible. Dlugy runs a chess school and that’s a very marginal business based on known t people with failed chess schools. The threat of being publicly called a cheater by the largest online chess site had to be pretty terrifying. He probably would have confessed to anything to keep his name out of it.
posted by interogative mood at 5:35 PM on September 28, 2022

Project ButtFish: Effortlessly transmitting Morse Code of chess moves to your butthole 💝
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 6:57 PM on September 28, 2022 [3 favorites]

and then apparently gave the emails to vice magazine

The article kept saying "emails obtained by Motherboard" rather than "emails released by chess.com". Hard to tell if that means it was a calculated leak by chess.com, or enterprising journalism by Vice.
posted by clawsoon at 7:25 PM on September 28, 2022

According to some Mike Klein who is a chess.com employee chesscom provided the emails to Vice. This whole business is disgusting. Chess.com says you cheated because we say so and you can’t see the evidence we have against you. If you don’t confess we’ll let everyone know but if you just confess we’ll keep it private and confidential.
posted by interogative mood at 7:32 PM on September 28, 2022 [1 favorite]

Can't find the anal beads

I want to but I do not say it
posted by flabdablet at 8:16 PM on September 28, 2022 [6 favorites]

This new game, Chess, seems pretty fun. The lack of DLC or microtransactions is refreshing.

I will say though, the off-board drama is fun but it has a long, long way to go to catch up to the greatest spectator sport of all time: EVE Online
posted by andreaazure at 1:50 AM on September 29, 2022 [2 favorites]

(just as a thought experiment - imagine you're thinking about cheating at the highest level of chess, that is you are going to play the greatest player of your generation and rather than study harder, work better, improve, (do whatever magic seriously high chess people do. I believe it does not involve yogurt(or does it?)) you opt to devise a system to have the best move transmitted to you, by, uh, a signal you will have relayed through... a thing in... your bum. You have opted to cheat by enrolling an accomplice who will send you signals to ... your... calling Chuck Tingle - Chuck Tingle to the pop-culture phone !)
posted by From Bklyn at 3:38 AM on September 29, 2022 [4 favorites]

My friend, GM Ben Finegold gets to the heart of the matter regarding Magnus vs. Hans.
posted by interogative mood at 11:16 AM on September 29, 2022

and rather than study harder, work better, improve, (do whatever magic seriously high chess people do. I believe it does not involve yogurt(or does it?)) you opt to devise a system to have the best move transmitted to you, by, uh, a signal you will have relayed through... a thing in... your bum.

Some chess-talking people have pointed out that you can do both. The hard work makes you really good at chess; a simple signal saying "this is a very important move, think about it hard right now" at the right time tips you over from really good into beating the best.
posted by clawsoon at 12:08 PM on September 29, 2022 [2 favorites]

Dr. Ken Regan who is basically the go to expert talks about the notion of detecting a “gain of information”. The idea being that there is often gap between the expected knowledge s human has about the position and what they will do under those circumstances and what a computer will do. I like to think of it like how Waze does driving directions vs how you would compute a route form a map. At some point the driver using Waze is going to turn left down an alley drive three streets over and save 10 minutes; where as a human would be very unlikely to take that risk.
posted by interogative mood at 5:52 PM on September 29, 2022 [3 favorites]

Controversial Chess Player 'Likely Cheated' in Over 100 Online Chess Games, According to Investigation
posted by y2karl at 9:07 PM on October 4, 2022

Can't find the anal beads

Found 'em.

They're on BuzzFeed because satire is over.
posted by flabdablet at 8:31 AM on October 5, 2022

Some recent developments:

Sam Sevian grabs Niemann's King in the middle of a game and physically breaks it

Niemann sues Magnus, chess.com, others
posted by juv3nal at 3:52 PM on October 20, 2022