Cheating In Chess: The Past, Present, & Future

Cheating in Chess. Easily, one of the most controversial topics, cheating has grown in different ways throughout the history of chess. From lying about chess moves to the different theories of the Hans Nienmann scandal, cheating in chess has without a doubt evolved in ways unbeknownst to us. 

Hmm, who's this guy again???

As the world grows so does chess and with it cheating in chess, so without further ado, let's explore the history of Cheating in Chess: The Past, Present, & Future! 

Cheating in Chess: The Past

While I was researching what chess cheating in the past looked like, I stumbled upon some very interesting methods that cheaters have used to win their games! One of them was called "The Turk" which involved players hiding inside of a machine, which communicated moves to be played by a player on the outside. But, we just can't stop there because another common method used by some players was literal board manipulation; basically bughouse on crack or playing a bunch of illegal moves. 

Booooarddd mainnpulllationnnnn... (jk)

Yet, we can't just stop there because another common tactic used by some chess masters was match manipulation (organize match + assign me to 100 rated players  = FREE W). On a more serious note though, this was an actual issue that many chess masters faced throughout their careers in the earlier days of chess. Match manipulation would often involve organizers of matches or even players purposely pairing themselves with easier players to win/tire out stronger players through stronger opponents. In fact, Bobby Fischer (whom I talked about in my last blog, The Top 10 Most Liked Chess Players of All Time), actually accused Russian chess players of match-fixing. Here's an interview with Sandra Shevey and Bobby Fischer on the matter. 

Of course, many other methods have been used throughout the existence of chess but I felt these were the most key moments to be talked about. I highly recommend watching these videos (Video #1 and Video #2) to learn more about cheating in chess throughout history. 

Cheating in Chess: The Present

Cheating in chess that occurs presently (modern-day) somewhat reassembles some types of cheating methods used in the past but has evolved with the grand boom in the popularity of chess. But there is no way to talk about cheating in chess without mentioning the Hans Niemann scandal. Easily, causing one of the greatest uproars in the chess community, this scandal changed chess history forever. Niemann, who once even talked about his own experience at Nationals on the US Chess Federation's site, had his whole life changed after just one match with Carlsen in September of 2022. 

A photo of a young Hans Niemann presumably at the US Grade Nationals. 

As I would prefer to not extend this blog longer than it should be, here's a link to @Rodgy's blog on the situation.  

But, cheating has evolved and now is not only limited to the OTB (Over The Board) chess community. One of the most continuously common cases of chess cheating is through online chess games or here on chess.com where methods such as sandbagging, use of engines (such as Stockfish, Komodo, Deep Blue, etc..), outside assistance, and more methods are used. Despite this a Chess.com article from October 10th, 2022 claims that in reality only about 0.2% of players on Chess.com actually cheat at online chess but nevertheless it exists and is still a major issue in the online chess community (You can read the Chess.com article by clicking here). In particular, though I would like to focus on the existence of Stockfish which has both impressed and haunted the chess community. 

An attempt by Chess.com to cope with the fact that they can't beat Stockfish by "celebrating" it with confetti. 

Simply put, Stockfish is a free/open-source chess engine; great for analyzing games and learning about your mistakes but, is also a dangerous tool in the wrong hands. Simply, inserting a sequence of moves into the engine outputs back all possible combinations of the best moves to be played. If you thought Chess.com telling you how many blunders you made was bad, imagine how it feels when you're playing an engine even more powerful than that against a player named @loserursobadiamjustbetter. Stockfish has raised multiple ethical concerns over the years primarily about crushing your dreams and hopes to be a chess grandmaster plus much more I don't feel like disclosing about because, just reading the Reddit post on Google crushed my dreams, is this a rant, I think it is, was this grammatically butchered, absolutely, will you actually read this probably not. The point is, Stockfish is powerful and still remains probably the largest contributor to the modern-day methods of chess cheating.  Here is a video from WIRED in collaboration with GothamChess on online chess cheating! 

Now, if I were to continue about modern-day cheating situations/methods this blog would continue going on and on so, this will be part of a new series I'm starting "Cheating In Chess". I'll eventually publish more blogs on other cheating controversies so make sure to tune in for when those come out!

Cheating in Chess: The Future

The Future. Something, we don't know much about no quite literally, we don't know anything about it because of how unpredictable it is. Just as unknown as the future is, so remains the fate of chess. Cheating in chess is evolving in ways we can't even imagine. A big role in this is played by Artificial Intelligence which is easily exceeding our expectations and growing by the day. One day it's doing your homework/the reason you're not failing that one specific English class that you're required to take to graduate and the next it's playing your chess matches and winning for you! [Insert Dramatic Sound Effects] ChatGPT!

Probably the reason why you're not failing half your classes. 

Although ChatGPT might currently be unable to beat the likes of Stockfish, one day without a doubt it and many other Artificial Intelligence will begin to dominate chess, opening up even more options for online chess cheating. At the same time, it is likely that cheating in OTB chess will become more and more difficult as technology improves to handle previous cheating methods through new and improved scanners, detectors, etc... Whatever the future holds, cheating is likely to grow but who knows maybe one day, me and you (the reader) can sit down and have a proper chess match without worrying about the other cheating!

Thank you so much for reading! This blog was submitted for the knockouts phase of BlogChamps and hopefully, I can qualify for the next round! Credits to Google Docs, Grammarly, my mental health for withstanding this level of procrastination, Google, ChatGPT (I wish...), the countless amount of images that I hopefully won't get in trouble for using in this blog, and more.  I hope you enjoyed this blog and see you next time!