Kramnik Hates Chess.com

How his skill is declining and how he loses to young talents you can observe in recent real-world match vs Jospem (Clash of Blames, Aug 18, 2024 – Aug 21, 2024). All what Jospem defenders can now do is to whine that increment was 2 seconds not 1 second lol.

Who? Name me these people. Nakamura? Or maybe you're talking about chess.com reports? Kramnik has reviewed them and asked some experts to review them. Everyone agreed that these reports are just circus.

@JaneHousemaid,

1) First off, "Your experience means nothing because you absolutely can not tell a cheater from a non-cheater" I find this really dismissive and not productive to the discussion. You do not know me nor have you interacted with me, so you really shouldn't be making claims like this. Addressing the rest of your point, yes, chess is for everyone, which is exactly why we need to keep the existence of online chess - it makes chess more accessible to everyone. If people are concerned about cheaters they can choose to not play. It makes no sense to shut off online chess entirely.

Nothing personal, I'm talking about inability for most humans to make this distinction. You need to be a super-GM to have enough understanding. No, online chess doesn't make chess accessible to everyone. It makes ONLINE chess accessible to everyone AND it attempts to replace real chess. If people have need in chess and online chess is here telling look you can fulfill your need using me, that's a replacement attempt. And when the product offered as replacement is of much worse quality, has unsolvable security issues, ruining the integrity of the competition due to cheating issue, ruining reputation of players due to massive false accusations, fails to ensure credibility of anyone's rating, this must be stopped. If you respect chess as a game, if you respect other players, you should demand full closure of online chess. Its accessibility cannot justify all its horrors.

2) This is a perspective problem. Generally, we assume the innocence of an individual until they are proven beyond reasonable doubt to be guilty. Also, I find your claim to have analyzed all my games to be not believable, since you have had a maximum of an hour between our posts to analyse all my 72 rapid and 153 blitz (discounting bullet because cheating in bullet can pretty much be determined just by how fast you move while being accurate) games.

Not in an environment where there is absolutely no control. And proper control is actually impossible. Like Caruana has said, even under cameras there are million ways to cheat. As for your games, that's a philosophical question. I briefly skipped through the list of your games, that's right. I was trying to tell you that it is not possible to prove that any online game was real, was conducted without external help (in form of an engine or other player) because there is no control and because smart cheating is possible that makes you undetectable.

3) "Magnus Carlsen cannot credibly accuse anyone." This is unbelievable to me. Honestly, if there was anybody whose accusations I would trust the most it's Magnus. He's been the world champion for a reason. I would trust his accusations more than, for example, yours. Also, "Bot's play is indistinguishable from human play in many engines" I don't find this to be true - bots have a tendency to alternate between making horrific blunders and finding engine-like moves. Maybe you cannot tell the difference, but for me the difference is definitely noticable.

Unbelievable what? Kramnik was world champion too, but you don't think Kramnik can accuse anyone do you? News flash: Kramnik has never accused anyone. If you don't find the fact that bot's play is indistinguishable to be true, let's do an experiment. I did such experiments and my buggy quickly written engine has convinced a local anti-cheating expert that it was human. Your knowledge here relies on myths, you've demonstrated this by repeating this idea about "alternation between horrrific blunders and top engine moves". I wrote several chess engines, I know what methods are available for decision-making so I know that it is trivial to avoid blunders completely AND top-moves almost completely (because even human cannot avoid making top-moves). And when I profiled human games and engine games, I found that this behavior "horrific blunders mixed with top moves" is more prevalent among (surprise) human play. You may find it insulting that my opinion about your engine detection expertise is so low, but I am not trying to insult you, it's normal to have lack of knowledge in some areas.

4) Well, I would argue that chess.com is a casual platform which means that you should enable chat sometimes - i.e. when friends play each other (even when rated!) to discuss. Maybe it could be disabled by default and enabled based on an option.

Only unrated play can be considered casual. You can have chat, takebacks, you can play past the clock, set various handicaps, that'd be casual. But rated play - no, must be disabled without options, otherwise it's not fair. Not everyone will understand how unfair it is and might enable the chat and get distracted and will lose unfairly without even realizing it.

5) I still could not interpret this response very well. I'm not sure what you are arguing for in this point.

That was just a response to your claims, if you don't understand, we can discuss that separately with more details.

6) Could you, as I have stated in my previous message, please provide a link of a video or article or similar of a chess master or a coach advising low-rated players to not play 10-minute chess? Also, "Because it is not possible to calculate every move that fast, you rely on intuition, but you don't have enough experience and that's why you stay low" - I'm not sure why you are talking about this in a way as if I was the one who was "staying low". I definitely calculate most of my moves when I play rapid - maybe not to five, six or more moves as grandmasters do but the immediate response of my opponent, my response to that response, etc I definitely do. Also, again, a sizable portion of people don't play solely to improve, and classical chess is a big time dedication for a lot of people who simply don't have an hour to sit down and play a game of chess.

I am referencing general guidelines and it's easy to make conclusions, I could find you a link where it is advised to think longer, but I might not be able to find a link where someone specifically saying that specifically 10 minutes not more not less is bad. That's why I'm offering you to try yourself and see if 10 minute is enough to calculate every move without cutting corners.

I don't know why you keep saying online chess needs to stop. You know very well it is not, and just because you have your own opinion does not mean trying to shut online chess down for everybody. Cheating is a problem, however, you still drive around in cars knowing very well it kills people, right? Do you know why? Because it is an important part of our lives! Just like in chess, online chess is what most of the fanbase and attention goes to. Without cars, life would be way more difficult, just like without online chess, the chess community would struggle.

The fact that you don't know says everything.

We have speed cameras, traffic light cameras, road police, other drivers can use DVRs and there are real punishments for traffic violations and no second chances, no ability to create a new driver's license in few seconds without even phone number confirmation. With online chess however, you can violate rules uncontrollably without any punishment. So your comparison is invalid.

Chess community needs no online chess, because online chess does too much harm to the chess community and because chess community has engines to play against. So it's not like you would be left without opponents. If you would argue that humans play more humanely, my response is: you cannot see any difference between engine and human play, if you will claim that you can, I can challenge you with a test (not right now, a bit later, let me know if you want this). And no one can, not only you. Otherwise cheat-detection wouldn't be an issue.

So far it looks like it's you who doesn't know.

I am leaning towards 1

Bro literally got the Megaphone achievement for yapping so much🤣

Says the guy whose head is buried in the sand, thinking he can see.

Just go to basket's profile and the first see you thing is a rant about chess cheating. Basketstorm, can you provide a story of you you got to the opinion of chess cheating being a problem?

Chess cheating is not the main problem of online chess. Lack of online games and online rating credibility, lack of security, lack of punishment are the more serious problems. No player who loves chess would agree with such state of affairs. I don't play online chess because I want to be clean from blames. False accusations is a real and MAIN problem of online chess. It harms reputation, it creates scandals, it turns this beautiful game into some very dirty show. And it may sound paradoxical, but all these accusations are justified and reasonable. Because anyone has all reasons to suspect that anyone is cheating online. So it's better to stop this.

And I will repeat:

 chess community has engines to play against. So it's not like you would be left without opponents. If you would argue that humans play more humanely, my response is: you cannot see any difference between engine and human play, if you will claim that you can, I can challenge you with a test

So what do you say?

I am not Kramnik and I can prove that easily: Kramnik wants to keep fighting cheating, I want to defeat it once and forever. This is a big difference.

No, I'm good at chess actually, I'm a chess player.

Why, my real rating is much higher, disregard my online ratings, I didn't even play those games.

You wouldn't believe anyway, so what's the point. Let's not focus on that.

I find it more satisfying to outsmart a real life human being than a computer. Also, can I take the test please? I want to see if I can see the difference.

I know but you must understand that this is just a psychological factor, has nothing to do with the actual game, the moves etc. I mean if a bot would "wear"a nickname, profile picture and will have a profile full of games and some random bs in description that would be convincing enough for you. But this is just self-deception.

Will get back to you with a test later.

huh? what do you mean blackbelt?

Indeed very reasonable arguments