Chess Pro Explains How to Spot Cheaters (ft. GothamChess) | WIRED

“Only a bot would play that!” Sacrificing a Queen in chess is a move you’re much more likely to see a bot make as opposed to a human, as humans want to protect the game’s most valuable piece. In the wake of the recent chess cheating scandal, Levy Rozman from GothamChess explains how you actually cheat at chess. Using artificial intelligence, see how people use everything from bathroom cell phones to ear pieces to try to skirt the rules and gain an edge.

Check out Levy’s YouTube channel:

Director: Lisandro Perez-Rey
Director of Photography: Charlie Jordan
Editor: Louville Moore
Talent: Levy Rozman

Line Producer: Joseph Buscemi
Associate Producer: Samantha Vélez
Production Manager: Eric Martinez
Production Coordinator: Fernando Davila

Camera Operator: Corey Eisenstein
Audio: Brett Van Deusen
Production Assistant: Patrick Sargent

Post Production Supervisor: Alexa Deutsch
Post Production Coordinator: Ian Bryant
Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen
Assistant Editor: Ben Harowitz

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    Isn’t that good strategy though? Sacing a queen is what makes it enticing and makes a human forget the rest of the board

    The intro is edited. Levy, when he recorded it, didn't call a queen sacrifice that immediately led to a checkmate attack impossible for a human to see.

    @0:12 Qd5 is not an impossible find for higher rated players, but I agree that if they’re low rated they probably didn’t see it. Even though it sacrifices material the basic idea beind the move is simple. The idea behind the move is relatively simple. This queen move forks and skewers black’s weak pieces. First, you have to see that black taking the queen loses by force.

    Qd5 exd5 Bxd5+ Be6 Qxe6# is a forced checkmate.

    So if black can’t take the queen then whites queen is still forking black’s weaknesses. White threatens Qxd5+ Be6 Qxe6#, so black must defend that but none of black’s defensive moves can defend that sequence while also defending both black’s weak knight and weak rook.

    Qd5 is the type of move where once your opponent plays it, you can pretty safely resign as black

    I once beat an obvious cheater in chess by just playing stalling moves. They took a consistent time to make obvious moves and timed themselves out.

    Nah, the first example right at the beginning being played by a human is believable.

    Sorry but that first example is poor. It's a queen sac that leads immediately to checkmate. It's not hard to see that, if the pawn on e6 disappeared, Bd5+ would be mate in two. An IM ought to be seeing that. Later on, you descibe it as giving away a queen for "basically nothing". No, it's giving away a queen for checkmate — basically everything. The knight sac beforehand (shown towards the end of the video) is the more suspicious move.

    Weird, I would've played that because the only way to take the Queen leads to Check then Checkmate after I kill his Bishop and if he doesn't take the Queen, then my next move is Checkmate.

    Pretty much the only way a soon Checkmate against Black isn't going to happen is if Black takes the Knight, but even that's going to lead to great gains and has multiple ways to push black into Checkmate

    Well now I want to study and play these kinds of gambits, that does not mean I am cheating or using a bot.

    Come in wired, get a GM to come on and talk about the game, Levi speaks in generalizations and that’s about it.

    wait, but what if I have watched this video, and know that by trapping the opponent into taking my free (white) queen so I can checkmate in next move ?
    I meant, as a human I never sacrifice the queen by "dedicating" it to opponent's pawn, because am not good enough to see the next move checkmate. But now I knew, and I basically can use that move in future battle
    so that won't look like cheating anymore right ??

    this is the problem with high level chess. there is absolutely no way to police cheating and everyone concerned with their rank cant admit they were defeated honestly unless they are in person. the problem with in person chess is most people dont want to be in the company of people like this.

    my frd is hardcore cheater he cheat with low rated engine

    imagine spending so much time and effort into cheating rather than analysing games and opponents

    That's not a chess pro. That's Levy, he cant even beat a regular youtube streamer, Nakamura, at chess.

    I love all these 1200 Elos in the comments acting like the queen sac is so obvious after they've already seen it.

    They should pay Magnus to play suspected cheaters

    2034: top ranked chess player banned for cheating via Neuralink

    ngl that queen sacrifice does not look that hard to see at all

    i like how he acts like thats a bot move when its the most obvious queen sac imaginable

    I played with a dude today who accused me of using the engine man i didn't even know what that means tf

    you cant regulate accuracy? so that bot would do lets say 75% accurate moves, not 95?

    0:00

    I play that move all the time. Doesn't mean I cheat. I just don't notice the pawn

    A cheater, by definition, is someone who receives external assistance during a game. THAT'S IT. Outside of that, there's no conclusive way to detect a cheater, including by using criteria for whether a move is "human like", because the best chessplayers use (and memorize) moves suggested to them by an engine, and those moves may indeed be counterintuitive.

    It may even be possible for one to reach GM strength simply by memorizing opening lines, and using mnemonics to memorize transposition tables, up until (at least) the endgame.

    Consequently, it's imperative that all elite chess tournaments scan all players (including their shoes and clothing) for metal devices, and force everyone to play in closed rooms w/thick metal shielding (to block out Wi-Fi transmissions) and make them take off their watches, jewelry, etc. and any other device except simple visual aids (glasses or contacts)

    The cheater queen-sacrifice example doesn't seem like an AI move unless the player was 750 rated. The most obvious AI moves are some dumb scoot-the-bishop-one-square-over type shenanigans.

    It will be hard to detect the cheat if the cheater is already a good player. He will sometimes do his own moves and sometimes use AI. This way semicheating will be hard to detect since the total accuracy may not be over % 90 but at critical positions it may be a cheating. So it is sometimes impossible to catch a cheat online.

    People followed debut theory till 30-th move absolutely would not able to play in mitendspiel, but somehow managed to find a play in endspiel, Fischer was first who tried to bring some more mitendspiel-chess (by variation of 960 chess) then computer engines helped to people to find out how to play in mitendspiel by helping finding those moves (a4/h4 on moves till 20-th, people would not play like that usually) and now we have issues with that people are easier to find out how (not GMs playing but how computer engines play) not find out those moves by themselves..

    Are you really thinking that chess analysis was better move than cheating by developing chess?!..

    Where is that scandal review of Dr.Pi who won Rybka 3 did not get who is that Dr.Pi but thought that kinda Dr.Strange

    I'm so bad at chess I accidentally sack the queen so often I look like a bot.

    Sacrificing the queen to get a checkmate seems like a clever trap rather than a bot move.

    Problem for me as a 1200 player on Lichess is that I can't spot cheaters, and at my level the mod's probably don't care to catch them even if they could. I imagine the cheaters that I'm encountering are doing it through boredom, or anger, or just plain old sadism.

    I don't wanna play with 99.9% accuracy, i just wanna play with 100% accuracy.

    I'm kind of new to chess but that knight check didn't look strange to me.. After that, it's quite obvious that you sacrifice the queen, it's only 1 move before a check mate? Why is it considered cheating?

    But wouldn’t the AI playing chess basically throw away the current tactics? Obviously human tactics are trash.

    if u cheat for your ego, you rly are a bad person and deserve to be humbled by wtv means necessary

    I played like A.I. on regular chess board. it call having good board Vision. No I am not perfect like an A.I. sometimes I messed up really bad. @9:20.

    i like to think of a hypothetical scenario where a guy is cheating has a phone stashed in the bathroom goes to check the phone in the stall and someone saw it and stole it

    Guys What If I Booted Up Windows 7 Chess

    There is more cheating in chess than any game on the internet.

    actually, the very first example at the beginning isn't that hard to spot

    Im not cheating i just dont know how to play

    Chess has important statements to make about the brutal math of leadership and war: nothing is sacred and all people are expendable no matter how valuable they are in service to the Union or king. As much as people try to hold onto the queen she’s just another piece of the puzzle to sacrifice

    You could have played Bishop D5 and gotten the same result.

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