Thanks to those who replied to yesterday’s request for information on Vladimir Kramnik’s accusations/“accusations” that Hikaru Nakamura cheated in some online games. A special thanks especially to IM and cheating detection super-GM Ken Regan, who offered the following links:
From The Independent, this backgrounder on the controversy, which includes Regan’s failure to confirm any shenanigans on Nakamura’s part. (Thanks also to David McCarthy, who also offered this link.)
For much more from Regan, have a look at his appearance on Sasha Starr’s chess show - the relevant portion starts about 17 minutes in.
Finally, for the 3-5 of you who have the chops for it, here are the slides from one of Regan’s talks on the general topic of catching cheating. (The material will be presented in a somewhat more digestible form on his co-hosted blog at some undetermined time in the near future.) On the slides, the highlighted case study is not Nakamura but, you guessed it, Hans Niemann. Speaking of whom…
Niemann had a brilliant result in the recently completed “Tournament of Peace” in Zagreb, taking clear first with an undefeated 8/9, three points ahead of his closest pursuers. You won’t be shocked to learn that this elicited a new round of cheating accusations against him - or, as in the Kramnik vs. Nakamura case, “accusations”. I’ve noticed versions of this gambit on political shows in recent years, where hosts insinuate all sorts of terrible things but refuse to take ownership of the insinuation, protesting that they are “just asking questions”. This may be true in some cases, and journalists ought to ask tough questions when the situation warrants it.
But sometimes it’s just yellow journalism, and it’s unethical even when it’s not illegal. Likewise, if a player has vague doubts about another player, but has no evidence whatsoever, the appropriate thing is not to go public until and unless one has at least appropriate statistical evidence and/or some sort of physical evidence. Otherwise, it’s just defamation, and one isn’t doing oneself any favors, either. Many of us have played against someone we think might have cheated, but it’s often just our frustration speaking. We should not go public with our suspicions, as long as they are only suspicions - if only from a Golden Rule ethic.
At any rate, I’ll close with one last link, with Fabiano Caruana weighing in on the foregoing material, at least in a general way, and discussing other topics like his success in the Sinquefield Cup and the race for the last two Candidates’ spots. Have a look, here.
Finally, some chess. Niemann’s games from Zagreb are worthy of your attention - have a look, for instance, at his wins over Ivan Sokolov and Anton Korobov. And next, a small puzzle from a classic game: Cohn vs. Rubinstein from St. Petersburg 1909. Some of you will know this ending, but many of you won’t, and those who have seen the ending before may fall into a trap that has caught some elite annotators - so it’s worth revisiting. Here’s the starting position of the ending; I’ll supply the solution later today.