Hans Niemann was accused of cheating after he beat Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen last September.
This was a joke invented by r/anarchychess. I’d be amazed if it were real.
I remember when I first heard the rumours and I immediately thought of how sensitive one’s anal linings would be to perceive Morse code via a butt plug. Then pondered upon the max possible bandwidth of buttplug-mediated information transfer. Finally, I thought about how to send back information via rythmic anal clenching.
Only then did I conclude that it’s probably easier to get better at chess.
A YouTuber tested it and confirmed it’s not that difficult to detect messages. They didn’t use Morse code but rather a simplified set of signals for move notation
It’s in the ankles, right? I guess even if it’s a different part of the body than the inside of one’s butt (a sensitive part of the body), makes it plausible that it’s also possible for communication (perhaps one-way—towards the plug wearer).
I’m assuming the accomplice would then be watching through some camera feed, right? That makes it at least plausible since there’s no need for kegels (to send information the other way).
We need an expert on this. You gotta go find the guy that designed that butt plug revolver with the clench activated trigger.
Best joke about that I saw was a video of Hans playing someone and looking confident up until a blunder or something. Then he realizes what happened and puts his face in his hands and closes his eyes.
The comment on the YouTube video was: “when the computer gives up and then switches to pleasure mode”
I play chess and I have a… a friend who uses a vibrator
So ofc it’s real, just not Hans
Yeah that’s what I meant. It’s not that it’s not real, but the origin of the meme was Hans saying something to the effect of “I’ll play Magnus naked to prove I’m not cheating” to which everyone responded that the anal beads technique would be how he did it. Of course the corollary of that is that there are numerous ways for him to cheat while fully clothed.
Wasn’t there a documentary about this with Danny Devito?
I read the title as “dies” instead of “denies”.
For those who haven’t seen it- even if you don’t have a background in data science or chess, this report is extremely damning. He’s an unapologetic, manipulative, pernicious cheater.
That’s 72 pages. Are there any highlights for interested non chess fanatics?
The basic measure is “accuracy”: the percentage of moves that are the best move for that position. Computers are, as you would expect, inhumanly good on this measure. Better than the best human players, who will have “inaccuracies” even in their best-played games. It makes spotting cheaters pretty reliable and easy. Niemann has been busted for cheating online repeatedly, and analysis of his in-person play bears the same hallmarks.
BBC article summarizing some of the suspicions and evidence or lack thereof.
The main part of the report is only 20 pages. And there are a lot of figures.
I’m not convinced by that report. Their cheating detection method is inconclusive and if Hans had the ability to perform the “best” move in every circumstance due to cheating but didn’t, that to me points to it being less likely. There are a lot of statistics in that report that seem extremely circumstantial like the “plateaus” in strength rating. If he was really cheating in the tournaments, I think there would be a whole lot more evidence.
This is “a whole lot of evidence”. If he had, for example, a 10% chance to show up suspicious in any one of those charts that’s one thing. But to be highlighted as the most suspicious in each is extraordinary evidence. How do you explain a greater than 10% drop in skill when a 15 minute TV delay was put in place? Or his ability to make incredibly complex, perfect moves in seconds? Or his continual, nearly unstoppable strength rating growth, you know, except for the two natural plateaus in rating where most players never continue to grow firmly in the middle of his growth curve?
If that report doesn’t convince you, I doubt anything will.
Uhhhmmm, I don’t want to be intrusive, but how exactly does one use small beads to cheat at chess? I’m trying to figure this out, …but I keep losing anyway.
Mike Boyd did a video on this a while back and was able to successfully beat a pro chess player using a vibrator on his ankle:
Yeah. The whole comment section seems like it’s super obvious… but seriously… how does one cheat with anal vibrators?
It’s important to remember that he is certainly still very good at chess, even if he cheated in some games. He wouldn’t need to have every move given to him, it might even be enough to give him a single signal that there is a non-obvious great move in a current position. Even just knowing that would probably be enough for him to find it by himself.
This is mostly correct (standard chess notation is slightly more compact than what you described; a typical move looks like “Nf6”, meaning kNight to F6. Normally there will only ever be one piece of the appropriate type that can reach any particular square, so only destination coordinates are needed. If it’s necessary to say which piece, then you just give origin and destination, but omit the piece, since it’s implied by the origin, so moves are typically 3 characters, never more than 4).
As a form of cheating, the use of what are generally called “thumpers” has been around for a long time. In casinos you would have a confederate sitting at an angle where they can see the dealer’s hand, who would then signal to you what moves to make. In chess they would be watching the game, constantly plugging every move into a chess program like Stockfish, and then signalling what move the computer chooses. Your opponent is effectively playing the computer, not you.
Typical thumpers are a vibrating band that goes around a leg, or something hidden in the sole of a shoe. All you have to do is sit there and look thoughtful while you decode the message, which is most likely sent using Morse code. Where the sex toys come in is this wild theory concocted by the internet that a really good way to hide a thumper from any kind of frisking would be to use a Bluetooth controlled anal vibrator, since no one is likely to frisk you there. There’s no proof that it’s ever happened, but now it’s a huge meme that chess is basically stuck with forever.
And yes, time is still an issue. Good players can move a lot faster than the time it takes for all that back and forth communication. The strategy, if someone ever suspects they’re playing a cheater, is to play defensively and run out the clock.
(edited for clarity)
