Perpetual Chess is back with another bonus pod discussing the ongoing Magnus Carlsen/Hans Niemann controversy. The major news of the week was that GM Magnus Carlsen issued a statement on Monday confirming that he suspects GM Hans Niemann of cheating. To discuss the story, I am honored to be joined by 2 Grandmaster guests who offer significant domain expertise beyond the chess world. First up is GM Jonathan Rowson, a renowned author and philosopher and the 3 time British Chess Champion. My conversation with Jonathan is centered around the human element of this story, and how we can hope to avoid biases in our interpretation of the information at hand. Following GM Rowson, I am joined by Dr. David Smerdon. GM Smerdon is a 7 time Chess Olympian for his native Australia, and an award winning chess author. David has worked with both Dr. Kenneth Regan and also the Chess.com cheat detection team. David’s primary field is development economics, but he has a statistical background and devotes significant time to chess-related research. As we discuss, in addition to chess cheating, David has published a paper related to gender issues in chess. I found it helpful to hear the grounded perspective of 2 of the chess world’s most insightful thinkers. As always, timestamps of topics discussed can be found below. 

0:00- Intro and review of recent events:

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5:00- Perpetual Chess is brought to you in part by Chessable.com. You can check out all of their latest offerings here: 

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6:00- GM Jonathan Rowson joins (recorded September 28)

6:00- 3 key questions to ask ourselves

19:00- Should we draw a distinction between cheating in online and OTB chess? 

29:00- Are we likely to get a resolution to this case?  

32:00- What are sensible anti-cheating measures? 

35:00- Jonathan reflects on his recent return to OTB competitive chess 

39:00- What behavioral biases should we be alert for as we evaluate the information presented? 

48:00- What opinions has Jonathan heard from his GM peers? 

Mentioned: 

Carlsen-Niemann 2022

Mishra-Niemann 2022

53:00- Thanks to Jonathan for joining the show! Here are links to keep up with him. 

Twitter 

The Moves that Matter

His website

His Chessable Courses 

You can hear our prior interview here. (Episode 150) 

56:00- Perpetual Chess is brought to you in part by Aimchess.com. Aimchess’ algorithm reviews your games and gives you actionable advice on how to improve your game. Check it out for free, and if you choose to subscribe you can use the code Perpetual30 to save 30%.

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57:00- GM David Smerdon joins (recorded September 27)

58:00- What does David’s research suggest about why people cheat at chess? 

1:08:00- David has seen Chess.com’s list of banned players, obviously he can’t reveal names, but is there anything he can say about it? 

1:13:00- David discusses some of GM Fabiano Caruana’s comments on the controversy from the C Squared podcast

1:20:00- David discusses the Let’s Check feature on Chessbase. We are referring to video’s such as this one by FM Yosha Iglesias, which makes a good-faith attempt to analyze Han’s games with data. 

Mentioned: IM Ken Regan interview with James Altucher 

1:30:00- Does David have a personal opinion about whether Hans cheated OTB? 

1:33:00- Could one be termed "guilty" of cheating OTB based on data alone? 

1:40:00- David discusses his fun and useful statistical tool, the Fighting Chess Index (FCI). 

1:45:00- David discusses his research on gender and chess. 

Mentioned: BBC News: Chess Commentator Sacked for Sexist Remark

1:57:00- Thanks to David for sharing his insights! Here are some of the ways to keep up with him:

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/dsmerdon

David’s Chess Blog: 

https://www.davidsmerdon.com/

Award Winning Book

The Complete Chess Swindler 

You can hear our prior interview here. (Episode 30)

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