GM Jonathan Rowson on the left (photo via Bloomsbury Publishing), GM David Smerdon on the right (via Wikimedia Commons)
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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 is 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 Dr. Kenneth Regan and also the Chess.com cheat detection team on cheat detection. David’s research centers around 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. It was great to hear the perspective of 2 insightful thinkers. As always, timestamps of topics discussed can be found below.
Click here to Download the Episode
The interview with Rowson was recorded Wednesday, September 28. The interview with GM David Smerdon was recorded Tuesday, September 27.
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 the podcast.
What are the 3 major questions we should try to answer for ourselves as we assess the information at hand.
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 kind of cheating measures should be put in place?
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 Grandmaster peers?
Mentioned:
Carlsen-Niemann 2022 https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2372960
Mishra-Niemann 2022 https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2123031
53:00- Thanks so much to Jonathan for joining the show! Here are links to keep up with him.
His Twitter
His most recent book, The Moves that Matter
You can hear our prior interview here. (Episode 150)
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57:00- GM David Smerdon joins the show!
58:00- What does David’s research suggest about why people cheat at chess?
You can hear our prior interview here. (Episode 30)
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. There is a lot we don’t know about how it works! We are referring to video’s such as this one by FM Yosha Iglesias, which makes a good-faith attempt to analyze Han’s game 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).
More info on David’s chess blog here:
https://www.davidsmerdon.com/?p=2168
1:45:00- David discusses his research on gender and chess.
Mentioned: BBC News: Chess Commentator Sacked for Sexist Remark
1:57:00- Thanks so much to David for sharing his insights! Here are some of the ways to keep up with him:
Twitter:
David’s Blog:
Award Winning Book