Kramnik Hates Chess.com

I understand, I just don't like to brag too much about deep my knowledge. I'll be happy to teach you a thing or two, what do you want to learn first?

I've learned all I need to know from you, which is the kind of person you are and what you offer. Everything you say, including this last message, confirms it further.

What do you mean? I'm ready to help genuinely.

Sure. I believe you. I'll get back to you when I have time.

"Please avoid such words as stupid when talking about my posts. This is not nice." Nice or not, the argument is stupid if it is "not true" or "incorrect" in an obvious way.

1- You don't know if it was many either. My empirical evidence (of the games I've played on this site) has encountered no or little amounts of cheaters on this site, which while I do not claim is representative means personally that cheaters is not a big problem to me, and I am willing to believe that it would be for the vast majority of players on this site.

2- You can analyse my games. If you have the time to bother to do so, you could go through every one of my games and see if any of them had suspiciously high accuracy rates.

3- This entire paragraph could not be understood well. Hans Niemann is one person out of several tens of millions of people playing on chess.com, and a Grandmaster at that, so naturally an accusation against him (especially considering the fact that the accuser was someone credible - Magnus Carlsen) would be much more impactful. My original comment's point was that of the people who do get an amount of criticism, the convenience of online chess outweigh the potential ramifications of these false accusations and criticism. My point was not that we should not care about their feelings.

4- Regarding the chat situation in variants, I suppose that is something that chess.com can improve on. I do believe that chess.com could be better on moderation.

5- Sorry, I could not interpret this response. If you mean that the ratings of real life players are all exactly indicative of their skill level, then that is incorrect - presumptive ratings exist for players who have only played a few games. The ratings are accurate for people who have played hundreds of over-the-board games and had time for the ratings to adjust and stabilise, but quite a lot of people have little amounts of games which leads to their rating not being indicative of their true skill level.

6- could you link a video or other source in which somebody of repute claims that Rapid is useless for improvement? I have only seen videos and articles persuading low rated players to avoid blitz and bullet, never rapid (10-minute chess). Also, in the vast majority of rapid games you do not flag if you have fast playing, which from my observations are more prevalent in low rated players than playing too slow. Also, there is my anecdotal evidence, going from roughly 500-rated to 1400-rated only playing Rapid chess on this platform.

Regarding the last part of your message, I am interested in holding an honest discussion in good will, and I would appreciate if you could refrain from being dismissive in your tone.

@JadeCleanMaid, If post is not correct it is not correct, not stupid.

1) I am sorry but there is no empirical evidence, it is impossible to prove cheating or detect cheating. Your experience means nothing because you absolutely can not tell a cheater from a non-cheater, you can only have suspicions, but not every cheater is cheating in a dumb way and you had some suspicions about players who did not cheat, this is unavoidable.

Only when cheater confesses you can be sure 99% (not 100% because player might falsely accuse himself for some reasons, one of the reasons - chess.com unblocks the account after that).

I doesn't matter whether you believe or not. It doesn't matter whether cheating is a problem for you or not. Chess is for everyone, not just for you. For many people cheating is a big concern. And potentially false accusations that happen every day are worse than the cheating itself.

2) I have analyzed your games and found no evidence that you did not cheat. Same can be said about anyone. Because online games, online ratings etc are not credible and not provable. You can cheat in a smart way and you will NEVER be detected.

3) Magnus Carlsen cannot credibly accuse anyone. He can have suspicions but not more than that. You might see online chess as something convenient, but in fact, playing bots is even more convenient, you don't even need internet, there is desktop software for that. Bot's play is indistinguishable from human play in many engines (not in Stockfish, yes, but still I bet low level player wouldn't be able to tell difference).

4) Chats should be forcibly disabled in all rated games. Because you can use chat to distract your opponent, for example this is not allowed in OTB rated games for that reason.

5) This is a large topic, in short chess.com has K=16 for everyone. New players get short-term increase. For OTB, no, not hundreds. I was talking about concentration and approach to the game. You don't get too much players who don't take the game seriously OTB.

6) 10-minute chess? With increments I hope? Even for FIDE events I think they use 15|10. It is certainly less limiting than Blitz but still not enough for proper development of a beginner chess player. If you value your experience more than some authorities, try yourself, switch from 10 minutes to 30 at least. Or play with an engine but without a clock and think as long as you need. In the end check amount of time passed, I bet it will be much longer than 10 minutes. Because it is not possible to calculate every move that fast, you rely on intuition, but you don't have enough experience and that's why you stay low. I understand that speed chess is a thing and can be fun, but it can wait.

I'm sorry if my message came across as dismissive but at least I didn't call your post stupid like you did with mine.

1) First off, "Your experience means nothing because you absolutely can not tell a cheater from a non-cheater" I find this really dismissive and not productive to the discussion. You do not know me nor have you interacted with me, so you really shouldn't be making claims like this. Addressing the rest of your point, yes, chess is for everyone, which is exactly why we need to keep the existence of online chess - it makes chess more accessible to everyone. If people are concerned about cheaters they can choose to not play. It makes no sense to shut off online chess entirely.

2) This is a perspective problem. Generally, we assume the innocence of an individual until they are proven beyond reasonable doubt to be guilty. Also, I find your claim to have analyzed all my games to be not believable, since you have had a maximum of an hour between our posts to analyse all my 72 rapid and 153 blitz (discounting bullet because cheating in bullet can pretty much be determined just by how fast you move while being accurate) games.

3) "Magnus Carlsen cannot credibly accuse anyone." This is unbelievable to me. Honestly, if there was anybody whose accusations I would trust the most it's Magnus. He's been the world champion for a reason. I would trust his accusations more than, for example, yours. Also, "Bot's play is indistinguishable from human play in many engines" I don't find this to be true - bots have a tendency to alternate between making horrific blunders and finding engine-like moves. Maybe you cannot tell the difference, but for me the difference is definitely noticable.

4) Well, I would argue that chess.com is a casual platform which means that you should enable chat sometimes - i.e. when friends play each other (even when rated!) to discuss. Maybe it could be disabled by default and enabled based on an option.

5) I still could not interpret this response very well. I'm not sure what you are arguing for in this point.

6) Could you, as I have stated in my previous message, please provide a link of a video or article or similar of a chess master or a coach advising low-rated players to not play 10-minute chess? Also, "Because it is not possible to calculate every move that fast, you rely on intuition, but you don't have enough experience and that's why you stay low" - I'm not sure why you are talking about this in a way as if I was the one who was "staying low". I definitely calculate most of my moves when I play rapid - maybe not to five, six or more moves as grandmasters do but the immediate response of my opponent, my response to that response, etc I definitely do. Also, again, a sizable portion of people don't play solely to improve, and classical chess is a big time dedication for a lot of people who simply don't have an hour to sit down and play a game of chess.

Does anyone have a link to where kramnik actually made this accusation or is it one of those "someone on a stream told me he said it so it must be true" type of situation?

Is This For Real ?

If Kramnik has a problem with Chess.com, he is free to stop playing here. If he has a problem with online chess in general, he should stop playing online. He can restrict himself to only playing OTB tournaments, then he can complain about FIDE not providing enough security against cheating. Unfortunately what he cannot do is stop time, reverse the aging process, prevent his skills from slowly declining, and from losing to talented younger players. Welcome to the real world.

(C)omputer (C)heating has been going on for decades and it will continue for decades into the future.

On a side note, I used to play at Yahoo Chess and Lycos Chess decades ago and they had absolutely zero (C)omputer (C)heating detection!! Online chess was the real Wild West in those days

ACD

Yes that is true

Kramnik's or anyone's mental health is irrelevant to whether they are right or wrong. Having said that, his reasoning is primitive, and he has the worst case of Dunning-Kruger syndrome I'm acquainted with.

Dunning Kruger is when you have such a limited amount of knowledge that you overestimate your own competence.

Reasonable argument

Dunning-Kruger is about unshakable overconfidence, as in believing you know more than real experts. Flat earthers scoffing at astrophysicists would be a good example. So many people who actually know what they are talking about have explained why Kramnik is wrong about his claims, but he dismisses them all. Thats Dunning-Kruger.

About chess, yes, about cheat detection and statistical probabilities, he's a complete fool.

To be fair he has probably spent more hours of his life training with and playing engines then any human being alive so I'd say if there was one person who is qualified to recognise engine moves it is kramnik

The fact of confirmation bias, a basic and common flaw in human reasoning, means personal impressions are highly unreliable, especially when combined with unshakable confidence, and Kramnik is as susceptible to it as a small child. He thinks because he's a one time great player and former world champion that he can't be wrong, and finds proof wherever he looks. He's conducting a typical witch hunt and has no clue he's doing it. The same blindness goes for his acolytes. It's really unfortunate, especially for his victims.