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Detecting Chess Cheats Taxes Computers

First time accepted submitter jeffrlamb writes "Cheating in live chess matches — fueled by powerful computer programs that play better than people do, as well as sophisticated communication technologies — is becoming a big problem for world championship chess. Kenneth W. Regan is attempting to construct a mathematical proof to see if someone cheated; the trouble is that so many variables and outliers must be taken into account. Modeling and factoring human behavior in competition turns out to be very difficult."

4 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. Headline... by krept · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...was hard to read.

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    None of us know everything. Therefore we're all naïve.
  2. Re:Obsolete by SJHillman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In that case, are the Olympics obsolete because the world's fastest sprinter can't even beat a moped, much less a Ferrari? Are painters obsolete because of photoshop? When the competition is man vs man, the abilities of machines shouldn't make it obsolete.

  3. Re:It's finite. by dreemernj · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My guess is they don't want to give up because they enjoy playing chess against other people.

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    1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
  4. Re:Huh? by sexconker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    RTFS, they intend to "construct a mathematical proof" to show that a given move, or number of moves, indicates cheating.
    This is impossible to prove because it's always possible that the human made those moves on his own. By the same logic that you can assume a human player can only go so deep in the search tree, you can't assume a human player to arrive at a move solely by use of an optimal or deterministic process. A meatbag can see any valid move and decide to play it for any reason. You can't mathematically prove cheating unless you see them cheating. For all you know the player is just lucky,.