@Max L Literally me, I used to hover around 1300-1350. Watched Daniel and picked up some openings and move evaluation framework. Reached 1550 within a month or so of sporadic play. It's amazing how good of a teacher he is.
Literally gained 300 elo in 6 months by watching Danya. I was stuck at 1600 and am now mid 1900, approaching 2000 day by day. He is a an insanely great teacher.
That moment at the end of the game where it looked like black might try and go on for a win, but then went for a draw anyways. That's him choosing a slightly different move out of frustration that the engine was repeating moves
Well wouldnt it be hard for him to control the time spent like that since he was playing very good moves almost instantly? If the engine was on a second screen he couldnt move like that, and if it were a bot it'd just move instantly all the time no?
@@GIFT1FROM1THE1GODZ I was following the game on an analysis board with an engine while watching and it would have been totally doable for me to play all the moves that quickly. A lot of the time it was possible to predict what move Danya would make while he paused to explain on stream. I started getting suspicious when he premoved fxe6, was pretty certain it was cheating when he played Nh5, and by the time he played Nf6 was 100% certain.
@@GIFT1FROM1THE1GODZ In addition to the previous comment, if you have the engine calculating the top five (or more) lines, then Danya almost certainly plays one of them and the best response is already visible and can be played almost instantly. Then on Danya's turn you input the previous two moves into the engine and let it churn on his time and the results are ready again by the time Danya makes his next move.
Losing to a 1200 is not suspicious of that’s what you are implying, the difference between the 1200 and the 2000 and the 2000 and Danya is roughly the same and the 1200 could have also had a lucky game. There is no ways that a 2000 would be matched up against a 1200 in the pool so it was probably someone playing a friend of theirs and the friends pulled through
@@terroristsnakecat4830 this is just wrong as a 1800 rated player according to the elo system the odds of a 1200 beating me is 0.016%. If this guy lost to a 1200 earlier that pretty much confirms it for me.
@@commanderpanda2550 if you play against a friend you often play less accurate and go for funnier lines. Just because it's boring to just play accurate and defeat your friend, if he is not on your level. I lost some blitz games against my friends where they were 700 points lower rated.
This. I lost to a friend almost a thousand points lower rated than I am because I pointed out his mistakes and let him take moved back by shuffling my pieces around the board, and helped him build an attack. If the match was against a friend it doesn't necessarily mean anything.
Spoiler: I love the way that the ediyor didn't put cheater news to the title, so I watched it like an episode of a series and I really appreciate it :)
Cheating imo. The move where he thought for 2 minutes was a situation where he’s thinking “why can’t I just take the knight and take the pawn?” Then decides he’ll probably win anyway so goes for it despite the computer not recommending it
It didn't really seem like computer moves to me. It didn't have laughable feeling like wtf is this how can I get stomped subtly EDIT: year later and dude's account is still active. Not a cheater!
If you're running moves through a chess bot then why would you wonder for two minutes why a certain move is losing? You have a chess bot right there. Just run the move through the chess bot. For your point to make sense the guy has to think he's smarter than stockfish, which begs the question why he'd be using it in the first place ?
You’re too nice to opponents who cheat. As someone in the rating range of your opponent, I could play 1000 games against a grandmaster and not come within spitting distance of a game like that. It is noticeable that the only moves that were inaccurate were the ones where they spent time deciding upon. Every top engine move was made within seconds.
@@Relisimy0001 Look at previous speedruns. 2000 players have never played like this... Also, next speedrun game is also very suspicious, you'll see... Could it be that 2000 players have leveled up or they are just all cheating lol
94% accuracy for SIXTY EIGHT MOVES, playing at move 32 and still playing faster than increment, horsesh__... Never mind losing numerous rapid games with accuracy that's pedestrian at best, Danya is just being a nice guy... This guy was clearly cheating. Just take in the number of times Daniel says the 3 words, "I didn't see..." and you have all the proof you need. One of the fastest players on the planet wasn't quick enough, but this guy was. ....right....
You guys are so bad about this lol. That guy could really easily have just been a smurf and the actual grandmaster playing (who has been known to call people out for cheating when he believes them to be) said he thinks his opponent was playing legitimately. That's not him being "too nice", he just disagrees. He even comments with actual frustration that his chatters think they "know better" than him when it comes to chess moves. I get that you're rated 2000, but I trust the GM a lot more.
@@blurr1903Yeah cheating isn't an all or nothing thing. I'm sure he was looking at lines and playing a few of his own moves. It was a bizarre game regardless of what the opponent was up to.
39:22 And the word of the day is "ensconce". I love that he's both a GM at chess and a GM at English. I can't tell you the last time I heard that word used.
@@worsethanjoerogan8061 Oh yeah, being well-read is all it takes. That's probably the only reason I know that word, probably read something about a king being "ensconced" on a throne in some fantasy novel once (or more). And also my mom decorating the house with candle sconces when I was a kid.
Danya is being super charitable here, but as a 2600 GM wouldn’t he pretty much know all of the players by name who can outplay him like this? Also as one of the best online blitz players in the world it seems super suspicious that someone would blitz out moves and surprise Danya with their strength. Seems pretty superhuman to me but impossible to prove anything for sure
What a game, and as always, handled with class. I like these games where it's about trying to find minor chances out of an equalish opening with an open position.
Congrats Danya for drawing this! Even if the game was less analysed, I feel like we learned a lot from watching you play for a draw and trying to find the best moves who gave you chances. The opponent might have been lucky with his moves, which happens. Thanks for the game
I watched as he came into chat. The fact that he knew Frankfurt Airport is your speedrun name shows that there was at least the possibility that he knew who he was playing during the match. So in putting this match into that perspective it does lend to skepticism of his play being legitimate, as opposed to if he had no idea who you were.
Oooohhh so that's why he didn't want to cheat on every move and he instead made sure that he gave away the winning advantage haha. He didn't want to get caught, he was smarter than that Indian billionaire Nikhil Kamath, but still, his cheating was too obvious. Although, again, he did it in a lot smarter way than Nikhil Kamath.
I think it’s clear that he doesn’t cheat normally but I think you’re probably right here. I’ve seen the same on GingerGM’s speedruns. He seems to encounter a disproportionately large percentage of cheats and his account name is GingerGM Speedrun. It seems some players see they’ve been paired with a GM/streamer and decide they need assistance to win, which they probably would. I don’t understand the mentality though. I guess for some people the winning is so much more important than the playing. I would expect most strong players to relish the chance to play someone like Danya and pit their wits against him. I know I would. But then I guess there’s a minority who don’t relish the challenge and decide to try to win by any means available. Such a shame.
The guy has a 1959 puzzle rating with over 3,500 puzzles attempted. I have a 2549 rating on puzzles with 4,200 attempted and am a USCF 1406. Tactically he's much worse than me and no way could I come close to hanging with a GM for 68 moves.
I agree with you that this guy is very likely to be a cheater, but puzzle rating is meaningless and cannot be compared well. I have seen lots of players with high puzzleratings that are tactically weaker than me, because they solve puzzles by investing hours (which doesnt mean this method is bad) if they dont see the idea in a quick time (~3 minutes). I think puzzlerating is only good to compare yourself (if you dont change the way you solve them) so you can see how you improved
Puzzle rating is the most meaningless thing you can find. If you only do puzzles at 5 am it's probably also very low. Just as an example. It tells you nothing about how they would perform in a game.
@@schrodingerskatze4308 This simply isn't true. Danya's opponent used several tactical motifs in the game that almost require a prior study or understanding of the position at a titled player level. If he sucks at doing puzzles, he can't recognize those motifs.
Looking at their games, the opponent has reached the position after 5.d4 12 times. They have played 5...c5 exactly once in those 12 games, and that was against Danya.
I'm a new subscriber, and haven't known about you for very long. But I want to commend you, and tell you how much I appreciate the tenacity with which you defend your opponent's honor, even when you *do* suspect cheating; refusing to make (or even entertain) any accusations until you've had time to dig in with the engine. I admire the display of character you show in these scenarios.
1900 here so I guess not too far from the current speedrun level. I’ve noticed that around 1900-2000, everyone is still terrible at the endgame. While the middlegame and opening were definitely suspicious, the endgame is what made it for me. Can’t seem to believe that someone just a couple hundred rating above my level would be able to play that endgame so accurately.
I agree. Opening might be some prep if the player prepped this for let's say a tournament. Middle game was suspicious but not impossible, he still let down his advantage. Endgame was insane. I would lose this so fast with black
I’d love to see another Grunfeld game soon Danya, I know you recommended it against d4. Studying it has been quite difficult for me on my own. As always, I appreciate the value you give to the online chess community.
He just looks like a good player. He missed best numerous times and burned 4-5 minutes in the endgame, the same as Danya. Just because someone plays a good game doesn't mean they are cheating
@@IkEisawesome7 he was outplaying a gm, who is 1000 pts above him, without even thinking. After analysis of the game it's pretty clear that he cheated
@@null1700 could be a talented youngster. That's what his profile pic looks like. Also look at his blitz history - he has slowly been grinding from 1000 to 2000.
I don't care what anybody says; the way Danya handles these situations is objectively good. He states when he is suspicious and does not make any allegations unless he has sufficient circumstantial evidence that is probative of foul play. You have to understand that Chess is one of the few games that involve 0 luck; its all about skill. A 2000 rated player drawing a 60 move game against Danya (a grandmaster who's spent his ENTIRE LIFE playing and studying the game, and one of the best bullet players on the platform) with 9 minutes to spare is insanely suspicious. I believe 1 of 3 things is true: (1) he is extremely underrated, (2) his rating is correct and he miraculously found all the right moves immediately and played them with nearly no calculation, or (3) he is a cheater. I choose (3) based off of the other games he has played (ex: he lost to a 1600 today and the accuracy was 69-75) and the engine evaluation. Please don't pay attention to the comments that trash your method of handling "such positions," Danya. They are probably just trolling.
@@sckerz By luck I mean RNG inherent in the game. For example, in Backgammon you roll a dice. The number you roll is completely outside your control. Of course you can "get lucky" and your opponent blunders. But that's not really luck, thats just your opponent misplaying.
@@8hei I am stating that we can only calculate so much. It shouldn't be hard to imagine a situation where you calculate a line 4-5 moves deep and evaluate the position as better, however, you failed to calculate a move or a missed sequence. If you happen to have a move that refutes that potential move or sequence, that would be considered "Luck".
@@Cheorni_6 I am going to reinforce my statement that there is indeed luck in chess at the human level. It may not be "physical" luck that you can see; like a dice roll. However, Imagine for a second 2 beginners playing chess. One of them takes a knight for a protected rook but that knight was protecting a M1 square. The other player does not see the M1 move, rather recaptures the knight and proceeds to lose the game. By my standards, there was luck involved in this game.
A few comments: 1) Danya's videos, teaching and attitude are incredible. He's exemplary in the chess community and handles potential cheaters extremely well. 2) There are many different levels of what could be called "rare". Every move changes the odds. Playing 3 best moves in a row might be a 1 in 10 chance for a certain player, for example. But then 6 moves would be a 1 in 100 chance and 9 moves would be 1 in 1000. It all depends on the factors and the odds tend to grow exponentially. Someone playing a pretty good game is one thing. Someone playing 600 points above their ELO sustained for 30 or 40 moves is basically impossible. On the level of 1 in a million million, not just 1 in 10 or 1 in 100. 3) It doesn't matter if the moves can be rationalised afterwards. Anything becomes easier to explain after the fact. The question is whether the player actually came up with them and how plausible it is based on their rating. Again, a 1 in 100 possibility can be given the benefit of the doubt while a 1 in 1,000,000,000,000 is basically proof. 4) Based on this, I'd say this guy cheated. He might be a legit player most of the time, but that doesn't change the fact that he chose to cheat in this game which ruins the game and his reputation. Way too many factors point to cheating - the speed of the moves, the consistent high accuracy, the intuition of Danya (like you're getting squeezed), the unintuitive moves, etc. 5) The pause needn't indicate "thinking", it could also be that they're distracted or had computer issues. 6) Cheaters often turn the engine on and off. So overall accuracy is less significant than long streaks of perfect moves during the game, regardless of a few mistakes.
This guy is proof that you can cheat for ages if you do it selectively. His peak puzzle rating is 2349 (currently 1959!) and here he is putting together insane strings of engine moves at breakneck speed, including inhuman moves like fxe6 and dodging the queen trade. He's 1719 bullet so he's a pretty good player, but the cheating is incredibly blatant here.
@@MrGelliantGutfright I know of multiple people who at ~2000 rapid have a 3000+ puzzle rating. 2300 rated puzzles should take 5 seconds max for a player of this calibre
Im 1900 rapid and 3100 puzzle. These tactics did not occur to me at all with the time the opponent took. However, I do not play the scandi and I'm not familiar with these positions. But still, these top engine moves who were really deep ARE NOT easy to find, but it might have been luck. It happens
1 Brilliant, 6 Great, 40 Best, 10 Excellent, 5 Good, 0 inaccuracy, 1 mistake and barely more than 2 minutes of clock time used against a world class GM. Decode is a fucking legend and deserves to be world champion!!!
It is actually quite obvious that the first mistake is made once the opponent starts thinking. So he wants to make the cheating less obvious and choses a move that is not top computer or calculates himself that it is not a complete blunder. But it is a direct outlier to the rest of his play.
I’d guess 99% cheater lol. You’re incredibly generous with your suspicion levels but it does set a good example. Just the other day I had a game against someone my level where the opponent sacrificed a knight immediately for no obvious compensation then quickly began outplaying me. My first instinct was “cheater” but then he started playing garbage moves so I don’t know
Danya has to be my favorite GM. Not only does he handle everything with such class but he allows us to watch and learn from him like this for completely free.
Yes. Also, my comments always get deleted from his videos even though I have never said anything negative about him. I mostly don't comment on suspicious Speedrun games either.
I searched up this opponent and found that I have played him once quite some time ago and I lost in like 20 moves. Mind you we're both 1800-2000 at that time and they are playing at 90+% accuracy. I don't want to say anything but I have had this scenarios for quite some time with a few opponents.
i checked his profile, i played him once and I won with 85% accuracy vs his 76% accuracy, blitz game, me (1914) him (1952), quite a normal game. He has thousands of blitz games and quite normal win rate, and average accuracy, i don't understand why he would cheat ocasionally. but at the same time i got cheater vibes from this game, lol.
@@lucasmatsuoca That's the point, you don't rampantly cheat but rather occasionally from time to time so that you 'escape' from the system. This is how cheaters stay playing without getting caught.
@@evanenenen maybe, bu i did read in the comments that the guy was most likely aware of Daniel nickname, so he probably new Daniel was recording and decided to show-off “his fishy abilities”, most likely he intended to draw from the start… Still, I don’t get why to cheat ocasionally, he literally gains nothing by doing that, since he’s clearly stuck at 1900-2000 rating
My rating has been up to 2050 , but anything above 2000 and I suffer from altitude sickness.I mention this to say I thought the game played by this opponent grew gradually more suspect , I think some of the good moves I would have found - avoiding the early Queen exchange , moving the bishop to the long Diagonal , even retreating the knight. Some of the weaker moves Rb2 ? , BxN ? I noticed and hope I would have avoided.But overall the speed and quality of his game , especially endgame -? report the guy with a clear conscience.
same with me, my peak was 2090, usually i'm at 1970-2030, need to study more to improve, I achieved some sort of plato (in blitz). Most of his moves made sense to me, but the endgame was so fast and accurate, like why the hell would you play a rapid game and risk blunder the endgame with 15min on the clock, this guys the fastest 2000 player i've ever seen
It's funny the moves people are pointing to, I think the most damning is actually 43. ...Ke8 over ...Ke7. The latter being completely natural, and still drawing, the prior being the top engine move, completely unnatural, almost instantly for a slight edge.
It's interesting to hear his thoughts on how likely it is to get 95% accuracy. I've had plenty of 95% accuracy games in bullet and blitz and it's because opponents are moving fast, making mistakes, and falling for opening traps that I've studied and know the automatic answers to. I've had a few 100% games just because the guy fell for the exact opening trap I've learned - it doesn't mean I'm amazing, just that they blundered a lot because they weren't familiar with it. But a long, drawn out, 95% accuracy game in longer time controls vs a very strong opponent who also is playing at 95% is a whole other story.
ok, that looked like high level, selective cheater to me at least xD 11 Great moves and a brilliancy and up on starting time at the end of a 60 odd move game with 95% accuracy vs a GM xD
Danya is just so classy his dealing with cheaters is really measured and understanding who knows if this was cheating or not but either way this was an incredibly sharp game and incredible to watch danya play when he’s being really stretched which for 95% of these speed run games he isn’t being stretched this much
Keeping up with Danya is one thing, doing it while making your moves in 15 seconds is ridiculous. Once they got out of “theory” they still made moves extremely quick, relative to the complexity of each decision.
Yea I'm sure this random nobody legitimately makes several key moves that turn out to be strong surprises to a world class GM, all the while spending less time than the increment amount
You don't believe this guy memorised every possible line in Scandinavian? I looked through that profile and he had some great games but in general he plays much worse, something is certainly off here
This guy clearly used the computer to get a good position and then decided to try and finish off a 2000 rated player on his own as he started taking more time at the end. Selective cheating. Then he didn’t want a draw so he ignored the computer and moved his king away only to see the computer flash one drawing line and a bunch of losing ones. So he took the draw. Plain as day and all too common.
It was a bunch of pretty natural moves that weren’t that great at times and in the endgame it was not a position that black could lose in really so accuracy is a lot easier to achieve
@Terrorist Snake cat they made a lot of best moves almost instantly. No one moves that quickly and plays that powerfully at 2000 elo. They knew Danya's username, they knew they were on stream. They chose a draw to avoid further suspicion. It is clear to me they turned off their engine at some point later in the game. fxe6 and Nh5 are nowhere near natural. This person selectively used an engine and turned it off at some point.
@@OblivionEightI don’t think they turned it off. Probably just did not leave it running long enough in the rook endgame (you have to run engines longer if you want to find the winning lines in almost drawn endgame positions)
Due to people like that and since i don't like bullet or 3/0 blitz, I never play humans online, only against the computers. Thank you for your very instructive videos.
he has like 26,691 games on his account, is it possible to be an undetected cheater with such a volume of games? he must be cheating in 1/1000 games or something like that, so I thought that he's just some sort of ultra-expert on the Scandi, because fxe6 is a move that nobody under the super-GM level would consider unless they've checked it with the engine
@@gooffoon Opening stuff like fxe6 I don't consider suspicious. You play that line often you're going to check and add moves as needed. The play entering in to the middle game and on to the end game on the other hand...
Danya says it's only statistically unlikely that a 2000 beats a 2600 in a 15 minute game and it's only suspicious. But didn't it happen 3 times in a row? that's gotta be super-mega-suspicious. And it's always people with perfect opening theory in obscure lines. Keep in mind that Danya didn't play bad neither. 94% accuracy is not bad. Maybe people have found a new way to cheat in the opening and not get caught. or maybe 2000 is the new 2600. I don't know.
Nah, you're just seeing the influence of Chessable courses. This opponent was suspicious, but the last few with the opening prep weren't surprising at all. Danya isn't even actively studying the openings he recommends yet the lines are all in the courses. In fact, the Jobava game with Qe8 was straight counter prep against Danya's own course. Part of Danya's problem is that he plays so accurately that he's walking right into deep course lines. Far less of these games have been cheaters than what RU-vid commenter would have you believe, but this game in particular was kind of suspect because of how little time the opponent used in the middle game.
@@mcbomb7447 massive difference between prep and cheating. Prep is obvious to spot. Quick accurate moves in an important line. Ludicrous moves like Nh5 and ke8 and Nd4 and Be8 however are way too deep to be prep especially for a 2000 in under 10 seconds for each move. In that case the preping is taking place during the game.
Feels to me like the guy doesn't normally cheat but he did in this game. Except for that one move that took him 2 minutes. Maybe he recognized Danya's account and wanted to win.
If you sort his games by first game played, he started off at 900 elo 2 years ago, lost 2 games, then went on a winning streak of about 25 games with 95% accuracy. Definitely a cheater.
I only play the Scandinavian against e4. the f pawn recapture you learn from engine analysis pretty early on in that position. It's the knight moves that other player makes that reveals he's cheating.
I really wouldn't say that he was cheating on the basis of opening play alone. The previous 2 games were also hard for Dania because opponents knew theory better! But, I was 99.99% sure about the opponent's cheating with his endgame play. The basic reason for not doubting opening play is because of the enormous number of courses and free videos out there. Also, positional play is complex but some aspects of it like color complexes, backward pawn weakness, knight vs bishop choices etc. are understood to some extent at 1800-2000 level already. But, in an endgame, GMs turn into monsters and 2000s would be 2500s if their endgame play was this good.
I think the opponent maybe didnt cheat throughout the whole game but definetly in some parts. Its just impossible for a 2000 to find some of those moves in literally 3 seconds.
Not only some aspects of that are understood at that level. Some aspects you already get with 1500 Lichess. At over 2000 you should already be pretty good at it.
I really want to see Danya playing against the 3200 engine and then together with us viewers, try to explore how it outplayed us and what we can learn from it.
Dania has a point. He is also smurfing. From the other guys perspective its super GM level moves, also suspicious for a 2000s (in this case, in disguise). I would report Dania if I was playing against this Frankfurt acount not knowing it was a GM in disguise, because it would be suspicious.
I think Danya should start playing speedruns offline, because there are a lot of streamsnipers, cheaters and smurfs who wants to test themselves against Danya with deep opening preparation knowing which lines he is playing in the speedrun
For this opening I do something similar but different. 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Nf6 3. Bb5+ Bd7 4. Bc4 basically forcing black to expend more tempi or another pawn to get the nasty d5 pawn out of their doorway.
Know♥️✝️ 1 John 5 KJV 13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. 1 Corinthians 15 KJV 1-4 Romans 3 KJV 25
If it was a pet line, the C5 and FxE6 pawn moves are early enough to be prep, I would think. But my ELO is waaaay too low to comment with any authority.
i wouldnt rule out substance use im on an edible and instead of really feeling high maybe this is just more possible from seeing your perspective and not actively being in the game but I was finding a lot of blacks moves and it weirdly just becomes an intuitive math game that i cant explain why i was as accurate as i was, actually that might be what makes chess so hard damn
Nite H5 back to F6 is a ridiculous move. I'm around the same rating range and don't understand the purpose of that move even now. He played it in a couple of seconds.
nf6-h5-f6 is a very common theme in the carlsbad. In the game the move is even more obvious because the knight is dominated by the pawn on g3 and x-rayed by the bishop+queen battery. I'd estimate 75% of my opponents would play nf6 (the rest would play something like be8). To me the weird moves were fxe6, rd1 and ke8 instead of bxe6, rd3 and ke7, respectively.
