Victory At The Rapid & Blitz, Kramnik's Blog Gets A SPICY Update 

Props to MVL for his sportsmanship. He always seems like a class act

Congrats Fabiano, what a year it has been for you.

A pleasure listening to two gentlemen who speak so clearly and thoughtfully. Chess is not only for people who want Hikaru speedruns, Anish analysis and Bullet brawls. My brain has a slow processor and appreciates this tempo ☺️

For future reference I ALWAYS want to hear you talk about cheating drama in chess.

Guys , I’m a 1500 and I recently drew a blitz game (which I was winning and repeated to not flag) against an IM over the board (and my friend who was a 1900 drew a grandmaster in that very same round) We both considered leaving the tournament because our nerves were shot from the games that just happened It’s a common phenomenon: when you have an insane result, to just pause and enjoy the day than play on and tilt

Can you guys add the chapters with time codes, so that we can see what time you're talking about what specifically? It'd be super helpful! Thanks! 🔥

Caruana: "Do people want to hear us talk about cheating again?" Me: "Yes! Yes!!! 100% YES!!!!" Chirila: "Absolutely." Me: "My man!" 🤚

Shame they hadn't seen Nepo's post and Hikaru's response prior to filming this pod. Would've loved to get their thoughts.

Kramnik loses a lot of credibility with his accusation of Hikaru. He simply took his win streak and online average elo of player beat without considering the accuracy of the games played as well as the actual ability of the players. It makes you question his entire ability to examine datasets and draw conclusions.

Hi there @C-Squared. My comment is with regard to Kramnik's numbers (as they were described by Fabi) in this episode. Just to state this I am a professional statistician / data scientist of 13 years and hold a masters degree in applied econometrics. The description of the table is the players overall average performance in rounds 1-10, and then the performance of round 11 when they have payout chances (i.e. they played well in rounds 1-10), and when they have no chances at payout (i.e. played poorly in 1-10) This isnt a viable comparison. As I understand the comparison the average rating in rounds 1-10 is all (regardless of when they had a good tournament or a bad) but then he's comparing good and bad 1-10 rating against round 11 split into when they were playing good and when they were playing poorly. Of course the person played better in round 11 when they had winning chances (i.e. were playing well in rounds 1-10) than the average of rounds 1-10 that include both good and bad performances. Thats just basic logic... only 2 or 3 playing worse doesnt mean they were the only ones not cheating... it means they were probably choking under the pressure. my professional opinion as a data scientist says you need to compare the players' round 11 when they have chances against only the round 1-10 of those same tournaments (when they earned chances) vs 1-10 when they were playing poorly compared to round 11 of those same tournaments... and even then what does that say? it shows who's clutch vs who falls appart more when they think they're going to win. think about this when you're firing on all cylinders in a tournament and go to the final round do you like your chances better than when you're having a shit tournament? Momentum matters in all sports. the problem with Mr. Kramniks "analysis" is that it sounds like it's saying something but really the comparisons he's using A, are not correct, and B if they were correct could mean something entirely different. Anyway I dont know if you or anyone will read this... but my suggestion to Mr. Kramnik is to not share any of those names. This is the problem when somebody who isnt trained, but is well meaning goes out and performs some comparisons. Especially ones that illicit an emotional response from the people who are vested in the topic in question... as all chess players are, but you and other GMs even more so of this particular topic. Anyway... This time a mathematician chimed in 😉... big fan of the podcast you two do a wonderful job. Big fan of Fabi's chess too! keep kicking ass! Congrats on the Blitz win, and go get 'em at the candidates next year!!!!!!!

You really did a great job on the sound in this episode. Big improvement!

Love Fabi's little smile, he certainly came from behind

Thank you for chess knowledge and debunking what is and isnt happening at higher level play.

At 33:45 , you dont need a PhD in mathematics to know that Kramnik's statistical approach is absolutely insufficient grounds to make direct accusations against players, which he has not yet officially done but has said he is willing to do. As far as I've seen that is what is being criticised when mentioning his math, not the percentage of cheaters. There should be a very high standard to directly name names, which Kramnik doesn't come close to meeting. Thats very different from using your own make-shift stat work to argue for more measures.

kramnik "advanced mathematical detection" is playing russian roulette 😂

I don’t care about any of these RU-vid/Reddit comments on chess but what I do care for is the opinions of the 14th world champion and people like Fabi and Cristian, keep up the good work fellas, don’t let people dissuade you from the value you bring, hive mind and proximity bias will always exist, even if you were completely wrong I’d much rather listen to people who have gravitas in the field than randos online who I don’t know and/or know if they have any knowledge in the field they are so brazenly and confidently speaking on.

Well a few days late but better late than never. Haven't followed chess seriously in awhile, but I always pay attention to these podcasts/videos and occasionally get brought back. Greatly enjoy and listening to Fabi's insight into the chess world.

Danny and Chesscom ignore the cheating that is not detectable like GMs shouting moves and tactics to Magnus when they are all in the same room hanging out that is not improving his gameplay but in every other sports is considered cheating. Same with players with a chat window open or in a student coach setting and some student or viewer is suggesting moves that is not necesarily improving the overall gameplay but in every other sport is also considered cheating. Only focusing on cheating that is easily detectable is not the right way as any other sports org has realized that you must also ban anybody that attempts to cheat even if it doesnt change the outcome of a game

congratulations on you kicking serious butt this year Fabi!

I'm glad you guys are addressing cheating in chess honestly. We all know cheating, especially online, is a major problem. To deny is delusional.

Audio and video quality much improved in this one. Always interesting to listen to Fabi

Congrats Caruana for the win! While I am not trained in chess, I am trained in mathematics and statistics. Kramnik's argument is currently unconvincing because there is no comparisons to show his data is an outlier or just what you would normally expect (statistics are weird and you can get intuitively unexpected things often). He needs to run the same analysis on people 1. who he knows aren't cheating, 2. on different rounds, and 3. on OTB tournaments to see if he gets the same results. If he does, then his numbers are bunk. If he gets a much smaller spread, then he might have something there. Running his scheme on a control set of two people is ridiculous and tells us nothing. Whenever you do ungrounded (in math theory, that is) statistics (which these objectively are), you need to validate them somehow.

9:50 Fabi winning the strongest Blitz and Rapid Tournament, still trying to be humble. „I only score 8,5/9 at best, I am not one of the people to dominate these events“

Kramnik lost all credibility imho accusing Hikaru without strong proof. As the saying goes, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

32:26 might be what ur looking for KRAMNIK

Extremely hyped to watch the Sinquefield cup this year!

Excited about the addition of Reddit rants. Salty Fabi is my favorite Fabi. 😁

Good for MVL! Be a man and accept your mistakes. Learn this lesson young players!

Cristian's insistence on calling the fide circuit the grand prix 😂😂

please give us the fabi origin story podcast already

"Life is not always smooth" Fabiano Caruana 2023

Has Fabiano ever considered trying out acting? For some reason I feel like he would be good at it.

Congratulations Fabi on the win, really enjoyed the tournament and it was good to see MVL playing well. Part of the problem with players who are not GMs is we have a very spotty education, so for example I like Petrosian, if you let me play a Caro game that I learned from watching Petrosian games I can play with anyone but I didn't really understand all the details of the position. And that's how players are, there's things they've learned and things they haven't. But yes cheating is really bad in online chess.

Fabi and MVL, two class acts. 💪💪

Congrats GM Fabiano Caruana for an outstanding performance at the Rapid and Blitz 2023 Saint Louis Edition ... i wish you the best of luck at the Sinquefield cup ... !!!!

One important thing to remember is the psychology of round 11 titled tuesday. Many players will feel the pressure and perform worse in that round, while someone like hikaru or magnus probably has a significant positive rating difference in round 11. With that said many random players that have a +200 elo in round 11 is very suspicious and I do understand the incentive to cheat. I don’t know if I could withstand the temptation of a little cheating in round 11 for the chance of winning 1000$ given that I am a poor student. It makes sense that there is a lot of cheating, they just need to better the algorithms to catch cheaters.

Nihal has had a complicated year. He's crossed 2700 classical, he's struggled OTB in faster controls, but he still SMASHES online in faster time controls. In some ways it's clear he's a child of the digital age, for good or for ill, and he has advantages there that some older (and some younger) players do not. His 2nd place finish against Hikaru in SCC is still an unworldly result for a young gun but he has yet to really pull that same performance off in-real-life. (an aside: He also embarrassed Hans on his own stream very recently, to the point Hans got salty and said "next time I play Nihal, I won't be streaming it" as Hans' own chat, me included, were rabid Nihal fans lol. Such a great moment.) His classical style is highly positional and solid, which is a direct contrast to what we see him do online. He really is a demon of the internet chess world. I'll watch him for his entire career regardless of the outcomes, his playstyle is just far too entertaining online, but hope he starts getting the same results over the board. I want him around forever.

0:30 Fabi did WHAT in the blitz portion??

How could anyone dislike Fabi? He's such a class act

Man listening to Caruana sounds to me like the ultimate people's champ! He's just so calm and keeps downplaying all of his achievements in the most cute way whilst destroying these events!

Congratulations Fabi!!

what a great game from Fabiano. I wish you good luck in the Sinquefield Cup. We Fabi fans always root for him❤️

THANK YOU for saying that there is luck in chess. I've had this argument countless times. Even relatively strong players (1900+ FIDE) argued that chess is devoid of luck. Finally some sense being spoken

guys, the big drama was missed in the kramnik vs online cheaters.. according to eric from chessbrah kramnik accused Hikaru + nepo kinda agreeing?

Fantastic advice from Cristian “don’t f### it up” Chirila

"Basically a full person." "Either a Fabio or a Christian." :D

Congratz Fabiano, and good job Cristian! Fabi if you're going to try out any contact sport, Jiu Jitsu is a pretty good one. Most practitioners won't demolish you in a harmful way, it's not a striking discipline. I suddenly lost 300 points of rating when the chess boom happened, and I've stopped trying to get it back, because the problem isn't just Titled Tuesday. It's nice to figure out some way to catch a small group of players who are at the highest echelons of chess. But the players who are just doing it to feel better about themselves at the intermediate ratings? It's not even playable anymore, I would work on my chess more, but there's literally no point. I study chess but I've quit playing online because it's so bad.

Thanks!

I think that the FIDE Circuit rule is 20 points for winning a 2700 tournament. 19 points for 2690, 18 for 2680, 17 for 2670, etc.

Magnus also very fair, ding losing wifi connection and magnus resigns, also waiting for opponents when they are late

Here is a summary of Kramnik's interview with Levitov: - Standard cheating detection is aimed at dumb cheating, won't work against GMs - When GMs cheat they look up 1-2 moves per game and only when money is on the line - Kramnik measures exactly this - difference in performance in decisive game when money is on the line - He describes his method in detail, all calculations can be reproduced using public data - Many Titled Tuesday regular winners get ~200 ELO increase when playing decisive games for money, while some players like Kramnik and Firouzja get ~100 ELO points DECREASE

Accusing Hikaru of cheating is in fact an insult to Fabi, Magnus, MVL, Vidit and other top players, just to name a few.

For as much time as Kramnik put into his analysis, he should've just watched Hikaru actually play a Titled Tuesday. Hikaru plays random openings, meme openings, and is creating content of explaining while playing GMs. It's not a surprise that a distracted Hikaru plays worse when he's not focused. When Hikaru is 1 game away from a prize, he dials it is a bit and plays better. This really shouldn't be hard to understand. In fact, this is the first thing you'd notice if you actually watch a streamer play. Kramnik's analysis reminds me of people who evaluate NFL or NBA players based solely on their stats. But he should remember, "Statistics are like a girl in a Bikini. They show a lot but not everything"

It is possible for anyone to choose the best move if he guesses which one is the best. Perhaps the subconscious minds of the super grandmasters are not "guessing" per se, but there's no doubt that selecting one move over the other without complete understanding brings in the element of chance.

I think 95% of the total players online don't cheat. But if there is a prize involved, the percentages go up. In an event like Titled Tuesday, I think there could be as much as 20/25% cheating.

Fabi should take up jujitsu so he can fight hikaru on the lawn

That moment 33:03 when Fabi says: its obviuos that alot of cheating in online chess.And he says it in way thats everyone knows that from elite player as a fact. Caruana understand from his own skin,its one thing if he would lose to 2650 because he is slow with mouse,but top 3 world player cant get even good positions playing those 2600 Gms online in critical money deciding games and thats ridiculously funny with all that prep he did over last 15years :)

its great that we have someone like kramnik just like fabi said, i hope he doesnt lose his motivation and keeps going regardless of the backleash he recieves

Kramnik also pointed out that in other sports so many athletes cheat despite strict anti doping measures. In chess the engines are accessable and basically guarantee you the win. Sure more players than just 3% will be tempted by this especially when they can win money

When Danny said 3% that means people who have been caught and closed. So 3% is the absolute floor, and ofc there is more than likely far more who haven't been caught.

Just wanted to drop my opinion. 1500 players today are by far better than 1500 were 20 years ago. They have some decent idea of some openings and use comp engines to analyze. Plus chess popularity brought all those talented kids that are rising stars and you have got a lethal combination. Therefore those "surprises" when 1500 gets points out of 2500 are much more common than 1 in thousands of games. Just recently I watched a tournament nearby when a 12 year old kid rated 1570 drew against a 2500 GM. The next game he beat a 2300 IM. Other tournament it happened again when a 1150 player drew against 2240 FM. In the same month I went to another blitz tournament, where a 1770 drew against a strong 2630 GM! so, it is by far not 1 in thousands for sure! Chess is not a Strongmen competiotion or Marathon running. One mistake or a second of lack of focus and you can lose the game even if you are a GM. That is exactly why Fide already agreed to address these rating discrepancies issues starting from January of next year.

Always interesting to hear yuor thougts of whats going on in chess.

Fabi should definitely true ju-jitsu, he has the body type plus would have zero brain damage compared to other forms of martial arts

Kramniks "BLOG" 😂

Last Titled Tuesday there was an Armenian guy who was like on 6th place or smth. I watched live his game against Zhigalko (which he won against Zhigalko). Sergey said on a stream, that he is 100% sure, that the guy was cheating. I checked the game : 90+ accuracy, brilliant moves, no mistakes….This is crazy.

Danny said that 3% of the games are cheated, but this doesn't say much about percentage of people included in those games. So, saying that 30% of people have cheated and 3% of games have been cheated, could very well both be true. However, I completely trust Dubov when he says, he'd be able to cheat and not be detected ever.

They gonna talk about the clock just dying in the MVL-alireza game?

Is it my phone or is the tracking off? Because I've had other videos on RU-vid recently where the tracking's been off.

50:20 a lot of people (chess players included) in Eastern Europe actually make from 300 to 500$ or even less. And pretty much happy for this income.

I guess the discrepancy between Danny's assessment (3% of cheating online) and Fabi's perception (at least on the 15-20% range let's say) could be explained by two factors: a) Does Danny refers to the entire elo window or only high elo players (let's say 2500+ chesscom rated players) because probably the cheating rate is much higher (because there is money at stakes) at 2500+ than in the 400-2450 window (at least it would be interesting to get some data on that i.e. plot the approximative cheating rate vs elo), and b) even though Danny's 3% comes from games of high rated players, cheaters (especially in the 2500-2900 range) are more incentivised to cheat against the top 30-50 players than against players of their levels, because that is almost the only way they can reliably win against elite players. Keep up with the show, cheers from France

Mvl could have easily moved the rook somewhere else and Yasser would have said it's touch clock and not touch move 😅

MVL is probably the classiest player in the world. Fabi a close second. All chess players like Maxime, never heard a bad word about him ever.

Moneyround for dummies/lazybois: Some players performance staid the same. 12/18 players played 200 hundred points higher in round eleven that was money round. Alireza and Kramnik had negative development in money round that seem legit as the pressure is higher 44:44

With regards to the mountain, if he started jujitsu today it would be 10+ years before he could beat ryan.

People are playing some other people. Glad I tuned in, Fabi 😀

I see some lip-sync issue in this episode. Has anybody else noticed it?

MVL is a gentleman and did study math at university, great inspiration for Kramnik😂😂😂

I am well educated in both, chess and mathematics. It is a very common error not understand how unlikely events will take place when the number of events is high enough. In fact, when the number of events is extremely high, super rare events must take place. Especially, as in Kramnik’s moronic logic, if you pick some single events to back your point up, we are deep in the woods. There is a term for that: confirmation bias. You basically just form an opinion in your little, maybe drunk head, and find some random facts to back this up. Happens very often e.g. in social sciences.

now comparing the 50% with the 3%, you gotta realize that Danny is talking percentage of games, not players. For example if everybody was cheating in the last round when they got a chance of a prize, that would be 100% of players, but way less than 3% of games(only very few per tournament have a chance before the last round and those would only cheat in 9%of their games(1/11) in this scenario

32:20 for the Kramnik thing

One thing i disagree with - 1500 vs a GM and the expected results. A lot of kids who are 1500 in Asia would give a GM a decent run and nick a draw once in a while. Queen odds, strong young 1500 kid from China or Vietnam or India would smash a super GM

At this point it feels like Kramnik hasn’t fully wrapped his head around the fact that the younger generation is growing up with computers that are much better than he ever knew when he was training. And that the elastic brains of these kids can retain information in a way that us older folks can’t. No doubt there’s cheating, no doubt. But it feels like his conquest more has to do with his unwillingness to accept he’s not that good anymore. Accusing Hikaru of cheating is absurd. He plays 500 blitz games a day. Kramnik is becoming ridiculous.

Isn’t Kramnik’s argument flawed? If you’re playing for a prize, you’re on average playing higher rated players, so your playing performance will naturally increase while keeping the same skill level. I’m 1700 and I’ve played 99-100% games before, but I don’t get a 3500 rating performance, it’s going to be 2200-2400 because my opponent was making moves like an 1100. I’d like to know if this was considered

One thing is it's not their job to secure the integrity of the game. It's their job to put their product into your daily life. Its FIDEs job to secure the integrity of the game. FIDE doesn't offer any restrictions to it's players or give them an alternative online option. And FIDE doesn't take legal recourses against cloud engine providers, which are really what is damaging the instant access to pocket sized chess engines.

"Only need to turn it on for two moves" This works at any level, and the better you actually are the more effective just one or two cheated moves becomes. I bounce around in the 1500-1700 range on lichess and there's no doubt in my mind that people are cheating just to turn the game around, then hoping they can take over again from there

Fabi world champion soon, wait and see

The course of true love never did run smooth

What is the difference of dropping a piece and sliding a piece master? It can be caught in camera once you drop for about 1 second..it is your final moved?

32:26 for KRAMNIK theory

32:25 Kramnik

Why would a serious mathematician or data analyst bother yelling at the Redditors who are yelling at Kramnik? The lack of public support for Kramnik on Reddit isn't at all surprising, even if most people know he's totally right. After all, it's way more work to give an intelligent, well-formed argument when people want to believe a story going the other way, and in this case it seems Reddit wants to believe "cheating isn't that bad". (I can only imagine why.) Regardless of the extent to which Kramnik is proven right, he's fighting the good fight.

For non-Indians: India is multi-party democratic system. So there are lot of states/province which have very regional party in power. Kerala (one of state) has a communist party at helm and hence Che tournament :) Traditionally 2 out of 28 states have significant presence of communist party. One of those state is entirely screwed, Kerala is fine.

It's a bit scary Kramnik is using flawed hypothesis' to build results. Fighting cheating should be a top priority but he's simply not using the numbers correctly.

I'd be interested to know how much material advantage could be insurmountable even for a top GM against a random player (let's say 1500+). Would queen and minor piece be enough? Or queen and rook? Or is it still too little?

thanks for the upload

To an extent, I can agree with Fabiano regarding accusations of each person's expertise on the topic and how annoying the Reddit comments can get. However, how top chess figures have been handling the topic does warrant some criticism. Yes, surprisingly most of Reddit or any other social media don't have the chess expertise that Kramnik, Fabiano, or any other top player has along with lacking abilities in math and statistics. However, at the same time, they're not the public figures whose words will be taken seriously. While they're annoying I think there is a good point in saying that the top chess players making any of these claims need more proof and reasoning that is greater than a random person online because they and everyone realize that their words are the ones that lead to actual change because they wouldn't be so vocal otherwise.

I agree with Fabi. Cheat = ban. If you're not strict, you're not really serious about catching cheaters. "Don't you believe in second chances?" That's something Danny Rensch likes to say. I personally believe in second chances. That's why cheaters have been warned. That's their first chance. They ignore the warning and violate the rules, they're banned. Easy.

Amazing to wake up with you

Very simple: To get money from chess online, you must have a number of cameras, placed in approved locations (one should be a room-wide focus) and streaming to tournament organizers. If not then you get nothing. Very simple.

Cristian, I think you’re on to something. Forget chess / boxing matches. I’d pay good money to see Fabiano vs Anish in a chess / jiu-jitsu match! Make it happen.