Chess Investigation Finds U.S. Grandmaster ‘Likely Cheated’ More Than 100 Times
&gt; “Outside his online play, Hans is the fastest rising top player in Classical [over-the-board] chess in modern history,” the report says, while comparing his progress to the game’s brightest rising stars. “Looking purely at rating, Hans should be classified as a member of this group of top young players. While we don’t doubt that Hans is a talented player, we note that his results are statistically extraordinary.”<p>I basically made the argument that, in any sport, when a player does statistically much, much better than their previous performance would predict, that in and of itself should be considered evidence of cheating - perhaps not <i>conclusive</i> evidence, but definitely evidence warranting further investigation: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=32990022" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=32990022</a><p>&gt; All this talk of &quot;Carlsen accused him of cheating with no evidence&quot; reminds me of the blowback against some athletes in the 70s and 80s who accused rivals of taking PEDs &quot;with no evidence&quot;.<p>&gt; Sometimes the evidence of someone doing monstrously better than can be expected by their history is sufficient IMO. I mean, look at this article about swimmer Shirley Babashoff [1], dubbed &quot;Surly Shirley&quot; at the time by the media, for suggesting the East German women were on PEDs in the 70s. Nowadays we look back on those images of the East German women, looking more manly than any dude I&#x27;ve ever seen, and wonder how we considered with a straight face that they weren&#x27;t on a boatload of drugs. Similarly, it completely baffles me how any sane person can think that Flo Jo wasn&#x27;t on PEDs in the runup to the 1988 Olympics - her 100m dash record still stands today.<p>&gt; I&#x27;m not saying Carlsen went about it in the right way, because now Niemann is basically in an indefensible position, but I&#x27;m also not willing to quickly dismiss it because Carlsen has &quot;no evidence&quot;.