Possibly to save face.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

There can be many reasons, such as not letting the step-down-criers decide what the honest man offers to the community by doing responsible, voluntary jobs of referee and organiser. It takes seconds of demanding step down but days, weeks, months or maybe years to perform the voluntary jobs.

Clarify what? Cheat laundering? In some sports there is a long tradition of cheat laundering. An elaborate anti cheating system is established. Athletes loudly proclaim that they are innocent of cheating when their cheating is not detected by the system. Lance Armstrong comes to mind.

What is the point of my post? The point is to point in the direction of the fact that time and effort directed towards creating an anti cheating system will most likely be pointless and may in fact be counterproductive.

I don't think it is over the top at all. I am not aware of any bigger scandal in European Go either.

Bojanic: "As I was told, one of the italian organizers told one of the EGF officials that if they don't reverse decision on Metta's suspension, they would not be able to organize EGC. After that, and dubious statistical analysis „not 98% but 93%“, decision was reversed. Carlo Metta is one of the main organizers of EGC, and is supposed to be be main referee."

That's a serious accusation (In my eye, more serious than cheating). You say you were told, but is it by the EGF official directly involved, or is a second hand info?

One result of having a global village, thanks to the internet, is global gossip.

Not that it is untrue, but it is sensational and divisive. People tend to focus on the politics, at the expense of legalities.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Reply I got on mail for my preliminary analysis from EGF official was plain and simple - we cannot work on this analysis because Italians are organizing EGC.

Reply to Cieply on his analysis was pretty much the same:


What I was told you can take with a grain of salt, but it is clearly in line with written above.

Jan, I didn't explain well enough.
You are not in a play mode with Leela, but in Analysis of the game.
Create blank SGF file, open it in Leela, and start analysis. You insert both players moves, and suggestions for both players are displayed. Using analysis mode, you can also go some moves ahead, if your opponent is thinking too much. In bar below, list of moves sequence is also written, with several moves ahead. Therefore it is even possible to reply immediately, if opponent played expected move.
Only two windows necessary.
Also in analysis mode you can play whatever moves you like, analysis would continue.


Serious, and with argument for every part of it.

I didn't understand these messages as political pressure. You can see how many messages this thread is generating, and there are probably other discussions going on at other places, so they really don't have time to participate to the debate right now.

That said, my opinion about your analysis is that

• It is interesting because it explains more precisely why examination of the games could give the impression that Carlo Metta was playing above his usual level.
• On the other hand, your analysis doesn't provide a convincing proof. What is missing is a statement like "the probability that C.M. could find these moves is x" with a sufficiently small x (like 10^-5 or 10^-6), with calculations explaining how you get this value.
• Anyway, since suspicions remain, if C.M. is the main referee at the EGC, and if it turns out he has to make a decision regarding a player suspected of cheating, he will be in a rather awkward position.

Okay, I've kept quiet for long enough. I was hoping not to have to get involved, but I will speak up clearly at this point because I feel I need to.

I was Metta's opponent in his play-off game (Italy vs England) for promotion to league A.

I want to make it very clear, in no uncertain terms, publicly, as one of Metta's opponents, that I believe without doubt that Metta cheated against me, using some version of Leela Zero, rather than the standard Leela software which he had used for previous cheating.

Next, this is why I've decided to step in here:

There is censorship going on here by L19 admins which is quite frankly disgusting. I seriously expect better from you, knowing some of you in real life. Step up. The original poster of https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk/comments ... _admitted/ has contacted me by email claiming that he tried to post twice to L19 to share this, and that the admins/moderators declined to let his post go live both times. It is absolutely not your place to censor that. It's totally irrelevant whether you own the forum or not; if you wish to have an open community, then you absolutely must allow users to make their own decisions and openly discuss things like this. By deliberately censoring things like that, and not even allowing users to make up their own mind, you are taking a side. That is not the job of an administrator, moderator or community owner. Shape up. You might think yourselves able to silence some poor anonymous player who barely speaks our language, knowing that he can't stand up and fight against that, but don't try to do that to me. I can and will make one hell of a fuss if forced to. Allow this to play out from a neutral standpoint, as is your duty. Both sides have their defenders and detractors. Only stand in if personal attacks occur. No one has any right to censor information. I likely wouldn't have come in and presented all of this if you had have behaved appropriately towards that person.

In the above-linked thread, one very specific detail stands out: "He brag about move 156 in League A Qualification game being his perfect proof of not cheat because Leela 11 says it is very bad move but Leela Zero says it is super so he plays it."

In that thread, Uberdude performed analysis on that specific move. He concluded (https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk/comments ... d/e0c309j/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk/comments ... d/e0c45dl/) that Leela 0.11 thinks that the sequence played is losing until explicitly shown the refutation (and doesn't find it after 100k simulations). As the original poster of that thread claimed, Leela Zero quickly finds and verifies its correctness.

PF137 in that thread goes on to explain (https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk/comments ... d/e0c509f/, and https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk/comments ... d/e0c7qfv/) how this is a very typical P versus NP sort of situation; it's easy to verify what the original poster says as being true, but it would have been extremely difficult for the original poster to come up with it if he hadn't been told it by Carlo. The severeness and unlikeliness of such a situation (game changing, and endgame) is discussed in https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk/comments ... d/e0cd338/.

PF137 takes things apart thoroughly in that thread: everything from psychological profile matching for Carlo, to the above P versus NP stuff, to social analysis of the original poster's requirement for anonymity. Make yourselves entirely familiar with it.

The best defence that (amusingly, mostly Italians, who'd have thought) people on the thread seem to come up with is "[the original poster] doesn't speak like an Italian learning English". Which is quite frankly stupid. I'm deeply involved in language learning and teaching; let me be very clear that there are (with the ever-presence of the Internet in today's world) infinitely many paths to learn a foreign language, and assuming people will follow the same one is nothing short of absurd.

Regardless, Uberdude's verification of the original poster's Leela 0.11 vs Leela Zero claim on move 156, and PF137's analysis throughout from multiple angles, is completely damning.



If they dare to pull that line, even after the EGC is complete, get in touch with me directly (via email if necessary) and I will start a separate case against him for the game we played.



Yeah. Don't let this lie.

If this crap goes unpunished then the league is going to be in complete disrepute. The Mitics already have stepped aside because they don't want to deal with this sort of online cheating. Many other top players are furious, including myself.

Honestly, simba, from a a neutral point of view(someone who dont look the games,and dont know if carlo cheated,but think probably yes) ,your argument seems very frankly stupid...

PvsNP situation, are you serious?
Yes, it is more difficult to find a move like that than verify, because you have to check all moves when you search, and only one when you check.
but its 200 moves to check versus one, not polynomial versus exponential add to that he have just to deeply check the moves moves who are not in in top3 leela's choice(which in a classic game is only 30% of the moves).
On a small amount the difference P vs NP is irrelevant.
All that for a move easy to find by a 4d?
And you think this is completely damning?
Honestly,if i still believe Carlo cheat. When i see this is the evidence for his opponent, i begin to believe he is not guilty.

Even when you criticize Italian arguments"assume people will follow the same one is absurd" , yes and that's not what the italians say, they say the result is unlikely no matter what path he followed to learn english and add to that,their argument is too the user dont want to write in italian.

Your argument is flawed in the following two fundamental and irretrievable ways:

1) You have completely misunderstood what is being discussed here. We're not talking about any sort of top 3, we're talking about Leela 0.11 being unable to find a sequence except when it's explicitly shown it, i.e. ANY sensible amount of analysis with Leela 0.11 won't find that this is a good sequence (Uberdude did 100k, and I'm sure more could be done). Leela 0.11 thinks that Carlo's move is 'game over, you just lost and threw away your victory' until shown the refutation. And the context is to do with the original poster's remark that Carlo was planning on using this knowledge to claim he wasn't cheating (when in fact he was, just with Leela Zero).

2) You've assumed that there is such a move in every game (your 200 vs one comment). Leela is far stronger than this. And even if it WAS the case, that you knew a game with 200 moves had one such move, you'd have to test every move, with multiple responses, and find the refutation. That is far, far more work per move than simply being told where it is and checking it.

Go back and read what is written more carefully before you reply again; trying to apply an old context (the 98% thing) to a new situation is not relevant and makes you look foolish.



Then isn't it good that personal feelings have nothing to do with logic and analysis? I don't care if you like or dislike me; this isn't about that. At least do the rest of us the courtesy of looking at the games and reading things properly if you're going to try to voice an opinion.

I am glad that you have broken your silence and look forward to hearing more about Metta's plays in that game from your point of view.



This is not an open forum, it is a moderated forum. IMO it is entirely appropriate for the admins not to publish anonymous, unsubstantiated accusations here. I took a look just now at the post on reddit, and the accuser says that he sent that message to the European League organizers. I feel confident that they will deal with it appropriately.

It is plain that you feel strongly about this. May I refer you to the thread concerning that moderation? viewtopic.php?t=15810



Maybe Carlo Metta was stupid enough to brag to his anonymous accuser about such a hare-brained notion.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

@simba: Strong on emotion, short on facts.

It will be obvious by now that I support your views on being able to discuss here without censorship (though I disagree that the owner of the site has no rights, and I find the mods' actions concerning (sometimes) rather than "disgusting"). But it's not much use having the power of speech if you just use it for sound and fury.

May I invite you to try again with a more reasoned case? As a guide, some of the items in your post that trouble me are:

"I believe without a doubt that Metta cheated against me?" Replace that with "I believe without a doubt that the Loch Ness Monster exists" and you might see why some of us have trouble with this kind of argument. Relevant facts you have omitted: have you got a previous history with CM or Italy? Did you feel responsible for losing the match or promotion or whatever by losing this game? Did you believe he cheated at the time or is it a post-hoc realisation inspired by others? Etc. etc.

Amid the swirl of emotion I find it hard to get a clear handle on what you are saying, but I do get the impression you are calling in uberdude as a defender for you (team mate?), yet in a link that you post uberdude says things like "Ok, I get your point, but it's not clear to me that it's true." and "it's not clear to me that we should presume that if Carlo was cheating in this game..." He's also one of the mods you have grouped under the heading "disgusting."

You reference pdf137 as a star witness, but he says things like "Occam's razor suggests that OP was simply told this by Carlo, and then it weighed on OP's conscience too much and he told the truth a week later. It's far less likely that someone's going to have sat there for however long required blindly trying things, and has that much against Carlo to try to dig something so specific up. I agree it's not 100% watertight, but balance of probabilities..." So we have the claim that a reasoning technique which is not necessarily applicable only "suggests" something, we have the bar-room psychology of a cheap detective novel in "it must have weighed on his conscience" and we have an agreement that it's not 100% certain plus the cheap trick of conceding that to falsely affirm the "balance of probabilities" is in favour, without actually being told what that balance is (51% to 49%?).

As a professional linguist I disagree with you that the linguistic analysis someone made is "absurd." It is only indicative, of course, and so may not be correct, but the same remark surely applies to most of the other stuff.

Although you are apparently English I have absolutely no idea who you are, nor do I know CM or whether he cheated or not, so this is in no way meant to be personal. But as a player in the match you would appear to have a unique vantage point, and so if you would be willing to share your personal insights in a more factual way that we could all relate to, that could be very valuable.

The information provided there was new and valuable. Making the authoritative decision to decline to allow that to be seen is what I take an issue with.

I shall read that thread shortly, thank you.



I have no history with CM. I have a limited but positive history with Italy (Federico and I are on good terms, having captained the British team when he was the manager of the league we were in).

My game was played a week ahead of three of the others. I felt extremely guilty and honestly sick about losing; I let down my entire team. At the time I wasn't 100% sure if he cheated (I had suspicions and reported these to our team immediately after the game; we always give a brief synopsis), and I wasn't in the frame of mind to make an educated judgement. It took me a few days to get over it emotionally; I invested an awful lot into this and am strongly patriotic. It killed my soul to feel that I'd let my country and team down after helping them come so far.

My personal pride and feelings would never allow me to try to get a cheap win, and there is no way I would be here accusing him of this if I wasn't certain in my mind that he did cheat. During the game, I even allowed him to undo a move that he played (he misclicked) because I'm not about winning at all costs. I asked my captain for permission even to undo it because although I wanted to, I understood it was such an important game that he might overrule me and tell me that I couldn't. All I wanted was a fair game against my opponent, and I don't feel that I got that at all.

It's so different playing the game to just watching. I don't really know how else to describe it, but playing against Leela Zero (which is what I think he used, not standard Leela) doesn't feel like playing against a person. I have no previous experience playing against it. I felt horrifically oppressed and helpless, like there was nothing I could even try, never mind pull off. Not fun in the slightest, I hope never to have to play a game like that again. I've played several professionals, none of whom made me feel like that or anything close to it.

I had largely shied away from things relating to him cheating beforehand; I certainly felt it was unfortunate, but I'm really busy and don't have the time to obsess over things that are only really tangentially related to me. The research I've done since that, plus that Reddit thread, plus my own feelings both during the game (and introspective searching in the weeks afterwards) lead me to be sure at this point. There are so many pieces of evidence from so many different directions. It's not just one person claiming one thing, it's many people claiming many different things that add up and corroborate with each other.



Personal feelings are entirely distinct from professional behaviour and action. Uberdude taught me how to play and on a personal level I will always have nothing but respect for him based on that alone; nothing could change that. It is certainly disgusting to censor things to influence a discussion one way or the other, rather than allowing people to decide. Personal attacks, sure, but never information and/or evidence. I'm an experienced leader and community owner myself and certainly none of my admins would be behaving in that fashion. I don't know who in the moderation team is responsible for what happened to the anonymous poster here, nor do I accuse anyone individually of wrongdoing. But collectively, someone there has made an unacceptable decision that I sincerely hope will be learnt from for the future.

Regarding me quoting Uberdude in that thread, I'm referring, as I mentioned, to the analysis he ran with Leela 0.11 on move 156. I'm deferring to PF137 for the rest of the analysis as he expresses things very well. You appear to think his argument isn't clean enough regarding Occam's razor, but the point of such is only to qualitatively determine what is most likely, not consider exactly how much more than 50% likely it is. There are many pieces of independent evidence. It's when you multiplicatively look at the probabilities of each of these that you start to see how unlikely innocence is.



If people were still tending to learn from traditional methods (for example classroom teaching), then I think it's less absurd, but the reality is that most foreign people who learn English are doing it nowadays through natural exposure and immersion on the Internet. This is far more random and less structured, and so I feel claiming any kind of correlation is extremely sketchy.



No offence taken.

Thank you simba. Very valuable new information. What you say doesn't sway me one way or the other about whether cheating took place, but that's mainly because I don't understand the statistical arguments well enough (nor do I have the patience to try).

But I think most of agree we are really at the stage now of how to cope in future. What you say about the intensity you and others feel for these games and about how suspicions arise tells us a lot about how future events should be organised and supervised. Much more so than any other post I've seen.

Simba, I appreciate you decided to speak out, though I agree with John you do it in an overly emotional way (which is understandable as you are the person who was likely cheated by your opponent). I am glad to see the points mentioned by the anonymous player were verified. I still find it strange that Carlo confessed to someone specifically pointing out the point from your game and that person made it public. If this is true, Carlo must know who the person is and that person might find it difficult to keep good relations with (as I understand) a large part of the Italian go community that supports Carlo in maintaining his innocence. I also think it is not that difficult to find out that LeelaZero and Leela differ significantly when evaluating the particular move. Many people now follow Carlo's games, it was suggested he used LeelaZero in the game with you, so it is just a question of going through the game with both bots.

I still think your game and the particular point adds to the whole picture. Once again it is something that occurs with a small probability. We have a move that is a potential game decider, is evaluated differently by the two bots and it happens in one of CM's important games played on internet. It can be easily refuted by saying that a 4d player would have no problem to find the correct move that was played, so it proves nothing in itself. Can it be judged as another indirect evidence. Maybe, just maybe for me but it fits well into a picture I have made for myself despite the doubts I have here concerning the original anonymous post.


John, I find this little bit quite funny. The cheating case is a hotly debated topic here, you also contribute to it, I guess you know Italy played UK in a qualification match and you did not bother to notice who Carlo Metta played against from your team.

Maybe something that has been glossed over thus far is that for those of us who can't afford to travel much, or simply don't like doing so, this tournament offers a really unique chance to play proper, serious, organised competitive matches against other top European players, and the league and team systems make it a lot of fun. It has a lot of value and its sanctity is under threat if things like this are allowed to slip by. I might be wrong on this next point, but I get the impression from reading what others have written (mostly in other places - I'm not a frequent L19 user) that they like seeing the high quality games with long time controls and following their team's progress. I guess it's like a football league, but for go players.

I'm confused about the reddit post that was linked. Does that thread refer to the game from Nov 2017? Back then, LZ was about 20 kyu at best. Also, I think Leela 0.11 was not out yet? If that's right, then the reddit post is clearly a troll.

For a little bit of context - I'm an introverted person and rarely speak up unless I feel strongly about something. I don't think I've ever played in a tournament with John, so it's not too surprising that he doesn't know who I am from my name on the match report.