I haven't paid all that much attention to this thread so far, due to time constraints— okay, maybe I'm not the most responsible go member then .

But I do wonder what the application of eye-tracking technology may do to help!



Update: Just imagining the scene of players downloading screen-capture software, eye-tracking software, and dancing in front of good ol' web-cam technology to prove they are not up to anything fishy.

_________________
On Go proverbs:
"A fine Gotation is a diamond in the hand of a dan of wit and a pebble in the hand of a kyu" —Joseph Raux misquoted.

And as a more specific comment, I find your tone unduly dismissive The vast majority of the players in the PGETC are adults, not children, so why demean them? As for how much importance to attach to them, shouldn't players be able to choose? I place more value on them than most of my real life tournament games (mostly against low dans) because they are a rare opportunity for serious games against strong players. Strong players on the continent with more such opportunities likely values this aspect less. I also think it's a nice event to encourage European camaraderie.

I think cheating is wrong and we should try to prevent it, but also as you say at the end of the day the only person who really knows is the accused and it may be we can't made a useful detection system with a low enough false positive rate. However, I am aware that fears of people cheating have reduced the enthusiasm for the league of some players, so if it is to remain viable strong action against cheating is needed. Personally, if I play 6 games a season and 1 of them is bot-cheating (which I think is quite a lot higher percentage than we have now or will soon), I'd prefer that to cancelling the league entirely, a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater imo. Making the games unrated again would be reasonable though.

The idea of cheating in general, but particularly, in one of the most important tournaments in Europe is shocking. It's not only that it's unfair, it's downright disgusting and disrespectful to the whole community. Since also it's a team tournament, the implications are not only individual, but affect all players in at least one league and the team that has to play relegation game. That's approximately a dozen teams. It also puts in serious doubt the whole endeavor of conducting the tournament online.

This affects all of us that don't have the luxury to travel to a foreign country to play a couple-days tournament (and remember at least four people of the same country must have this luxury), lose the chance to play against stronger opponents, strengthen the "go bonds" between a national community and so much more. About the last point, the success of our team this season has increased the number of players that are interested in the game, our community has become more active and our team will be stronger for next season.

I mention all of that to showcase the significance of the tournament in countries that go is not so popular and that it can serve as a catalyst to boost the popularity. If the tournament ceases to exist because of cheating, that would be a huge hit to the European community in "developing" countries in go terms and we need to at least discuss what we can do about it. This thread is far too significant to be buried under some forum rules.

dsatkas, you are Greek, right?

Actually, there is more...
It seems that there are more players who are cheating, but are trying to keep low profile.

But case we are discussing is much more sinister:
- We have a player who is quite clearly caught in cheating.
- League manager rightfully makes decision to sanction him.
- There is appeal, which is seemingly followed by political pressure, after which PGETC management reverses decision, and stops further investigations. This is shitty to say the least.
- Player in question seems to continue to use computer help, this time with new software.

If that is not disgusting enough, player in question is set to be tournament referee on most important European tournament.
Seriously?
If someone told me this, I would tell him he is kidding, right?

yes sir

ps. i just want to clarify something, i am not accusing Carlo of cheating, since i'm not an in a position to make a verdict. The fact that the statistical analysis and some of the comments in this tread show that the investigation is inconclusive and people who i have met in person from the Italian community and i respect, have defended him, make me more restrained and careful about how i express my disappointment/frustration/anger about the the whole thing. Initially, i wanted his head on a spike, but it's better for a guilty person to get away with it, than an innocent be punished.

This type of thread tends to go in repeating circles, presumably in part because people don't read the earliest posts. We are already dizzy and admins are in a tizzy. So in an effort to expand the topic in a more fruitful way, can I ask whether anyone has seen any information on how a women's tournament was conducted about a fortnight ago?

It was the 1st Zhongheng Cup in Pingjiang, China, for female pros who played with the AI Yi-Tianrang in some way. The top women were there anyway for a round of the Women's Weiqi League, which goes to various snazzy places each round and is often accompanied by side events. In this case Tao Ran + Yi-Tianrang beat Gao Xing + Yi-Tianrang in the final.

This is not cheating, of course, but we might call it legalised cheating How does it work? And it may be relevant to know how the same idea in chess. The crucial question is how do you avoid the human making only AI generated moves. In this case it was described as "pair go" so I'm guessing each side had to alternate woman then computer. Does that produce enjoyable go?

We have a player who is quite clearly suspected of cheating.



He is sanctioned on questionable evidence and procedure.



The appeal was correctly upheld, given the problems with evidence and procedure. I have no idea about the question of further investigation. Indeed, there is a stink around the whole thing.



This allegation raises the possibility of new charges of cheating, which underscores the point raised about statistical evidence, that you need a lot of it, and that a player who continues to cheat over time stands a good chance of being caught.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Bill,
I am not talking about statistical analysis. For me, it is enough only for suspicion.
Same like with deviation diagram of Leela's moves.

Statistical analysis shows only total amount of something, and it can be wrong. One can have same moves čike leela in joseki, or in fight where they are forced, or play important middle game move. There is less critical endgame moves in middlegame, than joseki moves, and in statistics it is the same. And it is not, there is huge difference.

I analyzed, with some help from friends, critical moves in Carlo's suspicious games and in his wagc games. It clearly shows different level of play. In live games, Carlo is not able to play so strong. In online, most of his moves match Leelas top choice. Dramatic difference!

It will take me few days to write this report, you will have chance to see it here.

This is the kind of investigation that should have occurred before the original sanction.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Yes, but as I wrote, this is first such case and it is difficult to find good approach.
Statistics is not good enough.
To some strong players, case is immediately clear. But it is difficult to put what you feel into words.

Hello to everybody,

I am one of the authors of the appeal. I wrote most of the statistics parts in the document.
Here I speak only as a statistician, not on behalf of the other authors, or as Carlo's defense.



Please take care of a couple of things if you want to do this analysis in the right way.

1) Do not take a small arbitrary number of live games to make the confrontation. In particular, the recent games of WAGC were played in few days in a single tournament, with stronger opponents and after the initial accusation. If you show that Carlo was weaker in those games, well... you just proved that he was weaker in those games. Could be for the pressure after unjust accusations, for the jet lag, because the food gave him stomach ache... anything.

2) The correct way to proceed would be to find all the available live games by Carlo of the last years (I think 2 years should do) and analyze all of them or at least a randomly chosen subset. You should provide evidence that the subset was randomly chosen, of course.

3) If you are not using a measurable quantity, but expert opinion, you should use more than one expert. You should let the experts analyze the games without them knowing which ones are from live games and which ones are from online games and without them knowing whether Carlo played white or black. Moreover, you should secretly give them also some random live games by other players of similar level as a control group.

The above may not be enough, but should lower quite a bit the possibility of false positive. I recommend you to ask assistance of an expert in statistics before you start, or as soon as possible. And to be honest with yourself if the conclusion does not match your expectations.

I am friend with Carlo and I do not believe that he may ever cheat playing go, but I am no expert of human beings, so I won't speak about his situation of honest player unjustly accused. But I am an expert in statistics. As such I am much more afraid of the future situations similar to this one, because I know for sure that if any of the methodologies I have seen proposed here are systematically used in the future, a lot of honest players will have to go through unjust accusations, unjust conviction and unjust shame and humiliation.

--
Francesco Morandin -- frmor.net
Department of Mathematical, Physical and Computer Sciences
Parma University -- sfmi.unipr.it

To call in the statistician after the experiment is done may be
no more than asking him to perform a post-mortem examination:
he may be able to say what the experiment died of. (R.A. Fisher)

I have gleaned the impression that statistics may not be good enough definitively to prove cheating but are always good enough to prove a charge of cheating based on a given set of statistics may be unsound. (Correct, Bill?)

So you seem to be saying that, given your statistics don't work, you'll use suspicions instead.



Which strong players? All European amateurs are laughably weak. Or to put it another way, if go players were doctors I wouldn't go near a European amateur, and I'd only go to an EGF pro in case of hopeless desperation.

Don't get me wrong. Your suspicions may be justified, and at the very least something strange clearly happened to arouse those suspicions. But I think you need to understand that you cannot ban someone on grounds of suspicion alone. There are more important things in life than go, justice being one of them.

Otherwise, we'd have to conclude society has apparently not moved on much since the Salem witches were burnt on grounds of suspicion by people who were practising Christians (i.e. thought they were "strong" players). But at least, as I recall the story, some of these Christians had the decency to admit later that they were paranoid and wrong.

I used to be promising in statistics. As an undergraduate, when the prof was in the hospital he had me teach the class for two weeks. These days I am rusty, but I could tell that the statistical evidence in this case was weak.



Based upon suspicion, he is examining the game records for evidence of different levels of play under different conditions. A kind of forensic analysis.



Besides that, we do not have any cases at that level of play where analysis of game records has detected cheating. (We do at the weak kyu level, I believe.) It may be that consensus of some number of top amateurs is good enough.

But let the case be made.



IIRC, Cotton Mather was always skeptical of "spectral evidence". Even so, given the beliefs of the time, spectral evidence was not just suspicion.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

If I were Carlo, and if I were innocent, I would probably try to explain the reasoning behind whatever questionable moves people have found from analyzing the games. If a strong player pointed out a move and said that "this is above Carlo's strength, and comes from Leela", I would explain my thought process and why I thought the move was correct. I'd explain how it came from my own strategy, and what other moves I as considering.

Maybe I have different personality than Carlo. Or maybe he just doesn't want to make matters worse by being vocal.

But anyway, that's what I'd do in this situation if I were innocent.

_________________
be immersed

Unfortunately, in this world when you explain yourself you give your critics something to attack. As your lawyer I would advise you to hold your tongue.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

That would be my first instinct, too, but I would hope and pray that someone wiser and calmer than I would convince me not to try. I think that a lot of people have already formed their opinions on the matter and any explanation or statement of any kind would be attacked severely.



Indeed, we have already observed this with the two records of Metta v. Shakhov.

I suppose so. But still, silence speaks something as well, in my opinion. Explaining your innocence and being shot down by critics seems more credible to me than saying nothing.

Maybe it's because I already formed an opinion, though.

I guess it's impossible to be objective...

_________________
be immersed

The gap between EGF (or AGA) pros and top Asian pros is similar to the gap between top Asian pros and AlphaGo.
By that measure, your best doctor is a computer

_________________
Sorin - 361points.com

Thanks for your well considered comment. If my tone was dismissive it was not meant to demean any particular player(s), but rather to express annoyance and frustration with the situation as a whole.

If players still enjoy the online league and wish to continue playing in spite of the problems, then it is entirely up to them. I will say that if I was responsible for the administration of such a league and was faced with a problem of the magnitude of the cheating affair being discussed here, then I would be very sorely tempted to cancel the entire competition on the basis that it is impossible to ensure fair play.

Putting time and effort into constructing a cheat detection system seems like an endeavor worthy of Sisyphus.

Making the games unrated is an obvious step.