[icelancer]

Only by K factor; those calculations don't hold at the highest levels, the distribution is skewed. Magnus also rarely loses with the white pieces in classical; his last loss was in 2018 at Biel vs. a much better player than Hans.

[avip]

You're right, it's ~1/25. So still should happen.

[sharedfrog]

For sure. On its own, it's no more than a raised eyebrow. The next few days will show if there's any solid evidence.

Btw. the 24% chance of "winning" against a 200 Elo higher rated opponent refers to "winning a point" - it includes draws as well.

[texasbigdata]

Rookie question but don’t draws occur more than 20-25% of the time at this level? Or is that just a unique feature of chess versus say StarCraft.

Restated, are sports specific ELO scores real? Alternatively phrased, does an X ELO score in one competitive endeavor represent the same relative strength as the same ELO in another subject?

[sharedfrog]

Draws are the most common outcome at the "supergrandmaster" level, yes, to the extent that calls for changes to tournament formats or the game itself are often called for. Chess960 is the most popular chess variant, in which the starting positions of the pieces are shuffled in some way, resulting in 960 possible starting positions. There's also been experiments done with no-castling chess or tweaks to how the pawns move, or the ability to capture your own pieces.

I'm not sure about your Elo question but I think a 200 points difference should meant the same thing regardless of sport.

[lesuorac]

> Restated, are sports specific ELO scores real? Alternatively phrased, does an X ELO score in one competitive endeavor represent the same relative strength as the same ELO in another subject?

Yes and No.

Yes but in the long term. ELO is a self-fulfilling prophecy so if your ELO states you should win say 30% of the games vs a different ELO but you win 50% your ELO rises until you have an ELO that states you should win 50% of the games vs that ELO (at which point you lose the same amount of points in a loss as your wins so it stops rising. Previously you gained more points for a win than a loss so you gradually increased in rating).

No because not every sport starts ELO at the same baseline and not every sport league (i.e. Chess website) starts the base ELO at the same (i.e. Lichess starts everybody with 1500, Chess.com starts everybody with 1000). It's also a relative metrics amoungst active players (who indirectly/directly play each other) so if a GM 500 years ago reached an ELO of 2100 that doesn't mean they're the same strength of a current player with an ELO of 2100.

[sharedfrog]

> No because not every sport starts ELO at the same baseline [...] (i.e. Lichess starts everybody with 1500, Chess.com starts everybody with 1000).

It's not just where they start - they actually use different rating systems, and neither of them is the actual Elo rating system. Chess.com uses Glicko and Lichess uses Glicko-2. This is also a big part of what makes comparing players from different player pools a bit meaningless.

What I think OP is asking is "If you used the same rating system in two different sports, would a 200 point difference mean the same thing?", for which I think the answer is "yes".

[lesuorac]

> What I think OP is asking is "If you used the same rating system in two different sports, would a 200 point difference mean the same thing?", for which I think the answer is "yes".

Well, I agree with your points but I'm not sure that is what OP is trying to do.

[systemvoltage]

Not correct, the current rating doesn't reflect growing player's strength. It takes time for them to accrue rating. Alireza used to be beat players 200 points higher as he was climbing through the ladders. Hans just topped 2700.

There is also the reverse side of the coin that top players peak at a rating and then decline as they age. Not saying Magnus is, but it is not a possibility that can be ruled out.

[peter422]

Magnus has played tons and tons of chess games this year and has maintained his rating. There is no doubt his rating is very accurate unless you think his skill started to deteriorate in the last month.

[systemvoltage]

What if Hans is actually rated higher than his current rating, seems quite plausible, no? ELO has pros and cons; it is not some law of nature: https://en.chessbase.com/post/what-s-wrong-with-the-elo-syst...

[peter422]

I think your point is fine for Hans, I’m just ruling out the possibility that Magnus is overrated.

The reason a lot of older players are overrated is because they stop playing as often and their rating doesn’t catch up to their decline. Magnus plays a ton so that isn’t a concern.

For elite younger players, no matter how much they play, they are getting better so quickly that the rating can’t catch up.

Younger players also get better much much faster than older players decline. It might take a decade for a GM past their prime to drop 100 ELO, whereas a young player can easily add 100 ELO in a year on their way to super GM status.

[squidbeak]

Alireza was able to speak accurately and in depth in his post game interviews along the way. Niemann doesn't seem able to do this.

[systemvoltage]

What are you talking about? He talked for 17 mins and according to GothamChess and PowerPlayChess, it was one of the best chess interviews ever.

Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCeJrItfQqw

I don't get it. HN seems to be always on the skeptical side when accusing anyone, here we're seeing people pile up on Hans without any evidence whatsoever.

The fact of the matter is, no one knows why Magnus quit.

[FreakLegion]

> it was one of the best chess interviews ever

It was, but for reasons having nothing to do with his analysis of the game. Stronger players like Hikaru have dismantled Hans' last two interviews pretty convincingly[1]. Those interviews and his history of being banned from chess.com seem to be driving the current speculation more than Hans' actual play.

The interview after Magnus was great because Hans was saying things like "He's just so demoralized because he's losing to an idiot like me. It must be embarrassing for the world champion to lose to me." People were excited to have a "Conor McGregor of chess", so to speak. That's it.

1. See short clips at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETzdxK7QUmg and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qTs-eFgLqc for example.

[systemvoltage]

I don't want to defend Hans further, but Alireza and many other GM's have been falsely banned on Chess.com. It means absolutely nothing.

All I suggest is to stop this speculation, let's wait for evidence and if it is true, then fuck Hans. But at this point, I am just seeing a giant mob coming after him including on HN which is kind of appalling.

We need to be better including Hikaru Nakamura, he seems to be also doing it for the views. Hikaru's accusation or speculations have also been mocked on Twitter.

This just got posted by Gotham, absolutely level headed and facts based: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDUmS_MJceU

[FreakLegion]

> Hikaru's accusation or speculations have also been mocked on Twitter.

Who by? Other 2750+ players? If not, then who cares? Hikaru's analysis of the chess is correct. You can analyze the positions with an engine to confirm. I checked, since they had the engine off after the Alireza game.

For example Hans (with white) said: "I did not believe in this position for black. I just don't see any universe where this is holdable. ... Instinctively I'm like OK, what is this? There's just no way. There's zero chance." But Hikaru saw immediately that this was wrong and black was actually winning. Even Alejandro wasn't having it. Sure enough, Stockfish has black at better than +3.

This kind of thing happens over and over in the last two interviews. Hans' take on a position is wrong, or he rattles off a line that just loses. It's not proof of cheating, it's just, to go back to squidbeak's post, proof that he isn't "able to speak accurately and in depth in his post game interviews".

[pgwhalen]

Crucially, Alireza was banned because of his skyrocketing rating (which is of course indirectly an indication of potential cheating), not because of suspicious play.

[Andrew_nenakhov]

Oh come on, "dismantling". The guy is just a few points below 2700, he is extremely good at playing chess and he is up there in the top 0.001% of chess players. Sure Hikaru might be a bit stronger in certain aspects of the game (and being just slightly less prone to small mistakes is enough at that level to have much higher rating), but it is unlikely that he possesses some kind of superior insight.

[FreakLegion]

There's an objective reality here. You can watch the interviews and evaluate the positions yourself to verify it. I checked, since the interview today left the engine off and I was curious if Hikaru's ad hoc analysis was right. It was[1].

Anyway, one small but important logical issue. When you say "the guy is just a few points below 2700", that's begging the question. Other people are arguing, in effect, that "Niemann's play can't be that good, his analysis is too bad", and your counter is "Niemann's analysis can't be that bad, his play is too good".

1. Example I gave elsewhere, now timestamped: https://youtu.be/ETzdxK7QUmg?t=145. Black is better than +3 here and Hans is saying it's completely lost.

[pedrosorio]

Is there any other player with similar rating trajectory [0] to Hans at his age (going from international master at 17.5 to super GM at 19 years old)?

I'm aware of an Indian player, Arjun Erigaisi [1], who made headlines for quickly climbing from 2600 to 2700+ over the last year (18-19 years of age), but he was a grandmaster before he turned 15, whereas Hans achieved everything (including the grandmaster title), in the past 2 years.

[0] https://ratings.fide.com/profile/2093596/chart

[1] https://ratings.fide.com/profile/35009192/chart

[enneff]

On the specific line Hans dodges the discussion. FWIW Gotham et al are just happy about the interview for the entertainment factor, when most post game interviews are very dry and boring.