THE Max FATCTOR DLUGY SCHOOL OF CHESS CHEEEEETS

ENROLL NOW

I don't know the guy Max Dlugy, but I am absolutely certain at this point, that Dlugy is not a cheating expert, or someone you would go to for advice on cheating. It would be like going to a 300kg person for dieting advice.

Actually, I am physically nauseated by some of these smears.

Thus, sure, I recall something of Dlugy working on Wall Street and operating a hedge fund. I would slow way down here, though, in jumping all over him for that. Maybe it's just that I'm in my fifties, I'm aware that in his on-again, off-again chess career, Dlugy has played (looking this up for the details) in nine U.S. Championships (from 1984-2006) with an overall plus score and two third-place finishes.

I know of what might be described as a love and proclivity for blitz, that Dlugy has maintained. From 1988-1993, he was the top-rated blitz player in the world.

In 1988, he played in the strongest blitz tournament of the era in Saint John, Canada (eventually won by 52-year-old GM Mikhail Tal!). In round two, Dlugy tied the sitting world champion, GM Garry Kasparov, 2-2 before losing in extra games.

My thinking on Max Dlugy is that for this man to decide to repeatedly cheat for around 1500 or so bucks at most (if memory doesn't betray me), then get exposed, and then keep cheating the same way is not explicable. I'm skeptical of the idea, actually.

You're just having trouble seeing how he could engage with students like that in such a quick time control?

It does occur to me, that trying to justify his cheating just makes him look worse and results in more scrutiny. And okay, Dlugy’s excuse is that he crowdsourced suggestions from his (apparently engine using) students for some of these moves. I picture it like a student shouts out the best move and Dlugy just plays it. I guess the reply is that this reads as clearly desperate, and alternatively, I can suppose he was just alone using an engine.

But that is not *my* reply -- it seems to me that either way, that's compatible with a 3+2. If you had just said, yes I cheated on titled tuesday, I had another person feed me engine moves -- same thing. What, you think anyone can actually buy this absolutely bogus story? I can.

I guess I was just thinking here that obviously Dlugy didn't cheat on every move.

Thus, it doesn't strike me as being that he's making these elaborate but senseless excuses for why he got caught cheating. My dog found the winning move, okay, sure, would strike me that way. It would be my own reaction, then, that this made him look like a fool his excuse was laughable. But, such a reaction seems appropriate only for a blatantly obvious lie, as if this all just reads like somebody who is trying desperately to believe their own lies. It's not like that. Instead, it's what I might describe as overall, a shambolic excuse I get that very few people are going to take it seriously. But it's not a case of 'to lie that you didn’t cheat is just silly'. Instead, it looks to me like Dlugy has owned up to some of his bad judgment here.

BTW, you can look at his match history of the titled tuesday games here: https://www.chess.com/games/archive...

As an analogy, maybe you have experience with this technology that banks use, to try to catch credit card fraud. Have you ever gotten a call after some purchase, or had some random charge on your credit card bill that your bank didn't catch? These are real world use cases. I have some opinions about this, my only formal education is in computer science, and it seems to me that the underlying programming techniques are surprisingly similar. In the case of a credit card fraud detection system you are looking at purchases and the buyer/seller, right?

Or you know what, look at the various auto-moderation bots that are used by twitch, discord and elsewhere to try to limit profanity, hate speech, etc. These systems, they regularly fail. Chess.com’s classifiers should actually be much less accurate.

Sure, I get that you can infer that it is really unlikely that the person found a particular move without an engine, but then people also sometimes just blunder into the engine move. Suppose you mean to play b4 which loses to a tactic, but instead play b3 by mouse slip and that’s a positional brilliancy revealed by stockfish at depth 42. I'm half-kidding with that, and of course, no one's getting flagged due to playing 1 such move, but seriously, in the case of credit cards, online chat, email you can objectively investigate those things and see that they were correctly or incorrectly classified with very close to 100% certainty.

I imagine how easy it is for people to take this at face value -- 'cheat detection isn't going to flag you for a single odd game or a few engine moves'. Surely? 'The evidence has to be overwhelming for them to take action.' Right?

Wrong.

He can either confess and they keep it private, or deny it and take a reputational hit. Of course it didn't matter because chess.com is run by gossipy little betches who can't keep to their agreements.

When they suspect someone of cheating they ban them. Then they try to cut a deal by getting an admission out of them in exchange for reducing the ban and allowing the person back on the site. The admission becomes the proof that a person cheated. Reality is that they cannot actually prove very many cheating circumstances despite being very very certain about it. It seems like Chesscom's modus operandi when they suspect cheating is to confront the player and ask them to confess while reiterating that any confession will remain private. They’ve solicited private confessions from all the titled players they ban, and if they don’t confess they stay banned.

The thing is this can be easily abused. Honestly this is borderline criminal behavior. The evidence/justification is peripheral or post-facto.

Why is okay to promise to keep a confession confidential and then leak it to media?

I figure there are those who say to this something like 'But really, Dlugy is a liar. He’s getting the treatment liars and cheaters deserve.' Well, I'm not defending anyone. Not even a former US Junior Champion, World Junior Champion, 2 times National Open Champion, 2 times World Open Champion, former President of the US Chess Federation. I'm not etc., I think things should work on mutual trust. Yet, I mean, I'm not too sure what validity chess.com can have if they offer to remove a ban in exchange for a confessiom.

Imagine an innocent being charged with murder and being offered freedom if they confess. They most likely would. Then imagine using that confession as proof of murder later down the line. Asking for a confession to avoid all the hassle is horrible practice. There has to be false confessions there for sure.

<Dlugy Fights with Hikaru and Magnus re Hans Niemann and Cheating in Chess> pt 3 fm Naka:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWd... (~13m31s)

Among other things, I would like to see a photo showing Maxim together with his students during one of the seven TT.

Were the 5-10 students standing or sitting behind his back looking at the screen like this?

<<Q. Why did you publish emails about Maxim Dlugy?>

A. When Magnus mentioned Maxim Dlugy in one of his post-game interviews, within hours the entire world was talking and speculating about Maxim. Streamers, bloggers, and podcasters were asking questions, and multiple news agencies were emailing us directly asking for clarification. There were calls from all around the world—both within the chess community and outside it—for Chess.com to “be transparent” about what was already an “open secret” online: that Maxim had allegedly been removed from Chess.com for cheating. Given that the issue had already been made public and in order to be fully transparent with the community, we released several emails with Maxim about his status on Chess.com, while redacting his personal information. This release of emails was fully consistent with our legal rights and our terms of service.

<Q. What do you think of Maxim Dlugy?>

A. Maxim is a well-credentialed chess coach in New York who, as made clear in recent reporting by Vice, admitted to cheating in some online games on Chess.com a few years ago. Maxim committed not to cheat again. Maxim is an incredibly strong player and tremendous trainer who has contributed a lot to the chess community, and we do not believe his actions in online games in the past should detract from who he is as coach or his many contributions to the chess community through the years. >

https://www.chess.com/blog/CHESScom...

To only have published the emails of Dlugy, and none of the other major players they claim to have caught cheating (including a 2700+ player)...

This is the kind of leverage the National Enquirer had, just do a google search on <catch and kill>.

Only in the interests of transparency obviously.>

Of course.