People’s Ability to Spot Cheaters in Chess: A Study by GM David Smerdon

Title: Research Shows People Struggle to Spot Cheating in Chess Games

In a recent episode of the C-Squared podcast hosted by GMs Fabiano Caruana and Cristian Chirila, grandmaster and economics researcher David Smerdon revealed some intriguing findings from his experiments on people’s ability to detect cheating in chess games.

Smerdon, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Queensland in Australia, conducted two experiments to test players’ skills in spotting cheaters. The first experiment, known as the “Cheating Challenge,” involved an eight-player tournament where certain players were given engine suggestions at critical moments of the game. Players could accuse others of cheating, with successful accusations earning them extra points.

The results showed that players were only 69% correct in their accusations, slightly better than chance but not significantly so. Interestingly, the experiment also revealed how both cheaters and their victims were affected by the cheating accusations, leading to poorer performance and feelings of powerlessness.

In a larger experiment called the “Can You Catch A Cheater Test,” where over 4,000 participants were asked to identify cheaters in seven different games, the success rate for accusations dropped to around 54%. Even experienced players struggled to accurately detect cheating, with chess experience playing a significant role in detection rates.

Smerdon emphasized the difficulty of accurately assessing whether someone is cheating in a chess game, noting that even strong players can struggle with this task. The results of his experiments challenge the common belief that players can easily gain an advantage by cheating, highlighting the complexities and challenges involved in detecting cheating behavior.

Overall, Smerdon’s research sheds light on the limitations of human perception when it comes to spotting cheating in chess games, emphasizing the need for more sophisticated methods and tools to address this issue in the chess community.