I find it very hard to understand the decision of the tournament organizers. Not the part about whether there was conclusive evidence of cheating, but the part where they completely forfeited the whole Montreal team from the tournament because Rémi publicised the issue.
Is that really a proportional response?
Imagine they did, for the sake of argument, conclude in their investigation that Tong had cheated, which I see as worse than throwing public accusations, I would expect that they should only disqualify the cheater, not the whole Cincinnati team.
It’s not a calm, inconsequential measure. I’m sure many participants are now asking themselves if they want to play in this tournament again in the future.
I looked at the game to see how Rémi came to be so frustrated.
It is not unthinkable for a 1k to beat a 6d on a good day, so we cannot conclude cheating purely based on ranks.
AI’s recommendation will also vary quite a bit depending on software version, network version and performance settings. So it’s hard to say whether a person did cheat based on one fixed review run from e.g. AI Sensei or OGS AI review.
In my personal opinion, there is nothing in the first 70 moves that a real human 1k could not also play as black. White attempted to start a fight on the lower side and black refuted the attempt with simple, straightforward moves, putting white at a disadvantage.
Soon after, black puts down some really excellent stones. Not just once or twice - they just keep coming.
73 and 77 are just the most beautiful combination to play around white’s shape. The cut 77 had some Korean pros pause in admiration. I can feel that.
Sincere question to 1 kyus: would you see that 93 is the best point to counter-attack the white’s last move ogeima? Won’t there be a problem when white draws out the cutting stone above? Remember that black used almost no time to think.
There is a lot of talk about black’s mistake 105 (-80%).
This must be what Rémi means by being “toyed with”. He is allowed to capture the cutting stones at A and save his group. He even ends up ahead in the eyes of the AI!
The correct black move instead is A, the knock-out blow to capture the white stones and win the game easily. Instead, black will have to catch up the loss.
I can understand why black would defend. It’s too risky to let white play tsumego inside. I, for one, can’t read that out.
Speaking of tsumego, this is a really cool invasion. It lives with ease and elegance.
For some more comments, you should check out Montreal team captain Yoonyoung Kim’s facebook post.
Robert Tirak also made some comments. Taken at face value, it sounds like he figured out the exact method and settings of AI cheating that black allegedly did to find these moves in this game and several others.
I wonder how this compares with the AGA’s own analysis, and if the AGA will even consider additional evidence at this point.
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