Sadly it doesn’t say much. We’ve had cases of players who were strong dans before AlphaGo (or rather LeelaZero) and still found guilty of and admitted to using AI in their more recent games.
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On the original topic of the inconvenience and intrusion of privacy and scope for leaks and misuse of personal data, I am quite sympathetic. As amateurs we play for the love of the game, and recording yourself is quite an intrusion. I’ve never done it, and it does discourage me from participating, though lack of time is the bigger factor these days. Accepting that some people may cheat, but that’s a price worth paying for hassle free participation, is a perfectly reasonable standpoint. I hope that tournament organisers create a variety of tournaments with and without recording requirements and people can choose which to play in. If those tournaments without recording end up full of cheaters and no one wants to play in them then discontinue them, but give it a chance first. I rather suspect they will be popular and cheating will happen at fairly low levels (if no big prizes).
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Isn’t the issue not so much about the cheaters but about losers who claim their opponent cheated and the opponent being unable to demonstrate their innocence and then being disqualified.
I think a lot depends on presumptions. Will TDs assume that you are cheating if you find a surprisingly good move but didn’t record yourself? Or is it a case of presuming innocence?
In my proposed no recording tournaments you won’t get disqualified because a (sore?) loser thinks you cheated. The deal is basically that cheaters will probably get away with it, so tough luck if you meet one and let’s hope cheaters are <5%. That’s the downside of the convenience of not needing to record. It’s also way less effort for organisers who are rarely skilled cheating investigators.
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Does that also mean no EGF points? I think the purpose of tournaments is rank evaluation. Unranked tournaments would not be worth the bother. If you want games like that you can just play on OGS any time.
If you’d get EGF points then would that increase the risk of cheating? And hence make the whole points system questionable? Or maybe with enough live or recorded tournaments the system could handle the level of cheating involved?
There is no obligation to declare a rank in accordance to your EGF rating (at least not in my country). So rating points are not that important, I think.
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So, if no recording, organizers shouldn’t have to provide any other means of cheating detection? Expert pros checking the games, running suspicious games through AI etc? If a tournament is for people who don’t want to record themselves they won’t be protected from cheaters at all, just left out there?
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I wasn’t clear, apologies. What i meant was that (for me) the reason to play in tournaments is to get/maintain a ranking. And hopefully one that is relatively reliable in comparing strengths with other players i might meet.
OGS ranks are fine but don’t really have the gravitas of EGF ranks since they include blitz, correspondence and who knows what settings in between. EGF ranks seemingly ought to be more consistent since they are formulated through “serious” games only.
Maybe most people don’t care but I’m interested to know where i fit in the distribution. OGS rank is good enough i suppose but then why bother with “real” or “proper” tournaments at all?
Yes, i meant to ask this too. Surely there is something of a halfway house to be found.
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Perhaps it is because i started before the EGF rating system was in place, but I mostly care about my relative score against players that declare about the same rank as I do. If I win about 50% of my games against 3d, then it doesn’t really matter to me what my EGF rating is. I’ll keep declaring 3d.
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Ok so it amounts to the same thing. It’s just that i don’t generally have the opportunity to get a “serious” game with others around my rank outside of EGF rated tournaments!
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What a sad outlook on life. I play tournaments because I want to play serious games against other people, challenge myself, meet old and new friends (more relevant in real life, though there can be a little social side to it online). The effect of the games in a ranking system is way down the value list.
The OGS title tournaments I used to play in had no effect on EGF ranking, but I put a lot of effort and derived much enjoyment from them. Yes it was nice my OGS rank went up after winning them, but even if it didn’t I would feel good to win a competition.
The Pandanet European Team Championship is an online tournament I have played in for every year except last season, and much enjoyed. IIRC it wasn’t EGF ranked for the first few years, then became ranked with low weight, then changed weight, then went back unranked after some recent suspected cheating incidents. Those ranking changes have little effect on my enjoyment and willingness to participate. That doesn’t require recording, if they did it might put me off playing, though given its seriousness I think it would not be too unreasonable for the organisers to ask for that in the A league or the promotion to A league match (UK has only ever been in B and C league but has been in promotion to A match). In recent seasons post-AI chearing we were asked to sign some declaration that we won’t cheat and will accept the decisions of the cheating committee, which I refused to do (because I saw no evidence they would make good decisions and was definitely unimpressed with the processes in the Carlo Metta case) and played anyway and no one complained.
A good example of an online tournament where I think the no-recording requirement would be a reasonable choice is the US online Go Congress main tournament, or the BGA one, or the Corona cup. As I posted at Register for the 2021 US e-Go Congress now! - #18 by Uberdude tournament blurb could be:
For this event we are not taking a strong approach to detect and prevent AI cheating. We hope that as it is a free event with no cash prizes people will not cheat, and trust them not to. We are not requiring the use of webcams as that can be a barrier to participation. The organisers are volunteers with limited time, not AI cheating detection experts so you can let us know if you think your opponent cheated but we can’t promise to do anything about it. Think carefully before accusing your opponent of cheating publicly, but doing so will not cause us to ban you and your friends from this or other events.
This is not to say I think the Corona cup organisers are bad to ask for recording, it’s up to organisers to set the rules of their tournaments and see whether players want to participate. Diversity in tournament requirements is what I am after: some with recording required for people who like that and are willing to sacrifice the convenience and privacy for stronger anti-cheating protections, and some without for those who prefer the convenience and accept some cheating risk. Obviously those more serious tournaments with bigger prizes will tend towards the stricter setups with recording. Really serious like the transatlantic match could require local proctors.
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There was one exception in the London Open 2019 (my last EGF tournament), where the organizers requested me to declare 2d, because my EGF rating was 2247 (IIRC), which is slightly below 2250, the lower bound for EGF 3d.
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I’m not sure i was clear about the distinction between rank evaluation (i.e. knowing what rank you are) and rank improvement (participation to increase one’s rank). My interest is the former.
I left the EGF system at 11k, I’m currently OGS 4k. As a result i have no idea if i meet someone who declares at 7k if we should have an even game, or if we should be giving or taking stones. If like to play a rated tournament to find out my rank. And it would be nice to know if I’ve improved or not or if my current strength is all down to OGS adjustments and correspondence play.
I suppose if you are Dan plus then you have better sense of your strength and can assess others strengths in a way that, as a lowly kyu I don’t feel able to. I guess you can also play at the top of the amateur system and you will be among peers by definition.
So to come back on topic a bit, after 2/3 years not playing in rated tournaments, I’d like to do so. Recording myself would be a hurdle and I’d very much prefer not to have to do it. I’m optimistic that under your system there’s no reason that an unrecorded event couldn’t determine ranking. I wonder if the EGF agrees.
(It’s all fairly moot anyway as it’s not really practical for me to play online live tourneys. And you’ve persuaded me that it doesn’t matter anyway!)
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I think that declaring 7k-6k EGF would be a reasonable estimate for you when meeting another EGF player or when playing in an EGF rated tournament.
But it will depend on the country and the organizers if they will let you declare that rank (I think they should) when you participate in a tournament.
And your score against other 7k-6k players will still depend on the country where you play and the opponents that you meet. I think there is still ~2 rank variation between different regions, clubs and individual players within the EGF around SDK level. For example, you may get very different results in France (tough) than in the UK (average?).
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Fair enough, when you are lucky enough to still be rapidly improving then the ranking effect of a tournament to measure your progress is more important.
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They should feel no obligation to, and should clearly state what is expected of players and themselves. If it’s a tournament run by volunteers with no or low entry fee with minimal prizes then I think its perfectly reasonable for them to offer no AI cheating detecting service. People can vote with their feet. Expert pros are not cheap. AI cheating detection tools for go are still in their infancy AFAIK. I spent several hours trying to work out if someone was cheating in 1 game when asked by the BGA and still came to no firm conclusion. Are you willing to pay a £100 entry fee for this kind of service?
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So, a recording obligation that can be manipulated by any 10 yo with some resolve and free time is equivalent to a 100€ fee? Hm, it’s not really about anticheat, is it?
What?
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Surely an exaggeration, yes?
Setting the bar at an adult with funds to buy equipment, I still think recording is a significant deterrent. I mean aren’t all the anti-recorders saying how deterring it is to even participate in a tournament if you have to record yourself playing on a computer?
Add onto this the hassle of finding an accomplice to cheat with your or buying equipment to cheat with or having the technical know-how to discretely read your game from the go server and run it through an AI that you can look at discretely while being recorded… sure sounds tough even for a moderately tech savvy adult let alone a 10 year old. 
Yes, an exaggeration. I’ve mentioned an organizer that tried to make some cash off of anticheating, but it was a sadder attempt than 100€.
Okay, 15 yo. They very easily could.
My point is, recording is too much full of holes to equate it to basically a premium service.
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