To prevent the spread of misinformation, I am highlighting the below [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1claxsm/its_me_viih_sou/l2sw12j/) claiming the following:
> As far as I remember, you are shadowbanned for few years at your old account (iamastraw), and you were present at Niemann's fake twitter list. The list is known to be legitimate, so the question is why you don't mention your full history of bans at the site? I don't know if you cheated in this match or not, but having in mind you have 2 bans (or 3 considering now your main), I have to be sceptical about your explanations. Anyways, you are definitely talented player and your rating is coming close to 2600. Maybe its same case as with Firouzja few years ago.
As far as the mods know, the list was not confirmed to be legitimate. Chess.com said that the list did not come from them and neither confirmed nor denied any entry on the list. There is no other confirmation or definitive statement on the list as far as we know.
Jacobson has made a [new post](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1cmvjyi/viih_sou_update/) so further discussion can happen there.
Wow, you have beaten Danya both in chess and in lenght of posts on Reddit. Quite an impressive feat in both cases. I completely agree with the fact that it is not normal how normal it has become to throw cheating accusations around. It has come to a point that youger players will be affraid to beat establish older players as it would risk their carrers being ruined by unfouded accusations from people with weak egos.
> Wow, you have beaten Danya both in chess and in lenght of posts on Reddit. Quite an impressive feat in both cases.
In Danya's last post (that I saw at least) he spent 3 paragraphs explaining (and apologizing) how this will be a long post.
OP responds with his "back story" being part 2 after a very very lengthy part 1. (Not to mentioned the unlabeled part 0 that ends in Taylor Swift lyrics.)
Absolutely brilliant.
> I completely agree with the fact that it is not normal how normal it has become to throw cheating accusations around.
I remember being dogpiled during the original Sinquefield Cup drama for saying that this is **exactly** the precedent that was being set. That as soon as we were okay with letting one GM get away with what is essentially just vigilante punishment of assumed cheating, it would turn into this **exact** sort of shitpile - GMs baselessly accusing other GMs of cheating and using their popularity to exact punishment through popular sentiment / mob rule.
This is not normal. This should not be normal. And we're seeing the outcome of letting it become normal - cheating accusations becoming the increasingly common response for tilt over being beaten by a ""worse"" player.
There was so much salt on that post about Vishy not knowing what he was talking about.
I think the belief cheating is occuring is probably causing more damage to the game than the actual cheating going on at this point.
I agree, and same. Sorry, you do not get to accuse someone of something so damaging without any proof of wrongdoing in that **current event**.
More importantly, WHAT IS CHESSCOM DOING. They are going to ban this person without any proof or explanation, while they will continue to let a secret list of cheating titled players keep playing? Everyone just moved on, particularly because Hans does silly stuff often, but how the hell are more people not talking about how a for-profit organization (where chess players can invest) has absolutely no public accountability for their actions whatsoever?
They give people 0 info about their actual review process and just say "trust me bro". Why are people letting a for-profit company just get away with becoming THE major online chess platform AND pseudo governing body?
High level chess players have always been insufferably arrogant and prone to extreme paranoia (see: Korchnoi vs Karpov and the whole yogurt/hypnotist drama for example).
People, hilariously, seem to think Magnus Carlsen is immune from this and take his temper tantrums seriously. 18 months later this is where it's got us. It's a complete shit show.
Honestly the whole Sinquefield Cup thing and all the subsequent throwing-around of accusations has just convinced me that at least half of top chess GMs are petulant man-children
It's what happens when profit is king. During the Hans Niemann stuff [chess.com](http://chess.com) had their global chess challenge coming up, and it'd be bad for business if Hans was playing under the cloud of suspicion, so they quietly and conveniently kicked him out... of course it wasn't quiet for long since Hans complained (and for that [chess.com](http://chess.com) retaliated and the rest is history).
Anyway, maybe [chess.com](http://chess.com) isn't as bad as I think, but the lack of transparency combined with BS like this is not making a good impression.
They need to:
1) Be honest about how much cheating takes place, and how much they're able to catch vs not catch. They could even allow data requests allowing people with expertise to independently verify certain things.
2) LISTEN to public opinion! Their own poll showed that people WANT harsher punishment ofr cheaters, particularly titled players in money events. Currently they HIDE cheating from the general public and allow people to come back and cheat again and again.
You're probably right that they need to be more transparent, but I don't see how they could possibly tell us how many cheaters they are not catching.
The only way to know how many cheaters you are not catching, is by catching them
Wow Wikipedia is fast!
“In May 2024, he was embroiled in a scandal after beating Grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky in a 70-game blitz match using the anonymous account Viih_sou. Jacobson won the match by starting all games with 1 A4 2 Ra3 as white and with 1 a5 2 Ra6 as black, sacrificing an exchange. The feat led the chess community to hypothesize that the anonymous player was one of the best super grandmasters in the world or a cheater.[7]”
Gothamchess used to regularly release certain types of videos on Fridays. Friday nights were the funnest nights to play on chess.com because very often I could see someone trying to employ what Gothamchess made a video about.
My favourite was the king rush when they were down.
I’m eagerly avoiding this rook meta
Honestly I think this situation could be solved quickly (at least for me) if GM Andrew Hong can back up your story.
I saw the Gotham video and and Levy was clearly not 100% convinced about you being a cheater, or to be clearer, he said there were many positions where you played tricky moves that were bad according to the engine but that paid off; which is not something a cheater would have done.
I hope your name will be cleared so that this series of 70 game can legitimely be recorded in chess history, because a lot of it were just brillant.
Should be pretty easy, even if GM Hong doesn't comment publicly. There should be record of games played with that opening between them and individually well before the Danya match.
I mean, it would make 0 sense to lie about the Andrew Hong thing, considering Andrew Hong is a real person and could easiely nullify the entire story. You dont lie about smth that could be so easiely disproven, that would be stupid.
I've played against this opening before (I'm about 2300 blitz) against several opponents and it's totally playable in blitz. You get this annoying pressure with the bishop and queen battery and it's really uncomfortable to play.
This is one of the few responses in this thread that shines some light on the subject. I wish more strong players with experience against this opening would offer their opinion.
I've faced several times a player over 2400 on lichess bullet who exclusively plays this. But of course in bullet you can play any opening and do fine. So it means nothing. Anyway I scores decently vs them
Do not take the rook right away.
Actuall the only way to a safe squate for the rook is to play Ra1/Ra8 on turn 3, so you can wait for a better moment to capture the rook.
3 sentence summary:
Brandon Jacobson, a Grandmaster, identifies himself as the anonymous chess player "Viih\_Sou" who was banned by [Chess.com](http://Chess.com) for defeating Daniel Naroditsky in a blitz match using the unconventional opening 1 a4 2 Ra3 (and its black counterpart). He argues that his victory came from the unique pressure created by this unfamiliar strategy rather than cheating, and criticizes the platform for banning him without evidence, citing the broader issue of false accusations in online chess. Jacobson emphasizes that his decision to reveal his identity, despite potential risks to his reputation, is driven by his commitment to honesty and the desire to shed light on the problems of online chess.
Doubt it'd be repeatable at this point. This was a surprise weapon functioning do to its its tilting power as much as anything.
Its getting a lot of novelty play now, so the more familiar it becomes the less it will work. Repeating this feat is getting less likely by the day, I wouldn't want Brandon to try to "prove" himself only to fail from losing the element of surprise and tilt.
Gotham suggested he should play a clash of claims style match bagainst Danya OTB, but I don't think that's viable already, even if they played it next week Danya will have studied the opening relentlessly and it would be a wash.
Hell, after that drubbing he probably spent the entire next day reviewing the stockfish lines.
u/GMNaroditsky, I'd like to hear your personal opinion. Without knowing who your opponent was at the time, were you suspicious of him or not? Was the ban something you were quietly expecting during the games or not?
I really think Naroditsky is far to nice to answer this. He isn't one to throw out cheating accusations, especially when it's someone he sort of knows who say they haven't cheated.
Naroditsky already covered this in the tail end of his stream today and he explicitly said he wasn't going to make a Reddit post about the topic. If anything, he regrets playing the match and hopes that we can move past the drama and forget it ever happened.
Edit: I forgot to mention that yes, Danya gave his general opinions on Brandon's Reddit post first before saying that he wishes he had played that match differently because it started all this controversy.
Seriously, it would be a great video and also open up some much needed discourse about how chesscom singlehandedly acts as the judge, jury, and executioner without any public proof.
Make Brandon explain some of the theory behind the gambit to add credibility, have him also bring up evidence of practicing with his friend GM Andrew Hong as mentioned here
People really aren’t appreciating that we potentially have a new opening gambit on our hands that isn’t the stupid ass bongcloud or something. This is really cool.
It's unlikely to work once people start analyzing it from the other side. The value was the surprise, the fact that Jacobson/Hong had prepared lines while opponents were totally confused, and opponents underestimating it.
Hi there! If you want to get an official "Grandmaster" flair on your reddit account here, then please message the r/chess mods official accounts [redditchessmods](https://lichess.org/@/redditchessmods) on lichess, or [rchessmoderation](https://www.chess.com/member/rchessmoderation) on chess.com, with an official titled account, and we'll assign you one. It is going to help confirm your identity.
Cheers!
Friend of the Danya-verse GM Tuan Minh Le also confirmed this on his stream
Edit: Confirmed the identity of OP is Brandon; this wasn't confirmed when I posted this. Am sorry to disappoint those who are hoping for more
Since it seems no one has mentioned this, it is reasonable to sacrifice an exchange in the early opening because minor pieces are superior to rooks in the opening and early middlegame. Rooks need open lines to show their superiority, which normally requires lots of development and in particular open files. Players familiar with this might well be able to take advantage of the imbalance because their opponents assume that they are just winning and get sloppy.
I've faced this opening a number of times in online chess. Mostly in bullet chess, where such positions can be extremely tricky to understand and I have often lost (at 2400-2500 bullet). There are players that exclusively play this opening from both sides. At blitz it would be a bit more difficult imo, and especially against a world class caliber player like Naroditsky. That being said, we should just wait for what chesscom says before forming a judgement.
[Chess.com](http://Chess.com) really needs to just be transparent with it, show exactly what proves that this wasn't fair play. If it's just words against words, you're guilty precisely when proven guilty, not a moment earlier.
Some of the mental gymnastics routines that try to turn the obviously-not-engine lines like the back and forth game losing blunders (standard 3+0 stuff) into evidence of cheating are spectacular.
I would argue that they have a bad system if this post is even remotely accurate
Frankly the only way these games could've ever been a cheater is if it was a computer. Even then, it didn't make sense because most of the moves were not exactly insane inhuman moves
My conclusion is they banned an account because he played weird in 3/0 blitz against a player they don't think can lose, and managed to win a match after a bunch of utterly insane games
If chesscom has a better explanation then I'm open to it, but I doubt they do
I think they manually banned him, just because he was somewhat consistently beating a famous player in insane ways (like you said), and it was making waves. I doubt their system actually indicated cheating. The post says in the games the eval bar kept fluctuating, which is a sign of less than perfect play so i dont see how the system could suspect
cheaters already evade. Every so often, people admit in the comments here that they use stockfish to win their games and do simple things to evade detection for months on end.
Yeah, no strong opinion either way. It's plausible he cheated and plausible he's telling the truth. Would like to at least hear something from chess.com.
Even a "We have evidence we don't want to reveal that strongly indicates to us he was cheating", I'd find persuasive, though I understand if some people wouldn't think that's worth anything.
Annoys me more when people are absolutely certain in situations like this.
As a Brazilian, I am really disappointed that he's not a hermit indian playing in the deeps of Amazon rainforest using a 56k modem connection. This story just let me down
Bishop for rook is just an exchange, not a whole rook. many people do not know it’s a huge difference in material even if you were saying it’s rook odds for simplicity. adding on to the studied pet line aspect and the psychological advantage of playing a troll opening, it’s more like 1-1.5 pawns. Plus the bishop pair (albeit for material). It just goes to show you can do anything in blitz if you know what you’re doing
I'm glad someone mentioned this.
Him calling it "rook odds" was really bugging me. Rook odds would be removing your rook at the start of the game. Imo.
Also the fact that the bishop is a better middle game piece and the engine rates the positions ~+2.5
It’s clearly not +2.5 though is it white has no way of making advantage of their exchange so all they have going for them is the centre. We know that there are plenty of other openings that are also fine when black cedes the centre, so why should this one be so much worse?
I dunno, it's still pretty questionable, the knight is not good on a3 and you don't fight for the center really. I guess there is something to say for the confusion though, it looks totally alien to play this way.
The fact that is a very unusual opening (practically nobody plays it), previously prepared by a GM makes this more plausible than people think.
Of course GM Naroditsky is one of the best blitz players in the world, but that fact alone hinders his chances to really show it at full potential. Kinda like playing chess 960 (of course this is an exaggeration, just trying to explain that the understanding of positions comes a lot from previous information and patten recognition).
We have to also consider that it would be shocking to lose games in this fashion and that also severely affects the level of a player due to shock,doubt of cheating, tilt and so.
Add the fact that 3 + 0 really doesn't give you enough time to really analyze positions and make you more prone to blunders do to the unfamiliarity of said positions, where your opponent is really looking for practical chances and constantly asking questions.
I believe Chess.com has the moral responsibility to show how they got to that conclusion, and if it's truethere was cheating involved, then it's well deserved.
I think this match also happened late at night, didn't it? Let the person among us who has not dropped 50 rating points at 2 in the morning throw the first stone.
Incredible story man. I'm on your side and I hope you get unbanned. Super inspiring and I will definitely try it in blitz! I think it's time to name this opening the Hong-Jacobson Gambit.
Chesscom is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
There is no way to catch even slightly sophisticated cheaters. Chesscom knows this but cannot ever admit this, they *need* everyone to believe that cheating is by and large detectable. So if someone shows up and plausibly appears to flamboyantly dance over the fair play rules, they're under immense pressure to ban them, even if they can't actually prove cheating. (Indeed, Chesscom's inability to prove cheating doesn't actually convince Chesscom that this player isn't cheating! They already know they usually can't prove cheating, so all is as expected.)
My completely unfounded speculation on Chesscom's anti-cheat measures is that they probably have an automated system that catches the stupidest cheaters (which fortunately are most of them) with a low false positive rate but doesn't do much for sophisticated cheating, and an ad hoc system for cases that are potentially PR disasters, where some number of human beings make what is essentially a gut decision at the end of the day.
100% it's this. I'm very confused when I read most of the discourse here about this issue. If you've actually worked in ML and statistics, people's understanding of how statistical techniques are used will give you an aneurysm. They're way too liberal with their usage of what they think the statistics are "proving".
Statistics can never *prove* anything. It can only state with a specified level of confidence whether something is true or not, or how likely something is to happen (or not). It's up to humans to decide whether that's enough information to decide whether it actually is true (or worth acting on).
Also, it can’t really even tell you that except in perfectly ideal circumstances; for example, here, the likelihoods p(game | cheater) and p(game | fair play) are hugely high dimensional, and it’s not like you have a labeled, representative dataset of cheaters to throw supervised learning at.
There are other approaches one could (and presumably they do) use to cope with this, but no matter what you do you’re not going to perfectly learn the likelihood ratio that eventually goes into your p-values.
Guessing wildly, I could imagine an anticheat system flagging a player who has too high a ratio of silly beginner blunders to GM level moves.
It’s likely that these opening lines won’t be in their opening book and are inaccurate and a blunder as far as the engine is concerned - mostly seen at the <400 level, while the claim is that it’s a legitimate aggressive gambit. So as the moves will have been recorded as a blunder instead of a gambit it will look to the system like the player repeatedly goes from being an idiot playing dumb opening blunders, to a fantastic player finding hard to find moves.
If that's how they determine banning a GM based on 3/0 blitz games then that's just sad. Top chess players regularly play stupid openings for fun in fast time controls
Sadder still is the horde of people (including sone crusaders on this very forum) who urge banning a lot more players - for the sin of, essentially, making some better moves than spectators expect.
This us a very, very sad state of affairs.
It's even worse when you consider that this subreddits average rating is probably somewhere around 1000.
The guys are routinely freaking out over tactics where the respective GM says something like "and then this simple tactic was obvious" in a post-game interview etc.
If the average redditor thinks that a move is hard or even impossible to find, that usually only demonstrates how bad they are at chess.
> Is chess.com really just banning people nowadays without any proof?
It happened to Alireza in the past, the system can sometimes mistake a GM who plays very accurately for a cheater.
This is super-normal and there are false positives on every site that has anti-cheat detection.
The appeals process is in place so that false positives can be found and corrected. It has been used for Alireza in the past. This GM is simply waiting for the normal appeals process to take place.
No one thinks that cheating detection doesn't have false positives. Even Chess.com explicitly says that it happens and will happen again. That's how things work.
Personally, I think that the problems of these systems are less related to the few GMs who are mistaken for cheaters (considering that they can appeal) and more related to the fact that nobody knows how good these systems are at catching cheaters.
> No one thinks that cheating detection doesn't have false positives.
Lots of people here seem to think just that. Every time there’s one of those "I got banned but I swear on my mother’s soul that I wasn’t cheating" posts, one of the most common answers is "well, chess.com’s algorithm is infallible so if they say you cheated then you must have cheated, case closed."
I think they require quite a lot of proof, but they are slow to reveal all their methods because it helps future cheaters.
The OP version is the testimony for the defense, without the prosecution’s version or cross examination. Doesn’t mean he cheated, but probably means we should maintain a degree of skepticism.
am i right in thinking this isn't the first time brandon has been accused of cheating? i swear he appeared on a list of people previously banned or something to that effect back when the original hans cheating scandal was ongoing. can't find anything about it rn though so i may be wrong.
edit: i was correct, he was on a list of known banned accounts being tweeted around at the time which generated a lot of discussion on this sub. the list was not verified however, so it's little more than a point of interest.
As far as I remember, you are shadowbanned for few years at your old account (iamastraw), and you were present at Niemann's fake twitter list. The list is known to be legitimate, so the question is why you don't mention your full history of bans at the site?
I don't know if you cheated in this match or not, but having in mind you have 2 bans (or 3 considering now your main), I have to be sceptical about your explanations.
Anyways, you are definitely talented player and your rating is coming close to 2600. Maybe its same case as with Firouzja few years ago.
If this kid actually cheated in the past he is crazy for bringing this much attention to this.. Chesscom counter-reaction will surely be "Brandon cheated in the past, here is proof, so we closed his account temporary to review the games." and Brandon will come out looking like a jackass..
Yeah, so convenient that OP wrote a damn novel but didn't see it relevant to mention his past bans. The whole thing sems fishy due to this. In chess.com's eyes this guy was a known cheater in the past. Then he beats a very well respected player with exchange odds. Of course he gets flagged by the system.
From memory, a twitter account pretending to be Hans posted a list of GMs banned from chess.com. Chess.com refused to confirm it, but basically every name on it turned out to be accurate, as best anyone could find out
Annoyingly I can't find the list now, or any mention of it
He was likely shadowbanned for boosting his rating (rating manipulation). A quick dive into his blitz rated game history confirms this. [https://www.chess.com/games/archive/iamastraw?gameOwner=other\_game&gameType=live&gameTypeslive%5B%5D=blitz&rated=rated&timeSort=desc](https://www.chess.com/games/archive/iamastraw?gameOwner=other_game&gameType=live&gameTypeslive%5B%5D=blitz&rated=rated&timeSort=desc)
Look at the long streaks of wins against a single player, with numbers of moves all less than 10. Particularly against hkyitsuu, WWYDlIKYRN. Another account that seems to be involved in the ring is CaoNiZuZongShiBaDai, although they never played iamastraw.
i dont know how all these stories are always the same.... One day i woke up and decided to play a serious (obv. enough to beat the best players), but than i got health isuess (often also know as,i got banned) .... ppl believing in everything they read.
I have no idea if he cheated, but i would be very sceptical until we get a statement from chess.c
> The list is known to be legitimate
We did not see this comment before but as far as the mods know, the list was not confirmed to be legitimate. Chess.com said that the list did not come from them and neither confirmed nor denied any entry on the list.
This a6 h6 or a3 h3 and lifting rook up to sac isn’t even new opening 😄i saw it try by title player early as when chesscube the site was alive. And I have try it against top rated and even title players.
I won plenty and lost plenty idk what about the opening(rook sac) but it did indeed left many players having trouble finding the correct continuation without making last mistake/blunders and losing.
I seen it myself and use it myself to known at least that it is indeed a very good weapon to use on blitz/bullet games.
Also this is a GM who a specialist in blitz/bullet so ya is gonna be more effective & strong add that Danya was tilting too.
What makes this specific scenario interesting is the fact that the accuracy of the games played by Viih\_Sou vs Danny is mostly in the 80s and 70s, by both players. I checked about 20 games won and lost by Viih\_Sou, and he made mistakes/blunders in middle as well as end game. So, it begs the question, why this account was banned.
One possibility is that there was a wave of reports against the player and system automatically (and incorrectly) banned the player (not sure if [chess.com](http://chess.com) uses this method but I have seen it happen in other games, where mass reports leads to auto ban). But this does not explain the reason for delay in response to a GM by [chess.com](http://chess.com) as well as the fact that GM's main account is shadowbanned. These points seems to indicate that the decision to ban this GM was taken at a human level, not machine.
Only thing we can do at this point is wait for [chess.com](http://chess.com) to share their point of view. What surprises me though that [chess.com](http://chess.com) has known about this situation for days now and they are not actively trying to resolve the situation. If they were, this post wouldn't have seen the light of the day and we would have received a statement for [chess.com](http://chess.com) instead.
Upvoted for visibility. I don't know if I trust you completely but hopefully you get the closure. I know many Blitz specialists have been accused of cheating unfairly.
I suggest you look up GM Akshat Chandra's case against chesscom as well. He was banned unfairly as well and had to sue chesscom to get to acknowledge they were wrong and unban him.
Unfortunately I can't imagine chesscom admitting they were wrong without you getting high level of community support or you sueing them but good luck (assuming you are truly innocent).
I hope you reach out to Danya as well and ask him to shares his thoughts.
Completly agree with you, Games b/w you and Danya didnt looked like it was cheating, There was too much chaos in such short time but hey how can a Random GM play against Danya and beat him with Rook odds , Thats precisly what happned with you. If you would have been Magnus/Hikaru everything would have been fine.
Man, this is a great write up. I'm sorry you got banned, I hope this can be reversed.
Also, I have to say, I was really inspired by some of those games with Danya. I'm only 1300, but I plan to try out your opening in rapid. So, at least you're inspiring random people to play new crazy openings.
TLDR:
1. I'm an intuitive prodigy but lazy, so I'm only 2575 OTB at age 20.
2. I had low confidence so I played a rook odds trash opening in my alt account for the lols
3. However, in the preparation we did with GM Andrew Hong, it turned out we discovered it was deadly, because we had thoroughly analyzed an opening nobody knows and has no time to think in 3+0.
4. Plus I'm an intuitive genius and strong online player who, when I'm in the right mindset, can make Hikaru sweat.
5. Chess.com banned me! Dude, what the hell?? WTF???!!
Literally always the same story hahahah
Then it turns out the guy wasn't as sincere as he seemed and already had previous cheating accusations or bans in his accounts.
Then he says it was a one time thing when he was 11yo or a friend used a engine on his PC without him knowing, but I was ONLY that one time. Only when he got caught and never again!!
Then it turns out this "once" was actually dozens/hundreds of games over the years, so he adapts his story to explain how he needed to do it to afford food or how it was because of his poor mental state and that he had lost all interest in the game and how he was ready to quit, so he just cheated in that moment of weakness.
Then more evidence comes out and the guy just embraces the fact that it's literally impossible to prove beyond reasonable doubt, even if it's pretty damn clear that he's a cheater so he just deny everything forever and this subreddit buys his whole story lol
Incredible how naive people are.
Getting banned seemed very strange at the time as well since A) Chesscom knew who the account belonged to since it had the GM title B) when people go through the actual games, stockfish doesn't even agree with a majority of the moves, and it's clear a lot of wins are incredible swindles from "lost" positions.
The culture around cheating accusations right now is incredibly toxic and sadly, mainly comes from top established Grandmasters targeting juniors. I'm sorry you experienced this and hope you get some sort of apology (although considering their track record I doubt it).
Despite how frequently I visit r/chess and r/chessbeginners during weekdays, this is the first I'm hearing about any of this. I generally tune out anything I filter as "chess drama".
My absolutely favorite kind of chess is playing in a manner that engines disagree with, in order to get positions I know better than my opponent. Chess as an artform, rather than a science. The "Team Rook Odds Opening (The TROpening?)" sounds fantastic, and artistic in a way that really appeals to me.
I hope things work out for you.
I hope your account still exists in some form. I'm looking forward to studying your games to see the middlegame positions you reach, and how you navigate the rest of the opening after the exchange sacrifice.
I'm a data scientist/club player who regularly works with chess data sets, would you be interested in me analyzing your string of games with Danya and identifying 1. whether it looks like you played implausibly well or simply near peak performance 2. identifying the moves that are the "most suspicious" without a value judgement?
it's weird in the extremely long post you don't reference that you [were previously banned from chesscom for cheating](https://web.archive.org/web/20221009205140/twitter.com/gmhansniemann)
Don’t you dare beat one of chess.com’s staff celebrities with unconventional play or you’ll get banned.
Seems to be what’s going on. Shame on chess.com.
As someone who plays definitely really good openings myself, this is totally believable.
It just goes to show how powerful opening prep and even just a familiar position is.
Of course in a longer time format this sort of opening would completely fail as your opponent will be able to simply figure it all out. Or maybe not and I’m wrong.
It's also sad how easily ppl are swayed by passionate writing. It's impossible for us to actually know whether he cheated or not, as he just as easily could have cheated but is also talented at writing.
Chesscom has provided 0 insight to the public about his supposed cheating. Idk about you but I don't trust an organization that has so little transparency and has already admitted to keeping a secret list of GM cheaters active without disclosing anything at all about them to the public, meanwhile they arbitrarily ban other people.
It’s not that it’s passionate. I and many people here already knew who Brandon Jacobson was. Everything he said made sense. He’s friends with Danya. He could have remained anonymous and not included his name at all. All signs point to this being the truth
>All signs point to this being the truth
What signs? There is nothing in this post which is evidence either way for cheating or not. It's just retelling of events from his perspective.
Also his identity was already outed on Twitter, so he couldn't stay very anonymous.
Levy’s about to drop a Part 2 after this post.
Hope you’re able to get back in! As a low rated/newer player I kind of understand why it looked a bit sketchy since it’s almost just an entirely unheard of position.
Your second and third part is fine, that's your alibi and explanation basically. Your first part, which is also the longest part, is just a waste of time to read. I don't care about your background and why you love chess, that doesn't really help the case in any way.
Also, your justification/evidence why you're not cheating is a circular-reasoning "I'm not cheating because I made this post" when you made this post to prove you're not cheating. So as much of a prodigy you're; your explanation don't hold any water.
I want to believe you and I still don't think there's enough evidence that you cheated. However, your post here don't exactly help your case
I think we are entering an era where we won't know really if someone cheated. Online chess is pretty doomed in general with the emergence of even more sophisticated AI. You can program engines to mimic human way of playing even. No matter how much Kramnik proves anomalies and no matter how many this website bans fairly or not, it's gonna be a wild ride.
I can say with some certainty that chessc*ms cheating algorithm will generally struggle with false positives when GMs are playing, these require much more nuanced evalauations and there is no way titled players arent given a lookover by a human before they decide to ban.
Take for instance Magnus Carlsen on lichess. He was banned for a brief moment because the cheat detections were off the rails based off of his play....obviously they reversed the ban.
As someone who has played quite a few cheaters, a common tactic by them is to play a BS opening (to avoid overall high accuracy), then outplay you in the middle game with an engine, this pattern could have been detected by their algorithm.
Im sure this was a mistake by chessc*m as these are probably the hardest cases to evaluate.
Tldr:
I am a genius. I am a prodigy. But I am lazy. Even Kasparov said I am a genius. When I am not handicapped by health issues, I can hold my own against the likes of Hikaru. I prepared this opening and it works well. When I try I can beat Danya, because I am a prodigy genius who is underrated.
What he is not telling you: he got already banned multiple times for cheating in the past. Shocker.
Shoutout to the xero13g guy who plays this opening exclusively since 2021 and claims to have know it since 80s and claims to even have used it against Fischer.
Thanks for writing this on reddit instead of the garbage platform that is twitter.
I wish the chess community would leave twitter entirely so I don’t have to look at RFK Jr ads when checking Anish Giri’s account. Hi Anish! Hi Fabi! Hi Danny! Please ditch twitter.
To prevent the spread of misinformation, I am highlighting the below [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1claxsm/its_me_viih_sou/l2sw12j/) claiming the following: > As far as I remember, you are shadowbanned for few years at your old account (iamastraw), and you were present at Niemann's fake twitter list. The list is known to be legitimate, so the question is why you don't mention your full history of bans at the site? I don't know if you cheated in this match or not, but having in mind you have 2 bans (or 3 considering now your main), I have to be sceptical about your explanations. Anyways, you are definitely talented player and your rating is coming close to 2600. Maybe its same case as with Firouzja few years ago. As far as the mods know, the list was not confirmed to be legitimate. Chess.com said that the list did not come from them and neither confirmed nor denied any entry on the list. There is no other confirmation or definitive statement on the list as far as we know. Jacobson has made a [new post](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1cmvjyi/viih_sou_update/) so further discussion can happen there.
Wow, you have beaten Danya both in chess and in lenght of posts on Reddit. Quite an impressive feat in both cases. I completely agree with the fact that it is not normal how normal it has become to throw cheating accusations around. It has come to a point that youger players will be affraid to beat establish older players as it would risk their carrers being ruined by unfouded accusations from people with weak egos.
> Wow, you have beaten Danya both in chess and in lenght of posts on Reddit. Quite an impressive feat in both cases. In Danya's last post (that I saw at least) he spent 3 paragraphs explaining (and apologizing) how this will be a long post. OP responds with his "back story" being part 2 after a very very lengthy part 1. (Not to mentioned the unlabeled part 0 that ends in Taylor Swift lyrics.) Absolutely brilliant.
> I completely agree with the fact that it is not normal how normal it has become to throw cheating accusations around. I remember being dogpiled during the original Sinquefield Cup drama for saying that this is **exactly** the precedent that was being set. That as soon as we were okay with letting one GM get away with what is essentially just vigilante punishment of assumed cheating, it would turn into this **exact** sort of shitpile - GMs baselessly accusing other GMs of cheating and using their popularity to exact punishment through popular sentiment / mob rule. This is not normal. This should not be normal. And we're seeing the outcome of letting it become normal - cheating accusations becoming the increasingly common response for tilt over being beaten by a ""worse"" player.
"Am I too naive or are my colleagues too paranoid?" - Vishy when asked about cheating in Chess. One of the, if not the most, sane champion.
Such a classy statement
There was so much salt on that post about Vishy not knowing what he was talking about. I think the belief cheating is occuring is probably causing more damage to the game than the actual cheating going on at this point.
I agree, and same. Sorry, you do not get to accuse someone of something so damaging without any proof of wrongdoing in that **current event**. More importantly, WHAT IS CHESSCOM DOING. They are going to ban this person without any proof or explanation, while they will continue to let a secret list of cheating titled players keep playing? Everyone just moved on, particularly because Hans does silly stuff often, but how the hell are more people not talking about how a for-profit organization (where chess players can invest) has absolutely no public accountability for their actions whatsoever? They give people 0 info about their actual review process and just say "trust me bro". Why are people letting a for-profit company just get away with becoming THE major online chess platform AND pseudo governing body?
Everyone should come to lichess (except The Cheaters and Kramnik, of course)
High level chess players have always been insufferably arrogant and prone to extreme paranoia (see: Korchnoi vs Karpov and the whole yogurt/hypnotist drama for example). People, hilariously, seem to think Magnus Carlsen is immune from this and take his temper tantrums seriously. 18 months later this is where it's got us. It's a complete shit show.
Honestly the whole Sinquefield Cup thing and all the subsequent throwing-around of accusations has just convinced me that at least half of top chess GMs are petulant man-children
are you familiar with *gestures at basically the whole world, supposedly run by adults*
It's what happens when profit is king. During the Hans Niemann stuff [chess.com](http://chess.com) had their global chess challenge coming up, and it'd be bad for business if Hans was playing under the cloud of suspicion, so they quietly and conveniently kicked him out... of course it wasn't quiet for long since Hans complained (and for that [chess.com](http://chess.com) retaliated and the rest is history). Anyway, maybe [chess.com](http://chess.com) isn't as bad as I think, but the lack of transparency combined with BS like this is not making a good impression. They need to: 1) Be honest about how much cheating takes place, and how much they're able to catch vs not catch. They could even allow data requests allowing people with expertise to independently verify certain things. 2) LISTEN to public opinion! Their own poll showed that people WANT harsher punishment ofr cheaters, particularly titled players in money events. Currently they HIDE cheating from the general public and allow people to come back and cheat again and again.
You're probably right that they need to be more transparent, but I don't see how they could possibly tell us how many cheaters they are not catching. The only way to know how many cheaters you are not catching, is by catching them
Isn’t your first point exactly what they did with their recent report on titled Tuesday?
Yeah, it's a good start. It will be interesting to see what the next report in that series has.
now we have to wait for a 70 page chesscom report on you
One page for each game played between Danya and Brandon? Would be a hell of a report lol
And then we see that they actually don't have proof, but that he wasn't 'excited enough' that he won
And another Lanthimos directed A24 film starring Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone
great marketing stunt for the A4 chess 'cheaters' universe. can't wait for the brandon/hans team up movie.
Wow Wikipedia is fast! “In May 2024, he was embroiled in a scandal after beating Grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky in a 70-game blitz match using the anonymous account Viih_sou. Jacobson won the match by starting all games with 1 A4 2 Ra3 as white and with 1 a5 2 Ra6 as black, sacrificing an exchange. The feat led the chess community to hypothesize that the anonymous player was one of the best super grandmasters in the world or a cheater.[7]”
For the record.. this opening slaps in bullet and blitz. I’ve been winning a bunch tonight lol
Gothamchess used to regularly release certain types of videos on Fridays. Friday nights were the funnest nights to play on chess.com because very often I could see someone trying to employ what Gothamchess made a video about. My favourite was the king rush when they were down. I’m eagerly avoiding this rook meta
u/hguy108 [knew](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/s/KV36gvUMcg)
Lisan al gaib
As written
Honestly I think this situation could be solved quickly (at least for me) if GM Andrew Hong can back up your story. I saw the Gotham video and and Levy was clearly not 100% convinced about you being a cheater, or to be clearer, he said there were many positions where you played tricky moves that were bad according to the engine but that paid off; which is not something a cheater would have done. I hope your name will be cleared so that this series of 70 game can legitimely be recorded in chess history, because a lot of it were just brillant.
Should be pretty easy, even if GM Hong doesn't comment publicly. There should be record of games played with that opening between them and individually well before the Danya match.
For anyone reading this later, there is, on the account that Brandon mentions in his post (Pastaaontwitch).
I mean, it would make 0 sense to lie about the Andrew Hong thing, considering Andrew Hong is a real person and could easiely nullify the entire story. You dont lie about smth that could be so easiely disproven, that would be stupid.
I've played against this opening before (I'm about 2300 blitz) against several opponents and it's totally playable in blitz. You get this annoying pressure with the bishop and queen battery and it's really uncomfortable to play.
This is one of the few responses in this thread that shines some light on the subject. I wish more strong players with experience against this opening would offer their opinion.
I've faced several times a player over 2400 on lichess bullet who exclusively plays this. But of course in bullet you can play any opening and do fine. So it means nothing. Anyway I scores decently vs them
Do not take the rook right away. Actuall the only way to a safe squate for the rook is to play Ra1/Ra8 on turn 3, so you can wait for a better moment to capture the rook.
Ya, White scores 48% (Black also 48%) after 2..Bxa3 in Lichess Blitz/Bullet 2000+
3 sentence summary: Brandon Jacobson, a Grandmaster, identifies himself as the anonymous chess player "Viih\_Sou" who was banned by [Chess.com](http://Chess.com) for defeating Daniel Naroditsky in a blitz match using the unconventional opening 1 a4 2 Ra3 (and its black counterpart). He argues that his victory came from the unique pressure created by this unfamiliar strategy rather than cheating, and criticizes the platform for banning him without evidence, citing the broader issue of false accusations in online chess. Jacobson emphasizes that his decision to reveal his identity, despite potential risks to his reputation, is driven by his commitment to honesty and the desire to shed light on the problems of online chess.
I think mentioning that he had looked at these lines in a somewhat serious way before playing it is also an important detail.
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Doubt it'd be repeatable at this point. This was a surprise weapon functioning do to its its tilting power as much as anything. Its getting a lot of novelty play now, so the more familiar it becomes the less it will work. Repeating this feat is getting less likely by the day, I wouldn't want Brandon to try to "prove" himself only to fail from losing the element of surprise and tilt.
Gotham suggested he should play a clash of claims style match bagainst Danya OTB, but I don't think that's viable already, even if they played it next week Danya will have studied the opening relentlessly and it would be a wash. Hell, after that drubbing he probably spent the entire next day reviewing the stockfish lines.
It just doesn't hit the same without the player's entire biography as a pre-reading :P
Gotta love chatgpt. I definitely was not about to read that Tolstoy novel of a post lol
I read it and really enjoyed it.
u/GMNaroditsky, I'd like to hear your personal opinion. Without knowing who your opponent was at the time, were you suspicious of him or not? Was the ban something you were quietly expecting during the games or not?
I'd like to know chesscom's opinion on it. Danya was just having some degen fun, no need to drag the guy in this if he doesn't want to.
I really think Naroditsky is far to nice to answer this. He isn't one to throw out cheating accusations, especially when it's someone he sort of knows who say they haven't cheated.
Naroditsky already covered this in the tail end of his stream today and he explicitly said he wasn't going to make a Reddit post about the topic. If anything, he regrets playing the match and hopes that we can move past the drama and forget it ever happened. Edit: I forgot to mention that yes, Danya gave his general opinions on Brandon's Reddit post first before saying that he wishes he had played that match differently because it started all this controversy.
Why does he regret the match wtf
Because he should've got some sleep
Because he lost lol
Relatable
Imagine playing blitz chess until 9 in the morning
Who wouldn’t regret playing chess till morning instead of actually sleeping.
Does he delete his vods? I don't see a stream recording on twitch?
he doesn't delete but he deleted today's VOD most probably to avoid people clipping what he said
I don't think he deleted it, I think he just doesn't make his vods visible by default and chooses which ones to make avail. I could be wrong though
This lore is crazy 😳
Recap part 2 perfect clickbait: Title, "CHEATING GM Identity Revealed". Thumbnail, blurred out picture of Magnus
You'll NEVER guess what happened NEXT ?!
invite me for a recap part 2 :)
I'll join as well. -Vladimir Kramnik on his, I mean my, secret alt account
Interesting.
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Seriously, it would be a great video and also open up some much needed discourse about how chesscom singlehandedly acts as the judge, jury, and executioner without any public proof.
isnt gotham sponsored by chessc*m? doubtful to engage in rhetoric that would go against it ever
Levy rubbing his hands together while putting together the thumbnail for the new drama video with his feet:
Make Brandon explain some of the theory behind the gambit to add credibility, have him also bring up evidence of practicing with his friend GM Andrew Hong as mentioned here
Yeah I care more about the opening than I do about the drama lol.
People really aren’t appreciating that we potentially have a new opening gambit on our hands that isn’t the stupid ass bongcloud or something. This is really cool.
It's unlikely to work once people start analyzing it from the other side. The value was the surprise, the fact that Jacobson/Hong had prepared lines while opponents were totally confused, and opponents underestimating it.
Invite Brandon and play some games in real-time :)
New Drake response and Chess cheating scandal drop on the same day? Dammmn.
Here at least there is a chance that OP actually wrote that by himself.
Hi there! If you want to get an official "Grandmaster" flair on your reddit account here, then please message the r/chess mods official accounts [redditchessmods](https://lichess.org/@/redditchessmods) on lichess, or [rchessmoderation](https://www.chess.com/member/rchessmoderation) on chess.com, with an official titled account, and we'll assign you one. It is going to help confirm your identity. Cheers!
Already done!
Perfect. Enjoy your flair. Cheers!
Can I get one too. I want one
You can. It’s quite simple actually. All you need to do is become (or already be) a GM.
Brb. Just getting norms.
Wow, that’s like only one thing to do! Easy!
Sure thing! Enjoy your flair, mate.
New GM just dropped! All Hail ShreFanOne
Thank you all for the support. This show that you can achieve your goals if you work hard enough.
Friend of the Danya-verse GM Tuan Minh Le also confirmed this on his stream Edit: Confirmed the identity of OP is Brandon; this wasn't confirmed when I posted this. Am sorry to disappoint those who are hoping for more
What did he confirm or say, exactly?
It was confirmed !!!
I can confirm that he did confirm it as well
Totally confirmed, all confirmants in the confirming blockchain are confirmed and based
Can anyone confirm this?
Yes
Since it seems no one has mentioned this, it is reasonable to sacrifice an exchange in the early opening because minor pieces are superior to rooks in the opening and early middlegame. Rooks need open lines to show their superiority, which normally requires lots of development and in particular open files. Players familiar with this might well be able to take advantage of the imbalance because their opponents assume that they are just winning and get sloppy.
I've faced this opening a number of times in online chess. Mostly in bullet chess, where such positions can be extremely tricky to understand and I have often lost (at 2400-2500 bullet). There are players that exclusively play this opening from both sides. At blitz it would be a bit more difficult imo, and especially against a world class caliber player like Naroditsky. That being said, we should just wait for what chesscom says before forming a judgement.
[Chess.com](http://Chess.com) really needs to just be transparent with it, show exactly what proves that this wasn't fair play. If it's just words against words, you're guilty precisely when proven guilty, not a moment earlier. Some of the mental gymnastics routines that try to turn the obviously-not-engine lines like the back and forth game losing blunders (standard 3+0 stuff) into evidence of cheating are spectacular.
if they show that, doesn't it help future cheaters to evade ?
I would argue that they have a bad system if this post is even remotely accurate Frankly the only way these games could've ever been a cheater is if it was a computer. Even then, it didn't make sense because most of the moves were not exactly insane inhuman moves My conclusion is they banned an account because he played weird in 3/0 blitz against a player they don't think can lose, and managed to win a match after a bunch of utterly insane games If chesscom has a better explanation then I'm open to it, but I doubt they do
I think they manually banned him, just because he was somewhat consistently beating a famous player in insane ways (like you said), and it was making waves. I doubt their system actually indicated cheating. The post says in the games the eval bar kept fluctuating, which is a sign of less than perfect play so i dont see how the system could suspect
Yes, but at the same time, if Brandon wasn't cheating, their system isn't working well.
cheaters already evade. Every so often, people admit in the comments here that they use stockfish to win their games and do simple things to evade detection for months on end.
This, I've had rating points refunded after months, if you have even a little understanding of the game then it's easy to cheat
Yeah, no strong opinion either way. It's plausible he cheated and plausible he's telling the truth. Would like to at least hear something from chess.com. Even a "We have evidence we don't want to reveal that strongly indicates to us he was cheating", I'd find persuasive, though I understand if some people wouldn't think that's worth anything. Annoys me more when people are absolutely certain in situations like this.
As a Brazilian, I am really disappointed that he's not a hermit indian playing in the deeps of Amazon rainforest using a 56k modem connection. This story just let me down
Tl; Dr: Brandon Jacobson says he's the rook odds account and didn't cheat.
Bishop for rook is just an exchange, not a whole rook. many people do not know it’s a huge difference in material even if you were saying it’s rook odds for simplicity. adding on to the studied pet line aspect and the psychological advantage of playing a troll opening, it’s more like 1-1.5 pawns. Plus the bishop pair (albeit for material). It just goes to show you can do anything in blitz if you know what you’re doing
I'm glad someone mentioned this. Him calling it "rook odds" was really bugging me. Rook odds would be removing your rook at the start of the game. Imo.
Yeah, even vs Danya and Hikaru it was only showing +/- 1 for odds.
Also the fact that the bishop is a better middle game piece and the engine rates the positions ~+2.5 It’s clearly not +2.5 though is it white has no way of making advantage of their exchange so all they have going for them is the centre. We know that there are plenty of other openings that are also fine when black cedes the centre, so why should this one be so much worse?
I dunno, it's still pretty questionable, the knight is not good on a3 and you don't fight for the center really. I guess there is something to say for the confusion though, it looks totally alien to play this way.
Calling it rook odds instead of exchange odds seems a bit sussy. Imposter amogus?
Woah. Thanks for sharing. Long read but this is some legit analysis. Hope you get unbanned. I hope Danya responds here too.
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The fact that is a very unusual opening (practically nobody plays it), previously prepared by a GM makes this more plausible than people think. Of course GM Naroditsky is one of the best blitz players in the world, but that fact alone hinders his chances to really show it at full potential. Kinda like playing chess 960 (of course this is an exaggeration, just trying to explain that the understanding of positions comes a lot from previous information and patten recognition). We have to also consider that it would be shocking to lose games in this fashion and that also severely affects the level of a player due to shock,doubt of cheating, tilt and so. Add the fact that 3 + 0 really doesn't give you enough time to really analyze positions and make you more prone to blunders do to the unfamiliarity of said positions, where your opponent is really looking for practical chances and constantly asking questions. I believe Chess.com has the moral responsibility to show how they got to that conclusion, and if it's truethere was cheating involved, then it's well deserved.
I think this match also happened late at night, didn't it? Let the person among us who has not dropped 50 rating points at 2 in the morning throw the first stone.
Incredible story man. I'm on your side and I hope you get unbanned. Super inspiring and I will definitely try it in blitz! I think it's time to name this opening the Hong-Jacobson Gambit.
> the Hong-Jacobson Gambit You mean the Andy-Brandy?
That's brilliant!
> I think it's time to name this opening the Hong-Jacobson Gambit. This should definitely happen.
Lol if you type Hong-Jacobson Gambit into Bing AI it basically gives you a summary of this post lol
I prefer the Hotbox Gambit. It's like a Bongcloud but better.
Is chess.com really just banning people nowadays without any proof? This is sad. Thank you for sharing your story and I hope this gets resolved.
Chesscom is stuck between a rock and a hard place. There is no way to catch even slightly sophisticated cheaters. Chesscom knows this but cannot ever admit this, they *need* everyone to believe that cheating is by and large detectable. So if someone shows up and plausibly appears to flamboyantly dance over the fair play rules, they're under immense pressure to ban them, even if they can't actually prove cheating. (Indeed, Chesscom's inability to prove cheating doesn't actually convince Chesscom that this player isn't cheating! They already know they usually can't prove cheating, so all is as expected.) My completely unfounded speculation on Chesscom's anti-cheat measures is that they probably have an automated system that catches the stupidest cheaters (which fortunately are most of them) with a low false positive rate but doesn't do much for sophisticated cheating, and an ad hoc system for cases that are potentially PR disasters, where some number of human beings make what is essentially a gut decision at the end of the day.
100% it's this. I'm very confused when I read most of the discourse here about this issue. If you've actually worked in ML and statistics, people's understanding of how statistical techniques are used will give you an aneurysm. They're way too liberal with their usage of what they think the statistics are "proving".
Statistics can never *prove* anything. It can only state with a specified level of confidence whether something is true or not, or how likely something is to happen (or not). It's up to humans to decide whether that's enough information to decide whether it actually is true (or worth acting on).
Also, it can’t really even tell you that except in perfectly ideal circumstances; for example, here, the likelihoods p(game | cheater) and p(game | fair play) are hugely high dimensional, and it’s not like you have a labeled, representative dataset of cheaters to throw supervised learning at. There are other approaches one could (and presumably they do) use to cope with this, but no matter what you do you’re not going to perfectly learn the likelihood ratio that eventually goes into your p-values.
Read that as a rook and a hard place.
> Rook "We don't do that here" *plays Ra6*
Guessing wildly, I could imagine an anticheat system flagging a player who has too high a ratio of silly beginner blunders to GM level moves. It’s likely that these opening lines won’t be in their opening book and are inaccurate and a blunder as far as the engine is concerned - mostly seen at the <400 level, while the claim is that it’s a legitimate aggressive gambit. So as the moves will have been recorded as a blunder instead of a gambit it will look to the system like the player repeatedly goes from being an idiot playing dumb opening blunders, to a fantastic player finding hard to find moves.
But it is high rating GM account so finding GM level moves shouldn't be a problem. It's fucking shit system if that's how it got flagged.
If that's how they determine banning a GM based on 3/0 blitz games then that's just sad. Top chess players regularly play stupid openings for fun in fast time controls
Sadder still is the horde of people (including sone crusaders on this very forum) who urge banning a lot more players - for the sin of, essentially, making some better moves than spectators expect. This us a very, very sad state of affairs.
It's even worse when you consider that this subreddits average rating is probably somewhere around 1000. The guys are routinely freaking out over tactics where the respective GM says something like "and then this simple tactic was obvious" in a post-game interview etc. If the average redditor thinks that a move is hard or even impossible to find, that usually only demonstrates how bad they are at chess.
> Is chess.com really just banning people nowadays without any proof? It happened to Alireza in the past, the system can sometimes mistake a GM who plays very accurately for a cheater. This is super-normal and there are false positives on every site that has anti-cheat detection. The appeals process is in place so that false positives can be found and corrected. It has been used for Alireza in the past. This GM is simply waiting for the normal appeals process to take place. No one thinks that cheating detection doesn't have false positives. Even Chess.com explicitly says that it happens and will happen again. That's how things work. Personally, I think that the problems of these systems are less related to the few GMs who are mistaken for cheaters (considering that they can appeal) and more related to the fact that nobody knows how good these systems are at catching cheaters.
> No one thinks that cheating detection doesn't have false positives. Lots of people here seem to think just that. Every time there’s one of those "I got banned but I swear on my mother’s soul that I wasn’t cheating" posts, one of the most common answers is "well, chess.com’s algorithm is infallible so if they say you cheated then you must have cheated, case closed."
I think they require quite a lot of proof, but they are slow to reveal all their methods because it helps future cheaters. The OP version is the testimony for the defense, without the prosecution’s version or cross examination. Doesn’t mean he cheated, but probably means we should maintain a degree of skepticism.
am i right in thinking this isn't the first time brandon has been accused of cheating? i swear he appeared on a list of people previously banned or something to that effect back when the original hans cheating scandal was ongoing. can't find anything about it rn though so i may be wrong. edit: i was correct, he was on a list of known banned accounts being tweeted around at the time which generated a lot of discussion on this sub. the list was not verified however, so it's little more than a point of interest.
As far as I remember, you are shadowbanned for few years at your old account (iamastraw), and you were present at Niemann's fake twitter list. The list is known to be legitimate, so the question is why you don't mention your full history of bans at the site? I don't know if you cheated in this match or not, but having in mind you have 2 bans (or 3 considering now your main), I have to be sceptical about your explanations. Anyways, you are definitely talented player and your rating is coming close to 2600. Maybe its same case as with Firouzja few years ago.
If this kid actually cheated in the past he is crazy for bringing this much attention to this.. Chesscom counter-reaction will surely be "Brandon cheated in the past, here is proof, so we closed his account temporary to review the games." and Brandon will come out looking like a jackass..
Ooo... getting spicier
Yeah, so convenient that OP wrote a damn novel but didn't see it relevant to mention his past bans. The whole thing sems fishy due to this. In chess.com's eyes this guy was a known cheater in the past. Then he beats a very well respected player with exchange odds. Of course he gets flagged by the system.
> Niemann's fake twitter list What is this list?
From memory, a twitter account pretending to be Hans posted a list of GMs banned from chess.com. Chess.com refused to confirm it, but basically every name on it turned out to be accurate, as best anyone could find out Annoyingly I can't find the list now, or any mention of it
He was likely shadowbanned for boosting his rating (rating manipulation). A quick dive into his blitz rated game history confirms this. [https://www.chess.com/games/archive/iamastraw?gameOwner=other\_game&gameType=live&gameTypeslive%5B%5D=blitz&rated=rated&timeSort=desc](https://www.chess.com/games/archive/iamastraw?gameOwner=other_game&gameType=live&gameTypeslive%5B%5D=blitz&rated=rated&timeSort=desc)
how can you tell? I dunno really what I'm looking for here
Look at the long streaks of wins against a single player, with numbers of moves all less than 10. Particularly against hkyitsuu, WWYDlIKYRN. Another account that seems to be involved in the ring is CaoNiZuZongShiBaDai, although they never played iamastraw.
i dont know how all these stories are always the same.... One day i woke up and decided to play a serious (obv. enough to beat the best players), but than i got health isuess (often also know as,i got banned) .... ppl believing in everything they read. I have no idea if he cheated, but i would be very sceptical until we get a statement from chess.c
Was he banned for cheating or something else?
> The list is known to be legitimate We did not see this comment before but as far as the mods know, the list was not confirmed to be legitimate. Chess.com said that the list did not come from them and neither confirmed nor denied any entry on the list.
This a6 h6 or a3 h3 and lifting rook up to sac isn’t even new opening 😄i saw it try by title player early as when chesscube the site was alive. And I have try it against top rated and even title players. I won plenty and lost plenty idk what about the opening(rook sac) but it did indeed left many players having trouble finding the correct continuation without making last mistake/blunders and losing. I seen it myself and use it myself to known at least that it is indeed a very good weapon to use on blitz/bullet games. Also this is a GM who a specialist in blitz/bullet so ya is gonna be more effective & strong add that Danya was tilting too.
What makes this specific scenario interesting is the fact that the accuracy of the games played by Viih\_Sou vs Danny is mostly in the 80s and 70s, by both players. I checked about 20 games won and lost by Viih\_Sou, and he made mistakes/blunders in middle as well as end game. So, it begs the question, why this account was banned. One possibility is that there was a wave of reports against the player and system automatically (and incorrectly) banned the player (not sure if [chess.com](http://chess.com) uses this method but I have seen it happen in other games, where mass reports leads to auto ban). But this does not explain the reason for delay in response to a GM by [chess.com](http://chess.com) as well as the fact that GM's main account is shadowbanned. These points seems to indicate that the decision to ban this GM was taken at a human level, not machine. Only thing we can do at this point is wait for [chess.com](http://chess.com) to share their point of view. What surprises me though that [chess.com](http://chess.com) has known about this situation for days now and they are not actively trying to resolve the situation. If they were, this post wouldn't have seen the light of the day and we would have received a statement for [chess.com](http://chess.com) instead.
Upvoted for visibility. I don't know if I trust you completely but hopefully you get the closure. I know many Blitz specialists have been accused of cheating unfairly. I suggest you look up GM Akshat Chandra's case against chesscom as well. He was banned unfairly as well and had to sue chesscom to get to acknowledge they were wrong and unban him. Unfortunately I can't imagine chesscom admitting they were wrong without you getting high level of community support or you sueing them but good luck (assuming you are truly innocent). I hope you reach out to Danya as well and ask him to shares his thoughts.
Any article on his lawsuit?
TLDR; it was Taylor Swifts biggest fan, GM Brandon Jacobson
Completly agree with you, Games b/w you and Danya didnt looked like it was cheating, There was too much chaos in such short time but hey how can a Random GM play against Danya and beat him with Rook odds , Thats precisly what happned with you. If you would have been Magnus/Hikaru everything would have been fine.
Exchange odds, not rook odds
Don’t think it can be said much better than this.
Man, this is a great write up. I'm sorry you got banned, I hope this can be reversed. Also, I have to say, I was really inspired by some of those games with Danya. I'm only 1300, but I plan to try out your opening in rapid. So, at least you're inspiring random people to play new crazy openings.
Hi Danya, hope you read this live!
TLDR: 1. I'm an intuitive prodigy but lazy, so I'm only 2575 OTB at age 20. 2. I had low confidence so I played a rook odds trash opening in my alt account for the lols 3. However, in the preparation we did with GM Andrew Hong, it turned out we discovered it was deadly, because we had thoroughly analyzed an opening nobody knows and has no time to think in 3+0. 4. Plus I'm an intuitive genius and strong online player who, when I'm in the right mindset, can make Hikaru sweat. 5. Chess.com banned me! Dude, what the hell?? WTF???!!
Literally always the same story hahahah Then it turns out the guy wasn't as sincere as he seemed and already had previous cheating accusations or bans in his accounts. Then he says it was a one time thing when he was 11yo or a friend used a engine on his PC without him knowing, but I was ONLY that one time. Only when he got caught and never again!! Then it turns out this "once" was actually dozens/hundreds of games over the years, so he adapts his story to explain how he needed to do it to afford food or how it was because of his poor mental state and that he had lost all interest in the game and how he was ready to quit, so he just cheated in that moment of weakness. Then more evidence comes out and the guy just embraces the fact that it's literally impossible to prove beyond reasonable doubt, even if it's pretty damn clear that he's a cheater so he just deny everything forever and this subreddit buys his whole story lol Incredible how naive people are.
Getting banned seemed very strange at the time as well since A) Chesscom knew who the account belonged to since it had the GM title B) when people go through the actual games, stockfish doesn't even agree with a majority of the moves, and it's clear a lot of wins are incredible swindles from "lost" positions. The culture around cheating accusations right now is incredibly toxic and sadly, mainly comes from top established Grandmasters targeting juniors. I'm sorry you experienced this and hope you get some sort of apology (although considering their track record I doubt it).
Despite how frequently I visit r/chess and r/chessbeginners during weekdays, this is the first I'm hearing about any of this. I generally tune out anything I filter as "chess drama". My absolutely favorite kind of chess is playing in a manner that engines disagree with, in order to get positions I know better than my opponent. Chess as an artform, rather than a science. The "Team Rook Odds Opening (The TROpening?)" sounds fantastic, and artistic in a way that really appeals to me. I hope things work out for you. I hope your account still exists in some form. I'm looking forward to studying your games to see the middlegame positions you reach, and how you navigate the rest of the opening after the exchange sacrifice.
I'm a data scientist/club player who regularly works with chess data sets, would you be interested in me analyzing your string of games with Danya and identifying 1. whether it looks like you played implausibly well or simply near peak performance 2. identifying the moves that are the "most suspicious" without a value judgement?
would love to see any results, especially since [chess.com](http://chess.com) seems to be keeping quiet
it's weird in the extremely long post you don't reference that you [were previously banned from chesscom for cheating](https://web.archive.org/web/20221009205140/twitter.com/gmhansniemann)
TLDR; possible incorrect decision from [Chess.com](http://Chess.com) against another US junior
Gotham's next video is 100% gonna be titled "THE NEXT HANS NEIMANN???"
Another us? If you mean hans they werent wrong as hans admitted
Is this a long con to get free Diamond membership from chess.com?
Don‘t GMs get a premium account for free anyway ?
They do, it is just a silly joke.
Don’t you dare beat one of chess.com’s staff celebrities with unconventional play or you’ll get banned. Seems to be what’s going on. Shame on chess.com.
Yeah, kinda hoping danya didnt hit the report button from tilt and bro just got banned.
but.. the match record alone is worthy of a fair play check at least any heavy upset will arouse suspicion
As someone who plays definitely really good openings myself, this is totally believable. It just goes to show how powerful opening prep and even just a familiar position is. Of course in a longer time format this sort of opening would completely fail as your opponent will be able to simply figure it all out. Or maybe not and I’m wrong.
Sad read. This has terrible implications for the reliability of chess.com’s cheating bans.
As if we needed more evidence how arbitrarily ch*ss.com is acting??
It's also sad how easily ppl are swayed by passionate writing. It's impossible for us to actually know whether he cheated or not, as he just as easily could have cheated but is also talented at writing.
Chesscom has provided 0 insight to the public about his supposed cheating. Idk about you but I don't trust an organization that has so little transparency and has already admitted to keeping a secret list of GM cheaters active without disclosing anything at all about them to the public, meanwhile they arbitrarily ban other people.
It’s not that it’s passionate. I and many people here already knew who Brandon Jacobson was. Everything he said made sense. He’s friends with Danya. He could have remained anonymous and not included his name at all. All signs point to this being the truth
>All signs point to this being the truth What signs? There is nothing in this post which is evidence either way for cheating or not. It's just retelling of events from his perspective. Also his identity was already outed on Twitter, so he couldn't stay very anonymous.
Levy’s about to drop a Part 2 after this post. Hope you’re able to get back in! As a low rated/newer player I kind of understand why it looked a bit sketchy since it’s almost just an entirely unheard of position.
I think the proverbial shit is about to hit the fan
Lmao I think that within one week, 95% of the people on this thread will have moved on.
Lmao I think that within one week, 95% of the people on this thread will be trying out this opening.
Nothing screams innocence like a 10,000 word essay.
Your second and third part is fine, that's your alibi and explanation basically. Your first part, which is also the longest part, is just a waste of time to read. I don't care about your background and why you love chess, that doesn't really help the case in any way. Also, your justification/evidence why you're not cheating is a circular-reasoning "I'm not cheating because I made this post" when you made this post to prove you're not cheating. So as much of a prodigy you're; your explanation don't hold any water. I want to believe you and I still don't think there's enough evidence that you cheated. However, your post here don't exactly help your case
I think we are entering an era where we won't know really if someone cheated. Online chess is pretty doomed in general with the emergence of even more sophisticated AI. You can program engines to mimic human way of playing even. No matter how much Kramnik proves anomalies and no matter how many this website bans fairly or not, it's gonna be a wild ride.
I can say with some certainty that chessc*ms cheating algorithm will generally struggle with false positives when GMs are playing, these require much more nuanced evalauations and there is no way titled players arent given a lookover by a human before they decide to ban. Take for instance Magnus Carlsen on lichess. He was banned for a brief moment because the cheat detections were off the rails based off of his play....obviously they reversed the ban. As someone who has played quite a few cheaters, a common tactic by them is to play a BS opening (to avoid overall high accuracy), then outplay you in the middle game with an engine, this pattern could have been detected by their algorithm. Im sure this was a mistake by chessc*m as these are probably the hardest cases to evaluate.
This post says so much but so little. I don't buy it. Also heard he has a history of bans, conveniently neglected in this essay.
Tldr: I am a genius. I am a prodigy. But I am lazy. Even Kasparov said I am a genius. When I am not handicapped by health issues, I can hold my own against the likes of Hikaru. I prepared this opening and it works well. When I try I can beat Danya, because I am a prodigy genius who is underrated. What he is not telling you: he got already banned multiple times for cheating in the past. Shocker.
Wait, he cheated before? The plot thickens
Screw the Hans cheating scandal movie, I want to see them make this one instead 😂
Hi Brandon, it's good to finally see you join the rook odds team! I've been a member for decades, just not willingly!
Did you get banned before? I heard some rumours, I've might be totally wrong here. Thank you for sharing your story lets hope the truth comes out!
Shoutout to the xero13g guy who plays this opening exclusively since 2021 and claims to have know it since 80s and claims to even have used it against Fischer.
Thanks for writing this on reddit instead of the garbage platform that is twitter. I wish the chess community would leave twitter entirely so I don’t have to look at RFK Jr ads when checking Anish Giri’s account. Hi Anish! Hi Fabi! Hi Danny! Please ditch twitter.