Most of Canada to receive emergency alert test today
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
The world's top-ranked chess player has accused the teenager that beat him of cheating "more – and more recently – than he has publicly admitted."
The controversy stems from a Sept. 4 match in St. Louis between Norwegian world champion Magnus Carlsen, 31, and upstart American Hans Niemann, 19. Niemann's surprise victory ended his opponent's 53-game winning streak, rocking the chess world and sparking accusations of cheating, which Niemann has denied. When the two grandmasters faced off again online on Sept. 20, Carlsen quit after just one move.
Niemann is currently ranked 49th by the International Chess Federation while Carlsen has been the reigning world champion since 2013. There is no evidence Niemann cheated in either game against Carlsen, experts say.
"It is extremely difficult to cheat in over-the-board games and tournaments," Vladimir Drkulec, president of the Chess Federation of Canada, told CTVNews.ca. "There [was] no obvious cheating in the game. Magnus just played badly; like, he played at my level as far as the number of mistakes that he made."
Drkulec, a national master, describes himself as Canada's chess cheating expert. He needs to be: the federation he leads is the game's governing body in Canada.
"Typically, people get caught, so it doesn't pay," Drkulec said. "They're going to be banned from [the International Chess Federation] probably for at least three years, but maybe for life. A top player isn't going to do that, because if he does, he loses his livelihood."
Drkulec's stance is supported by Kenneth Regan, a chess cheating expert and professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Buffalo. Following a computer analysis of the initial controversial match, as well as all of Niemann's games over the past two years, Regan found no reason to suspect the player of cheating against Carlsen.
"There's no concrete basis on which to evaluate his accusation," Regan, who consulted with the St. Louis tournament, told CTVNews.ca. "Neither I nor the tournament staff found any indication of cheating in that game, or in any combination of other games by Niemann at the tournament."
Cheating in online chess is simple – you just need to input moves into a chess program on another device.
"Computers on phones have been king since at least 2010, and this has been a major factor to worry about in tournaments," Regan said. "Deep Blue in 1997 was a supercomputer, but you no longer need so much hardware."
Deep Blue was the towering computer that famously defeated Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov.
Niemann himself has admitted to cheating online when he was 12 and 16; an admission that contributed to his recent ban from the online platform Chess.com.
"I don't want to play against people that have repeatedly cheated in the past, because I don't know what they are capable of doing in the future," Carlsen wrote in a Sept 26 statement on the scandal.
For his part, Niemann recently said, "I have never cheated in an over-the-board game."
Doing so would be far from easy in a top-level tournament, where players are closely scrutinized and prohibited from keeping electronic devices like phones on them. Some tournaments even forego spectators, search participants with handheld metal detectors, or use a 15 to 30-minute broadcast delay to ensure players don't receive outside help.
Despite the safeguards, the chess world has been rocked by cheating controversies before. Tactics have included consulting with an associate or concealed phone in the washroom; or receiving instructions with the help of a hidden camera and earpiece, through Morse code or by signals from an accomplice in the crowd. A more outlandish theory suggests Niemann could even have received messages through a vibrating sex toy remotely controlled by a co-conspirator using a device to find the best moves.
Still, cheating remains relatively uncommon for over-the-board matches. Regan estimates the cheating rate to be one in 5,000 to one in 10,000 for in-person International Chess Federation tournaments, representing about five to 10 credible cases per year. By contrast, he calculates the cheating rate for online games to be significantly higher, at one to two per cent.
"There are a lot of cheaters around," Drkulec added. "But usually they're online, and the platforms are catching them. But they're also catching some people who aren't cheaters, who just improved a lot quickly."
Drkulec says he has seen several players falsely accused of cheating after making significant progress by practicing online during the COVID-19 pandemic, when in-person tournaments stopped. Only in-person games factor into International Chess Federation rankings.
"A lot of kids were really working hard during the pandemic, and now they're upsetting the higher-rated players," Drkulec explained. "Niemann is only 19 and he was invited to the tournament for a reason, because he's had a very rapid improvement."
With files from Reuters.
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has made headlines with his recent arrival in the U.K., this time to celebrate all things Invictus. But upon the prince landing in the U.K., we have already had confirmation that King Charles III won't have time to see his youngest son during his brief visit.
An Ontario man found out that a line of credit he thought was insured actually isn't after his wife of 50 years died.
After more than a century, Boy Scouts of America is rebranding as Scouting America, another major shakeup for an organization that once proudly resisted change.
A first-of-its-kind Canadian research study is working towards a major medical breakthrough for a brain disorder, believed to be caused by repeated head injuries, that can only be detected after death.
In March, Indonesian officials and local fishermen rescued 75 people from the overturned hull of a boat off the coast of Indonesia. Until now, little was known about why the boat capsized.
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
An Ontario woman said it would have been impossible to buy a house without her mother – an anecdote that animates the fact that over 17 per cent of Canadian homeowners born in the ‘90s own their property with their parents, according to a new report.
Canadian immigrants threatened by hostile regimes are urging parliamentarians to quickly pass the 'Countering Foreign Interference Act' so they can feel safe living in their adopted home.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.