2024 Atomic World Championship

@jasos12 said in #39:

It's been two days, and I still haven't seen any proof of me cheating (or even any signs of it). @HowlinD showed me two of my games that were "analyzed". In my opinion, they had no signs of cheating, and @neverofzero agreed with me (I’m confident every top player would say the same). No one has asked me to explain any of my games. Tournament director @AtomicWorldChamp is not responding to me at all.

No proof of cheating exists otherwise I would already have been banned by lichess. In AWC, there is an anti-cheat panel whose members apparently agreed that I cheated, but no one knows who these members are or on which games their decision was based.

I wasn’t expecting to beat Vlad, and probably no one else expected it either. But that alone isn’t enough to justify banning me for cheating.

Here are the games @HowlinD showed me so everyone can form their own opinion (I guess he chose the most suspicious ones):

(this is just a random game more than a year old taken from my highest rated wins)

Are we gonna continue the tournament and act like nothing happened? Does this seem normal to you?

No offense, but first game has too many blunders to be cheated lol

@ReChesster said in #41:

No offense, but first game has too many blunders to be cheated lol
Jasos didn't cheat, that's clear, pls let him play the AWC

There is indeed no real evidence @jasos12 cheated during these games. @vlad_00 was in bad shape this day and both sides made mistakes. I already knew jasos before he started being among the top players, his gamestyle has always been the same, from 2021 to nowadays.
Now considering awc is an external entity, claiming he's not cheating would not change anything since beating vladislav seems enough to be guilty.
Maybe that the panel had good reasons they want to hide, and I understand people asking for details, I'm among them. Nevertheless I assume that the panel won't change it's decision. I have not seen jasos in the blacklist yet and I'm just hoping his case is different from others (Timofey, Gannet, etc ..).

Let's just wait for the end of the awc 2024 anyway.

I can assure you that this decision was not made lightly. Please do not speculate. The ban speaks for itself.

Just to clarify the rules and the system: In AWC, you don’t need a proof for a cheating ban. There’s a group of people in the anti-cheat panel, and if they all agree that someone cheated, the person gets banned. This sounds like an extremely dangerous system because the accused has no way to defend himself.

I understand it’s not my tournament, and I appreciate that someone is organizing it in their free time. If the organizers decide to ban me, there’s nothing I can do. However, if we’re going to treat the AWC as more than just a small tournament organized by a few people but as an actual world championship, then the system needs to work differently. If we want to keep this current system, here are some changes I think should be made (or should have happened in this situation):

1. Transparency is the key. We talk about a large case (I was already in the top 3 and had a chance to win the tournament) and it's also important to make other people believe the verdict (since it's a world championship). I know there could be some things you want to hide but not presenting any sign of proof and not saying who is in the panel is not the way.

2. Let's say you are in the panel, there is no proof of cheating so you aren't sure if the person is a cheater or not but you suspect him. Why don't you talk to that person first and ask for his explanation? It may or may not change your opinion but you can get so much information from that.

3. And the last thing that totally pissed me off were the games that @HowlinD sent me. To be fair I don't know if he is part of the panel but he said these games were analyzed by the panel. And you would think that these are the most suspicious ones if he sends them. But they were a total joke. In the first one Vlad even outplayed me and if he takes on a1 the game is over. It was one of my worst games in the match. The second game is just a random year old 30s game. Of course I played better games throughout the tournament. I even played some games which were just me playing prep almost start to finish. You could find my best games and claim they are suspicious just like with any top player. But sending me these two games felt like they didn't even want to act objective. He just sent me two random games. That was the only communication I had with the organizer team.

Just to clarify again, I have never cheated in my life, not in the 11 years I’ve played classical chess, nor in the 4 years I’ve been playing atomic. I really enjoyed spending my time on atomic (until wednesday) and I would have never ruined it with cheating.

I doubt this will change anything on the verdict but I invested tons of time just for training and prepping for this awc and even though the ban for cheating is a huge compliment for me, I don't feel like the invested time payed off. I certainly wasn’t expecting it to end like this, which makes it hard for me to stay silent and do nothing.

Whether you trust me or not, I think we should all agree that the steps taken by the organizators weren't accurate and there needs to be more explanation.

It should also be said that if lichess doesn’t think you are cheating , it means the person Is not cheating. you can’t simple ban a person from a major tournament who has a chance of winning due to some assumptions. At least the evidence should be displayed more openly and should be more concrete then those games.

The panel reserves the right to make whatever decision it deems valid. 100% proof is not required, merely 100% agreement from the entire panel. The panel also reserves the right not to disclose the details of its investigation. I understand this may be frustrating to hear, but this decision is final.

How is this fair for him/her them? Atleast he should be given a chance to prove himself, such as him playing a few games live with camera.