Bonus Pod- GM Jonathan Rowson and GM David Smerdon discuss the Carlsen/Niemann Saga

Perpetual Chess is back with another bonus pod discussing the ongoing Magnus Carlsen/Hans Niemann controversy. The major news of the week was that GM Magnus Carlsen issued a statement on Monday confirming that he suspects GM Hans Niemann of cheating. To discuss the story, I am honored to be joined by 2 Grandmaster guests who offer significant domain expertise beyond the chess world. First up is GM Jonathan Rowson, a renowned author and philosopher and the 3 time Chess Champion of the UK. My conversation with Jonathan is centered around the human element of this story, and how we can hope to avoid biases in our interpretation of the information at hand. Following GM Rowson, I am joined by Dr. David Smerdon. GM Smerdon is a 7 time Chess Olympian for his native Australia, and an award winning chess author. David has worked with both Dr. Kenneth Regan and also the Chess.com cheat detection team. David’s primary field is development economics, but he has a statistical background and devotes significant time to chess-related research. As we discuss, in addition to chess cheating, David has published a paper related to gender issues in chess. I found it helpful to hear the grounded perspective of 2 of the chess world’s most insightful thinkers. As always, timestamps of topics discussed can be found below.  0:00- Intro and review of recent events: Sub to Perpetual Chess Linkfest 5:00- Perpetual Chess is brought to you in part by Chessable.com. You can check out all of their latest offerings here:  https://www.chessable.com/courses/all/new/ 6:00- GM Jonathan Rowson joins (recorded September 28) 6:00- 3 key questions to ask ourselves 19:00- Should we draw a distinction between cheating in online and OTB chess?  29:00- Are we likely to get a resolution to this case?   32:00- What are sensible anti-cheating measures?  35:00- Jonathan reflects on his recent return to OTB competitive chess  39:00- What behavioral biases should we be alert for as we evaluate the information presented?  48:00- What opinions has Jonathan hear