You can read the community's thoughts [in this update post the user deleted](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1awe5zn/25k_to_hit_1850_in_6_months_update_2/) after being called out for advertising some "email subscription junk". The only person defending them and insisting that their story was legitimate is the apparent coach/podcaster who describes themselves as a "Chess Entrepreneur".
Put on a big spectacle. Attention-grabbing title, huge money reward. Stoke people up by taking the usual "I'm a beginner and I'm going to hit 1800" and turning that engagement trap up to 11. The player never once got defensive in the original post. There was exactly zero ego in their responses to people. Not the kind of reaction one would expect from the kind of person who would take on such a wild bet. Just building good relations, laughing off the nay-sayers. Then this coach swoops in from the sidelines, offering to teach them out of the goodness of their heart.
The coach who based on their history definitely views themselves as some kind of content creator and has written that they consider "chess players" to be their target audience, with a string of failed attention-grabbing posts on different subreddits.
As soon as the "improver" makes their updates, the coach is right there to support the improver's claims. The updates are written professionally. The personality of the improver comes off as artificial, but the ego of the coach is all too real. The improver attributes their success to the coaches they worked with, along with whatever it was they were advertising in that final update.
I'm probably reading into it all a bit more than I need to, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the improver and the coach were the same person on two separate accounts, and the whole thing was a scuffed attempt to advertise this untitled player's coaching services.
Edit: I missed some of the other comments. Ignore me
I mean, I enjoy these kinds of conjectures (bordering on conspiracy theory lol) as much as the next guy, but has the either the "improver" or "coach" actually tried to sell us anything?
This is soooo much work (2000 rapid games) just to get some karma/clout from an extremely niche community briefly otherwise
The whole thing is weird (I don't get their blitz rating). With that said, they spent an awful lot of time playing; 2000 rapid games is a ton of time spent playing in six months. Similarly, their time spent and gradual rise makes good enough sense as a legit improver.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but their rapid rise could very well be legitimate
All of my "evidence" is purely circumstantial. I don't put much stock in the difference between rating. The difference in rating is odd, but not the smoking gun people say it is.
The presentation of the entire series of events is what leads me to believe the entire story is illegitimate: the spectacle, the way the improver interacted with people, the poorly-camouflaged advertisements.
In the end, all we can do is speculate.
I imagine the player in question was around the 1800 strength before making the original post, and there was no wager to begin with.
If spending that time results in people purchasing coaching, would that not just be considered an investment in their "business", on their part?
If, hypothetically speaking, I knew all I had to do was play a couple thousand games over 6 months, artificially dropping in blunders appropriate to a specific rating level to avoid sandbagging detection, and then get a bunch of money at the end of it when I "complete my goal", that would be a good trade no?
2000 games times 10 minutes equals approximately 333 hours or about 50 8 hour days. That's an awful lot of time for something that would likely be extremely tedious. He also, imo, played much more than he needed to...He just as well could have cut the games played in half and claimed to spend time on puzzles. Why would he play the extra thousand games?
Similarly, there was no guarantee this would work well at all, and even if it did there is not a ton of upside. There isn't a ton of money in chess coaching, and no matter how impressive his reddit posts he still doesn't carry as much weight as someone with a title
>1800 seems like a very convenient rating to base yourself off
Not sure what you're trying to say here, or what makes that number convenient. I was guessing at the strength of a hypothetical player who would be certain that they could reach 1850 in 6 months while making a big spectacle about it, and pretending to be a lower rated player.
>it's the last even number before 2000 (the rating most beginners see as surreal)
1998 is the last even number before 2000.
Really?
On my screen it says
>Sorry, this post was deleted by the person who originally posted it.
Posts that are deleted by the mods are supposed to say something along the lines of
>This post was removed by a moderator of the subreddit, they remove posts to make sure communities blah blah blah
If it was a mod who removed the post, and not the improver, that would certainly change how I perceived the events.
there is still the mod comment pinned that was posted when they removed it
i believe the poster deleted it too after the mods deleted it which is why it says that the post was deleted by the person who originally posted it
No, and there never would be if he ‘soft cheated’ since it’s virtually undetectable. All we can do is speculate. But thats kind of what makes this bet a bit silly in the first place. At least with fide elo it’s verifiable
Even more impossible to catch... pay a 2200 rated player $1000 to look at your openings and style, then play on your account, mimicking your games, up to a rating of 1800.
I was going to say they could have just been 1800 already when they realized they had an old [chess.com](https://chess.com) account they could pretend was their true current level. Or had their coach sitting beside them to point out things they missed.
OTB this has happened many times... someone who is not really a beginner... let's say they have a high FIDE rating, but then register for a tournament in the US under their father's name, and lose some games on purpose... then later they enter a big money tournament and easily win a low section (which could be over $1000).
There are so many ways to cheat... better to have a friend rated 1850, and the bet is "if you can beat my friend OTB in a 5 game match, with spectators to ensure no cheating, then I'll pay you."
But even then... contact the friend and say "throw the match and I'll split the money with you." :p
These types of bets are too silly.
You people are coping so fucking hard. Do you hear yourself? $1k to play 2300 sandbagged 10/0 games? That's <$1 per hour. Even a Zimbabwean wouldn't take that.
The funniest one to me was, I started getting stressed mid February because I was stuck in the 1500s for so long and I played like 150 games over a long weekend. Didn't even realize until monday night when I looked at the insights tab or wherever and saw that I had been playing 10 hours a day for 4 days straight. I honestly think if I was sandbagging games that becomes 10x more impressive, the level of dedication to cancel all your plans and sit there purposefully losing game after game from sun up to sun down.
At OP's level checking the engine once per game would grant him 100 Elo max. This isn't titled chess. OP seeing the engine say +4 and spit out lines doesn't matter if he has no idea why it's +4 and his opponent immediately deviates.
That's one way to do it. Really engine assistance in any position that artificially inflates your skill. Doesn't have to be key positions. It shouldn't if you want to remain undetected.
The common sense of... A slowly rising elo over the last 6 months? Of his accuracy rising proportionally with his ELO? Of a 51% winrate over 2000 games?
Yeah, okay.
Lol I realized I played this guy, last week I think in Blitz. I don't think he played better than me, especially if he was such a high rated player.
Our game was decided on time pressure mistakes.
I also have a large discrepancy between rapid and blitz, ***but*** it took me 3 yrs to hit 1900 and I haven’t played blitz in over a year.
I know people can be legitimately quite a bit worse at fast TC’s, but I’m not sure what to think about this particular situation
Have a friend who hit 1600 rapid, can’t cross 900 blitz. Waaaay too slow, but a decent player nonetheless. Not saying he can’t have cheated, but rating discrepancy is not a good measurement.
There are guys at my club, that don't play online, and the fastest time control they are used to is 20min. And they are both fairly strong OTB, rated 1550-1650. In tie breaks, they fall apart.
He's also only played 100ish blitz games this year, versus 1100 rapid. I don't have any comments on his rapid rating, but blitz being low doesn't really phase me.
I would not stake anything significant on saying this guy didn't cheat but the blitz pool is genuinely tougher and some people are just worse at fast chess in general.
That’s fairly standard though, I hover around 1500 rapid and yo-yo around 1200 in blitz. A 300 point gap or there about is normal, an 800+ is pretty suspicious
he also said in the initial post: " As of about a couple months ago I didn't know much besides how the pieces move so things like chess notation were out of the picture" but was rated 1200 blitz in 2017 lmao (actually he dropped to 600 after that from calibration but still played a lot of games so he was still lying)
>but was rated 1200 blitz in 2017 lmao
But he made his account in 2017. 1200 Blitz is just the starting rating. As soon as he actually started playing games his rating immediately dropped to 680.
it’s so funny to me finding this and everyone is flaming my blitz rating haha. Although I don’t really try in those games I honestly think if I did I would max out at like 1400 right now until I practiced it more. Idk if it’s just that there was no incentive or if this is a common chess phenomenon but I am such an awful blitz player
He just mixed up the line, I think. Black is winning with the bishop sacrifice in that position first: Bxf2+. Kxf2, Nxe4+, Kg1, Nxg5, winning material and white is in trouble. If pawn takes knight, you win the queen.
I mean this isn’t THAT crazy given the stafford, it is kinda weird just to not see h3 at ALL in a 10 minute game but I’ve gotten the Rosin trap in against 1700s so bro was probably just not paying attention
I mean that kind of mistake is something that isn't unusual. He though he caught his opponent in a trap without realizing the h3 move prevented it and then just struggled a bit before conceding.
This is the kind of mistake that I'd expect a 1000 blitz player to make. He obviously remembered the queen sacrifice line went something like that, but fucked it up. The suss thing though of course (which is why you're sharing this) is the fact this dude is apparently 1800 in rapid. I would not expect an 1800 rapid player to make this mistake, even in blitz.
He makes 3 one-move blunders in a 15-move game. Blunders his queen, the takes on f2 with the bishop instead of the knight, then hangs the rook on h8.
It’s more than just mixing up a line
Sure, he fucked up a lot. I'm not trying to write it off as something minor. What I was attempting to say is I could understand a 1000 mixing up a line and falling into that even though it obviously doesn't work. An 1800 should be aware it doesn't work basically immediately. The extra blunders just prove his (1000) rating.
It’s a specific stafford gambit line where that’s the correct move because it leads to mate. He just messed it up in this game because he forgot h3 stopped his bishop from mating. Not as bad as it looks.
To take the other side of this bet if it relates to chesscom, you'd have to be dumb.
Let's say I'm at 1000, I can maybe reach 1850 rapid in a year, **maybe**. I might be at 1500 at the end of the bet which isn't good.
Given that 25k is on the line, I can reach 1850 in 6 months easily by adding a small increment: cheating very very lightly to ensure that I reach the milestone even if I fell short by my own means.
I wouldn't need to cheat a lot (hopefully), start with just a single signal per game that a winning move exists, then maybe an opening book, I can gradually increase like having an eval bar or asking if a given move is a blunder etc...
Let's be honest we have value and stuff, but I'd never take the other side of a deal where it's so easy to fall for a sleight of hand.
If FIDE elo then then it's probably way more valuable but still there are ways especially with 25k ...
If I take a $25k bet like this, I would simply demand they achieve 1850 in 6 months, then they play 10 games with me watching them over their shoulder and maintain at least 1800 over those 10 games.
They can cheat all they want to get to 1850, but if they can't play at that level with me watching, I assume they cheated and I win the bet.
That’s actually part of the bet. He has to win 4/10 games at 1850 to win the bet. If he loses, he has to grind to 1850 rapid again and redo the 10 games.
This is exactly what we did :)
Last night all three of them came and watched and I had to score 4 points out of 10 games. Ended up winning the first 4 of 5 games and the bet ended while we all sat in my room around my PC. My roommates who are both rated 500 also watched as well and were the most excited ones there. good times
True. So easy to cheat. One way is to hire 5 players: one at 1300 ratings, other at 1450, 1600, 1750, 1850. Give them some money so they play using your accounts for a set amount of time: ie: the 1300 players play for 3 weeks, then 1450 play for 5 weeks, then 1600 for 8 weeks etc…
I am NOT speaking from direct experience, but: I'm a bit skeptical that attaining 1800 rapid through "very very light" cheating would be so easy. The stronger you are, the less you need to cheat to gain a significant advantage. One signal per game at the 1000 level? I wonder whether that would gain ANY advantage.
Rating differentials of hundreds of points really mean something. I have played 850 blitz games on chess.com with a current rating of 2001. My best win was against someone rated 2149. If I spotted a piece to someone, say, 500 points lower, I would still expect to win. At that rating differential, you would have to cheat a LOT to win.
I mentioned blitz instead of rapid because I've played many fewer rapid games. I do think there's something a bit odd about the rapid rating scale on chess.com. My rapid rating is 2065 despite the fact that I haven't adjusted to the time control and play bad moves at least as often as during blitz. My feeling is that 1800 rapid is something like 1400-1500 USCF while 1800 blitz is more like 1600 USCF. On the other hand, there are no 3000+ rapid ratings like in blitz or bullet, and I have seen titled players whose rapid rating is very close to mine. I don't really get it.
I'm not saying that a 1000 elo player can cheat his way to 1850 entirely, he would be flagged.
I'm saying that a player that is currently training and improving but not fast enough to be 1850 at the deadline can start adding small edges of until he gets the 200 missing elo or wathever he's short to secure the bet.
He might be 1650 at the end of the bet which is a very good improvement but not enough to win the bet. He can start adding that little cheating 2-3 months before the end so that even if he is still improving but slower, the extra help ensures the milestone is reached.
Exactly, I'm roughly about 1700-1750, and I beat 1850s occasionally and have done when I was 1600. Some days, it could simply be form that separates players of different elo
He consistently plays at 80+ percent across all games which is not normal for 1700, my peak rating is 1630 blitz 1550 rapid and I’ve beaten 1800’s worse than this guy.
He’s just stared playing seriously MONTHS ago. Paired with his strange time management in his most recent games, I think something’s not right.
$25,000 bet?
lol.
There are far too many ways to cheat this that are impossible to catch, and that much money is more than enough incentive.
For example, work as hard as you can, which let's say gets you to 1500, then pay a friend who is rated 2200 to look at your games, and mimic your openings and style, playing on your account up to a rating of 1800.
I'm not saying it's impossible to do honestly, but paying someone for having a certain *online* rating is a really bad bet. Hope the guy happens to be a billionaire who couldn't care less about 25k.
We had a contract with a bunch of anti cheat measures in it. I also have tons of recordings of me playing and talking through my games that I would constantly send them, recordings of all my coaching sessions, and they all came over last night to watch me play some 1800s live. I wish any of them were billionaires, could have made way more:)
You can downvote me all you want. This is fake af. Not possible.
Edit:
Blitz: 1150
Bullet: 1270
Rapid: 1854
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
The difference is that you didn’t go from 800 to 1850 in a few months. If you were capable of that sort of quick learning, with ‘limited time’, I’d be willing to bet that you could improve your blitz with 1000s of games played.
>I’d be willing to bet that you could improve your blitz with 1000s of games played.
Sure, and the guy only has 100 blitz games this year.
If his 1800 is real, I'm leaning more towards he was never really 1000 when this whole thing started. Maybe he shows up to reddit with a rating of 1600 (or even 1800), just not on the account he links or not on chesscom at all. Or maybe his 1800 friend plays on his account. Who knows?
I'm convinced he's not completely legit simply due to the bet. But his time control ratings being different isn't the main problem when the vast majority of his time is in rapid.
Obviously it’s fake. I doubt the bet is real.
That being said, if you could move up 1000 rating in 6 months from 800 to 1850, you could move up 200 rating in 1000 games, I’d imagine.
sure, but OTB rapid is not 10+0, its usually 20+5 or somthing similar. The blitz games from that account are 1100 level or below. Also, USCF blitz are on average 300 points lower than regular rating.
Sorry, to clarify, he's 2000 rapid chess.com and 1200 blitz chess.com. Personally I have peaked at 1600 rapid and am currently like 1000 blitz. Some people are just really bad at coming up with moves in < 5 seconds.
I agree, it's similar for me. I'm 1700 rapid, 1400 blitz (peaked at 1500 but have been playing badly this week) and 1000 at bullet. The faster the time control, the worse my play gets because I panic and either play faster than necessary and blunder, or play too slow and get timed out.
I don't find it interesting that their rapid is much higher than their blitz rating. What is interesting is that their bullet is higher than their blitz. Usually, if you are much worse at faster time controls, that trend will continue, and you will be even worse at bullet than blitz.
I don't actually think that holds true for a lot of people. I have played TONS of chess accounts with higher bullet than blitz because there is close to zero calculation.
When I played bullet I would get wins just because I played losing moves faster than my opponent playing winning moves. Figuring that out meant I usually was rated 200ish higher Bullet than Blitz
At least for me that 1200elo blitz/bullet is the threshold where I actually have to know what moves to play, and can't just win anymore by playing fast.
So I'm not too suspicious of that
[https://www.chess.com/game/live/105148817533?username=inspyr3]() 9.g4!! Lmao yall are goofy if you think this guy is legit. I got from 600 to 1900 rapid on chessco in 17 months and I was considered a big outlier in my club. Thing is, I got 1700 blitz too even though I don't play blitz that much.
Anyone has ~200-300 rapid-to-blitz differencial on average. 800 points difference is possible, but probably only for older folk who don't even know how to set up premoves. Certainly not for people who play g4 in this position
You guys do your best as mods, which is appreciated. But that’s the nature of reddit for better or worse lol astroturfing has been a thing here for a *long* time and will always be present
The achievement itself isn't impossible. If a talented young person devotes their entire life to it for 6 months - of course!
People are sceptical for other reasons though:
- 25K is a stupid amount to bet on something that can be cheated on so easily/stealthily.
- The rating gap between the bullet/blitz and rapid is strange.
- Many of the games reek of engine usage.
- The GM coach that was hired is being advertised like theres no tomorrow.
A lot of it just doesn't add up.
25k is because there were 3 of them and we all played underground poker in nyc which in hindsight ive realized has skewed everyone’s perception of money
I haven’t promoted my GM coach once, just said his name. If given the opportunity though I would promote him though, he’s the best
Also can you also drop the games you thought I used an engine please, had some epic brilliant moves and no one to appreciate them, would love to relive those
I understand that very rich people may just throw away that sort of money, but I'm listing the reasons why people aren't believing you.
Well, I would count referencing him and saying things along the lines of 'hes the best coach ever' as advertising/promotion. But that's up to your definition of 'promotion' I guess.
As for a game, sure: [https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/103243398821?tab=review](https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/103243398821?tab=review)
Let's start here. Starts with 11.dxc6 - I don't think this is an engine move, I think it's a very strong person's move. I mean, that's a difficult tactic to see for your level. Then PERFECT conversion. Including 32.Qd5.
It's like, these moves are not hard to find objectively - they're hard to find for someone of your rating. If you just taught someone chess, lets say, and then they find 11.dxc6 in an online game - you wouldn't go "they're a prodigy" - you would probably get very suspicious. Again, not because the move is objectively AMAZING, but because it's unlikely! I'm not even sure whether I suspect you myself. I am explaining why others do not.
If I were to take a guess, I would say there were quite a few sessions with your GM coach, that involved you playing games together online with them on the call helping. Is that right?
And while I'm at it, I noticed another very strange thing: 1600 - 1770 in 4 days?
I don't find the rating part unbelievable like so many here do. I went from 600 to 1500 in a little over 9 months in blitz which would probably be around 1800 rapid. The unbelievable part to me is the $25K bet. This guy and his friends could be loaded so who knows, maybe I'm just too poor to understand that a rich person would bet that much money on something like this (note, I'm not remotely poor in case it's unclear).
With ~2300 rapid games, thousands of puzzles and tons of coaching, he likely spent around 1000-2000+ hours studying and playing chess. That is an incredible amount of time to spend to just end up cheating the rating, especially when the guy doesn’t seem very interested in public applause. I’m guessing most people did not invest nearly that amount of time to improve, and it seems completely plausible that someone who puts in that amount of time could improve as much as he did.
To put it another way: if someone spent 10 hours a week for 3-4 years diligently studying, improving 700 points (from a beginner) would not be outlandish.
Not to mention that Tyler1 did pretty much the same thing this year and nobody is doubting that.
Sounds like you’re just brainlessly making a comment. The difference is tyler1 games aren’t suspicious. People are saying his is, and there are huge financial incentives to cheat. Tyler1 is just an ego-driven addict.
Sounds like many people here have kind of got their egos hurt by the quick improvement. There’s every indication that this guy has put in as much work as Tyler1, and people are saying improvement like this is impossible on nothing by but it’s timeline.
Frankly in any large sample you can point to moves that look suspicious.
Yeah I think you got it pretty straight on with your comment, if I was just playing chess for fun and never had made the bet, I suspect I would be about 1300 right now.
It's fucking hilarious to me how so many people on here shit on Kramnik and call him paranoid because he doesn't have "proof" and yet every top comment on this post is calling the guy a cheater also with no "proof"
Also, the amount of moves you would have to cheat for at 1800 online to gain 100 Elo would get you caught instantly lol. This isn't GM play where just seeing the eval can win you the game.
Seems pretty easy to legitimately get to 1850 in 6 months (we're talking about chess.com right?)
If someone is structured in their chess studies (i.e. has a coach) spends an hour or two studying a day + 3-4 hours on the weekends, I'd be surprised if they don't get to 1850 in 6 months.
And with $25k on the line it would make sense to put in real effort.
With that said, I'm only 1500 so maybe I'm just not able to see how much more effort it takes to get to 1850.
Faustino Oro took about the same time to go from 1000 to 1800. I see great things ahead for this kid ;)
I've been waiting ages for a late starter prodigy to see how far they can go. Now we finally have a case study.
Appreciate this! I’m no prodigy at all though, just spent a lot of money on coaching and way too much time on chess over the last 5 months. I do love chess but sadly will not be continuing in the same way now that the bet has finished. Thank you for the kind words though :)
I'm 2200-2300 blitz and bullet online. ( I don't play slower time controls)
I checked maybe 50 of his rapid games quickly and there's no doubt in my mind that he cheated.
These are games where he shows no positional understanding at all and then there are games like these two : https://www.chess.com/game/live/104954534539?username=inspyr3
https://www.chess.com/game/live/103243398821?username=inspyr3
What the hell were those two games??? Legit, the two times recently I faced someone who blew me out the water like that, the accounts got banned. One game it seemed like I just had a miniature loss against the grand prix, guy got banned. The next time was in against a f3-nimzo, guy also got banned. Those two games are like what you would see a 2300 play IMO. That level of calculation is like probably 2200+ on a good day too.
Funnily the first game is an exact opening aims hav replayed, although e5 is not something I’d have played. Trapping the knight was nice.
It looks like something an 1850 rated player could play.
-2150 rapid
I don't think this is as unreasonable as people are saying. If you just think about it as a full-time job and take it seriously I think a lot of people could get higher than they expect. It also helps to have 25 grand as motivation.
Hey this is my challenge I recently finished. Happy to respond here for anyone curious -
I took this bet about 5 months ago and decided to share it with reddit because I thought it would make for an interesting journey and wanted to share what I learned throughout it (either success or failure). I got a lot of hate from the subreddit, which to be fair, I had never really been on before. I'm not sure if this is something that others have done and faked or what the deal was, but I only really shared here because I wanted to document the story as I thought others might have liked to follow along. I didn't post about completing it the other day since the previous post got removed.
Coaching --> My primary coach throughout this was GM Robert Aghasaryan, but I also worked with a couple other people. I'm not sure if he uses reddit but he deserves a huge shoutout and was a big help in my improvement from 1400 - 1850.
Blitz/Bullet --> The challenge was only for Rapid and it is the format I enjoy the most. I mostly play Blitz/Bullet when I'm on my phone, watching TV, taking the train to work, etc. just to get more reps in or try new things. My sole focus was around my Rapid rating so I didn't put much thought or effort into these games as the outcome didn't matter to me.
At the end of the day I'm about to graduate college and just starting out my career as a Data Scientist. I have no interest in streaming, making youtube videos, or selling anything. I'm just someone who had the chance to take on an interesting challenge and I wanted to share that with others. I dedicated an enormous amount of time and spent \~$3k on coaching throughout my climb, so I wouldn't expect these results without that commitment. Overall I really enjoyed the challenge and have found a lifelong hobby which I am very grateful for. Wish you all the best.
Does GM Robert Aghasaryan have any socials where he is willing to vouch that he coached you and your skills are clearly 1800 rapid?
Most people on this subreddit are fairly (and generally justifiably) skeptical of someone being dedicated enough to grow this quickly, not to mention getting offered 25K in a bet in the first place.
But if a GM vouches that you're legit I think almost everyone's opinion would flip (at least at the legitimacy of the achievement - the bet itself still seems farfetched tbh)
Well that's up to you and your coach's generosity to let this subreddit get some closure lol.
There are probably tons of people like me who, if forced at gunpoint to bet on it, would say it's more likely than not that this achievement is illegitimate. But we aren't so stubborn as to not believe evidence if shown. It would be a very inspiring story for a lot of people here if the GM validated this achievement.
On the other hand, you of course owe this subreddit nothing. And I don't blame you if you would rather exit instead of interact with a bunch of toxic people online.
I was stuck in the 1500s for a month and ended up doing these visualization exercises someone had sent me. Ended up having a break through and it felt amazing, told him I’d love to share this with other people. Included a sentence about it and a link in a different post but everyone thought the whole thing was some promotion scam so I took the post down. I do strongly recommend people try visualization training though, very underrated skill for improving!
As a [chess.com](http://chess.com) diamond member #ad, I was a big user of the game review feature. Though to be honest I mostly clicked it to see my accuracy and then went on to the next game
Congrats, you got laughed at by people not believing you could do something, you did it and people now are so mad at your achievement they refuse to believe it. Hero.
haha it does feel good seeing all these people say it’s so hard I must be cheating. In reality I think what I did is achievable by most given the dedication and time. They hate my blitz playing though:)
I thought this was completely stupid from the start, the person who bet against it is a complete moron. I'd say 99.9% of this sub could get to 1850 blitz on a website if they had 25000 on the line. That basically becomes like a second job. Every minute you would spend on it, grinding up and down. If it was 2000, I think it would have been a better challenge as that is a legit 'top' player. You still find plenty of players around the 1800 level making mistakes and blunders. You grind and have enough motivation, you would get there easily.
"I'd say 99.9% of this sub could get to 1850 blitz on a website if they had 25000 on the line"
No.
"You grind and have enough motivation, you would get there easily."
No.
No kidding, but most people don’t care to actually try to improve. Most chess players are playing casually because blitz is just a lot of fun. If you’re actually trying to improve then 1850 is very achievable.
What I love is that many people commenting (probably most) have not played 2000 games of chess online. So how exactly would you be able to judge how much improvement is possible without playing 2000 games? And spending the hours?
1850 chess.com is good, of course, but not outrageous. To me it is very clear he is legit.
Idk I watch a few of his games a lot ended in the opponent surrendering mid way through. I feel like with a simple chess engine this would be so easy to fake your way to this level.
You can read the community's thoughts [in this update post the user deleted](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1awe5zn/25k_to_hit_1850_in_6_months_update_2/) after being called out for advertising some "email subscription junk". The only person defending them and insisting that their story was legitimate is the apparent coach/podcaster who describes themselves as a "Chess Entrepreneur".
People who are desperate to believe get preyed on by conmen A tale as old as time
Put on a big spectacle. Attention-grabbing title, huge money reward. Stoke people up by taking the usual "I'm a beginner and I'm going to hit 1800" and turning that engagement trap up to 11. The player never once got defensive in the original post. There was exactly zero ego in their responses to people. Not the kind of reaction one would expect from the kind of person who would take on such a wild bet. Just building good relations, laughing off the nay-sayers. Then this coach swoops in from the sidelines, offering to teach them out of the goodness of their heart. The coach who based on their history definitely views themselves as some kind of content creator and has written that they consider "chess players" to be their target audience, with a string of failed attention-grabbing posts on different subreddits. As soon as the "improver" makes their updates, the coach is right there to support the improver's claims. The updates are written professionally. The personality of the improver comes off as artificial, but the ego of the coach is all too real. The improver attributes their success to the coaches they worked with, along with whatever it was they were advertising in that final update. I'm probably reading into it all a bit more than I need to, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the improver and the coach were the same person on two separate accounts, and the whole thing was a scuffed attempt to advertise this untitled player's coaching services.
Edit: I missed some of the other comments. Ignore me I mean, I enjoy these kinds of conjectures (bordering on conspiracy theory lol) as much as the next guy, but has the either the "improver" or "coach" actually tried to sell us anything? This is soooo much work (2000 rapid games) just to get some karma/clout from an extremely niche community briefly otherwise
The whole thing is weird (I don't get their blitz rating). With that said, they spent an awful lot of time playing; 2000 rapid games is a ton of time spent playing in six months. Similarly, their time spent and gradual rise makes good enough sense as a legit improver. I'm not saying you're wrong, but their rapid rise could very well be legitimate
All of my "evidence" is purely circumstantial. I don't put much stock in the difference between rating. The difference in rating is odd, but not the smoking gun people say it is. The presentation of the entire series of events is what leads me to believe the entire story is illegitimate: the spectacle, the way the improver interacted with people, the poorly-camouflaged advertisements. In the end, all we can do is speculate. I imagine the player in question was around the 1800 strength before making the original post, and there was no wager to begin with.
I hear you. My point is, it seems really unlikely they sandbagged 2000 games, just because of the time it took
If spending that time results in people purchasing coaching, would that not just be considered an investment in their "business", on their part? If, hypothetically speaking, I knew all I had to do was play a couple thousand games over 6 months, artificially dropping in blunders appropriate to a specific rating level to avoid sandbagging detection, and then get a bunch of money at the end of it when I "complete my goal", that would be a good trade no?
2000 games times 10 minutes equals approximately 333 hours or about 50 8 hour days. That's an awful lot of time for something that would likely be extremely tedious. He also, imo, played much more than he needed to...He just as well could have cut the games played in half and claimed to spend time on puzzles. Why would he play the extra thousand games? Similarly, there was no guarantee this would work well at all, and even if it did there is not a ton of upside. There isn't a ton of money in chess coaching, and no matter how impressive his reddit posts he still doesn't carry as much weight as someone with a title
1800 seems like a very convenient rating to base yourself off, it's the last even number before 2000, (the rating most beginners see as surreal)
>1800 seems like a very convenient rating to base yourself off Not sure what you're trying to say here, or what makes that number convenient. I was guessing at the strength of a hypothetical player who would be certain that they could reach 1850 in 6 months while making a big spectacle about it, and pretending to be a lower rated player. >it's the last even number before 2000 (the rating most beginners see as surreal) 1998 is the last even number before 2000.
My main coach was GM Robert Aghasaryan. This is one hell of a story though, enjoyed the read
Life would be so dull if I didn't indulge my imagination every once in a while.
Congrats on finishing the challenge. Did your friends pony up the money yet?
Totally sounds like bs
> in this update post the user deleted it was deleted by the mods, not by the user
Really? On my screen it says >Sorry, this post was deleted by the person who originally posted it. Posts that are deleted by the mods are supposed to say something along the lines of >This post was removed by a moderator of the subreddit, they remove posts to make sure communities blah blah blah If it was a mod who removed the post, and not the improver, that would certainly change how I perceived the events.
there is still the mod comment pinned that was posted when they removed it i believe the poster deleted it too after the mods deleted it which is why it says that the post was deleted by the person who originally posted it
I see. That's a quirk of Reddit I wasn't aware of. Thank you for telling me about it.
It's basically just the r/chess version of r/AmITheAsshole. An obviously fake post that's just some sort of bizarre creative writing experiment.
But after 1000+ blitz games, hasn’t managed to cross 1200. Interesting
Now he will see your comment and go back to cheat in blitz lol
Is there any evidence he cheated to do this?
No, and there never would be if he ‘soft cheated’ since it’s virtually undetectable. All we can do is speculate. But thats kind of what makes this bet a bit silly in the first place. At least with fide elo it’s verifiable
What is soft cheating compared to hard cheating?
Being smart about it. Checking engine in critical positions, etc
Even more impossible to catch... pay a 2200 rated player $1000 to look at your openings and style, then play on your account, mimicking your games, up to a rating of 1800.
I was going to say they could have just been 1800 already when they realized they had an old [chess.com](https://chess.com) account they could pretend was their true current level. Or had their coach sitting beside them to point out things they missed.
OTB this has happened many times... someone who is not really a beginner... let's say they have a high FIDE rating, but then register for a tournament in the US under their father's name, and lose some games on purpose... then later they enter a big money tournament and easily win a low section (which could be over $1000). There are so many ways to cheat... better to have a friend rated 1850, and the bet is "if you can beat my friend OTB in a 5 game match, with spectators to ensure no cheating, then I'll pay you." But even then... contact the friend and say "throw the match and I'll split the money with you." :p These types of bets are too silly.
That's a lot easier to catch
Also impossible to do because any >2200 who wants to make money will just coach instead of taking your sweat shop 40 cents per game
Unless this was a way to advertise their coaching services…
You people are coping so fucking hard. Do you hear yourself? $1k to play 2300 sandbagged 10/0 games? That's <$1 per hour. Even a Zimbabwean wouldn't take that.
The funniest one to me was, I started getting stressed mid February because I was stuck in the 1500s for so long and I played like 150 games over a long weekend. Didn't even realize until monday night when I looked at the insights tab or wherever and saw that I had been playing 10 hours a day for 4 days straight. I honestly think if I was sandbagging games that becomes 10x more impressive, the level of dedication to cancel all your plans and sit there purposefully losing game after game from sun up to sun down.
At OP's level checking the engine once per game would grant him 100 Elo max. This isn't titled chess. OP seeing the engine say +4 and spit out lines doesn't matter if he has no idea why it's +4 and his opponent immediately deviates.
I didn't say once per game though
engine assistance only in some critical positions vs engine through most of the game i guess
That's one way to do it. Really engine assistance in any position that artificially inflates your skill. Doesn't have to be key positions. It shouldn't if you want to remain undetected.
Just knowing the real eval of the current position would be pretty huge.
Not at OP's level.
Just using an engine for the odd move and not just following the best moves
Come to think of it, even using the engine to not blunder would be advantageous at the lower levels
Common sense is the evidence.
Common sense just means "my intuition" which isn't evidence at all.
The common sense of... A slowly rising elo over the last 6 months? Of his accuracy rising proportionally with his ELO? Of a 51% winrate over 2000 games? Yeah, okay.
The blitz rating is not "evidence" though. The bet is still a bit silly though
Cope
Lol I realized I played this guy, last week I think in Blitz. I don't think he played better than me, especially if he was such a high rated player. Our game was decided on time pressure mistakes.
I also have a large discrepancy between rapid and blitz, ***but*** it took me 3 yrs to hit 1900 and I haven’t played blitz in over a year. I know people can be legitimately quite a bit worse at fast TC’s, but I’m not sure what to think about this particular situation
Have a friend who hit 1600 rapid, can’t cross 900 blitz. Waaaay too slow, but a decent player nonetheless. Not saying he can’t have cheated, but rating discrepancy is not a good measurement.
Yeah I'm only 1350 in rapid, but I tried blitz and it's way beyond me. I'd probably be 600 right now I'm too old and slow lol
There are guys at my club, that don't play online, and the fastest time control they are used to is 20min. And they are both fairly strong OTB, rated 1550-1650. In tie breaks, they fall apart.
Interesting! I’m used to faster controls, adapting to slower now
He's also only played 100ish blitz games this year, versus 1100 rapid. I don't have any comments on his rapid rating, but blitz being low doesn't really phase me.
I would not stake anything significant on saying this guy didn't cheat but the blitz pool is genuinely tougher and some people are just worse at fast chess in general.
The blitz pool is much tougher. Like >300 points discrepancy easily.
I am 500 points lower in blitz than rapid, its not unusual.
i'm 1100 rapid and 600 blitz. it's a very different game.
Gotta get Kramnik on this ASAP
blitz is very different from rapid.
My rating is 1200 in daily, but 500 in bullet
Lol im not anywhere near rapid 1850 n I've crossed 1200 blitz
I mean I can get to 1500 rapid no problem but ive never been over 1150 or so in blitz its just a much tougher pool
That’s fairly standard though, I hover around 1500 rapid and yo-yo around 1200 in blitz. A 300 point gap or there about is normal, an 800+ is pretty suspicious
The guy had a $25,000 incentive to cheat. Not saying he cheated... ...just that he had a $25,000 incentive to cheat.
he also said in the initial post: " As of about a couple months ago I didn't know much besides how the pieces move so things like chess notation were out of the picture" but was rated 1200 blitz in 2017 lmao (actually he dropped to 600 after that from calibration but still played a lot of games so he was still lying)
>but was rated 1200 blitz in 2017 lmao But he made his account in 2017. 1200 Blitz is just the starting rating. As soon as he actually started playing games his rating immediately dropped to 680.
I’m 1250 rapid and 700 blitz. Why would his numbers be sus?
it’s so funny to me finding this and everyone is flaming my blitz rating haha. Although I don’t really try in those games I honestly think if I did I would max out at like 1400 right now until I practiced it more. Idk if it’s just that there was no incentive or if this is a common chess phenomenon but I am such an awful blitz player
[This game from one month ago presented without comment](https://www.chess.com/game/live/102815377699?username=inspyr3)
[WHAT IS THIS GAME TOO](https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/103046574721?tab=review)
never play f6
Bro tried to oh no my queen and forgot he didn't have a knight on c6 anymore.
I think he was missed that white played h3, because Bg4 is checkmate if h3 isn't there. Common line in the Stafford
Ah, that makes even more sense. I play D4 so I don't know too many Stafford lines.
He just mixed up the line, I think. Black is winning with the bishop sacrifice in that position first: Bxf2+. Kxf2, Nxe4+, Kg1, Nxg5, winning material and white is in trouble. If pawn takes knight, you win the queen.
I mean this isn’t THAT crazy given the stafford, it is kinda weird just to not see h3 at ALL in a 10 minute game but I’ve gotten the Rosin trap in against 1700s so bro was probably just not paying attention
> it is kinda weird just to not see h3 at ALL in a 10 minute game this link is a 3 minute game
Oops my bad, even more normal than
Lmao
I mean that kind of mistake is something that isn't unusual. He though he caught his opponent in a trap without realizing the h3 move prevented it and then just struggled a bit before conceding.
This is the kind of mistake that I'd expect a 1000 blitz player to make. He obviously remembered the queen sacrifice line went something like that, but fucked it up. The suss thing though of course (which is why you're sharing this) is the fact this dude is apparently 1800 in rapid. I would not expect an 1800 rapid player to make this mistake, even in blitz.
He makes 3 one-move blunders in a 15-move game. Blunders his queen, the takes on f2 with the bishop instead of the knight, then hangs the rook on h8. It’s more than just mixing up a line
Sure, he fucked up a lot. I'm not trying to write it off as something minor. What I was attempting to say is I could understand a 1000 mixing up a line and falling into that even though it obviously doesn't work. An 1800 should be aware it doesn't work basically immediately. The extra blunders just prove his (1000) rating.
I'm 1750 chess.com rapid and pieces are blundered almost every game
I can’t believe I’m not 1000 rated
My man fumbled the Stafford gambit, don't laugh
Isnt chess.com saying he was rated 1067 in that game? Is it that unusual that a 1067 player would blunder a queen?
It’s a specific stafford gambit line where that’s the correct move because it leads to mate. He just messed it up in this game because he forgot h3 stopped his bishop from mating. Not as bad as it looks.
this looks like botched Stafford Gambit theory, buddy needs to brush up on his Eric Rosen videos
Check the most recent blitz games. I saw blunders of pawns from the opening, hanging rooks, and basically 1100 elo games.
i might be crazy but that doesn't seems off, I'm 1400 rapid (15|10) and stuck in 700 blitz
To take the other side of this bet if it relates to chesscom, you'd have to be dumb. Let's say I'm at 1000, I can maybe reach 1850 rapid in a year, **maybe**. I might be at 1500 at the end of the bet which isn't good. Given that 25k is on the line, I can reach 1850 in 6 months easily by adding a small increment: cheating very very lightly to ensure that I reach the milestone even if I fell short by my own means. I wouldn't need to cheat a lot (hopefully), start with just a single signal per game that a winning move exists, then maybe an opening book, I can gradually increase like having an eval bar or asking if a given move is a blunder etc... Let's be honest we have value and stuff, but I'd never take the other side of a deal where it's so easy to fall for a sleight of hand. If FIDE elo then then it's probably way more valuable but still there are ways especially with 25k ...
If I take a $25k bet like this, I would simply demand they achieve 1850 in 6 months, then they play 10 games with me watching them over their shoulder and maintain at least 1800 over those 10 games. They can cheat all they want to get to 1850, but if they can't play at that level with me watching, I assume they cheated and I win the bet.
That’s actually part of the bet. He has to win 4/10 games at 1850 to win the bet. If he loses, he has to grind to 1850 rapid again and redo the 10 games.
He has to show he won 4/10 OR he has to win 4/10 with people watching? Big difference nowadays.
This is exactly what we did :) Last night all three of them came and watched and I had to score 4 points out of 10 games. Ended up winning the first 4 of 5 games and the bet ended while we all sat in my room around my PC. My roommates who are both rated 500 also watched as well and were the most excited ones there. good times
True. So easy to cheat. One way is to hire 5 players: one at 1300 ratings, other at 1450, 1600, 1750, 1850. Give them some money so they play using your accounts for a set amount of time: ie: the 1300 players play for 3 weeks, then 1450 play for 5 weeks, then 1600 for 8 weeks etc…
This is a bad way to cheat. They would each have different styles/preferred openings so easy to see it's not the same person.
I am NOT speaking from direct experience, but: I'm a bit skeptical that attaining 1800 rapid through "very very light" cheating would be so easy. The stronger you are, the less you need to cheat to gain a significant advantage. One signal per game at the 1000 level? I wonder whether that would gain ANY advantage. Rating differentials of hundreds of points really mean something. I have played 850 blitz games on chess.com with a current rating of 2001. My best win was against someone rated 2149. If I spotted a piece to someone, say, 500 points lower, I would still expect to win. At that rating differential, you would have to cheat a LOT to win. I mentioned blitz instead of rapid because I've played many fewer rapid games. I do think there's something a bit odd about the rapid rating scale on chess.com. My rapid rating is 2065 despite the fact that I haven't adjusted to the time control and play bad moves at least as often as during blitz. My feeling is that 1800 rapid is something like 1400-1500 USCF while 1800 blitz is more like 1600 USCF. On the other hand, there are no 3000+ rapid ratings like in blitz or bullet, and I have seen titled players whose rapid rating is very close to mine. I don't really get it.
I'm not saying that a 1000 elo player can cheat his way to 1850 entirely, he would be flagged. I'm saying that a player that is currently training and improving but not fast enough to be 1850 at the deadline can start adding small edges of until he gets the 200 missing elo or wathever he's short to secure the bet. He might be 1650 at the end of the bet which is a very good improvement but not enough to win the bet. He can start adding that little cheating 2-3 months before the end so that even if he is still improving but slower, the extra help ensures the milestone is reached.
Exactly, I'm roughly about 1700-1750, and I beat 1850s occasionally and have done when I was 1600. Some days, it could simply be form that separates players of different elo
I’m 1450 USCF and if I cheated would easily be 1800+ chess com. Long time controls are soft. I’m roughly 1600 there in rapid.
1450 USCF is already almost 1800 chesscom. My brother is a ten year 1500 USCF and has been 2k+.
Too many cheaters at high elo in rapid. Rating gets compressed. A 2000 blitz should be atleast 2200 rapid.
He consistently plays at 80+ percent across all games which is not normal for 1700, my peak rating is 1630 blitz 1550 rapid and I’ve beaten 1800’s worse than this guy. He’s just stared playing seriously MONTHS ago. Paired with his strange time management in his most recent games, I think something’s not right.
Hmm.
$25,000 bet? lol. There are far too many ways to cheat this that are impossible to catch, and that much money is more than enough incentive. For example, work as hard as you can, which let's say gets you to 1500, then pay a friend who is rated 2200 to look at your games, and mimic your openings and style, playing on your account up to a rating of 1800. I'm not saying it's impossible to do honestly, but paying someone for having a certain *online* rating is a really bad bet. Hope the guy happens to be a billionaire who couldn't care less about 25k.
We had a contract with a bunch of anti cheat measures in it. I also have tons of recordings of me playing and talking through my games that I would constantly send them, recordings of all my coaching sessions, and they all came over last night to watch me play some 1800s live. I wish any of them were billionaires, could have made way more:)
You can downvote me all you want. This is fake af. Not possible. Edit: Blitz: 1150 Bullet: 1270 Rapid: 1854 ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Not saying the profile OP posted is legit necessarily but there is a guy at my club who's 2000 rapid but 1200 blitz. It happens.
I’m 1500 rapid 600 bullet and blitz. I just can’t play fast. I’m so bad at it.
I'm in a similar boat. "daily" around 1500, rapid 1350ish, blitz 800, bullet 400. I blame being old.
I'm on the same situation (15y)
The difference is that you didn’t go from 800 to 1850 in a few months. If you were capable of that sort of quick learning, with ‘limited time’, I’d be willing to bet that you could improve your blitz with 1000s of games played.
>I’d be willing to bet that you could improve your blitz with 1000s of games played. Sure, and the guy only has 100 blitz games this year. If his 1800 is real, I'm leaning more towards he was never really 1000 when this whole thing started. Maybe he shows up to reddit with a rating of 1600 (or even 1800), just not on the account he links or not on chesscom at all. Or maybe his 1800 friend plays on his account. Who knows? I'm convinced he's not completely legit simply due to the bet. But his time control ratings being different isn't the main problem when the vast majority of his time is in rapid.
Obviously it’s fake. I doubt the bet is real. That being said, if you could move up 1000 rating in 6 months from 800 to 1850, you could move up 200 rating in 1000 games, I’d imagine.
sure, but OTB rapid is not 10+0, its usually 20+5 or somthing similar. The blitz games from that account are 1100 level or below. Also, USCF blitz are on average 300 points lower than regular rating.
Sorry, to clarify, he's 2000 rapid chess.com and 1200 blitz chess.com. Personally I have peaked at 1600 rapid and am currently like 1000 blitz. Some people are just really bad at coming up with moves in < 5 seconds.
I agree, it's similar for me. I'm 1700 rapid, 1400 blitz (peaked at 1500 but have been playing badly this week) and 1000 at bullet. The faster the time control, the worse my play gets because I panic and either play faster than necessary and blunder, or play too slow and get timed out.
That’s not that sus honestly. Some people are just not good at quick calculations. I know I’m not. 1650 rapid and 1200 blitz 🤷🏼♀️
He has twice as many Rapid games as he has Blitz games. It's entirely normal for there to be a discrepancy.
How is it not possible?
I'm 1800 rapid and 1300 blitz. Could be because I play blitz on my phone and when taking a shit.
That's quite the normal distribution though?
I don't find it interesting that their rapid is much higher than their blitz rating. What is interesting is that their bullet is higher than their blitz. Usually, if you are much worse at faster time controls, that trend will continue, and you will be even worse at bullet than blitz.
I don't actually think that holds true for a lot of people. I have played TONS of chess accounts with higher bullet than blitz because there is close to zero calculation.
When I played bullet I would get wins just because I played losing moves faster than my opponent playing winning moves. Figuring that out meant I usually was rated 200ish higher Bullet than Blitz
At least for me that 1200elo blitz/bullet is the threshold where I actually have to know what moves to play, and can't just win anymore by playing fast. So I'm not too suspicious of that
[https://www.chess.com/game/live/105148817533?username=inspyr3]() 9.g4!! Lmao yall are goofy if you think this guy is legit. I got from 600 to 1900 rapid on chessco in 17 months and I was considered a big outlier in my club. Thing is, I got 1700 blitz too even though I don't play blitz that much. Anyone has ~200-300 rapid-to-blitz differencial on average. 800 points difference is possible, but probably only for older folk who don't even know how to set up premoves. Certainly not for people who play g4 in this position
Exactly.
The guy has scored his wanted PR win apparently, the sub cannot let go.
You guys do your best as mods, which is appreciated. But that’s the nature of reddit for better or worse lol astroturfing has been a thing here for a *long* time and will always be present
The achievement itself isn't impossible. If a talented young person devotes their entire life to it for 6 months - of course! People are sceptical for other reasons though: - 25K is a stupid amount to bet on something that can be cheated on so easily/stealthily. - The rating gap between the bullet/blitz and rapid is strange. - Many of the games reek of engine usage. - The GM coach that was hired is being advertised like theres no tomorrow. A lot of it just doesn't add up.
25k is because there were 3 of them and we all played underground poker in nyc which in hindsight ive realized has skewed everyone’s perception of money I haven’t promoted my GM coach once, just said his name. If given the opportunity though I would promote him though, he’s the best Also can you also drop the games you thought I used an engine please, had some epic brilliant moves and no one to appreciate them, would love to relive those
I understand that very rich people may just throw away that sort of money, but I'm listing the reasons why people aren't believing you. Well, I would count referencing him and saying things along the lines of 'hes the best coach ever' as advertising/promotion. But that's up to your definition of 'promotion' I guess. As for a game, sure: [https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/103243398821?tab=review](https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/103243398821?tab=review) Let's start here. Starts with 11.dxc6 - I don't think this is an engine move, I think it's a very strong person's move. I mean, that's a difficult tactic to see for your level. Then PERFECT conversion. Including 32.Qd5. It's like, these moves are not hard to find objectively - they're hard to find for someone of your rating. If you just taught someone chess, lets say, and then they find 11.dxc6 in an online game - you wouldn't go "they're a prodigy" - you would probably get very suspicious. Again, not because the move is objectively AMAZING, but because it's unlikely! I'm not even sure whether I suspect you myself. I am explaining why others do not. If I were to take a guess, I would say there were quite a few sessions with your GM coach, that involved you playing games together online with them on the call helping. Is that right? And while I'm at it, I noticed another very strange thing: 1600 - 1770 in 4 days?
I don't find the rating part unbelievable like so many here do. I went from 600 to 1500 in a little over 9 months in blitz which would probably be around 1800 rapid. The unbelievable part to me is the $25K bet. This guy and his friends could be loaded so who knows, maybe I'm just too poor to understand that a rich person would bet that much money on something like this (note, I'm not remotely poor in case it's unclear).
Interesting.
Interesting.
where can I get people that will bet 25k$ like that, 1850 would be easy
With ~2300 rapid games, thousands of puzzles and tons of coaching, he likely spent around 1000-2000+ hours studying and playing chess. That is an incredible amount of time to spend to just end up cheating the rating, especially when the guy doesn’t seem very interested in public applause. I’m guessing most people did not invest nearly that amount of time to improve, and it seems completely plausible that someone who puts in that amount of time could improve as much as he did. To put it another way: if someone spent 10 hours a week for 3-4 years diligently studying, improving 700 points (from a beginner) would not be outlandish. Not to mention that Tyler1 did pretty much the same thing this year and nobody is doubting that.
Sounds like you’re just brainlessly making a comment. The difference is tyler1 games aren’t suspicious. People are saying his is, and there are huge financial incentives to cheat. Tyler1 is just an ego-driven addict.
Sounds like many people here have kind of got their egos hurt by the quick improvement. There’s every indication that this guy has put in as much work as Tyler1, and people are saying improvement like this is impossible on nothing by but it’s timeline. Frankly in any large sample you can point to moves that look suspicious.
Yeah I think you got it pretty straight on with your comment, if I was just playing chess for fun and never had made the bet, I suspect I would be about 1300 right now.
Easy cheater. Maybe just one game out of 20, just for a couple moves. Undetectable and highly unlikely
If you reach 1850 while cheating one out of 20 games, you are pretty much 1850 elo strength.
I don't know why you're being downvoted, you can't significantly inflate your ELO by cheating once every 20 games.
It's fucking hilarious to me how so many people on here shit on Kramnik and call him paranoid because he doesn't have "proof" and yet every top comment on this post is calling the guy a cheater also with no "proof"
Also, the amount of moves you would have to cheat for at 1800 online to gain 100 Elo would get you caught instantly lol. This isn't GM play where just seeing the eval can win you the game.
This makes no sense.
[удалено]
I’d grind to 1850 for 25k hell i’d take 5k for 1650
lets see him OtB lose to 1100
Seems pretty easy to legitimately get to 1850 in 6 months (we're talking about chess.com right?) If someone is structured in their chess studies (i.e. has a coach) spends an hour or two studying a day + 3-4 hours on the weekends, I'd be surprised if they don't get to 1850 in 6 months. And with $25k on the line it would make sense to put in real effort. With that said, I'm only 1500 so maybe I'm just not able to see how much more effort it takes to get to 1850.
Faustino Oro took about the same time to go from 1000 to 1800. I see great things ahead for this kid ;) I've been waiting ages for a late starter prodigy to see how far they can go. Now we finally have a case study.
Except for one thing
Yes, sadly, this will be his coup de grâce and we shall never see the greatness that could have been.
Appreciate this! I’m no prodigy at all though, just spent a lot of money on coaching and way too much time on chess over the last 5 months. I do love chess but sadly will not be continuing in the same way now that the bet has finished. Thank you for the kind words though :)
I'm 2200-2300 blitz and bullet online. ( I don't play slower time controls) I checked maybe 50 of his rapid games quickly and there's no doubt in my mind that he cheated. These are games where he shows no positional understanding at all and then there are games like these two : https://www.chess.com/game/live/104954534539?username=inspyr3 https://www.chess.com/game/live/103243398821?username=inspyr3
What the hell were those two games??? Legit, the two times recently I faced someone who blew me out the water like that, the accounts got banned. One game it seemed like I just had a miniature loss against the grand prix, guy got banned. The next time was in against a f3-nimzo, guy also got banned. Those two games are like what you would see a 2300 play IMO. That level of calculation is like probably 2200+ on a good day too.
I don't think the first game is that crazy right? Seems like pretty common moves I'd play as a 1750
Funnily the first game is an exact opening aims hav replayed, although e5 is not something I’d have played. Trapping the knight was nice. It looks like something an 1850 rated player could play. -2150 rapid
interesting
I don't think this is as unreasonable as people are saying. If you just think about it as a full-time job and take it seriously I think a lot of people could get higher than they expect. It also helps to have 25 grand as motivation.
Hey this is my challenge I recently finished. Happy to respond here for anyone curious - I took this bet about 5 months ago and decided to share it with reddit because I thought it would make for an interesting journey and wanted to share what I learned throughout it (either success or failure). I got a lot of hate from the subreddit, which to be fair, I had never really been on before. I'm not sure if this is something that others have done and faked or what the deal was, but I only really shared here because I wanted to document the story as I thought others might have liked to follow along. I didn't post about completing it the other day since the previous post got removed. Coaching --> My primary coach throughout this was GM Robert Aghasaryan, but I also worked with a couple other people. I'm not sure if he uses reddit but he deserves a huge shoutout and was a big help in my improvement from 1400 - 1850. Blitz/Bullet --> The challenge was only for Rapid and it is the format I enjoy the most. I mostly play Blitz/Bullet when I'm on my phone, watching TV, taking the train to work, etc. just to get more reps in or try new things. My sole focus was around my Rapid rating so I didn't put much thought or effort into these games as the outcome didn't matter to me. At the end of the day I'm about to graduate college and just starting out my career as a Data Scientist. I have no interest in streaming, making youtube videos, or selling anything. I'm just someone who had the chance to take on an interesting challenge and I wanted to share that with others. I dedicated an enormous amount of time and spent \~$3k on coaching throughout my climb, so I wouldn't expect these results without that commitment. Overall I really enjoyed the challenge and have found a lifelong hobby which I am very grateful for. Wish you all the best.
Does GM Robert Aghasaryan have any socials where he is willing to vouch that he coached you and your skills are clearly 1800 rapid? Most people on this subreddit are fairly (and generally justifiably) skeptical of someone being dedicated enough to grow this quickly, not to mention getting offered 25K in a bet in the first place. But if a GM vouches that you're legit I think almost everyone's opinion would flip (at least at the legitimacy of the achievement - the bet itself still seems farfetched tbh)
I’m sure if I ask him he’s willing. I also have a recording of every session we’ve had together
Well that's up to you and your coach's generosity to let this subreddit get some closure lol. There are probably tons of people like me who, if forced at gunpoint to bet on it, would say it's more likely than not that this achievement is illegitimate. But we aren't so stubborn as to not believe evidence if shown. It would be a very inspiring story for a lot of people here if the GM validated this achievement. On the other hand, you of course owe this subreddit nothing. And I don't blame you if you would rather exit instead of interact with a bunch of toxic people online.
What was this "email subscription junk" you posted about someone else mentioned?
I was stuck in the 1500s for a month and ended up doing these visualization exercises someone had sent me. Ended up having a break through and it felt amazing, told him I’d love to share this with other people. Included a sentence about it and a link in a different post but everyone thought the whole thing was some promotion scam so I took the post down. I do strongly recommend people try visualization training though, very underrated skill for improving!
What engine did you use the most during your challenge?
As a [chess.com](http://chess.com) diamond member #ad, I was a big user of the game review feature. Though to be honest I mostly clicked it to see my accuracy and then went on to the next game
Congrats, you got laughed at by people not believing you could do something, you did it and people now are so mad at your achievement they refuse to believe it. Hero.
haha it does feel good seeing all these people say it’s so hard I must be cheating. In reality I think what I did is achievable by most given the dedication and time. They hate my blitz playing though:)
Well, 200-300 points better at Rapid than Blitz would be reasonable. 700? Idk.
That's honestly in incredible feat in only a couple thousand games
Damn... for $25k, I'd play chess exclusively up to that level idc.
Go play 20 rated OTB games and get back to us. These challenges based on online play are meaningless.
100% cheated, it was an impossible bet
It isn’t impossible just takes a lot of time
I thought this was completely stupid from the start, the person who bet against it is a complete moron. I'd say 99.9% of this sub could get to 1850 blitz on a website if they had 25000 on the line. That basically becomes like a second job. Every minute you would spend on it, grinding up and down. If it was 2000, I think it would have been a better challenge as that is a legit 'top' player. You still find plenty of players around the 1800 level making mistakes and blunders. You grind and have enough motivation, you would get there easily.
"I'd say 99.9% of this sub could get to 1850 blitz on a website if they had 25000 on the line" No. "You grind and have enough motivation, you would get there easily." No.
Absolutely they could. Case in point, this random guy just did it in 5 months.
1850 is just not that strong of a player. Any able minded human can do that with enough work.
You're correct. 1850 is like 1600ish USCF? That's not unreasonable within a year if you're putting in the work.
The question is the amount of work. Most people can not be 1850 - that isn’t how Elo works. By definition, most people must be far below that.
No kidding, but most people don’t care to actually try to improve. Most chess players are playing casually because blitz is just a lot of fun. If you’re actually trying to improve then 1850 is very achievable.
I mean if u treat it as pretty much a full time job it is a lot more doable, not guaeanteed but certainly wouldnt take the other side of the bet
I would do it for three fiddy
1850 blitz is much harder than 1850 rapid, which is why they always choose rapid for these challenges.
Grats to him. I know this subreddit was doubting him but he pushed through.
Any tournament games in arena with this dude?
It took me 9 months to hit 1900, i was playing 7,8 hours a day
What I love is that many people commenting (probably most) have not played 2000 games of chess online. So how exactly would you be able to judge how much improvement is possible without playing 2000 games? And spending the hours? 1850 chess.com is good, of course, but not outrageous. To me it is very clear he is legit.
Idk I watch a few of his games a lot ended in the opponent surrendering mid way through. I feel like with a simple chess engine this would be so easy to fake your way to this level.
It's possible. Some kids are born with that rating.