A cheating scandal has rocked the chess world—and Kenneth Regan is on the case
n an October morning in Buffalo, N.Y., Professor Kenneth Regan sat down in front of his home computer, fired up Zoom, and, after some cheery pleasantries, all but accused a European chess grandmaster of cheating.
Regan’s program detects cheating by calculating the odds that a player of a given skill level could pull off a given set of moves. It compares the player’s moves to those recommended by various computer engines and, using a statistical model, spits out a “z-score” that represents the degree to which the player matched the engines. If the z-score crosses a certain threshold, Regan flags the game for further investigation.
Regan, too, dropped off the grandmaster track, preferring to study math. He racked up degrees at Princeton, Oxford, and Cornell, then took a job teaching at Buffalo and dedicated himself to untangling abstruse theoretical questions–particularly the famous problem known as “P vs. NP,” which is tangentially related to whether or not it’s possible to “solve” chess.
From left: A framed poster in Regan's home advertising a simultaneous exhibition he gave at Macy's in New York City in 1973."I was 14, not 13—they actually corrected the poster on the day, but I kept a copy of the original," says Regan; news clippings from The Record, a New Jersey based newspaper, featuring Regan at 13 and 11 ; a framedmagazine cover featuring Regan, seen on the wall at the University at Buffalo on Oct. 29.Regan’s critics argue that his system has flaws.
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