Cheaters 3-fer

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Starting Thursday off right, some clowns in a fishing tournament in New York were busted when the weighing official was surprised to find their catch weighing about double what he anticipated.

Chase Cominsky and Jake Runyan were caught stuffing their fish at the Lake Erie Walleye Trail in Ohio on Friday with lead weights, fish fillets and other debris to take home a money prize for heaviest fish.

The tournament ruled the duo as winners after a weigh-in, but a voice in video from the event can be heard saying someone else’s fish were larger than Cominsky’s and Runyan’s, leading to a debate.

Someone decided to cut open one of the winners’ fish and found a weight, causing absolute mayhem.

They then proceeded to cut all of their fish and found something stuffed inside to make almost every one heavier.

The duo have been widely suspected of cheating in the past. It’s rumored they have won six figures in several tournaments, although the exact numbers are not clear.

Fox News

And who says crime doesn’t pay…

For several years, Hans Niemann has been chess’ wunderkind, this generation’s equivalent of Bobby Fischer. He has risen spectacularly in Chess.com’s rankings, and at 19, is positioned to join the ranks of the elite. But…Chess.com released a 72 page report questioning whether he cheats using artifial intelligence help.

Chess.com uses a variety of cheat-detection tools that draw on analytics to compare moves to those recommended by chess engines, which can beat even the greatest human chess players.

The International Chess Federation, the chess’s world governing body, is meanwhile conducting its own investigation into his match against Magnus Carlsen in which Carlsen resigned after just one move, later reasoning that he suspected his opponent was cheating.

Still, the report highlighted “many remarkable signals and unusual patterns in Hans’ path as a player” that “merit further investigation based on the data.”

“Outside his online play, Hans is the fastest rising top player in Classical [over-the-board] chess in modern history,” the report states. “Looking purely at rating, Hans should be classified as a member of this group of top young players. While we don’t doubt that Hans is a talented player, we note that his results are statistically extraordinary.”

NY Post

Some of this is pretty esoteric – for instance, they found he opened a new window on his computer during a match, which would have allowed him to consult an on-line chess AI and make a move most people would not make but which the AI would recommend. Nothing definitive yet, so it is possible he is merely a victim of circumstance, but the allegation is that he may have cheated in up to 100 matches (and made  money from them.)

My personal fave of the list – not a cheater, just someone who played by the rules. I’m sure the hoplophobes (folks scared of guns) think he cheated.  A fella who goes by Kem says he eceived a $200 3D printer for Christmas. When he heard the New York Attorney General was sponsoring a gun buyback:

“I 3D-printed a bunch of lower receivers and frames for different kinds of firearms,” the man, who would only identify himself as “Kem,” told WKTV last week.

Kem says he printed the gun parts on a $200 3D printer he received as a gift for Christmas and then made the 6-hour drive to Utica, New York, where the Utica Police Department was hosting a gun buyback program for the New York State Attorney General’s Office.

“And he sees the tote and says, ‘how many firearms do you have?’ And I said, ‘110,’” Kem reacalls (sic).

From there, Kem said he spent the rest of the day negotiating with the Attorney General’s staff over how much the payment for the 3D-printed parts would be.

“And it ended with the guy and a lady from the budget office finally coming around with the 42 gift cards and counting them in front of me,” Kem said. “$21,000 in $500 gift cards.”

Kem laughed off claims by the Attorney General’s Office that the Utica gun buyback program was a large success, arguing such programs do nothing to reduce crime.

Fox News

Looks to me like he made about $190 each. Hey, didn’t they say they’d pay $250? Bulk discounts for the AG’s office, I guess. Kem seems like a good red-blooded American showing that these buybacks don’t work. And for probably well under a grand, made a tidy profit for himself even including gas. Like Yakov Smirnov used to say: “What a country!”

Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", America, Guns