In 2015 Georgian grandmaster Gaioz Nigalidze was found to be consulting a smartphone using chess software during a visit to a washroom while playing a game. As a result he was stripped of his grandmaster title.
Other high profile chess players like Sergey Aslanov and Wesley Vermeulen have also been caught in recent years using technology to try and enhance their chances of winner.
And these all occurred in environments where detecting cheating is relatively easy.
In the world of online tournaments identifying cheating has been far from easy. This has naturally led to a large amount of distrust in the chess community about playing for monetary rewards on the centralised platforms.
Demand for a safe, secure and reliable gaming platform for Chess definitely exists. One new crypto startup that wants to meet that demand is Mind Sports IO.
Overview of Mind Sports IO
Mind Sports is a decentralised gaming network which is built on the Ethereum blockchain. Using network players will be able to host and play intellectual sports such as Bridge, Xianqi, Go, Draughts and Chess. The users of this network will self govern the network and vote on restricting cheaters and which games will be added to the network. This decentralised network is governed by smart contracts. These are self executing contracts where the terms are built into the code. The smart contracts used on Mind Sports IO have been specficially designed for that network.
Preventing Cheating on Mind Sports IO
As noted above one of the biggest impediments to online tournaments with monetary rewards have been concerns over cheating. This includes using technology such as chess engines and also the collusion of players and / or platform adminstrators. Mind Sports plans to address this with a range of tools. One of the most important will be self government of the network itself by its users. In exchange for providing data used to identify cheaters and to arbitrating on cheating they will be rewarded with MIND tokens. There will also be statistical analysis performed by software on the network to evaluate player moves in comparison to that of a chess engine. Bad players will be red flagged and then removed through a voting mechanism by the users.
Token Sale
There will be a crowd sale running from November 2017 through to January 2018 to distribute thirty five million MIND tokens. These MIND tokens will provide the owners with a selection of rights and abilities on the network. This includes setting up tournaments and voting. To learn more about the MIND crowd sale visit:
Mindsports IO Website: https://www.mindsports.io/home#spin
Mindsports IO Whitepaper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B23oU2WDqlyWZHNvM2ZZLWNrVmc/view
Mindsports IO Tokensale: https://www.mindsports.io/home#tokensale