Chess Player Strip Searched

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Surely one solution to all this is for the player to explain his moves, and to demonstrate his understanding of the game? If there is obvious hesitation or explanations that don't make any sense, then suspicions of cheating are more justifiable.

That wouldn't work at all. Plenty of games where it is easy to claim that it is hard for anyone to explain some of the moves. And too easy to bluff as well.

[Paolo Casaschi]

Surely one solution to all this is for the player to explain his moves, and to demonstrate his understanding of the game? If there is obvious hesitation or explanations that don't make any sense, then suspicions of cheating are more justifiable.

Surely. But... explaining to whom? Take the London Chess Classics in December, about 200 players playing 9 games in a week. To make it seriously, you need at least 3 hours (1/2 duration of one game) per player. That makes about 600 hours for a panel of judges to assess all players. 8 hours per day, total of 75 working days = 15 weeks. They'll be done by April.

[Lewis Martin]

Surely one solution to all this is for the player to explain his moves, and to demonstrate his understanding of the game? If there is obvious hesitation or explanations that don't make any sense, then suspicions of cheating are more justifiable.

That wouldn't work at all. Plenty of games where it is easy to claim that it is hard for anyone to explain some of the moves. And too easy to bluff as well.

Why would it be hard to explain the moves? You played it yourself, so you can explain it!

[Lewis Martin]

Surely one solution to all this is for the player to explain his moves, and to demonstrate his understanding of the game? If there is obvious hesitation or explanations that don't make any sense, then suspicions of cheating are more justifiable.

Surely. But... explaining to whom? Take the London Chess Classics in December, about 200 players playing 9 games in a week. To make it seriously, you need at least 3 hours (1/2 duration of one game) per player. That makes about 600 hours for a panel of judges to assess all players. 8 hours per day, total of 75 working days = 15 weeks. They'll be done by April.

This will be by the accused player in question, so just one person doing it. You are blowing this all out of proportion.

[Michael Farthing]

Why would it be hard to explain the moves? You played it yourself, so you can explain it!

Quite frequently I can't.

[MartinCarpenter]

Same here Can't explain precisely why I play half the moves I do.
(And that isn't just the horrible blunders!)

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Surely one solution to all this is for the player to explain his moves, and to demonstrate his understanding of the game? If there is obvious hesitation or explanations that don't make any sense, then suspicions of cheating are more justifiable.

That wouldn't work at all. Plenty of games where it is easy to claim that it is hard for anyone to explain some of the moves. And too easy to bluff as well.

Why would it be hard to explain the moves? You played it yourself, so you can explain it!

More of my moves than I care to admit are based on a small amount of calculation, a general assessment of the position, and a gut feeling about what the position requires.

This could be fun though.

Inquisitor: "Why did you play 1.e4?"
Me: "Because I always play that."

Inquisitor: "Why did you queen that pawn?"
Me: "Er, because I get an extra queen?"

Inquisitor: "Why did you allow that mate in one?"
Me: "I played like a doofus!"

Seriously, though, there are some times in a post-mortem when I'm analysing with my opponent and we discover that a certain move would have been better for them, and I ask why they played the move they played, rather than the one that was better. Often, they have difficulty explaining why, so I don't think it is at all as easy as some make it out to be to explain why certain moves were played. You might be able to give some superficial answer, or say what you were thinking at the time, but not much more than that. The only people you will catch out with something like this is those who literally don't know much more than how the pieces move, and are just blindly following instructions. That did happen once, IIRC, but quizzing players about their moves really isn't going to be any sort of magic bullet.

[Ian Thompson]

Surely one solution to all this is for the player to explain his moves, and to demonstrate his understanding of the game? If there is obvious hesitation or explanations that don't make any sense, then suspicions of cheating are more justifiable.

That wouldn't work at all. Plenty of games where it is easy to claim that it is hard for anyone to explain some of the moves. And too easy to bluff as well.

Why would it be hard to explain the moves? You played it yourself, so you can explain it!

If I was cheating and relying on a computer my "explanations" would probably be something like:

Q. Why did you play this really surprising move?
A. Because I foresaw the game continuation and thought it was good for me.

Q. What were you planning if your opponent had played X instead of Y?
A. I hadn't considered X - luckily for me my opponent didn't play it.

[Ian Thompson]

The only people you will catch out with something like this is those who literally don't know much more than how the pieces move, and are just blindly following instructions. That did happen once, IIRC, ...

In an American tournament, where the suspected cheat was holding his own against titled players but couldn't answer questions like "What are the first few moves of the Sicilian/French Defence?". The organisers didn't take action against him for cheating. They threw him out of the tournament because he couldn't prove that he was who he said he was. The assumption was that he'd entered under a false name.

[Lewis Martin]

If I was cheating and relying on a computer my "explanations" would probably be something like:

Q. Why did you play this really surprising move?
A. Because I foresaw the game continuation and thought it was good for me.

Q. What were you planning if your opponent had played X instead of Y?
A. I hadn't considered X - luckily for me my opponent didn't play it.

Then your responses would be regarded as very unconvincing since your explanations are rather vague, one sentence answers. It would only increase the suspicions that you are cheating.

If you expanded on your answers more, and maybe demonstrated a few lines of thought for P position, and explained the subtleties and differences between the different positions at P-1, P, and P+1, it shows more thinking than just using the computer lines and spouting them out.

E.g. "At move 14, we can see that the resulting exchanges over the next few moves as in the game means that the d5 square is vacant, and ideal for my knight to occupy. So, an ideal objective in this position would be to place this there. What is preventing me from doing this straightaway is the fact that the c3 knight is defending (as well as the White queen on d1) the bishop on e2 is currently under attack on the open file by the rook on e8 and queen on e7. By moving this to d3 first to attack h7 where there is a sneaky attack to win a pawn due to a fork between this pawn and the f7 pawn, where threats include moving the f3 knight (therefore activating the f1-rook on the half-open f-file) to g5 followed by Qd1-f3. My opponent parries this quite easily by h7-h6, but my objective can then be achieved (as a result of moving the bishop and following pawn exchanges) so I now have a strong knight on d5." ........ etc for the rest of the game.

It doesn't even have to be a Q+A session.

Just a simple pen and paper and demanding annotations would do, under supervision. (With help of a board only allowing the actual game moves to be played to help recall thoughts at the time of that position at the subsequent moves) Various "flags" or criteria could then be discussed afterwards depending on how detailed these explanations were.

[Lewis Martin]

You could think of it as an essay with just the one question: "Please explain, fully detailed and with any position diagrams, your game today against Mr. Black. You may use the chess set provided to aid you in playing through this game, and this game only."

Then the thinking process could really be observed here.

[Michael Farthing]

Guilty until you prove your innocence.

[Paolo Casaschi]

Surely one solution to all this is for the player to explain his moves, and to demonstrate his understanding of the game? If there is obvious hesitation or explanations that don't make any sense, then suspicions of cheating are more justifiable.

Surely. But... explaining to whom? Take the London Chess Classics in December, about 200 players playing 9 games in a week. To make it seriously, you need at least 3 hours (1/2 duration of one game) per player. That makes about 600 hours for a panel of judges to assess all players. 8 hours per day, total of 75 working days = 15 weeks. They'll be done by April.

This will be by the accused player in question, so just one person doing it. You are blowing this all out of proportion.

Well, any player would be allowed to accuse any of his opponents; chess players are notorious to find the most absurd excuses for every loss; accusing the opponent of cheating is the perfect excuse, if you make it very easy you should expect a lot of such requests. Look at other sports: can a defeated athlete/team easily demand anti-doping checks on their winning opponents?

[MartinCarpenter]

A few fairly famous outbreaks of lynch mobs at Bridge. Maybe not at WC level since they brought screens (and foot level barriers!) in.
(Some of them maybe justified, maybe not. Objective truth difficult.).

[Roger de Coverly]

accusing the opponent of cheating is the perfect excuse

We know this happens already. There's a handful of GMs who regard their losses to untitled players as clear evidence that the opponent must have been cheating.

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