Cheating in chess

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Chris Rice
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Re: Cheating in chess

Post by Chris Rice » Sat May 09, 2015 6:38 am

Another piece by Pete Doggers on Feller now being free to play chess again in FIDE tournaments. But see the tweet underneath it by Nigel Short, clearly he also seems to believe that what Kakkar did is equivalent to criminal activity?

http://www.chess.com/news/sebastien-fel ... again-2037

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Cheating in chess

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Wed May 13, 2015 4:37 pm

http://en.chessbase.com/post/tkachiev-h ... r-in-chess

'Tkachiev: How I became a cheater in chess '

Tim Harding
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Re: Cheating in chess

Post by Tim Harding » Wed May 13, 2015 5:03 pm

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:http://en.chessbase.com/post/tkachiev-h ... r-in-chess

'Tkachiev: How I became a cheater in chess '
And here is Geurt Gijssen at The Chess Cafe on an incident at the Aeroflot Open in April where he was arbiter:
Geurt Gijssen wrote: During this round a player informed an arbiter that he heard something coming from the jacket of his opponent. He even heard a voice announcing moves. I was informed and when the game was finished I invited the accused player to follow me to a separate room. I notified him about the accusation and requested he empty his pockets on a table. After he did so, I requested he give me his jacket. And he refused. I invited him to show me that the pockets were truly empty, and he refused again. I informed him that in this case, according to the Laws of Chess, I was forced to apply a penalty. As he did not change his position, I declared the game lost for the offending player and won for his opponent. In consultation with the organiser he was also expelled from the tournament.

I would like to point out that there was no proof that the player was cheating, but I had to act according to Article 11.3.b of the Laws of Chess:

"The arbiter may require the player to allow his clothes, bags or other items to be inspected, in private. The arbiter or a person authorised by the arbiter shall inspect the player and shall be of the same gender as the player. If a player refuses to cooperate with these obligations, the arbiter shall take measures in accordance with Article 12.9."
Tim Harding
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Author of 'Steinitz in London,' British Chess Literature to 1914', 'Joseph Henry Blackburne: A Chess Biography', and 'Eminent Victorian Chess Players'
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MartinCarpenter
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Re: Cheating in chess

Post by MartinCarpenter » Wed May 13, 2015 8:50 pm

That really would qualify as a truly 'special' attempt to cheat :) Speaker phone moves from your jacket pocket?!

Chris Rice
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Re: Cheating in chess

Post by Chris Rice » Wed May 27, 2015 9:29 am

From the Russian Chess News site, an article by Tigran Petrosian who was playing Nigalidze in Dubai. He has a few things to say about Azmaiparashvili as well:

Closing the Subject of Nigalidze

I recently received a letter of apology from Gaioz Nigalidze, and therefore would like to express my position publicly.

"I want to offer my sincere apologies in connection with the incident occurring in our game at the Dubai OPEN-2015 and further for my inappropriate behavior towards you", - he says, in particular, in the letter.

Gaioz, I forgive you, because anyone can make a mistake. And I think that we should give a man a chance, but only if he acknowledges his mistake. After your letter I think you have acknowledged yours.

But in chess, as in life, there are laws that must be followed. I also believe that you should be disqualified for your actions. The rest is for FIDE and those who are responsible for this matter to decide.

And a few words about Zurab Azmaiparashvili. In the interview, the president of the ECU said: "I was very angry at Nigalidze when I first learned about the case, but did not react for several days. I decided to await other people's reaction..." However, the next day after the incident, the organizers of the tournament in Dubai came to me and told me that they had spoken to Azmaiparashvili and he had said very strongly that he would seek a long ban on Nigalidze. (By the way, I reported this conversation to the Georgian grandmaster Mchedlishvili, who also took part in the tournament.) So, it turns out that "several days" is just a half-day? In addition, the first reaction of Zurab and what he later said are quite opposite things.

The excuse that Gaioz using a weak program is comparable to light doping is wrong - how can a professional like Zurab not know that help even from a weak chess program would be enough to win a game against a grandmaster?

Finally. I'm sorry if Nigalidze has any problems in the family. I would advise Azmaiparashvili as a compatriot of Gaioz and as a man, that there are opportunities to help a chess player to cope with these problems. But we should not forget that the actions of Nigalidze also caused other people to suffer financially, and nobody knows what those victims' situations may be.

I hope that this will be my last involvement with this topic. For me it is closed, I received an apology, which I accept, and I know that a ban of some period will be imposed.

I wish everyone uncompromising chess and fair play! May the best man always win!

http://chess-news.ru/en/node/19103

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Cheating in chess

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Fri Jun 05, 2015 3:13 pm

Adding some links here to keep some of these related issues together (hope there is never a need for a dedicated subforum for this... :cry: ).

http://www.chess.com/blog/DanielRensch/ ... n-chesscom

'Cheating On Chess.com'

Lots of comments on 'cheating in chess' in the issue covered here:

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... 30#p156758

'European Women's Championship 2015'

Chris Rice
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Re: Cheating in chess

Post by Chris Rice » Wed Jun 10, 2015 5:54 am

Article from Alexey Dreev "We Are All Cheats. FischerRandom Chess Is the Salvation". Personally I don't think this can be a long term solution, my view is that we will have to alter the game in some way (enlarged board, more pieces or change the way the pieces move etc) to eliminate computers. http://chess-news.ru/en/node/19211

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Cheating in chess

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Jun 10, 2015 8:18 am

Chris Rice wrote:Article from Alexey Dreev "We Are All Cheats. FischerRandom Chess Is the Salvation"
If anything, FischerRandom could make matters worse. Are there not some initial starting positions which if not already lost, require considerable accuracy to survive the initial moves? To find them, you would set engines loose to check each and every one of the 960 positions for plausible but losing moves.
Last edited by Roger de Coverly on Wed Jun 10, 2015 4:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Matt Mackenzie
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Re: Cheating in chess

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Wed Jun 10, 2015 4:07 pm

In reply to GM Dreev - no we aren't, and no it isn't :twisted:
"Set up your attacks so that when the fire is out, it isn't out!" (H N Pillsbury)

Chris Rice
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Re: Cheating in chess

Post by Chris Rice » Tue Jun 16, 2015 6:47 am

The FM who got disqualified for cheating due to being caught by "overwhelming evidence of engine-matching moves" continues to fight against the decision. Tilicheev argues that Chess.com can't prove the charge. Chess.Com seem to admit they could have made a mistake but they are not going to change their decision. Probably the only thing you can conclude is that the patrolling of online chess is becoming a bit of a nonsense.

http://chess-news.ru/en/node/19269

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Cheating in chess

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Jun 16, 2015 8:57 am

Chris Rice wrote: Probably the only thing you can conclude is that the patrolling of online chess is becoming a bit of a nonsense.
I would have thought the logic needs to be that for "serious" tournaments, you are required to switch on a webcam and that an arbiter will monitor the images from these. At the very least that would give back up information that someone appeared to be consulting a book, a friend or another device during play.

Their contention that they can distinguish between GM play, super GM play and engines has to be flawed. Reasonable doubt would be that GMs can improve to super GM and both can legitimately use engines for pre-game preparation.

Ian Thompson
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Re: Cheating in chess

Post by Ian Thompson » Tue Jun 16, 2015 4:10 pm

Chris Rice wrote:The FM who got disqualified for cheating due to being caught by "overwhelming evidence of engine-matching moves" continues to fight against the decision.
It would be interesting to know what the FIDE ACC engine-detection software makes of his games. The game in your link sited by chess.com as being the "most blatant example" of engine use doesn't appear to be anything of the sort to me.

Jonathan Bryant
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Re: Cheating in chess

Post by Jonathan Bryant » Tue Jun 16, 2015 4:26 pm

Chris Rice wrote:Probably the only thing you can conclude is that the patrolling of online chess is becoming a bit of a nonsense.

http://chess-news.ru/en/node/19269

Redhotpawn.com seemed to give up enforcing their 'no engines' rule some years ago.

Ian Thompson
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Re: Cheating in chess

Post by Ian Thompson » Mon Aug 17, 2015 11:39 pm

From the Maryland Chess Association website:
Thermal Camera.jpg
Thermal Camera.jpg (53.62 KiB) Viewed 2104 times
The bright area on the left leg is a mobile phone.

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Jon Mahony
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Re: Cheating in chess

Post by Jon Mahony » Tue Aug 18, 2015 9:51 am

Jonathan Bryant wrote:
Chris Rice wrote:Probably the only thing you can conclude is that the patrolling of online chess is becoming a bit of a nonsense.

http://chess-news.ru/en/node/19269

Redhotpawn.com seemed to give up enforcing their 'no engines' rule some years ago.
RPH seems to have given up some years ago :) It used to be the best online CC site out there. Now it’s full of multi accounters and engine cheats, the number of people renewing their subscriptions drop off every year. It just can’t compeat with Chess.com now, look at the difference in the real time play interface for a kick off.

I’ve never agreed with this philosophy of allowing engines in CC, I can see the point of view that its hard to police, but it seems to defeat the object of bothering at all to be honest. I play on Scheming Mind, which allows engines, but I never bother personally. I can always tell in first 15 moves or so, if I’m been a whipping boy for Stockfish or not.
"When you see a good move, look for a better one!" - Lasker

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