Cheating in chess

[Mark Ashley]

I've just read that Igor Rausis has been caught red handed with a phone. I thought he had just been mopping up much weaker players in tournaments, but i guess that may have just helped him cover up how he was doing it as people would expect a stronger player to outplay lower graded players.

Is this the first case of a player being caught cheating against lower graded opponents? A lot of the stories i see involving cheats often involve lower graded players outplaying higher graded ones.

https://chess24.com/en/read/news/gm-igo ... t-cheating

See viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10300&start=45 for discussion of this.

Thanks David, i knew i saw discussion somewhere but couldnt remember which thread it was.

[Roger de Coverly]

The ECF President's take on this, writing for a general audience.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/arti ... -quiz.html

[JustinHorton]

Oh, is he not doing Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew this week? I thought we might be due an update.

[Chris Rice]

The list of Q2 Presidential Board decisions came out today and yes for the most part it is as boring as it sounds. However, some way down the list was the following decision:

"Q2PB-2019/27 To request all materials regarding violations of Anti-Cheating Guidelines by Mr. Mark Morgunov during the 2018 European Youth Championship."

Here's an article containing the allegations against Mark Morgunov. Another mobile in the toilet situation.

[JustinHorton]

Dunno if I'm missing something, but does that piece have an author?

[Chris Rice]

Dunno if I'm missing something, but does that piece have an author?

It's another Austrian player, Saro Khachatouri rated Elo 2005.

[JustinHorton]

Ta. Can you tell that from the blog, and I just missed it?

[NickFaulks]

Ta. Can you tell that from the blog, and I just missed it?

https://improveinchess.wordpress.com/my ... tsresults/

and follow the link, but I agree it's annoying.

[Roger de Coverly]

The list of Q2 Presidential Board decisions came out today and yes for the most part it is as boring as it sounds.

There's also this

https://www.fide.com/images/stories/NEW ... _final.pdf

which contains

2. Calls upon all tournament organizers to avail themselves of all recourse that the legal system of their country provides against cheating and to submit relevant evidence to law enforcement agencies to facilitate the investigation and prosecution of matters

In the UK would the offence used in the case of the coughing Millionaire Major be available? Pecuniary advantage by deception was it not?

[Matt Bridgeman]

Most offences would have to classified as an attempt rather than the full offence. With mobiles phones going equipped to steal might fit. There probably aren’t many police officers who understand the chess world to any degree, so they’d probably need a lot of help to get their heads around it all.

[Roger de Coverly]

Hartston's "How to cheat at chess" suggested it was possible to retire to a cubicle to analyse on a pocket set. The additional suggestion as illustrated by a Bill Tidy cartoon was that the supplied paper could be utilised for recording the analysis. At least some of the material in that book had a basis in fact. So is cubicle analysis as recently illustrated by Rausis a long standing master technique? You wonder too about the signalling method employed in the England v France game in the Olympiad in Siberia. That didn't necessarily need computers.

[Nick Grey]

i'm all for life time chess bans. Especially as we are not a sport in this country.
As for reporting to the authorities for criminal offences in this country cameras in toilets may come up against unauthorised surveillance. Police officers have more important crimes to investigate. Let us try not to cough. Some of us have enough problems of having to get up, walk, and visit the toilet, measure our sugars by blood testing and injecting and taking drugs.

[IM Jack Rudd]

The trouble with lifetime bans is that they are very difficult to enforce, and a player faces no further consequences for trying to evade them.

[Jacques Parry]

Most offences would have to [be] classified as an attempt rather than the full offence.

That was the position until 2007, but the law was then changed. Oddly, the new offence of "fraud by false representation" is committed by someone who dishonestly makes a false representation for gain, even if the gain is not in fact obtained. So the cheat commits the full offence, not just an attempt, by falsely adopting the demeanour of an honest player.

[Matt Bridgeman]

So for a player who is being signalled to, you’d have a dishonesty offence for the player. Would you have aiding and abetting for the the signaller? I think from a law enforcement perspective signalling will be very hard to prove beyond reasonable doubt. Full and frank admissions in interview seem quite unlikely.