Chess Player Strip Searched

[Roger de Coverly]

. A young Iranian player was texting his mate in Farsi back and forth in Iran on his mobile. Trouble was he kept fiddling with the mobile and eventually one of the arbiters caught on and insisted on seeing the phone.

Surely this rather blatantly breaks the rule that mobile phones should be switched off? Even if no cheating was involved, you would expect a player doing this to be asked to stop or defaulted.

Hearing aids taken off them?

Apparently removing them is standard practice in tournaments run by the International Chess Committee of the Deaf.

[Chris Rice]

Here's the ChessBase report from 2008...

A case of cheating in chess

A chess player from Iran, who cheated using his mobile phone to try and win a game, was excluded from the tournament. M. Sadatnajafi, with an Elo rating of 2288, while playing against Chinese Grandmaster Li Chao, made his moves based on the text messages he received on his mobile phone. In the earlier round Sadatnajafi defeated grandmaster Kalegin Evgenij (2510) with an computer style of play he won the piece on move 17 and went to win a complex endgame .

Chief arbiter Casto Abundo, confirming the incident, said: "As per the International Chess Federation (FIDE) laws, no player are supposed to use the mobile phone while playing. The matter is still being investigated and a report is being forwarded to the FIDE for further action."

Sadatnajafi is alleged to have followed instructions from some of his friends aided by computer in Iran while playing against Chao. This match was relayed live on the Internet and his friend, closely following his moves on the web, guided Sadatnajafi accordingly. Sadatnajafi had made only ten moves when he was caught looking into his mobile handset. When confronted, he immediately dropped his cell phone. On examining the handset, it was found that he had received SMS instructions in Farsi. The identity of the friend who had sent the text messages is still unknown.

Sadatnajafi,M (2288) - Ibraev,N (2507) [B87]
10th Open Dubai UAE (5), 10.04.2008
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.Nc3 d6 6.Bc4 Nf6 7.Bb3 b5 8.0-0 Bb7 9.Re1 Nbd7 10.a4 b4 11.Nd5. This is a move known to theory. 11...Nc5. Nurlan Ibrayev, a Kazakh grandmaster, plays a new move, which is vigorously punished by his untitled Iranian opponent: 12.Bg5 exd5 13.exd5+ Kd7 14.Nc6 Bxc6 15.dxc6+ Kxc6 16.Bd5+ Kb6 17.Bxa8 Qxa8 18.Qd4 Nd5 19.Rad1 Nc7 20.Qxb4+ Ka7 21.Be3 N7e6 22.Qc4 Qc6 23.b4 Qxa4 24.Qd5 1-0. Quite traumatic for the GM. [Click to replay and check with chess engines]

Li Chao2 (2582) - Sadatnajafi,M (2288) [C54]
10th Open Dubai UAE (6), 12.04.2008
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d3 Bc5 5.c3 a6 6.Bb3 Ba7 7.0-0 0-0 8.Bg5 d6 9.h3 Ne7 10.Nh4 Ng6. This is where Sadatnajafi was caught and disqualified. 1-0.

[Geoff Chandler]

Talk of adding squares and new pieces is silly.

The first step at a solution appears simple.

Ban live transmissions.

Now I know people are going to say they enjoy watching a live game
(and adding their comments in a live thread) but these dudes can simply
download the PGN the next day and play it out very very slowly on their
favourite engine and get the same thrill.

Stopping live transmissions means the cheat has to find a way to get the
move played on the board to a colleague, then into a box and back again.
Giving a move to player at the board is fairly easy.
But getting him to transmit what has been played without attracting attention
will be the weak spot.

At the moment the cases we know about are sore thumbs because of the grading
difference. When a 2200 beats a handful of GM's it upsets the balance, the system rocks,
eyebrows are raised and players stripped to waist.

But what happens (and some suggest it may already be the case.) when a GM
gets himself wired up. The sore thumb guidline has gone.

Just had a thought.
Sooner or later one cheat will be sitting opposite another cheat.
Both will know the other is cheating and there is nothing they can do about it
except keep producing this computer v computer game hoping their chosen
engine is stronger than the other players.

I'd like to see the notes to that game. There again I don't think I would.

[John Upham]

Both will know the other is cheating and there is nothing they can do about it
except keep producing this computer v computer game hoping their chosen
engine is stronger than the other players.

I'd like to see the notes to that game. There again I don't think I would.

Isn't this commonplace and has been for some time in certain spheres of chess where the players do not meet physically?

[Clive Blackburn]

The first step at a solution appears simple.

Ban live transmissions.

Do we ban all spectators as well, in case they are relaying the moves via SMS?

[Roger de Coverly]

Do we ban all spectators as well, in case they are relaying the moves via SMS?

You ban them from having mobile phones switched on, not least because of the potential of ring tones disturbing the players. Perhaps mindful of the issues two years earlier, the organisers of the Istanbul Olympiad didn't allow spectators to bring mobile phones near the playing area. The London Chess Classic had a ban on laptops and tablets in the theatre where the four daily games were played.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

. A young Iranian player was texting his mate in Farsi back and forth in Iran on his mobile. Trouble was he kept fiddling with the mobile and eventually one of the arbiters caught on and insisted on seeing the phone.

Surely this rather blatantly breaks the rule that mobile phones should be switched off? Even if no cheating was involved, you would expect a player doing this to be asked to stop or defaulted.

Sometimes people are too polite to say anything. I saw at least one person exiting the hall where the FIDE-rated Open was being played at the London Chess Classic towards the toilets, fiddling with a mobile phone. I considered running after him and pointing out that he shouldn't be using a phone, but I didn't know if he was a player or a spectator. <shrug> And there were hundreds of players there. What are you supposed to do? Most of the time it will be quite innocent. Is there a polite way to say "Excuse me, but are you playing in the tournament? Mobile phones should be switched off?"

Hearing aids taken off them?

Apparently removing them is standard practice in tournaments run by the International Chess Committee of the Deaf.

I think I clarified this last time. That is done to put all players on a level playing field as regards hearing people talking about the game. People aren't supposed to talk about the game, or use sign language to talk about the game, within hearing or sight of the players (and arbiters to regularly shoo people away from the board if they are signing about anything, it is visually distracting to see this out of the corner of your eye). But if everyone is in 'silent' mode (so to speak) then you avoid people with hearing aids hearing anything.

The issue of hearing aids being used to receive transmissions is something that I don't think has been addressed yet. Certainly those with hearing aids (and cochlear implants) who play in tournament and league games with hearing players have never (in my experience) been asked to remove them, and would be well within their rights to refuse to do so if asked (for many reasons). What happens when/if Bluetooth hearing aids become common, I don't know. Hopefully being able to demonstrate that the device is not enabled will be enough.

[Chris Rice]

ChessBase have now produced a report on the Boris Ivanov affair. http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8751

From the evidence presented, virtually all of it circumstantial, it appears that if he was cheating then it was through a listening device. This would seem to be indicated by his last round loss where the transmission of moves over the internet was stopped. I don't know if listening devices planted about the body can be picked up using metal detectors ie like at the airports but maybe they will have to be introduced at chess tournaments (certainly rated ones) going forward. At the very least with such a massive divergence from his previous results the organisers could have suspended his winnings and results till a full investigation was undertaken.

However, both of these methods would likely to prove very expensive for the type of tournament involved (small tournament in Zadar, Croatia). Difficult to know what to do to stop it and of course he could be a completely innocent player who has just been working hard on his game lately and had a lucky tournament.

[Leonard Barden]

See my first post above in this thread. Ivanov's 9-round 2697 performance rating from an established (400 games) rating of only 2227 against a field of GMs 2550+ is unique in chess history by a player no longer a junior.
As nobody responded here to my suggestion that Ivanov's games be checked with Houdini, I wrote up the matter in the Chess Vibes thread on the incident and a reader there kindly checked out all nine games, finding a correlation of over 90 per cent. The only exception was round 8, where the Houdini correlation stopped after move 15. That was the round where the live transmission stopped, Ivanov lost, and he was then unsuccessfully searched. In round 9 Ivanov needed only a draw for a GM norm, but instead crushed his 2620-rated opponent with his normal high Houdini correlation.
I've no doubt at all that the guy cheated bigtime, the only question is how he escaped detection when his opponents must have been highly suspicious for several rounds.
Assuming Ivanov had a fitted earpiece and a Houdini-aided accomplice watchihg the live transmission (the most plausible explanation) then his partner in crime would need to be available six hours a day for nine days and sufficiently chess literate not to make transmission errors.
However from a distance this still seems the most probable mechanism especially since Ivanov's other defeat, in round two, came in a 110-move game where he blundered in a drawn position (Ke6! instead of Bd6??) right at the end. It's possible that by then they were playing just on increment, which would increase the chance of a transmission failure.
It would be very interesting to hear an account from someone who was also in that Zadar tournament. Is there anyone here who could ask GM Bogdan Lalic (who played in Zadar) or GM Andrey Sumets (who drew there with Ivanov and is currently playing at Hastings)?

[Jonathan Rogers]

I didn't reply earlier because I don't "do" chess engines, but since chessbase made the games readily available, I did look at them. I was rather taken aback by his game in round four or five, where he is White and plays Nf5, on about move 30, where the N on f5 is en prise to four different pieces and undefended by a pawn - it would be astonishing if that were not a computer find!

[Alex McFarlane]

I believe the matter is being investigated at a higher level. It may therefore be inappropriate to speak to a potential witness about the matter.

[Roger de Coverly]

However, both of these methods would likely to prove very expensive for the type of tournament involved (small tournament in Zadar, Croatia).

Some years ago, it was common practice for British events to delay move transmission during live coverage. I don't think this is done any more. It got more complicated when manual display boards were abandoned, since the displays at the venue used as demo boards and perhaps in the commentary room need to be in real time. The DGT software is notoriously difficult to use effectively, so has dual speed transmission been abandoned as a simplification?

Assuming Ivanov had a fitted earpiece and a Houdini-aided accomplice watchihg the live transmission (the most plausible explanation) then his partner in crime would need to be available six hours a day for nine days and sufficiently chess literate not to make transmission errors.

I think it would be just about plausible for an internet enabled device to receive the live transmission, input it into a chess engine and broadcast the recommended move to an earpiece. This would need a mobile phone or similar device on your person and switched on. But could such a device be concealed in an item of clothing? Such a method would eliminate the need for an assistant.

[Paolo Casaschi]

See my first post above in this thread. Ivanov's 9-round 2697 performance rating from an established (400 games) rating of only 2227 against a field of GMs 2550+ is unique in chess history by a player no longer a junior?

To be fair, it is also unique in chess history for a player to be strip searched under suspicion of cheating, NOTHING to be found from the strip search and still people obsessively searching for some wrongdoing. In fact, all headlines I read are about the player being strip searched... the fact that NOTHING has been found from the strip search is mostly a footnote.

[JustinHorton]

However, both of these methods would likely to prove very expensive for the type of tournament involved

And of course it could conceivably be expensive in another way, which is that legal options might be available to an accused player on the grounds of harm to their reputation. Or - if nothing is done - to another affected player on the grounds of loss of income.

Difficult to know what to do to stop it

I hold to the idea that if people are going to cheat then they're going to find it hard to keep it up. If, for instance, a player like myself of about 2100 strength is going to suddenly start playing at 2700 level, it's not going to be long before they are offered a challenge they can neither accept nor refuse.

We certainly have the technology to cheat, now. But that doesn't necessarily means that it's practical to do so.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I didn't reply earlier because I don't "do" chess engines, but since chessbase made the games readily available, I did look at them. I was rather taken aback by his game in round four or five, where he is White and plays Nf5, on about move 30, where the N on f5 is en prise to four different pieces and undefended by a pawn - it would be astonishing if that were not a computer find!

Would anyone be able to post that game here?