Chess Player Strip Searched

[shaunpress]

Part of the difficulty with this case (and a couple of other high profile ones) is that current FIDE regulations limit what it can/cannot do. Currently the maximum penalty for a breach of the FIDE Code of Ethics is 3 years. FIDE themselves ran in to trouble a number of years back by arbitrarily banning Jean-Paul Touze (the organiser of the 2005 World Youth Championship) for 5 years. This of course went to the Court of Arbitration on Sport (CAS) who pointed out that FIDE had ignored their own statutes. So at most Ivanov will get a 3 year ban if found guilty. Not the life ban that some are calling for, but at least something.
The other issue is the right of players to play in events outside their own Federation. The FIDE Ethics Commission has ruled that bans by local Federation do not automatically extend beyond their borders, Suat Atalik being the obvious example. So Ivanov being banned by the Bulgarian Federation only prevents him from playing chess in Bulgaria. Of course organisers can still try and prevent him from playing in their events, but this is currently on a tournament by tournament basis.
Recognising these problems, the FIDE/ACP Anti-Cheating Committee is asking the relevant FIDE Commissions (Ethics, QC, RTRC, Events) to change their regulations in regards to cheating. However these changes must be approved by the FIDE General Assembly, and the next one is in August 2014. An initial draft of these changes can be found at http://rules.fide.com/meeting-minutes.html

Shaun Press
Secretary, FIDE/ACP Anti-Cheating Commitee

[Stewart Reuben]

Press >So Ivanov being banned by the Bulgarian Federation only prevents him from playing chess in Bulgaria.<

This is surely at best feeble. If the Bulgarian CF have banned Ivanov from their internal events, then this must mean they are willing to have a court case in their country, if their laws have such a system.
Thus they must be able to tell FIDE to remove him from the IRL. This England has done for certain of their players. If a player does not have a rating, nor a FIN, then he can't play in a rated tournament anywhere.

This would not stop such a player playing in a non-FIDE Rated event. That is no concern of FIDE.

[Roger de Coverly]

This England has done for certain of their players. If a player does not have a rating, nor a FIN, then he can't play in a rated tournament anywhere.

I rather think that a FIN is for life, even if the ECF wants to pretend otherwise and pursue its vindictive policy against those with no membership or the wrong type of membership.

The Indian Federation attempted to sanction players for playing in non-recognised events. Both the FIDE rating people and prominent UK organisers were quite happy for such players to participate even in Norm events.

[Roger de Coverly]

An initial draft of these changes can be found at http://rules.fide.com/meeting-minutes.html

It's an interesting read. On matching to engines, the serious danger is false positives. It is presumably possible for a player to play the best moves in the opinion of a chess engine for the entire game. It is certainly plausible that a game played for the first time in the calm of the study would satisfy that criterion. It's only really repeated games that show engine matching that are suspicious and even there it's inconsistencies in results that are the indicator.

[shaunpress]

Press >So Ivanov being banned by the Bulgarian Federation only prevents him from playing chess in Bulgaria.<

This is surely at best feeble. If the Bulgarian CF have banned Ivanov from their internal events, then this must mean they are willing to have a court case in their country, if their laws have such a system.
Thus they must be able to tell FIDE to remove him from the IRL. This England has done for certain of their players. If a player does not have a rating, nor a FIN, then he can't play in a rated tournament anywhere.

This would not stop such a player playing in a non-FIDE Rated event. That is no concern of FIDE.

Based on the decision by the FIDE Ethics Commission in 2012
- disciplinary sanctions imposed by a national organ of a national chess
federation has no direct applicability in front of the organs of other national
chess federations, even if this does not exclude that these organs can accept
to apply the sanction, if this is conform to their own national rules, but in
this case this becomes their own national decision and not a direct
application of the original sanction;
- disciplinary sanctions imposed by a national organ of a national chess
federation cannot affect FIDE ratings or FIDE titles.
- at the same time the EC has full competence on any violation of the FIDE
Code of Ethics and the EC’s decisions have to be applied by all national
chess federations.


So for the moment Bulgaria need to kick this case up to FIDE Ethics Commission if they want the ban to apply worldwide. Otherwise federations could ban players locally, and prevent them from playing any international chess, even in countries where such a ban would be considered ludicrous.
Of course any other national Federation could ban Ivanov, using the Bulgarian Chess Federation decision as a reason, but they would still need to make that decision themselves.

[Roger de Coverly]

. Otherwise federations could ban players locally, and prevent them from playing any international chess, even in countries where such a ban would be considered ludicrous.

I would presume the Ataliks are welcome to play in England or Gibraltar. Ivanov on the other hand would not be allowed to enter the Gibraltar Congress ( Stuart Conquest on twitter).

[shaunpress]

It's an interesting read. On matching to engines, the serious danger is false positives. It is presumably possible for a player to play the best moves in the opinion of a chess engine for the entire game. It is certainly plausible that a game played for the first time in the calm of the study would satisfy that criterion. It's only really repeated games that show engine matching that are suspicious and even there it's inconsistencies in results that are the indicator.

We are aware of the risk of using engines as significant or sole criteria to detect cheating. In some recent cases the non-official input from the committee has been to (a) observe there has been a high correlation of matching over a number of moves in a number of games (no of moves being > 100, no of games being >=3, the rating of the player being a consideration) and then (b) contacting the tournament organisers and asking them to observe the player concerned for suspicious behavior.
One of the challenges for the committee is to establish the thresholds for 'suspicious' results, and for 'unbelievable' results. We are currently erring on the side of caution (ie thresholds in the 1 in a million level), but it is a work in progress.

Shaun Press
Secretary, FIDE/ACP Anti-Cheating Committee

[Mick Norris]

Part of the difficulty with this case (and a couple of other high profile ones) is that current FIDE regulations limit what it can/cannot do. Currently the maximum penalty for a breach of the FIDE Code of Ethics is 3 years. FIDE themselves ran in to trouble a number of years back by arbitrarily banning Jean-Paul Touze (the organiser of the 2005 World Youth Championship) for 5 years. This of course went to the Court of Arbitration on Sport (CAS) who pointed out that FIDE had ignored their own statutes. So at most Ivanov will get a 3 year ban if found guilty. Not the life ban that some are calling for, but at least something.
The other issue is the right of players to play in events outside their own Federation. The FIDE Ethics Commission has ruled that bans by local Federation do not automatically extend beyond their borders, Suat Atalik being the obvious example. So Ivanov being banned by the Bulgarian Federation only prevents him from playing chess in Bulgaria. Of course organisers can still try and prevent him from playing in their events, but this is currently on a tournament by tournament basis.
Recognising these problems, the FIDE/ACP Anti-Cheating Committee is asking the relevant FIDE Commissions (Ethics, QC, RTRC, Events) to change their regulations in regards to cheating. However these changes must be approved by the FIDE General Assembly, and the next one is in August 2014. An initial draft of these changes can be found at http://rules.fide.com/meeting-minutes.html

Shaun Press
Secretary, FIDE/ACP Anti-Cheating Commitee

Shaun

Thanks for posting this - I appreciate it is a work in progress, and that the proposals will evolve over the next few months

You mention that Ivanov can be referred to the Ethics Commission by the Bulgarian Chess Federation - is anyone else allowed to do this if the BCF choose not to?

[shaunpress]

Shaun

Thanks for posting this - I appreciate it is a work in progress, and that the proposals will evolve over the next few months

You mention that Ivanov can be referred to the Ethics Commission by the Bulgarian Chess Federation - is anyone else allowed to do this if the BCF choose not to?

In this specific case FIDE themselves are referring this case to the Ethics Commission http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... -case.html.
I think one of the reasons why it hasn't happened sooner is that people are unsure who has standing to bring such cases before the Ethics Commission. According to the Ethics Commission Guidelines http://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/Ethic ... elines.pdf anyone can make a complaint concerning a breach of the Code of Ethics, but a complaint has to be connected with the "relevant individual interest of the complainant". Complaints that lack that connection will be rejected by the EC.
So in this case, the organisers of the tournament in Spain could make a complaint, or even one of the players in that event. I would also assume that the Spanish Federation could also make a complaint, as could the Bulgarian Federation.

One of the draft recommendations in the Anti-Cheating Committee document is to allow the Anti-Cheating Commission (ACC) to also make complaints, although the right of commissions to make complaints to the EC already exists. An alternative proposal is to allow the ACC to hand out its own punishments, but this would require a change to the FIDE statutes.

[Chris Rice]

Ok noted. A quick further update is that apparently the decision to remove him was taken on 8th December.

This is now confirmed, the Bulgarian Chess Federation has informed FIDE of their decision.

http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... -case.html

[Roger de Coverly]

This is now confirmed, the Bulgarian Chess Federation has informed FIDE of their decision.

FIDE has since received the following letter from Bulgarian chess federation:

Bulgarian chess federation would like to inform you that Borislav Ivanov has
been excluded from Bulgarian Chess Federation with decision of the Board of
Bulgarian Chess Federation on 08.12.2013.

Whether Ivanov or a backer has the resources to challenge this isn't known, but isn't that the type of decision that can be challenged under European law? Infringing his human rights perhaps as lacking in due process?

It's been suggested that were a "child" to be caught cheating in the UK, that it wouldn't be possible to name and shame them, even as a relatively private note to other tournament organisers.

[Tim Spanton]

It's been suggested that were a "child" to be caught cheating in the UK, that it wouldn't be possible to name and shame them, even as a relatively private note to other tournament organisers.

Any such suggestion is false

[Chris Rice]

Well from this article in today's Independent it appears Ivanov has reached true anti-hero status being dubbed the "James Bond of Chess" by the Bulgarian media and proclaimed a God on Chess.Com


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 20186.html

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Quote:

It's been suggested that were a "child" to be caught cheating in the UK, that it wouldn't be possible to name and shame them, even as a relatively private note to other tournament organisers.


Any such suggestion is false"

However, there is a clear attitude amongst a significant portion of the chess community that cheating by juniors should be covered up.

[Chris Rice]

I agree largely with what you say Roger. Let me bring people up to date on the German player, Jens Kotainy, as its quite interesting.

As I understand it on the 25 September 2013 the German Chess Federation found Kotainy, not not guilty (its not a typo!), but no sanction. The reason was that each tourney organiser has to sign a treaty with each participant of a tourney which accept the rules of the German Chess Federation. Since this (Dortmund) was a private tourney and the tourney organiser did not do this, the German Chess Federation decided it had no basis for any action.

Subsequently the Ethics Commission for FIDE was informed about this case and they will have to decide separately if they will take any action regarding whether Kotainy should be banned/suspended from playing
from "C-Kader" (German national C-team, essentially the Youth team).

Typical and pathetic. The Germans should be able to work out for themselves whether Kotainy is fit to play in their own youth team.

You'll remember back in early August this year that the German IM Jens Kotainy got thrown out of the Dortmund tournament. He kept putting his hands in his pockets and when a search was done his mobile came to life after seemingly having been switched off etc. Well it's good news I think that FIDE have recorded all his games as losses for that tournament and taken 64 Elo points off him.


http://ratings.fide.com/individual_calc ... -09-01&t=0

Bad news I guess is that he is still on the bloody list and eligible to play again.