European Women's Championship 2015

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Paolo Casaschi
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Re: European Women's Championship 2015

Post by Paolo Casaschi » Tue Jun 02, 2015 11:07 am

NickFaulks wrote:
Paolo Casaschi wrote:
PS: by any chance, was Mamedyarov one of those top GMs?
No, I was being serious.
Mamedyarov was very serious as well when withdrawing from the Moscow open.
If you remember Ivanov and the damage his case did to chess, you should also remember the cases like Mamedyarov accusations.

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John Saunders
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Re: European Women's Championship 2015

Post by John Saunders » Tue Jun 02, 2015 11:18 am

I would go along with most of what you've written in your long piece above, Nick. In particular I share your scepticism about the likely success of the ACC. As I was at pains to point out earlier, things can and should be done to prevent cheating at the very top level: closed elite events and also important knock-outs like the World Cup. That should be affordable and workable. So far, so good, and we can thus do the best we can to ensure that nobody cheats their way to the world championship. But taking things much beyond that and lumping a pile of obligations on other bigger-scale or less well-funded events, where a large proportion of players are paying customers, is not workable. Furthermore, putting all the related anti-cheating verbiage into the laws of the game as a one-size-fits-all solution is plain bonkers.
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Roger de Coverly
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Re: European Women's Championship 2015

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Jun 02, 2015 11:53 am

Paolo Casaschi wrote: Mamedyarov was very serious as well when withdrawing from the Moscow open.
He may well have been a victim of computer analysis. It would well be that this was pre-game analysis. For that reason, supposed anti-cheating software may be able to detect suspected computer analysis, but that's not a proof of cheating even to balance of probability standard.

Whilst one part of FIDE, the ACC, is trying to prevent cheating, another part of FIDE, namely the promoters of on-line chess, are doing their best to put temptation in the hands of participants by offering ratings, titles and qualification slots. If you cannot see your opponent and there is no neutral party present, how do you know that your opponent is cheating the old-fashioned way for over the board chess, say by looking at a book or consulting a friend?

NickFaulks
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Re: European Women's Championship 2015

Post by NickFaulks » Tue Jun 02, 2015 12:12 pm

I wonder whether the amateur players who say that they want the events they play in to be exempt from AC regulations would feel that way if it happened to them. If I were doing quite well in a 5 round Swiss and in round four I lost against someone who played remarkably accurately while behaving very strangely, it would spoil my weekend. I might well think, if that's the way it's going to be, then stuff weekend Swisses. I suspect you would feel the same way.

One argument is that cheating at my level is quite unlikely, but that is wrong. Without any controls, cheating by way of technology is quite easy and getting easier. If cheating is easy, some people will do it. Don't ask why, they just will, in the same way that some people select housebreaking as their profession. We know there is a population that routinely manipulates their grades to keep winning modest prizes in Major and Minor events, that has always been the case. Why is clandestine use of an engine so different?

Above all, we must avoid the idea "everyone does it, so why not?" gaining traction. If you think that can't happen, look no further than internet chess. That really is the end of the game.
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Re: European Women's Championship 2015

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Jun 02, 2015 12:36 pm

NickFaulks wrote:I wonder whether the amateur players who say that they want the events they play in to be exempt from AC regulations would feel that way if it happened to them.
There is a general prohibition about obtaining external assistance during an OTB tournament game that have been in the Laws of Chess since they were first formulated as an international standard. You would expect that to be maintained. All the ACC regulations try to do, is attempt various levels of enforcement.

Other than winning five games on the trot, presumably there were no other grounds for accusation, such as lengthy absences from the board, in the recent case.

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Re: European Women's Championship 2015

Post by NickFaulks » Tue Jun 02, 2015 12:40 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Other than winning five games on the trot, presumably there were no other grounds for accusation, such as lengthy absences from the board, in the recent case.
No, unless there was something that hasn't been mentioned it was just the five wins. Some of the higher seeds, notably the eventual winner, didn't like it.
Last edited by NickFaulks on Tue Jun 02, 2015 12:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: European Women's Championship 2015

Post by NickFaulks » Tue Jun 02, 2015 12:45 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
NickFaulks wrote: There is a general prohibition about obtaining external assistance during an OTB tournament game
Yes, cheating is by definition against the rules. I suppose I should have written "AC measures" rather than "AC regulations".
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Re: European Women's Championship 2015

Post by NickFaulks » Tue Jun 02, 2015 1:15 pm

Found a quote from GM Mikail Krasenkow, who appears to think that she did cheat, on the ground that

"The games of Sandu are without the gross errors typical, alas, of women's chess"

You couldn't make it up.
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LawrenceCooper
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Re: European Women's Championship 2015

Post by LawrenceCooper » Tue Jun 02, 2015 1:16 pm

There is a Facebook thread giving the other side of the unsavoury incident: https://www.facebook.com/eljanov?fref=ts with comments from Natalia Zhukova and Emil Sutovsky among others.

Paul Dargan
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Re: European Women's Championship 2015

Post by Paul Dargan » Tue Jun 02, 2015 1:36 pm

Loz - that page seems to have been removed ... dont suppose anybody has a copy?

paul

LawrenceCooper
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Re: European Women's Championship 2015

Post by LawrenceCooper » Tue Jun 02, 2015 1:38 pm

Paul Dargan wrote:Loz - that page seems to have been removed ... dont suppose anybody has a copy?

paul
It's still there and can be read without being a F/book friend. Maybe search for Pavel Eljanov and then it's top of his F/book page.

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Paolo Casaschi
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Re: European Women's Championship 2015

Post by Paolo Casaschi » Tue Jun 02, 2015 1:40 pm

NickFaulks wrote:I wonder whether the amateur players who say that they want the events they play in to be exempt from AC regulations would feel that way if it happened to them.
As you said, the key issue is that you would not have any way to know, so it really depends on personal attitude. So if this happened to any of the 34 players singing the petition last week, they would most likely suspect cheating. If this happened to me at the end of the LCC open, when I'm struggling as usual with something like 3.5 out of 8 and my opponent beats me with a brilliancy... well, cheating would not by high on my thoughts...

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Paolo Casaschi
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Re: European Women's Championship 2015

Post by Paolo Casaschi » Tue Jun 02, 2015 1:43 pm

NickFaulks wrote:Found a quote from GM Mikail Krasenkow, who appears to think that she did cheat, on the ground that

"The games of Sandu are without the gross errors typical, alas, of women's chess"

You couldn't make it up.
We need to inform immediately Kenneth Regan so he can tune the algorithms accordingly! ;-)

NickFaulks
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Re: European Women's Championship 2015

Post by NickFaulks » Tue Jun 02, 2015 1:46 pm

LawrenceCooper wrote:There is a Facebook thread giving the other side of the unsavoury incident: https://www.facebook.com/eljanov?fref=ts with comments from Natalia Zhukova and Emil Sutovsky among others.
Rather a mess, as one expects from long Facebook thread, but it is absolutely clear that even her accusers have absolutely no evidence to present beyond her remarkable run of wins. It is disappointing to see how easily some of them morph from "she shouldn't have complained about being singled out for special treatment" to "she must have been cheating somehow".
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Re: European Women's Championship 2015

Post by NickFaulks » Tue Jun 02, 2015 1:56 pm

Paolo Casaschi wrote: We need to inform immediately Kenneth Regan so he can tune the algorithms accordingly! ;-)
A good idea, so I have done that.
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