Cheating in chess

[Kevin Thurlow]

" It should be remembered that Paul Truong and the USCF are on very bad terms."

Just USCF?

It is an awful situation and it's not clear what the best way to deal with it is. Stoppping the entire event for hours is unusual.

[Stewart Reuben]

It is made clear in the Laws of Chess that they cannot cover all possible situations. … The arbiter should find a solution to fit the given situation.
In Serbia in 1970, together with Bernard Cafferty, the lights went out all over town. We stopped the clocks and returned to our hotels. Bernard told me there was quite a lot of discussion of the unfinished games. I forget what the arbiter decided. Possibly to abandon the round as it was quite early on. Possibly to continue the next day.
I suppose you could put, in the Arbiters' Manual, suggestions on how to handle a death at the board.

[Tim Harding]

Discussion of what should happen in the event of a death during play in a tournament is of course a serious topic but I agree with Nick that it hardly belongs in a thread on Cheating and these last posts perhaps should be split off, please, Mr Moderator?

Was there not a death during the (last?) round of a recent olympiad (Tromso?) when very many senior organisers and arbiters had to make a quick decision. Maybe a brief suspension of play took place in that match and ones near enough to be affected?

Can anybody give a definitive account of what was done please?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Discussion of what should happen in the event of a death during play in a tournament is of course a serious topic but I agree with Nick that it hardly belongs in a thread on Cheating and these last posts perhaps should be split off, please, Mr Moderator?

Was there not a death during the (last?) round of a recent olympiad (Tromso?) when very many senior organisers and arbiters had to make a quick decision. Maybe a brief suspension of play took place in that match and ones near enough to be affected?

Can anybody give a definitive account of what was done please?

I think we are still waiting for a definitive account of the events at the US Open. The deaths at Tromso (there were two) were one at the board or soon after (Kurt Meier) and one during the event, but away from the board (Alisher Anarkulov):

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=6486&p=143990#p143990 (Kurt Meier)
viewtopic.php?f=46&t=6798 (Alisher Anarkulov)
viewtopic.php?f=31&t=6486&p=144235&hili ... th#p144235 (extra details of Kurt Meier's death)
https://elpais.com/deportes/2014/08/14/ ... 88829.html (in Spanish, worth reading a Google translation of this to get a feel for what happened and how it was handled)

Nick Faulks in the Olympiad thread said:

It is true that the official break was for only a few minutes. However, some players thought it was a bomb and decided to put considerable distance between themselves and the playing hall, so it was a while before they got back.

[Tim Harding]

Discussion of what should happen in the event of a death during play in a tournament is of course a serious topic but I agree with Nick that it hardly belongs in a thread on Cheating and these last posts perhaps should be split off, please, Mr Moderator?

Was there not a death during the (last?) round of a recent olympiad (Tromso?) when very many senior organisers and arbiters had to make a quick decision. Maybe a brief suspension of play took place in that match and ones near enough to be affected?

Can anybody give a definitive account of what was done please?

I think we are still waiting for a definitive account of the events at the US Open. The deaths at Tromso (there were two) were one at the board or soon after (Kurt Meier) and one during the event, but away from the board (Alisher Anarkulov):

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=6486&p=143990#p143990
viewtopic.php?f=46&t=6798
viewtopic.php?f=31&t=6486&p=144235&hili ... th#p144235

Nick Faulks in the Olympiad thread said:

It is true that the official break was for only a few minutes. However, some players thought it was a bomb and decided to put considerable distance between themselves and the playing hall, so it was a while before they got back.

Thanks for the links, but none of those give a clue to how the officials concerned handled the situation of a death at the board, and what was the basis for their decisions.
Death during a team match would presumably require different handling, e.g., should the other games in the match have been continued at all?
The opponent of the player who died was awarded a win, I suppose?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I edited my post to add a link to the Spanish news report (I think you replied before seeing my addition to my original post):

https://elpais.com/deportes/2014/08/14/ ... 88829.html

Stick that in a translation engine (I used Google Translate) and you get things such as:

"He played the last round of the Tromso Olympiad (Norway) against the Rwandan Alain Niyibizi when he collapsed on the board. The doctors on duty tried to revive him for more than half an hour, but it was useless, and they took out his corpse covered with sheets while continuing many games, as well as the fight for medals."

"It was a moment of generalized terror because the cries of several people - in the sepulchral silence that presides over the Olympiad - calling a doctor were confused by some with a bomb alert. Nobody has forgotten that Interpol announced a terrorist threat against Norway a week before the Olympiad began. This explains that hundreds of players, and especially the female team of Israel, near the place of the screams, began to run in terror, looking for a way out. "

"The chaos lasted very little, because the referees clarified the situation immediately by public address. The main one, Panagiotis Nikolopoulos, made the difficult decision that the pending items were still in play while a cordon of doctors, nurses and security guards was formed around the patient, while three doctors took turns trying to revive him, covered by sheets in the form of screen to protect Meier's privacy. Nikolopulos probably guessed right, because abruptly dislodging more than 1,000 people in a situation of extreme tension and with several medals still at stake might have been more ethical, but it would have generated another kind of serious problems."

"The anguish of cardiac massage lasted half an hour, while the son of Meier, the first board of Seychelles, his other companions, the Rwandan rivals and other chess players from the five continents cried, put faces of enormous sadness and looked at the circle from a prudent distance . The Honduran Hector Mejia, referee of that match, tried, barely, to describe what happened: "As the pieces were on the board at that moment, I think Meier believed that he would win when his opponent found a combination that guaranteed him the tie. Right there he began to collapse little by little in his chair, and finally his head fell on the board. " When the doctors surrendered and covered the corpse with sheets to take it away, many team captains did everything possible to ensure that their players still fighting, playing a lot in some cases, did not know the outcome."

That gives an idea of how it was handled. Panagiotis Nikolopoulos might be the one to ask if you want more on how he came to his decision.

The final position in Meier-Niyibizi is here:

http://www.thechessdrum.net/blog/2014/0 ... so-norway/

Meier's game was recorded as a win for him. The match was drawn 2-2 (unclear if this was all agreed between the captains with the match actually stopped after the death).

Chess-results.com gives a 2-2 result with a win for both Meiers and two losses on the bottom two boards:

http://chess-results.com/tnr140380.aspx ... 30&snr=166

Confusingly, Chessbomb give it as a draw on the top two boards and two wins for Rwanda on the bottom two boards:

https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2014-ol ... eier_Peter
https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2014-ol ... n_Patience
https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2014-ol ... llay_Ragul
https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2014-ol ... ura_Alexis

EDIT: Bit more here:

http://palau-chess.blogspot.com/2014/09 ... mpiad.html

[Richard Bates]

Just take the approach that every game has been adjourned after an open sealed move. Analyse away!

[Ian Thompson]

It is made clear in the Laws of Chess that they cannot cover all possible situations. … The arbiter should find a solution to fit the given situation.
...
I suppose you could put, in the Arbiters' Manual, suggestions on how to handle a death at the board.

I assume this event was being played under USCF rules, as the tournament announcement doesn't say otherwise. With their voluminous rulebook, I'd be surprised if it didn't say what should happen when an evacuation of the tournament hall during play is necessary.

[Mike Gunn]

A number of years (decades) ago the opponent of a Guildford player died during a Surrey League match. The game was adjudicated as a draw. I'm sure I've recounted this before on here (but not in the context of cheating).

[JustinHorton]

A very difficult situation arose yesterday in the 2018 US Open when a player died during play. The announcement from the USCF hasn't said who it is yet until the family have been fully informed.

Paul Truong said on FB "Due to this unexpected and tragic event, play was stopped for hours and it was just resumed at 8 pm local time. What is the rule for play stoppage of an entire event? How can cheating be avoided if players were free to leave the playing hall? I honestly do not know what is the right, sensible, and fair way to handle something like this."

There's reference made in the comments to a match between France and Azerbaijan that was agreed a two-all draw due to the illness of one of the players. For some reason I'm struggling to trace the match - is that an accurate description?

[David Sedgwick]

There's reference made in the comments to a match between France and Azerbaijan that was agreed a two-all draw due to the illness of one of the players. For some reason I'm struggling to trace the match - is that an accurate description?

Yes, it is.

The late Vugar Gashimov was taken ill during play at the European Team Championships 2011 - an indication of the health problems that led to his untimely death.

The incident was mentioned here at viewtopic.php?f=31&t=3477&start=180.

[JustinHorton]

Ah, thanks very much David, I'd only looked at Olympiads.

[LawrenceCooper]

There's reference made in the comments to a match between France and Azerbaijan that was agreed a two-all draw due to the illness of one of the players. For some reason I'm struggling to trace the match - is that an accurate description?

Yes, it is.

The late Vugar Gashimov was taken ill during play at the European Team Championships 2011 - an indication of the health problems that led to his untimely death.

The incident was mentioned here at viewtopic.php?f=31&t=3477&start=180.

He collapsed in the smoking area, maybe an hour or two into the round.

[JustinHorton]

Discussing France v Azerbaijan, Arthur Kogan writes:

Many would say that dying is unfair so is very hard to find a fair solution...trying to save life is a clear No. 1 and wise players would be expected to react in a sportive way, as for example was done by France against Azerbaijan when a dear friend got a sudden very dangerous health problem...and few of us went imidately to try to help (meanwhile 2-2 was agreed) while one famous GM (running for president now) showed 0 care to what happened and was just complaining nonstop about how unfair is the 2-2...each person and his values...

[Matt Mackenzie]

Discussing France v Azerbaijan, Arthur Kogan writes:

Many would say that dying is unfair so is very hard to find a fair solution...trying to save life is a clear No. 1 and wise players would be expected to react in a sportive way, as for example was done by France against Azerbaijan when a dear friend got a sudden very dangerous health problem...and few of us went imidately to try to help (meanwhile 2-2 was agreed) while one famous GM (running for president now) showed 0 care to what happened and was just complaining nonstop about how unfair is the 2-2...each person and his values...

Who would that be then?

(genuine question, not least because I don't know when the above was written)