Cheating in chess

[Matt Mackenzie]

Anybody know why he was getting death threats, was it related to the Ukraine/Russia conflict?

[Ian Thompson]

FIDE has banned a Chinese player for 6 months for deliberately losing games. It's also reported on chess.com.

What the report doesn't say is what's going to happen when the ban is over. The player now has a rating of 1979, just over 400 points lower than his peak rating. Will that rating be used? If not, what should happen? Not an easy question to answer in my opinion.

[NickFaulks]

The report doesn't say is what's going to happen when the ban is over, which is not their job.

Credit to the federation for reporting this. My guess is that this gentleman will not be playing again.

If he were somehow to do so, the only sensible approach would for him to start again with an initial rating. Based on past experience, FIDE Council will probably ask QC to come up with something more "scientific".

[Roger de Coverly]

Credit to the federation for reporting this. My guess is that this gentleman will not be playing again.

Allegedly he was manipulating his rating downwards in order to obtain eligibility for rating restricted events. Suspicions of such behaviour are not uncommon in domestic chess, but this may be the first example involving FIDE.

Monthly rating makes local manipulation of ratings far easier, for example withdrawing before the end of a tournament to protect a rating.

Perhaps he was caught for adopting an unsubtle strategy. Less suspicion might arise perhaps if he had conceded draws to nominally lower rated players, lost on time in decent positions, fell into obscure opening traps, fell for cheapos etc. Maybe standards have risen more than the ratings reflect, so a rating many years old might in practice be worth a lot less as a results predictor than it used to be. You can see this sometimes with players who have have taken breaks for a decade or longer. FIDE will reinstate their previous rating, but it often collapses quite rapidly.

Playing bad moves quickly is something we see club players doing. The difference is that most of them never had a decent rating to lose.

[MSoszynski]

One UK example, from many years ago.

Player X enters Minor tourneys for the thrill of competing for cash prizes (though they are small).

In one such event he finds that his results leave him out of contention; he does not withdraw, however.

In the last round, he easily and quickly beats his opponent, Player Z.

Z, demoralised and in a hurry to depart for home, is happy for X to report the result, and leaves.

X reports that X lost the game. That is so X will keep his grade down to ensure eligibility for future Minor tourneys.

Z will probably not bother to check websites for the results, and anyway would be flattered to see that he, Z, had actually "won".

[NickFaulks]

Perhaps he was caught for adopting an unsubtle strategy.

I think it's pretty clear how he was caught. Someone in China looked at this.

https://ratings.fide.com/profile/8601488/chart

[Chris Rice]

I was watching tennis the other day as Sky Sports have a dedicated sport channel for it. They have a sort of equivalence to the rating restricted chess tournaments in Grand Slam, 1000, 750, 500 and 250 tournaments. The difference in winnings is quite marked with the Slams and 1000 series tournaments being the most lucrative while playing the 250s might see you playing on the Moldovan border at night with dodgy floodlights and three people watching. I guess that would be the chess equivalent of a drafty church hall in Dagenham.

Now one day there was a women's match and as they were warming up the commentator was giving some insight to the form of the players etc. It was clear that one of the players had been struggling for form previously and had lost a string of matches at the higher levels so decided to drop down to the 500/250s to get some wins to restore confidence. Then he went on to mention the string of tournaments that the player had won at this level. The other commentator then joined in to praise the player and say what an intelligent strategy it was as the player had regained a lot of the form that they had lost and that other players in a similar situation would be wise to pursue such a strategy. Tennis has a ranking system so it would have been similar to chess in that way but there is a completely different mindset here as no one said that the player was cheating in any way and the commentators clearly would have laughed their heads off if there would have been any mention of a ban for doing this.

[NickFaulks]

This sounds different - unless you are saying that the player would not be allowed to opt for the lower level events unless they lost some matches in order to slide down the rankings.

I do not believe that is the case.

[Ian Thompson]

Tennis has a ranking system so it would have been similar to chess in that way but there is a completely different mindset here as no one said that the player was cheating in any way and the commentators clearly would have laughed their heads off if there would have been any mention of a ban for doing this.

Tennis does/did have its own problems though. A few years ago, I went on a group holiday and one of the other people on it worked for the Lawn Tennis Association. Her job was to organise tournaments for them. She said there was a persistent problem with players withdrawing at the last minute claiming to be injured, after the pairings had been announced. The truth, she thought, was that most of them didn't want to play against someone they thought they'd lose to, adversely affecting their ranking.

[John Townsend]

The answer to manipulating ratings is not to have cash prizes, except at the highest level. In any case, prizes are usually poor value when compared with the cost of entering, travel, accommodation, required memberships, and other necessary expenses. I daresay many players, if offered a choice, would prefer lower costs and no prizes, playing solely for the honour and to improve their ratings.

[Joey Stewart]

The answer to manipulating ratings is not to have cash prizes, except at the highest level. In any case, prizes are usually poor value when compared with the cost of entering, travel, accommodation, required memberships, and other necessary expenses. I daresay many players, if offered a choice, would prefer lower costs and no prizes, playing solely for the honour and to improve their ratings.

I'm pretty sure that if you enter a tournament it's not for the whimsical "honour" of the game and most believe themselves capable of picking up prizes

The answer is not to get rid of prizes but to simply get rid of rated sections and grading prizes which are a joke anyway, and instead have opens with all the money making 8-10 place prizes, which still gives a lot of lower rated players something to shoot for but without encouraging rating manipulation.

It would also likely help fix the rating deficit as you would have way more higher rated players willing to play such tournaments where they have a better chance of prizes and this would help bring points back into general circulation .

[MJMcCready]

This sounds different - unless you are saying that the player would not be allowed to opt for the lower level events unless they lost some matches in order to slide down the rankings.

I do not believe that is the case.

I think it's generally agreed that is not the norm but there are examples of it.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"FIDE has banned a Chinese player for 6 months"

Not unanimous though, and not entirely convincing "evidence". It certainly looks fishy, but if they're desperate enough to say that he lost after playing quickly, therefore he cheated...

[Mick Norris]

The answer to manipulating ratings is not to have cash prizes, except at the highest level. In any case, prizes are usually poor value when compared with the cost of entering, travel, accommodation, required memberships, and other necessary expenses. I daresay many players, if offered a choice, would prefer lower costs and no prizes, playing solely for the honour and to improve their ratings.

I'm pretty sure that if you enter a tournament it's not for the whimsical "honour" of the game and most believe themselves capable of picking up prizes

The answer is not to get rid of prizes but to simply get rid of rated sections and grading prizes which are a joke anyway, and instead have opens with all the money making 8-10 place prizes, which still gives a lot of lower rated players something to shoot for but without encouraging rating manipulation.

It would also likely help fix the rating deficit as you would have way more higher rated players willing to play such tournaments where they have a better chance of prizes and this would help bring points back into general circulation .

That was tried in Manchester

But only once

Use your own money to give it a go if you want

[Ian Thompson]

The answer is not to get rid of prizes but to simply get rid of rated sections and grading prizes which are a joke anyway, and instead have opens with all the money making 8-10 place prizes, which still gives a lot of lower rated players something to shoot for but without encouraging rating manipulation.

That was tried in Manchester

But only once

It probably depends on the type of tournament and its location. Some foreign tournaments do that, perhaps also with prizes for the best scores by local players as well as place prizes, and are successful.