This gentleman has indeed made it into the Challengers event. I've just looked him up on the FIDE website, and his ratings graph since 2000 is utterly bizarre! One example is this (with some 60 other games played in the intervening 'quarter-years')Maxim Devereaux wrote:Beginning to suspect this should have it's own thread, but...
Obviously there would seem to be little point in cheating at a local level, but something like, say, Gibraltar, with £100,000 of prize money at stake, it's a completely different matter.
Which leads me to mention another sort of 'cheating' which went on there last year... the case of a Russian IM, rated 2450ish some years ago, whose rating then declined sharply to ~2150 to 2200 between 2003 and 2005, where it has stayed since. Played in both the Masters and Challengers 1 and 2, with the clear intention of picking up a whole raft of prize money
What he actual got was:
1st= Masters U2200 rating prize: £1500
1st Challengers 2: £1500
2nd= Challengers combined: £250
I understand £3250 goes a pretty long way in Russia... and at least there were some strong young Norwegians (both in the Challengers and his rating category of the Masters) and a few of the stronger English players to stop him making a clean sweep, which would have netted him up to £6000.
I see he's playing again this year, though only (at present) down for the Masters. I hope that the organisers have the sense to bar him from the Challengers tournament, if he attempts to make a late entry. Plus they seem to have removed the combined standings prizes from the Challengers and Amateur, but there's still up to £5000 at stake for someone like him (or a computer cheat, for that matter).
Maxim
Jan 2005 2392 22
Jan 2006 2181 45
It's quite common for someone to play lots of games within a short period to maximise their rating gain while they are playing well, but the reverse...?! Does this look as fishy as both Mr Devereaux and myself seem to think it does?
