2016 Olympiad - Baku

[IM Jack Rudd]

More from Alex Colovic here. As he suggests, odd that this incident doesn't seem to have been more widely discussed.

I asked about this at the time, but anyone who really knew the facts wasn't telling. Superficially, it would be very surprising if this player beat a GM - not impossible, of course, but when he is then found to have technology in his bag... I'd say that he was lucky not to be expelled.

Of course, the Olympiad is a large enough tournament that you'd expect somebody to beat a player 300 points above him at some point in the event, but yes, the phone is a very big red flag.

[Leonard Barden]

yep - let's not get excited - top10 is fine.

The commetators just discussed the Japan incident said it was ipad and iphone - but no chess software ... arbiters decision to default (no device allowed in the playing area) but not to evict from event. Tough luck indeed for the individual ... but really no reason to bring anythign from the hotel room surely?

Paul

More from Alex Colovic here. As he suggests, odd that this incident doesn't seem to have been more widely discussed.

Tang Tang scored only 1/5 and Alex Colovic says that 'White's play was 'on a very high level', which in the circumstances carries the innuendo that TT really did cheat. Long ago I was among the first outside Serbia/Bulgaria to state that Borislav Ivanov was a definite computer user, so I was naturally interested and have just played through Tang Tang v GM Odeev with the aid of Chessbomb.
My verdict: White was better (+1) early on but then messed up and Black completely equalised. However instead of 28...Qxa2! which would have probably led to a draw the GM got greedy and punted 28...f2+?? with the mirage of a mating attack. This didn't work and he was left a passed d pawn down with his own king weak which White converted right up to the bizarre game end.
In short, I disagree with Colovic's pejorative (in this case) words 'on a very high level' , consider the play quite uneven with GM Odeev substantially the architect of his own misfortune, and think that the decision to limit the punishment to loss of that game was correct.

[Ian Thompson]

yep - let's not get excited - top10 is fine.

The commetators just discussed the Japan incident said it was ipad and iphone - but no chess software ... arbiters decision to default (no device allowed in the playing area) but not to evict from event. Tough luck indeed for the individual ... but really no reason to bring anythign from the hotel room surely?

Paul

More from Alex Colovic here. As he suggests, odd that this incident doesn't seem to have been more widely discussed.

What needs discussing, and fixing for the future, is how he managed to get the devices into the playing area without being detected, and, consequently, how many other players might have done the same thing without being caught.

The apparent absence of chess software doesn't tell anyone very much one way or the other. I'm sure it's not difficult, if you know what you're doing, to have software installed on a device that is concealed.

For the during the game checks, I'm curious to know why the approach adopted by the Washington DC International a couple of years ago hasn't become the norm. They were using a hand-held scanner on players walking around the playing venue that produced something that looked like a heat map of the player's body. If the player had something like a phone in their pocket it would show up. There were examples of its scans on their website, but they appear to have been removed now.

[JustinHorton]

More from Alex Colovic here. As he suggests, odd that this incident doesn't seem to have been more widely discussed.

I asked about this at the time, but anyone who really knew the facts wasn't telling.

I bang this drum a lot, but this is a bad thing in itself. If you have an incident of alleged cheating there surely should be some kind of public statement so that the public knows what ruling has been made and the justification for it.

[Gary Kenworthy]

Remarkably interesting comments by Jon Speelman on that Gawain game, within Chessbase article, on move 28. That is really heavy prep.
At the end of day, England were so unlucky. Yes 4th place was possible. So close. Good effort by the "Open" Men's team.
rgds (FM) GK

[NickFaulks]

I bang this drum a lot, but this is a bad thing in itself. If you have an incident of alleged cheating there surely should be some kind of public statement so that the public knows what ruling has been made and the justification for it.

In this case, once it was established that the case would go no further, a reasonably full statement does seem to have been made. I just think that they were surprisingly lenient. It was not hard to smuggle anything into the playing area, but it was hard to do so by accident.

[JustinHorton]

Is that statement available, do you know?

[NickFaulks]

Is that statement available, do you know?

Not directly, so far as I can tell, and of course I would like it to have been. From links found by members of this forum, they seem to have explained themselves to the press.

[Tim Harding]

if you are looking at ten years time might the team be Jones, Howell, Hawkins, Pert (N)

Who won't be especially young themselves.

Isn't all this doom and gloom rather short-sighted?
Imagine we were all Iranian chess players circa 2010 saying our team is ageing and we have no new players coming along - and now look at the GM-strength teenagers they have. Half England's 2026 olympiad team could still be in primary school and not above the radar yet.

[Michael Farthing]

Hear hear! Well said.

[NickFaulks]

Half England's 2026 olympiad team could still be in primary school and not above the radar yet.

That was partially my point, although it is possible that Iran are doing something with their primary school players that we are not, and maybe don't even want to.

[Leonard Barden]

Half England's 2026 olympiad team could still be in primary school and not above the radar yet.

This and the following two posts are just wishful thinking, I'm afraid. See my detailed analysis in the Chess Academy thread, which I won't repeat here as most of those who read it will be in denial.

[Roger de Coverly]

This and the following two posts are just wishful thinking, I'm afraid.

The 1966 Olympiad team was

Clarke
Lee
Hartston
Littlewood (N)
Hindle
Keene

The 1976 team was

Miles
Keene
Hartston
Stean
Mestel
Nunn

That Keene and Hartston would be in the 1976 team could have been predicted in 1966. I'm not sure whether the other four could have been predicted, although exceptionally for the era Stean was a 180s player at the age of 14 a couple of years later.

Leonard's point though is that whilst 180 at 14 was good in times past, in the current world players have to get there by the age of 10.

[MJMcCready]

yep - let's not get excited - top10 is fine.

The commetators just discussed the Japan incident said it was ipad and iphone - but no chess software ... arbiters decision to default (no device allowed in the playing area) but not to evict from event. Tough luck indeed for the individual ... but really no reason to bring anythign from the hotel room surely?

Paul

More from Alex Colovic here. As he suggests, odd that this incident doesn't seem to have been more widely discussed.

Tang Tang scored only 1/5 and Alex Colovic says that 'White's play was 'on a very high level', which in the circumstances carries the innuendo that TT really did cheat. Long ago I was among the first outside Serbia/Bulgaria to state that Borislav Ivanov was a definite computer user, so I was naturally interested and have just played through Tang Tang v GM Odeev with the aid of Chessbomb.
My verdict: White was better (+1) early on but then messed up and Black completely equalised. However instead of 28...Qxa2! which would have probably led to a draw the GM got greedy and punted 28...f2+?? with the mirage of a mating attack. This didn't work and he was left a passed d pawn down with his own king weak which White converted right up to the bizarre game end.
In short, I disagree with Colovic's pejorative (in this case) words 'on a very high level' , consider the play quite uneven with GM Odeev substantially the architect of his own misfortune, and think that the decision to limit the punishment to loss of that game was correct.

In agreement with you there. I just looked at the game also. I think black lost because he pushed for the win with 28. ...f2+, like you say. I thought at first he might play 28. ... Qxd6, which after 29. Rd2 leaves an unclear but probably drawn ending.

[Richard Bates]

No idea about this game (haven't looked at it) but bear in mind the sometimes forgotten point which is that you don't have to be permanently locked in to a computer to be cheating. Occasional consultation whilst surviving on your own ability for large chunks of the game would be enough for competent players to gain an advantage. And is completely impervious to the "analysis based identification" being pursued.