Cheating suspicion at the Zadar Open in Croatia

[Albert Silver]

I decided to sign the petition against cheating in the following link after reading again and again about that cheater.

http://www.chessprofessionals.org/node/369

I did not think that the problem is a significant problem because I see enough errors of top players to believe that they do not cheat and I am surprised to read that borislav ivanov can cheat again and again when nobody stopped him.

The reason is because no one has found how he does it. Circumstantial evidence is not enough.

This falls right into what I have said all along about cheating. There are some clever technological approaches that are going to be VERY difficult to deal with. The toughest issue is getting information from the game to an outside location where a computer can be used. Getting it back in is pretty trivial.

Yes, I was having this discussion with a colleague, and said much the same. Receiving moves is easy, but how does he enter them all, presuming no one is doing it for him? Image recognition via a secret camera is unlikely, and he cannot use his hands for a quick 10+5 game as it would be way too obvious. Some Morse code system in his shoes perhaps, is the easiest guess. And he would need to do it for all moves, a tough proposition. Ideas?

[Albert Silver]

There is pretty much no support left for Borislav, including from Bulgarian players, and some of the federation officials. This is from the Internets - but it was said that Borislav offended seriously Kiril Georgiev, threatening him with violence on this tournament they played.

The problem is that banning somebody based on optimal play (in B&M games, being it chess, poker, blackjack or any other) would rather be a precedent, it always has been used so far as a lead, but not as a proof.

I think FIDE should create a commission here to solve or decide further on such problems, following also the request from ACP. My feeling is that any strong player would support that. I can imagine the only reasons for this not happening is that they are trying to catch him physically.

They have to catch him. If optimal play were the method then Marion Tinsley would have been sent to Alcatraz LONG ago.

[Uri Blass]

There is pretty much no support left for Borislav, including from Bulgarian players, and some of the federation officials. This is from the Internets - but it was said that Borislav offended seriously Kiril Georgiev, threatening him with violence on this tournament they played.

The problem is that banning somebody based on optimal play (in B&M games, being it chess, poker, blackjack or any other) would rather be a precedent, it always has been used so far as a lead, but not as a proof.

I think FIDE should create a commission here to solve or decide further on such problems, following also the request from ACP. My feeling is that any strong player would support that. I can imagine the only reasons for this not happening is that they are trying to catch him physically.

The evidence against borislav is not based only on optimal play but also on poor play in some games when it seemed that he failed to use a computer.

It is illogical to have the same player play like super GM in many games and also play not better than rating 2000 and not based on a single move in other games even at the same month.

I think that this is enough evidence to decide that he is quilty of cheating.
If he does not want to explain how he cheated then he should get the maximal possible punishement.
If he decide to explain how he did it then we can decide to reduce the punishement so he is going to have a motivation to explain how he cheated.

[Uri Blass]

There is pretty much no support left for Borislav, including from Bulgarian players, and some of the federation officials. This is from the Internets - but it was said that Borislav offended seriously Kiril Georgiev, threatening him with violence on this tournament they played.

The problem is that banning somebody based on optimal play (in B&M games, being it chess, poker, blackjack or any other) would rather be a precedent, it always has been used so far as a lead, but not as a proof.

I think FIDE should create a commission here to solve or decide further on such problems, following also the request from ACP. My feeling is that any strong player would support that. I can imagine the only reasons for this not happening is that they are trying to catch him physically.

They have to catch him. If optimal play were the method then Marion Tinsley would have been sent to Alcatraz LONG ago.

The evidence against him is not based only on optimal play and houdini's moves are also not equivalent to optimal play so even if there were not games when he played not better than the level of rating 2000 then I believe that we could see enough evidence for cheating.

The fact that he also played some bad games make the evidence against him even more convincing.

[bob]

I decided to sign the petition against cheating in the following link after reading again and again about that cheater.

http://www.chessprofessionals.org/node/369

I did not think that the problem is a significant problem because I see enough errors of top players to believe that they do not cheat and I am surprised to read that borislav ivanov can cheat again and again when nobody stopped him.

The reason is because no one has found how he does it. Circumstantial evidence is not enough.

This falls right into what I have said all along about cheating. There are some clever technological approaches that are going to be VERY difficult to deal with. The toughest issue is getting information from the game to an outside location where a computer can be used. Getting it back in is pretty trivial.

Yes, I was having this discussion with a colleague, and said much the same. Receiving moves is easy, but how does he enter them all, presuming no one is doing it for him? Image recognition via a secret camera is unlikely, and he cannot use his hands for a quick 10+5 game as it would be way too obvious. Some Morse code system in his shoes perhaps, is the easiest guess. And he would need to do it for all moves, a tough proposition. Ideas?

There is a famous example of using a computer to cheat at blackjack, by a guy named Keith Taft. He had three problems back in his day, where we only have two today.

1. The main problem back in the 60's and early 70's was size/weight/power since there were no microprocessor devices like we have today. But he solved this with a 10lb+ device I think he nicknamed "George".

2. Inputting data had to be unobtrusive. He built 4 switches into the toe of his show, which let him enter a 4 bit number to indicate each card as it was dealt. I suppose one could use some variation of this today. Or perhaps a "keyboard" hidden in a shirt cuff or inside the pants, something with no thickness or rigidity so it would be invisible.

3. Telling him what to do (hit, stand, double, split) had to be done carefully, and he experimented with several devices, from a vibrator in the heel of his shoe, to tiny LED devices in the frame of his glasses. Who knows what might be done today, since we have sophisticated virtual-reality / 3d glasses. Micro-receivers (there is now a hearing aid that goes completely inside the ear canal with absolutely nothing visible, this could easily become a receiver if one wanted.

This seems like something that is going to get harder and harder to detect. I suppose one could try some sort of jamming, but that is illegal in most parts of the world since it involves broadcasting on frequencies that are owned by others. One could try a Faraday cage to at least stop electormagnetic signals, but there are other types.

I begin to suspect it is simply too expensive to stop, if not actually impossible, and that this is "here to stay" unfortunately. I wonder when we will get a tennis racquet that is "smart"?

[Albert Silver]

There is pretty much no support left for Borislav, including from Bulgarian players, and some of the federation officials. This is from the Internets - but it was said that Borislav offended seriously Kiril Georgiev, threatening him with violence on this tournament they played.

The problem is that banning somebody based on optimal play (in B&M games, being it chess, poker, blackjack or any other) would rather be a precedent, it always has been used so far as a lead, but not as a proof.

I think FIDE should create a commission here to solve or decide further on such problems, following also the request from ACP. My feeling is that any strong player would support that. I can imagine the only reasons for this not happening is that they are trying to catch him physically.

They have to catch him. If optimal play were the method then Marion Tinsley would have been sent to Alcatraz LONG ago.

The evidence against him is not based only on optimal play and houdini's moves are also not equivalent to optimal play so even if there were not games when he played not better than the level of rating 2000 then I believe that we could see enough evidence for cheating.

The fact that he also played some bad games make the evidence against him even more convincing.

I disagree. I have games where the engines say I played to near perfection, and others where they evaluate me as one of the worst chess idiots ever.

[noctiferus]

Hi, Uri.
Allow a patzer like me to interfere in your discussion, please.

You said: "houdini's moves are also not equivalent to optimal play ".
Obviously it isn't (with most respect for Robert Houdart, of course).

But:
Dont'you think that the almost perfect coincidence of moves with a SUB-optimal chess engine is a bit more suspect than a coincidence of moves with an optimal chess engine?
In the second case, he could be a chess genius, but for playing the moves of a suboptimal chess engine, he should be sort a clairvoyant, to be able to find moves that are chosen from the engine, and are not the optimal ones.

Blame my bad english: I'm afraid I was not able to clear out what I meant...

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

There is pretty much no support left for Borislav, including from Bulgarian players, and some of the federation officials. This is from the Internets - but it was said that Borislav offended seriously Kiril Georgiev, threatening him with violence on this tournament they played.

The problem is that banning somebody based on optimal play (in B&M games, being it chess, poker, blackjack or any other) would rather be a precedent, it always has been used so far as a lead, but not as a proof.

I think FIDE should create a commission here to solve or decide further on such problems, following also the request from ACP. My feeling is that any strong player would support that. I can imagine the only reasons for this not happening is that they are trying to catch him physically.

They have to catch him. If optimal play were the method then Marion Tinsley would have been sent to Alcatraz LONG ago.

The evidence against him is not based only on optimal play and houdini's moves are also not equivalent to optimal play so even if there were not games when he played not better than the level of rating 2000 then I believe that we could see enough evidence for cheating.

The fact that he also played some bad games make the evidence against him even more convincing.

I disagree. I have games where the engines say I played to near perfection, and others where they evaluate me as one of the worst chess idiots ever.

Count me in

[Uri Blass]

There is pretty much no support left for Borislav, including from Bulgarian players, and some of the federation officials. This is from the Internets - but it was said that Borislav offended seriously Kiril Georgiev, threatening him with violence on this tournament they played.

The problem is that banning somebody based on optimal play (in B&M games, being it chess, poker, blackjack or any other) would rather be a precedent, it always has been used so far as a lead, but not as a proof.

I think FIDE should create a commission here to solve or decide further on such problems, following also the request from ACP. My feeling is that any strong player would support that. I can imagine the only reasons for this not happening is that they are trying to catch him physically.

They have to catch him. If optimal play were the method then Marion Tinsley would have been sent to Alcatraz LONG ago.

The evidence against him is not based only on optimal play and houdini's moves are also not equivalent to optimal play so even if there were not games when he played not better than the level of rating 2000 then I believe that we could see enough evidence for cheating.

The fact that he also played some bad games make the evidence against him even more convincing.

I disagree. I have games where the engines say I played to near perfection, and others where they evaluate me as one of the worst chess idiots ever.

I had also games where the engines say I played to near perfection but not games when the opponent was a strong GM and I do not believe that I can do it against a strong GM and win the game(there are small chances that I can do it and draw the game).

It is easier not to do mistakes if the opponent does serious mistakes by himself and I do not know about a single player who often beat GM's and often lose against players with rating 2000.

I have also some draws when I did not do serious mistakes but I believe that GM's could play better against me and avoiding one small positional
mistake that my opponent did could be enough to cause me to get slightly worse position that increase the probability that I do mistakes later in the game.


losing against more than one player with rating below 2000
http://ratings.fide.com/individual_calc ... 2013-03-01

winning against 4 GM's with rating above 2550

http://ratings.fide.com/individual_calc ... -01-01&t=0


It is simply not consistent.

[Uri Blass]

I can add that in the israeli championship(final) the difference in rating between players in the first round was usually less than 200 elo and inspite of it there was no win for the weaker player and the result was 8 wins for the stronger player and 8 draws.

There were few games when the weaker players got a winning position but not a single game when they translated their advantage to win because the stronger players know to defend inferior positions and doing no mistake when you have the advantage is not an easy task(it is easier to do no mistake in some equal boring position).