Cheating Allegations Lead to "Strip Search" of Chess Player

thesilentman

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Jun 14, 2012
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DoPo said:
Thanks for the video. It's kind of interesting, how he matched up with the engine perfectly at times. What did you think about this?

Once again, thanks for the video, DoPo. :)

Viking Incognito said:
I never thought it was possible to cheat at Chess. You learn something new everyday I suppose.
MegaManOfNumbers said:
....

Hold on, how the hell do you cheat at chess? Unless your fucking psychic or robotic, that shouldn't even be possible.
Use an analysis engine. It's damned good at tactics, but will fail you in the endgame (something that any Grand Master worth their rank already is damned good at). Due to digital notetaking, it's possible that a person could have it running in the background while he's playing the game and notating his moves.

Treblaine said:
electric method said:
trying to apply math to how a GM approaches chess isn't quite a good idea.
Yes, on the surface - to someone who has never really tried it - it may seem that way.
Have you ever played chess against a computer and compared it to a person? You cannot simply think chess algorithms and beat a game that relies on tactics: advanced ones at that.

Computer's way of thinking[footnote]Such a misnomer, think calculating if you really are picky. I just needed something to explain it better.[/footnote] =/= Human brain's way of thinking

But attaching giant fan to an oversized kite and riding the thing over the Kittyhawk dunes expecting the thing to fly equally "isn't quite a good idea", yet controlled flight was invented in America thinks to some Brothers trying precisely that. All aeroplane control systems descend from their solution to the flying problem.

And you know what, when they first did it EVERYONE thought they were frauds. They thought it was all faked, it was all a marketing stunt, and they said it was categorically impossible for them to succeed where other inventors with the funding of rich Industrialists and monarchies had repeatedly failed.

I don't want to be the modern equivalent of the person who called the Wright Brothers frauds, not over a matter of evidence, but refusal to recognise such lowly ones could achieve above that of the elites.

However he won, he deserves the respect and honour of all his victories till it is proven that he cheated.
Invalid, invalid comparison. Chess has been around for a couple thousand years (and has been refined quite a bit) while flight as we know it has been around 100 years. Also worth noting is that the Wright Brothers were the first known successful people to build a plane. Try again.

Going back to the Wright Brother's achievement, there were entire libraries full of books on aerodynamics that the Wright Brothers consulted.

Turns out it was a whole load of writing but most of it was useless, all the complexities and theories weren't backed up and over-complicated the problem. Over complicated. If it takes 800 pages to summarise your opening strategy, then that is such a fiendishly convoluted strategy it's always going to favour the raw power of a machine.
There's no such thing as useless information. Everything has it's place, especially in books like those. The reason that they were 'worthless' as they gave too much information not relevant to them (Wright brothers). And just because information is worthless to you doesn't mean it's worthless for other people.

What if he's not trying to think like a machine, but think like a human.
Right then, he's cheating (if a guy makes moves that SOMEHOW manage to match up with a chess analysis engine and be the best recommended move, he's cheating) to think like a human?



What are you trying to imply here? I'm genuinely confused.

Remember, this guy designs chess-beating computer algorithms, he knows chess.
Computers do not think the same way as humans. Computers are quite dumb at assumptions, while the human brain is a master at assumptions. It's what makes developing software of any kind a nightmare; learning the programming languages may be easy, but telling the computer that you want X output is the difficult part.

I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. Old elites all reading the same same 800-page books thinking in the same way have been made fools of before...
You seem to miss that a good part of chess is improving previous strategies to try something new. And ever heard of the phrase, "old is gold"? Sometimes the old stuff is the best as it has survived the times.
 

Gilhelmi

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WWmelb said:
Could it be that, as a COMPUTER CHESS PROGRAMMER he may have devised a relatively easy (for him anyway) algorithm or some such to think somewhat like a computer?

I don't see why this is implausible.

I think its kind of disgusting that because egos he must be cheating because he can't possibly have improved to win a couple of games against GMs.

Or maybe he just had a string of good luck?

How about innocent until proven guilty? How about any physical evidence that he was cheating? No there isn't any?

I know it because it's "just a chess tournament" but imagine shit like this was pulled in a high profile sport? OMG this basketball player is so good he must be on drugs. Lets figure out a way to prove his on drugs, even though there isn't any real evidence that he is...

Much the same and would cause a fucking UPROAR.

Oh well, maybe i'm reading too much into it
But when he only loses when the games are not broadcast live??? If he won when the cameras were off, fine.

Something smells fishy in Denmark.
 

DoPo

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Jan 30, 2012
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thesilentman said:
DoPo said:
Thanks for the video. It's kind of interesting, how he matched up with the engine perfectly at times. What did you think about this?
It's damn suspicious at best, is what I think. I mean, coupled with the fact that he came second just a couple of months ago in a torunament between Bulgarian universities, then...it gets worse. It's an improvement that's beyond remarkable for a mere month. Oh sure, Ivanov has had first places in tournaments but none of them featured grand masters - they were mostly amateur level and Balkan ones - the tournament in Zadar is really on higher level than those. He can compete there (as he has before) but with a consistent track record of being good but not the best (first and second places in smaller tournaments, some perfect wins, sure, some not) beating chess masters somehow doesn't seem that believable.

And I've got no idea where that "chess programmer" came from. I'd assume it's probably a slight mistranslation of what the Croatian (or other?) media have said (it was probably originally something like "chess player who is a computer programmer" but turned into "chess programmer") - the Bulgarian media makes absolutely no mention of that being the case (except in two instances, where they just translated the piece of news word for word, so it can be ignored) and there is no other evidence anywhere of that being the case. He is referred to as a programmer but no mention what he works on. Other Google searches turn up a Borislav Ivanov who is a web developer but I'm thinking it's a different person. Ivanov, the chess player, could be doing stuff with chess software but that would clearly be on the side and not his actual profession.

Also, I feel somewhat bad for saying this, but if he is really that good and capable of that level of improvement, I don't see why he's studying in the university he's currently in. It's not the worse by any stretch but incredibly mediocre. Maybe slightly leaning on the side of bad but I am not sure how the pedagogy is actually, might be one of their better courses. However, it's another thing I am not quite confident but I still I'll bring forth - he's doing pedagogy there, and started this year. I dunno, for a person with talent, that seems like quite an underachievement - a very mediocre course in a very mediocre university.
 

Jadak

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Wait, who even has the authority to strip search a person over allegations of "chess cheating"? This doesn't seem like something the police would be involved with, so either he agreed to it I guess or some random "chess authorities" are facing some sexual harassment I think....
 

Saika Renegade

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I confess, as someone who spends only a small amount of time around chessboards and considerably more time tinkering with electronic devices that can transmit data in discreet and indiscreet manners, this starts to resemble one of those locked-room mystery novels, which ends up fascinating me on a very basic 'whodunit' level. Or perhaps 'howdunit' might be a better phrase.

We have here an individual whose behavior, while enormously suspect, has no hard evidence behind it to justify those suspicions. There's correlations, including the parallels with Houdini's move determination and the broadcast failure, but no hard proof of causation. The interesting question, to me, isn't 'did he cheat?' but 'how would he cheat?' What ways could he accomplish the discreet transmission of data necessary, relayed between himself and a theoretical accomplice, digital or otherwise?

The correlations already suggest someone with familiarity with the Houdini engine, but that's conjecture. Using it as the basis, we have make a few assumptions; live televising with no delay in the broadcast or at least the presence of someone who could read and convey the actions quickly, reasonable transmission range and medium, etc. etc.

Operating on the notion that there's something mechanical involved, it has to be extremely discreet. As most 'silent' vibration systems in our electronics are operated via mechanical means, via gearing, reciprocation, or some other similar function, this obviously makes a relatively small amount of noise, just as a rule. This can be muffled however, but being able to quickly and discreetly, discretely read Morse code on the fly can be tricky enough (though being limited to only a handful of letters and numbers simplifies matters somewhat), and any means of transmission would be highly suspect.

The failure in the match that was not broadcast in turn casts doubt on the use of a system with more than one accomplice or the presence of said accomplice at the same match. Beyond that, I suspect that anyone breaking out a cell phone or other signal reception/transmission device at such a match would be ejected with haste.

The failure at the 100 move mark mentioned before suggests a small or inefficient battery system. Phone batteries sound optimal on the first hand, but depending on the manufacturer and model there's some degree of camouflaging difficulties. Using a coin or button cell battery sounds like a better idea, but I suspect those are probably not going to provide the same degree of longevity alongside some kind of mechanical device.

For discretion's sake, a likely cheat would use a tactile device; the feet would be an obvious choice for such a device as the feet are both sensitive enough to discern between 'dots' and 'dashes' in Morse as well as often surrounded by an article of clothing that would not be as likely to be checked. A simple telegraph-like system hidden in the sole of the shoe, tapping at the sole of the foot in turn, is not an impossibility, though finding an actuator small enough may be an issue and a simple electromagnet would probably be out of the question. Still, not entirely impossible.

I'm most curious on the matter of reception. If it's a battery powered device, what's powering its theoretical antenna? Furthermore, due to such strong correlation of Houdini to Ivanov's moves (A reported 98%! I've known more than a few people couldn't match that in audio cues), it seems like he wasn't getting reception issues more than once or twice as a result. Other locations, such as the back, are poor in regards to tactile sensory input and would probably have led to lower move correlation, based on the previous operating assumptions.

I'm wondering what he could have hidden and where; in this case, perhaps the careful gutting of a very small phone, and a system to receive from his accomplice. However, even the smaller phones I can imagine that would be cheap and easy to take apart and modify, such as the LG 300g, battery life doesn't seem like it should be an issue, unless he was very inefficient in the build...not impossible, since he's a programmer, not an engineer (and engineers aren't exempt either).

While a Faraday cage would probably be the end of this potential scandal in the making, solutions will vary in difficulty and cost. Above and beyond the simple measure to turn out the pockets and examine pens and other articles in detail, they could always lose their minds just a little bit and offer a pair of comfortable, warm fuzzy slippers to all participants in the tournament and mandate their use, but I imagine that could be seen as a slippery slope to chess in hospital gowns.
 

electric method

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Ok, I am not quoting here... it would end in a massive huge wall of text and what I am going to type is probably going to be, uh, longish. Thank you to all who quoted me or referenced something I said. For Hitheremynameisbob, Chess is a wonderfully intricate and interesting game. Understanding it at a master level may take years but, is a worthwhile investment. I haven't, as of yet, looked at the review/post-mortem of the game posted yet as I have been very ill lately. However, I expect to find that the player in question played best moves per ply. In case you are wondering 1 ply is one move. Computers tend to do this in open or extremely sharp positions. This is true even after years of development of chess engines. The why's are extremely long and get techincal fast and I'd end up losing most of you in the explination.

For Treblaine, I am going to use an example of cheating that did not involve a computer but, happened none-the-less at an otb tournament about 10 or so years ago. This was a game between juniors with the names of Sam and Dane (last names omitted for obvious reasons). What happened is this, Dane was an up and coming intermediate player Sam was very close to breaking into the master level of play. Over the course of the game Sam obtained a losing position and when Dane walked away from the board to get additional score sheets Sam moved one of his pieces to obtain a winning position. Sam went on to win the game costing Dane a prize. Ultimately his foul play was discovered and was stripped of the win. Point here being that cheating happened before, and will continue to happen in OTB play.

The thing about Comp Assisted play is that it can be easily detected in the opening at lower levels as computers tend to not play theory (mainline) unless instructed to do so. They will either play best ply moves or oddball theory. Meaning they willplay an amalgamation of lines together for best position, whereas a human will understand the thematic ideas behind an opening and play for them and adapt to the situation (almost always with a thematic idea in mind especially at high level play).
A good e.g. of this is in the King's Indian Defense. There is a neat line that I like quite a bit where black plays a5 around move 4-6. It's a thematic fit with blacks long term plans and is intended as a profylatic move to slow down or discourage whites play on the queen's side of the board. I have never played an engine that played this move mainly because a computer "thinks" this move is not a best move but, a wasted one that does not enhance it's position.
 

sapphireofthesea

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WWmelb said:
Could it be that, as a COMPUTER CHESS PROGRAMMER he may have devised a relatively easy (for him anyway) algorithm or some such to think somewhat like a computer?

I don't see why this is implausible.

I think its kind of disgusting that because egos he must be cheating because he can't possibly have improved to win a couple of games against GMs.

Or maybe he just had a string of good luck?

How about innocent until proven guilty? How about any physical evidence that he was cheating? No there isn't any?

I know it because it's "just a chess tournament" but imagine shit like this was pulled in a high profile sport? OMG this basketball player is so good he must be on drugs. Lets figure out a way to prove his on drugs, even though there isn't any real evidence that he is...

Much the same and would cause a fucking UPROAR.

Oh well, maybe i'm reading too much into it
To be fair, this has just happened with Cycling :p

OT: While I do agree as a programer he has the potential to develop decent tactics, sudden shifts from the norm have always been used as a highlight for potential cheating. It is not a he is guilty issue, it is just too sharp a change not too vigorously investigate.
To put it into perspective, it is like Usaian Bolt running 0.5 second faster. Doesn't sound like a lot but he is so high in the game that even 0.5 is a massive difference from the expected training development and will be examined. Doesn't mean he is guilty of anything, just incredible feats need to be carefully checked before being accepted. To go back to cycling, I am sure now at the second win in a row they will start to double and triple check the winner.
 

electric method

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For those of you wondering why cheating happens in chess, well there is big money at stake in some of these events. Although, to be honest, one generally has to be in the top 10 of all players world wide to make a living off of just tournament playing.
 

ResonanceSD

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Yeah well I'll send him up against my GTX 580 running a GPGPU program.

YOUR MOVE, PUNY MEATBAG PERSON.
 

sapphireofthesea

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Garrett said:
Xanex said:
Don't know how else to say it but evidently chess is serious buisness!
Ninja'd. But seriosuly, this is hilarious. Even if he did cheat, chess players are so butthurt over losing to computer, that it's really sad in a funny kind of way. While I never was more than an occasional player (and didn't play in many years now) I never had any qualms about losing to AI. I could never beat those fuckers anyway. I could beat real people that beat AI but the same AI that was badly beaten by a player I beat would destroy me...

Treblaine said:
Chess used to be considered the pinnacle of thought
I always wondered about this mentality with shougi and go being around...
You do realize when you get to large scale torni level Money is involved (not sure the exact figures but I am sure someone could make a living off of it as they do in other games), such as Magic The Gathering where torni prizes can get into the $10,000+ range). So yea, if that was your pay check I am sure butthurt doesn't begin to describe the issues involved.
 

electric method

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sapphireofthesea said:
Garrett said:
Xanex said:
Don't know how else to say it but evidently chess is serious buisness!
Ninja'd. But seriosuly, this is hilarious. Even if he did cheat, chess players are so butthurt over losing to computer, that it's really sad in a funny kind of way. While I never was more than an occasional player (and didn't play in many years now) I never had any qualms about losing to AI. I could never beat those fuckers anyway. I could beat real people that beat AI but the same AI that was badly beaten by a player I beat would destroy me...

Treblaine said:
Chess used to be considered the pinnacle of thought
I always wondered about this mentality with shougi and go being around...
You do realize when you get to large scale torni level Money is involved (not sure the exact figures but I am sure someone could make a living off of it as they do in other games), such as Magic The Gathering where torni prizes can get into the $10,000+ range). So yea, if that was your pay check I am sure butthurt doesn't begin to describe the issues involved.
Heh, you are right. At the top level of play you are talking much more than 10k... try more like 100k+ purses. just saying.

And a good lol, that dude was in fact cheating. No questions about it. The review DoPo posted makes it painfully obvious when one can see the actual moves. Often he plays odd nonsensesical moves that are best move for the current position, completely abandoning any previous plan. The real kicker was the 2nd game with the closed position. Wandering aimless play... then a massive blunder that no one above the 2200 level would ever make, let alone someone that is "performing" at a 2670 level (his rating for the tournament). Btw, in case you are wondering that is a rating like oh, Kasparov or Carlson. Again, not possible for a 2200 level player to suddenly be performing at a super GM level in a months time.
 

DoPo

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Jadak said:
Wait, who even has the authority to strip search a person over allegations of "chess cheating"? This doesn't seem like something the police would be involved with, so either he agreed to it I guess or some random "chess authorities" are facing some sexual harassment I think....
Did you read anything other than the title? Did you even read the title properly? "Strip search" is in quotes to begin with. It is then explained that Ivanov was made to empty his pockets and his pen was taken away. He also took off his shirt. Shirt.
 

electric method

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DoPo said:
Jadak said:
Wait, who even has the authority to strip search a person over allegations of "chess cheating"? This doesn't seem like something the police would be involved with, so either he agreed to it I guess or some random "chess authorities" are facing some sexual harassment I think....
Did you read anything other than the title? Did you even read the title properly? "Strip search" is in quotes to begin with. It is then explained that Ivanov was made to empty his pockets and his pen was taken away. He also took off his shirt. Shirt.
Many thanks again, DoPo, for the link to the post-mortems and analysis of those games. They were highly fascinating. Makes me really miss playing competitively.
 

Asuka Soryu

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"Is that a knight in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"

Perhaps the spirit of one of the greatest players of chess possessed his body, or the spirit of a Great Pharaoh.
 

DoPo

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electric method said:
DoPo said:
Jadak said:
Wait, who even has the authority to strip search a person over allegations of "chess cheating"? This doesn't seem like something the police would be involved with, so either he agreed to it I guess or some random "chess authorities" are facing some sexual harassment I think....
Did you read anything other than the title? Did you even read the title properly? "Strip search" is in quotes to begin with. It is then explained that Ivanov was made to empty his pockets and his pen was taken away. He also took off his shirt. Shirt.
Many thanks again, DoPo, for the link to the post-mortems and analysis of those games. They were highly fascinating. Makes me really miss playing competitively.
No problem, you sounded like somebody who would be interested in it :) While I've never been into competitive chess (I'm not that good, either), I do appreciate it - my father used to be into amateur chess tournaments, he had gone to the nationals, too, my neighbour (younger than me) is a competitive chess player - he has even gone to international competitions (not in the same heights as Ivanov there but could conceivably play him at some point in the future), one of my classmates was into amateur chess, too - he went to some national competitions. So yeah, I can at least appreciate the game.
 

DoPo

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Asuka Soryu said:
Perhaps the spirit of one of the greatest players of chess possessed his body, or the spirit of a Great Pharaoh.
...I'd have to see footage of the game to believe it.

"Rook to H6"

"Aha, you've activated my trap card!"
 

electric method

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DoPo said:
Asuka Soryu said:
Perhaps the spirit of one of the greatest players of chess possessed his body, or the spirit of a Great Pharaoh.
...I'd have to see footage of the game to believe it.

"Rook to H6"

"Aha, you've activated my trap card!"
LOL! Actually it would be more like... (from game 2) Bd6??... possessed by the spirit of GM Patzer the Great.
 

electric method

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DoPo said:
Asuka Soryu said:
Perhaps the spirit of one of the greatest players of chess possessed his body, or the spirit of a Great Pharaoh.
...I'd have to see footage of the game to believe it.

"Rook to H6"

"Aha, you've activated my trap card!"
DoPo said:
electric method said:
DoPo said:
Jadak said:
Wait, who even has the authority to strip search a person over allegations of "chess cheating"? This doesn't seem like something the police would be involved with, so either he agreed to it I guess or some random "chess authorities" are facing some sexual harassment I think....
Did you read anything other than the title? Did you even read the title properly? "Strip search" is in quotes to begin with. It is then explained that Ivanov was made to empty his pockets and his pen was taken away. He also took off his shirt. Shirt.
Many thanks again, DoPo, for the link to the post-mortems and analysis of those games. They were highly fascinating. Makes me really miss playing competitively.
No problem, you sounded like somebody who would be interested in it :) While I've never been into competitive chess (I'm not that good, either), I do appreciate it - my father used to be into amateur chess tournaments, he had gone to the nationals, too, my neighbour (younger than me) is a competitive chess player - he has even gone to international competitions (not in the same heights as Ivanov there but could conceivably play him at some point in the future), one of my classmates was into amateur chess, too - he went to some national competitions. So yeah, I can at least appreciate the game.
Absolutely was interested in it. I used to look over almost every game from every major tournament when I was playing as well as old ones as well. I have always been partial to Petrosian, occassionally Fischer and Kasparov. It's nice to run into someone else that appreciates the game.

Edit: oops. apparently I should not try quoting late at night because I end up quoting things I don't want too. Apologies to all for that one.
 

Treblaine

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thesilentman said:
There's no such thing as useless information. Everything has it's place, especially in books like those. The reason that they were 'worthless' as they gave too much information not relevant to them (Wright brothers). And just because information is worthless to you doesn't mean it's worthless for other people.
Yes there is. It's information that claims one thing works when it actually doesn't. Just gives the illusion of success.

Wright Brothers found this, that many of the formulae for aerodynamic flow were just plain wrong, to spite the equivalent of BILLIONS of dollars being spent by so many other competing scientific agencies they all used the same wrong presumptions.

You can literally be better off having that page torn out and having to work it out from scratch as at least then they would waste less time and effort applying that assuming it was right.

PS: it's an analogy, not an equivalence. Yes, chess is a very old game, but equally kite flying is a very old pastime which was the fundamental principal behind controlled flight shaken up by light powerful engines. And chess has been shaken up recently by new maths and machine reasoning.
 

Treblaine

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electric method said:
For Treblaine, I am going to use an example of cheating that did not involve a computer but, happened none-the-less at an otb tournament about 10 or so years ago. This was a game between juniors with the names of Sam and Dane (last names omitted for obvious reasons). What happened is this, Dane was an up and coming intermediate player Sam was very close to breaking into the master level of play. Over the course of the game Sam obtained a losing position and when Dane walked away from the board to get additional score sheets Sam moved one of his pieces to obtain a winning position. Sam went on to win the game costing Dane a prize. Ultimately his foul play was discovered and was stripped of the win. Point here being that cheating happened before, and will continue to happen in OTB play.
HOW THE HELL IS THAT RELEVANT?!!?

Moving pieces while the other person is looking away... that's not relevant at all. It couldn't have possibly happened in this case.

And I find it interesting that we all here, as humans, say "ooh, that's such a machine move" in the recognition that machine's method of winning games usually beats the best Chess players. Yet a human couldn't make that move. So a human can recognise a "machine strategy", yet cannot use it themselves.

Look, we all know machines have number crunching strengths that no human can come close to.

But it's also a fact that humans have huge abstract processing power that leaves the most advanced computer and machine processing in the dust, if you can take the strategies that confound grand masters and learn to apply them using human reasoning then you have overnight a huge advantage.

Again WHERE IS THE HARD EVIDENCE OF FRAUD!

Being too good, or using a winning strategy is not evidence.