|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 1 OF 77 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
| Dec-30-12 | | galdur: Unbelievable.
Bulgarian chess player strip searched after being accused of cheating in Croatian tournament http://www.croatiantimes.com/news/S... |
|
Dec-30-12
 | | perfidious: Much more humiliating for this player than the prosaic events surrounding the performance of Von Neumann -at least till Ivanov was vindicated! |
|
| Jan-04-13 | | Karpova: News item on the alleged cheating: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail... |
|
| Jan-04-13 | | arunjangity3: Well, he did lose two games...Could be a genuine case of vast underrating. Wang Hao and Hou Yifan had pretty insane jumps at one point. I'd be interested to see how this develops. |
|
Jan-05-13
 | | offramp: I suppose the fact that he's a computer programmer makes it more suspicious. |
|
| Jan-06-13 | | dumbgai: Poor guy. Some of the quotes from the article reek of paranoia. <Technologies are so developed now that theoretically, since the games were aired live, Ivanov’s friends in the neighbouring room, from Sofia, or even from the Antarctic, could have sent him hints for his moves through chips, which could have been placed under the skin, in the ear, or in the teeth.> Of course, the same can be said for every other player in the tournament. That someone is strip searched just because he has a lower rating is disgusting. Here's another quote: <...while the cheating equipment, which can be integrated into contact lenses, for instance...> Yeah, I'm sure the best application of such fancy technology is to win some chess games. While we're at it, why not slice open Mr. Ivanov's skull to make sure he didn't transplant Bobby Fischer's brain? |
|
| Jan-07-13 | | Maatalkko: Question: has there ever been a LEGITIMATE case of rapid multi-hundred point improvement, by an adult master, from his/her established baseline of performance? The question is very relevant given these frequent cheating allegations. If there has never been such a case, we must sadly assume, a priori, that players like Ivanov are cheats. I think every adult player wishes that rapid improvement through hard work is possible, but nature doesn't work that way. I remember being a young fan during the steroid era of baseball and naively believing that Brett Boone was a hero for putting on 20 pounds of muscle in one off season through "hard work." Nowadays even kids wouldn't believe that one. The era of naivety in chess is also over, it seems. Seven years ago, D.P. Singh ws heralded in the press as the "Swiss King of India" for his unlikely jump from FM to GM strength in short time. Though never caught red-handed, his subsequent career removes all doubt as to his guilt: http://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?ev... As computing advances, it is looking unlikely that a genuine late bloomer would even be believed. |
|
| Jan-07-13 | | Jim Bartle: The biggest surprise performance I can remember was Kramnik at the 1992 Olympiad, where he came out of nowhere to score 8.5/9 as first reserve. I don't know his ELO at the time, but he wasn't a GM yet. He had won the World Under 18 Championship, though. And it's more common to see players' performances jump during their late teens than in their mid twenties. |
|
| Jan-07-13 | | Maatalkko: <Jim Bartle> Well, he was still a kid so that doesn't count. The brain is a lot less plastic after your early 20's than before. Even a hack amateur like me can boast several 600 point upsets and 100 point improvements from my high school years. An inexperienced or inactive adult might also improve pretty quick, but an active adult master has (AFAIK) never become an overnight "Swiss King" through merit. To put it differently, look at the derivative of a player's rating chart. If your rating chart has been going up and it rises further, nothing is unusual. If your performance has been flat and suddenly scales upward, there is some kind of explanation for it. For a 24+ year old master, "cheat" becomes more likely than "studied hard." The closest I can think of to surprise adult improvement is Topalov's ascent from top ten to top dog at age 30. However, not even that phenomenon is above reasonable suspicion. (Specifically, the video recording of Danailov's bizarre behavior at Corus 2008 suggests signaling at key moments, as does Topalov sitting in the same chair during his 2005 San Luis rampage and his "miracle comebacks" during the home court M-Tel tournaments.) |
|
| Jan-07-13 | | Maatalkko: "Key move" cheating is much more insidious than "move by move" cheating, which I don't think anyone succeeds at these days. For example, see this article: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.... A signal as simple as "TACTIC HERE" is enough to greatly increase a player's strength. For example, Falko Bindrich is strong enough to work out the variations of 48. Na5!! in this game: F Bindrich vs P Tregubov, 2012. What is unusual is that he noticed and followed through with such an unlikely idea. Later events suggest he was assisted. His mobile phone probably didn't tell him all the ins and outs, but just the first move is more than enough to sway the game. It's hard to prove "key move" cheating because Bindrich can always claim he was exceptionally brilliant that day. In the end, his greed got the better of him: he started asking his mobile too many questions and the truth became apparent. The question is: how many key move cheaters go undetected? Given the difficulty of spotting such an arrangement, it is probably a majority of them. |
|
Jan-07-13
 | | ketchuplover: "First-class players sometimes lose to second-class players because second-class players sometimes play a first-class game" -Siegbert Tarrasch |
|
| Jan-07-13 | | dumbgai: <If there has never been such a case, we must sadly assume, a priori, that players like Ivanov are cheats.> Sorry, but I strongly disagree with this. Just because something hasn't been done before doesn't mean it's factually impossible. If you applied this reasoning everywhere, then I guess every person who's ever set a world record or discovered something new in anything, must have been a cheat. Or do you believe the burden of proof lies with the player to prove his wins are "clean"? By the way Morozevich had a 98 point jump (2625 to 2723) between rating lists when he was 21-22 years old. |
|
| Jan-07-13 | | dumbgai: I don't have access to a database that can search for these things, but just arbitrarily clicking around on olimpbase.org has come up with some cases: Tsiala Kasoshvili: 100 point gain in one rating period, then another 95 point gain in the next three. Overall 195 rating point gain (2070 to 2265) in a 2-year span, age 23-25. Richard Delaune: 170 point gain in one period (2240 to 2410), age 27. GM Gerardo Barbero: 60, 90, and 65 points in three consecutive rating lists, for a total of 215 points (2305 to 2520) in a 1.5 year span, ages 23-25. IM Bogomil Andonov: 100 points in one list, part of a run of 6 consecutive rating lists with a total of 270 points gained (2205 to 2475), ages 25-28. Froso Kasioura: 115 point gain (1965 to 2080) in one period at age 29, then took several years off and at age 43 had a 189 point gain (2005 to 2194) in her first rating list back. IM Janez Barle: 150 points in one list (2330 to 2480), age 23-24. IM Endre Vegh: 160 points in one list (2225 to 2385), age 25-26. IM Victor Vehi Bach: 140 points in one list (2290 to 2430), age 27. I guess some of these players aren't quite "masters" but I was able to find this from just a few minutes of arbitrarily clicking around; a detailed search would no doubt uncover much better examples. The point is, either all of these players were cheating with Rybka back in the 1980s, or that sometimes sudden improvements do happen. |
|
| Jan-08-13 | | gerakus: Just finishing checking the game Jovanic vs B Ivanov (118 moves) in this game black play almost as houdini 3 itself up to move 67 with two exceptions playing second/third best moves,
on move 68 and 69 black make two blunders in a row
on move 71 white got the win but make a blunder.
From move 71 to 114 black play like houdini 3 again :), the game was a draw until that point, at least super houdini 3 agreeds ;),
on move 115 black made a blunder so easy to spot, that cant believe was miss by a player playing like a 3000+ raiting machine :). |
|
| Jan-08-13 | | Maatalkko: <dumbgai> Thanks for looking that up. I suppose large jumps are more common than I thought.
It is indeed possible to have a good day, and a strong performance alone should not be evidence of cheating. However, as <gerakus> pointed out, it appears that Ivanov was move-by-move cheating with Houdini. See also the comments of <senojes> on this game: B Ivanov vs M Schachinger, 2012. Players can have a "good tournament," but Ivanov's "good tournament" was the equivalent of winning Powerball, marrying a movie star, and spontaneously being declared President on the same day. That's about how mathematically unlikely it is for Ivanov to match Houdini in several games for stretches of dozens of moves at a time. |
|
| Jan-08-13 | | Maatalkko: If anyone has time, it would be interesting to get an analysis of his game vs Predojevic. The broadcast went down in round 8 and Ivanov had no clue where to put his pieces. 18. g4?! looks bad and it got worse from there. Funny thing is he handled his 2600+ opponents with ease, scoring 2.5/3, in rounds 6, 7, and 9. Ivanov's other loss, vs. Jovanic, features long strings of Houdini punctuated by blunders. I guess broadcast lag is pretty rough for a cheater over 118 moves. |
|
| Jan-08-13 | | arunjangity3: Wang Hao: 210 pts between Oct 2003 and Jan 2004
(2215 to 2425)
Hou Yifan: 190 pts between April and July 2006
(2298 to 2488)
Of course, both have proven their true playing ability long after the large jumps. |
|
| Jan-09-13 | | Zygalski: I'm analysing:
[Event "19th Open A"]
[Site "Zadar"]
[Date "2012.12.17"]
[EventDate "2012.12.16"]
[Round "3.12"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Borislav Ivanov"]
[Black "Bojan Kurajica"]
[ECO "E00"]
[WhiteElo "2227"]
[BlackElo "2565"]
[PlyCount "69"]
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 Bb4+ 4. Bd2 c5 5. Bxb4 cxb4 6. Bg2
O-O 7. Nf3 d6 8. O-O Qe7 9. a3 bxa3 10. Rxa3 b6 11. Nc3 Bb7
12. d5 e5 13. Nh4 g6 14. Qd2 Nh5 15. Qh6 f5 16. e4 Ng7
17. exf5 gxf5 18. Nb5 Rf6 19. Qg5 Qf7 20. Rxa7 Rxa7 21. Nxa7
f4 22. Ra1 Na6 23. Nc6 Bc8 24. Nf5 Bxf5 25. Rxa6 h6 26. Qh4
Bd3 27. Rxb6 e4 28. Rb7 Qxb7 29. Qxf6 e3 30. fxe3 fxe3
31. Ne7+ Kh7 32. Qf8 h5 33. Qg8+ Kh6 34. Qh8+ Bh7 35. Be4 1-0 with multi-core Houdini at a fixed depth of 20 ply |
|
| Jan-09-13 | | thomastonk: <arunjangity> Age counts as Nigel Short often says. Wang Hao was 14 years old in the range you gave, and Hou Yifan 12 years. |
|
| Jan-09-13 | | Zygalski: B Ivanov vs Kurajica, 2012 White: Borislav Ivanov
{ Top 1 Match: 21/25 ( 84.0% )
{ Top 2 Match: 25/25 ( 100.0% )
{ Top 3 Match: 25/25 ( 100.0% )
{ Top 4 Match: 25/25 ( 100.0% )
Black: Bojan Kurajica
{ Top 1 Match: 12/25 ( 48.0% )
{ Top 2 Match: 16/25 ( 64.0% )
{ Top 3 Match: 20/25 ( 80.0% )
{ Top 4 Match: 21/25 ( 84.0% )
The engine scores for the 4 moves in which Ivanov didn't play the top choice move at depth of 20 ply were as follows:
(move played/1st choice move/score at depth/analysis depth reached [b]indicates played move) 13. Nh4 ♕d2 54 20 : [b]♘h4 49 20[/b] : ♕c1 39 20 : b4 36 20 14. Qd2 ♕c1 63 20 : [b]♕d2 59 20[/b] : f4 33 20 : b3 31 20 16. e4 ♘xf5 198 20 : [b]e4 136 20[/b] : ♖fa1 107 20 : ♗h3 90 20 27. Rxb6 g4 397 20 : [b]♖xb6 342 20[/b] : ♖a7 293 20 : b4 283 20 A masterpiece! |
|
| Jan-09-13 | | Dr. Funkenstein: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail...
In a vacuum, it's possible that Ivanov simply pulled out some of these great games. However, the chessbase article I cite is interesting in that it shows some of his previous games from a very short time ago versus a recent series of games against 2500 and 2600 players. I think it's more likely he was cheating than not given the circumstances. However, take a look at the one of the letters sent in at the end of the string from chessbase. The author points out that move matching is not enough, there has to be an algorithm that factors in the number of plausible moves. Anyone can match a computer move for move in a forcing combination or simple K+P endgame for example. Lilov's analysis in the chessbase article is excellent in that he examines the general style of play of this player and the situations in which he wins and loses. However, it's lacking in the more comprehensive of analysis of when Ivanov supposedly follows a computer's line exactly when a large number of plausible moves are available. There is also no attempt to analyze how often a 2700 player (basically the level that Ivanov played at in this tournament) follows computer lines in a game exactly and comparing Ivanov's % to it. |
|
| Jan-16-13 | | Wyatt Gwyon: Interesting article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/c... |
|
| Jan-17-13 | | dumbgai: After watching FM Valeri Lilov's analysis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr0...) of Ivanov's games, I'm fairly certain that he did indeed cheat with a computer. But this isn't based on his score or his rating, but rather the moves that occurred in his games in this, and a few other, tournaments. My earlier point about rating gains still stands though. |
|
| Jan-17-13 | | dpak: Firstly, the question remains, if he did cheat then HOW. "It's unlikely that she died of natural causes," is not the same as "you were the only other person in the house so you must have killed her." A good defense lawyer - or even a good cop - would ask: "If it was poison, where are the traces of it? If it was blunt trauma, where are the bruises?" Ditto for cheating at chess. Some have compared his play to Houdini (2 or 3), other to Stockfish. But how was the information relayed to him? He was searched after all and nothing was found Secondly, there is no such thing as statistical proof of cheating. There is only statistical proof of the improbability of an event. But that doesn't mean that there is a default alternative explanation. The chances of guessing a randomly picked card from a randomly shuffled deck are one in fifty two. But if some one gets it right does that mean: (a) they were lucky, (b) they used trickery, (c) they have supernatural powers, (d) the subject clumsily held the card in a way that it could be seen, or (e) the would-be magician had made numerous other unsuccessful attempts but this is the one that stood out because they got it right? Statistics flag up anomalies. They do not proffer specific explanations. Thirdly, playing well in open positions, whilst playing badly in closed positions is also the characteristic of inspired but impatient players. It was certainly true of me when I was an enthusiastic young player. (I play very little chess these days.) I did learn some closed-position tricks from a Canadian master, but one of the things he told me is that certain types of player (such as myself at the time) simply don't feel comfortable in closed positions and try to force the issue, ending up losing. That said, this is all rather reminiscent of Percival Wilde's story Slippery Elm (reprinted in Irving Chernev's The Chess Companion), where the moves were scratched onto tablets that the player was taking ostensibly to combat his opponent's infamous cigar smoke, or David Kessler's Checkmate at the Beauty Pageant, when the hero plays against the villain's computer wearing special glasses that pick up the electromagnetic resonance (AKA "noise") from the computer and translate it into a voice telling him what moves the computer is considering for both players. Whether this cheating happened in real life, is another matter. But this is the stuff of great stories. |
|
| Jan-17-13 | | Bobwhoosta: <dpak>
Unfortunately (or also maybe fortunately), we don't have to meet the same requirements as a court of law in determining the guilt of our "suspect". In a competition like chess it is not necessary to prove cheating beyond a reasonable doubt in order to ban a player. If there is reasonable suspicion I think it is okay for the arbiter to declare a player banned from a tournament. In this case as more and more analysis comes out it becomes vanishingly small that this performance could come from ANYONE who was not cheating, let alone someone rated 2200 suddenly thrashing 2600 rated players. No one matches Houdini like this person's moves did. I've never seen it, no one else has ever seen it, and combined with the sudden increase in performance I think we have all we need to ban this player. On a side note, he recently said this in an interview: "and after beating Rybka and Houdini by 10-0 each, i was absolutelly sure that no-one was gonna stop me winning." First: I'm not sure that the best chessplayers in the world could beat Houdini 10-0 even once, not if they played 1000 10 game matches. I wonder if he will come back and dial down his assertions, later claiming that he played on lower settings. But it seems he's claiming he beat both computers on their top settings, which is patently absurd. What makes it more absurd is his style is exactly the opposite style you would need to do such a thing (in the real world anyway). The only chance of beating a computer lies in positional domination in a closed or semi-closed position. If he used this style to beat the computers 10-0 he wouldn't have such a dynamic tactical style in his games (which in effect is exactly a "computer style". While I don't think he could be proven guilty in a court-of-law, a competition doesn't need rules that are that stringent, it is a private orginization and I believe they would be well within their rights to call this person out for who he is. Sadly, if they did they would then be in a court-of-law, which is another matter entirely. Obviously it's good to be able to use the courts to prevent someone from unfairly gaining from or opposing you, however in some cases it prevents true justice in the private sector from being carried forth effectively. |
|
 |
|
|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 1 OF 77 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
|
|
|
Kibitzing
