BUT, I may play in the Southern Chess Championship in Orlando, Fla in March. I am seriously considering entering.

Here's the Vlad tweet:

<BREAKING:

IM Stefan Docx has been caught cheating at Benidorm Open!

It is widely reported that he forgot to renew his Microsoft Office license, so he frantically googled how to do it on his phone during the game. Incidentally, Stockfish was also running!>

This could easily just be a complete spoof - someone making a play on the name DocX.

So, until a confirmation is published on a more reputable source I'm not taking this seriously.

Again, despite the twitter post from <Missy>, let's await more official channels before we speculate one way or the other.

<MissScarlett> posted the Twitter link without comment--you felt obliged to insinuate that Docx was axiomatically guilty--two vastly different approaches.

PPS- If he was cheating at Benidorm, then he was a pretty bad cheater (losing far more rating points than he gained):

[Event "Benidorm Chess Open "A""]
[Site "Benidorm ESP"]
[Date "2022.12.10"]
[Round "8.9"]
[White "Stefan Docx"]
[Black "Tatiana Grabuzova"]
[Result "0-1"]

1. d4 e6 2. c4 f5 3. e3 Nf6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. Ne2 O-O 6. a3 Bxc3+ 7. Nxc3 d6 8. Be2 Nc6 9. O-O e5 10. b4 exd4 11. exd4 Ne4 12. Bb2 Nxc3 13. Bxc3 d5 14. Bf3 Ne7 15. Re1 c6 16. b5 Rf6 17. Bb4 0-1

click for larger view

Stefan missed the final round:

https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopi...

<Hi Chris,

The Law that you quote from the allegation is long out of date. The current relevant Laws are: 11.3.2.1 During a game, a player is forbidden to have any electronic device not specifically approved by the arbiter in the playing venue.

However, the regulations of an event may allow such devices to be stored in a player’s bag, provided the device is completely switched off. This bag must be placed as agreed with the arbiter. Both players are forbidden to use this bag without permission of the arbiter.

11.3.2.2 If it is evident that a player has such a device on their person in the playing venue, the player shall lose the game. The opponent shall win. The regulations of an event may specify a different, less severe, penalty.

The last sentence of this Law would certainly not apply if the phone had a chess engine running.

<Without judging this case, when an attack on a player contain 'factual' evidence which is so obviously wrong, you have to wonder about the veracity of the other claims.> [emphasis added]

If those were the Laws in place at the time then there is at least a 4 year gap between the current incident and the one being referred to as recent. The original article gives the impression that he has been getting away with it time after time until now, which is obviously not the case.>

https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopi...

At the moment there seems to be some grounds for an incident of some kind in R8 (as <Missy> showed, combined with the tweets) and the missed last round.

But as Alex says:

<Without judging this case, when an attack on a player contain 'factual' evidence which is so obviously wrong, you have to wonder about the veracity of the other claims.>

There's no rush here, so let's wait for some confirmed facts to be established.

<Stefan Docx: “Never doubted the result”>

https://schaakfabriek.be/2013/10/17... (in Dutch)