|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 2 OF 6 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
| Jan-24-11 | | SetNoEscapeOn: <And yes we do have evidence - his games and result. His 6/9 result was better than expected, and as <laskersteinitz> noticed at the time, he was achieving "clutch" wins for the team> The wind was also S/SW, if I remember correctly. No really, I agree, the allegations are very serious. It's just that while you can't imagine the French Federation coming up with this without irrefutable proof, I can't imagine them cheating in order to end up 10th in the standings. In any case I must see this proof before I'll doubt a GM. Feller's two losses in the Olympiad, both to lower rated players: V Mikhalevski vs S Feller, 2010
S Feller vs R Kreisl, 2010
In the second he outrated his opponent by about 300 points. Meanwhile, he only beat one higher rated player. Did he cheat in that one? Judge for yourself: A Timofeev vs S Feller, 2010 |
|
Jan-24-11
 | | Peligroso Patzer: <gazzawhite: <supertimchan: The French federation has no evidence against him.> How do you know?>
Based on what I have read, it would be accurate to say that the French chess federation has <made public> no evidence against Feller. The French federation's public statement was entirely conclusory. It did not even describe the nature of the alleged cheating. For the time being, the only reasonable course is to withhold judgment. |
|
Jan-25-11
 | | alexmagnus: A commentary by some anonymous user "Aro" telling that at least Hauchard and Marzolo were involved in cheating in Biel (in German language): http://www.schach-welt.de/blog/blog... |
|
| Jan-25-11 | | Maatalkko: What Aro is saying sounds really bad. I am a little skeptical because it seems too obvious, but it could happen. I wouldn't be surprised if there was more cheating out there. Tata is one thing; there is too much monitoring. An Olympiad were there are more players than fans is another. If players are allowed to move around freely and talk to spectators or each other during the game, it's really hard to rule out cheating. |
|
| Jan-25-11 | | Maatalkko: There's really no way to know how much cheating there is. I think there have to be undiscovered cases. In the beginning, we had Umakant Sharma and some other fool at the World Open. These guys suddenly went from 1900 to 2600+ playing strength and played 100% computer moves. Their cases were comically obvious. http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail...
(one of those pictures has the infamous cap!)
Now the possibility of real GMs cheating subtly has arisen. In every single endeavor, among every sufficiently large group, there is cheating and corruption. Baseball, Sumo wrestling, religions, any political party, you name it. It's just human nature to see what you can get away with. Why'd Feller (allegedly) cheat? I don't know. I know someone who was cheating at bullet on ICC and got his account deleted even though he was already a 2200+ bullet player. For the money, for your career, for your team, "everybody's doing it", whatever the excuse is someone will try it. At World Cup 2009 I saw a picture & caption with a player smoking a cig and talking to a journalist during his game! Seriously, what the? A playing area at a pro tournament should (ideally) have electronics scanners, separate playing/not playing areas, 15 minute relay delay, and no readmittance to the playing area. Things like that are standard for a college final. It's in everybody's best interest to make the game unimpeachable. |
|
| Jan-25-11 | | Shams: I like Mig's idea, or at least, the idea that I first learned of from him-- have a tournament where cheating is encouraged. Nay, mandated! Players are only disqualified when their method of cheating is detected. Make the prize fund sufficient to marshal all the creativity players have at their disposal. Whoever is left standing wins the prize, and everybody shows how they cheated. Elegant and simple. |
|
| Jan-27-11 | | splatty: None of his team mates defended him and they all praise the French Federation for taking action, so this implies none of them trust Feller either. It seems very doubtful they would accuse someone of cheating without sufficient cause and the cheapo riposte's in his letter, (e.g. saying the president of the French Federation had some dubious book keeping etc..), just makes Feller look even more guilty. If it is true and he gets disciplined for it, this will be good for chess to put out a message to other would-be cheaters who don't care if they ruin the great game in pursuit of greed. |
|
| Jan-27-11 | | splatty: <Based on what I have read, it would be accurate to say that the French chess federation has <made public> no evidence against Feller. The French federation's public statement was entirely conclusory. It did not even describe the nature of the alleged cheating. For the time being, the only reasonable course is to withhold judgment.> As the president of the French Federation said, he cannot comment on specifics when an investigation is underway. We will have to wait and see, but even if he had loads of hard evidence he wouldn't be able to discuss it until the case if over with as it is part of an investigation. |
|
| Jan-27-11 | | splatty: <Maatalkko:I wouldn't be surprised if there was more cheating out there. Tata is one thing; there is too much monitoring. An Olympiad were there are more players than fans is another. If players are allowed to move around freely and talk to spectators or each other during the game, it's really hard to rule out cheating.> I agree with this; it would be a lot easier to cheat at an Olympiad than almost any other type of chess event of the top level, simply because the sheer number of players makes it impossible to make sure there is no chance of anyone cheating. In a closed super GM round robin or something steps can be made to make it next to impossible to cheat, but at an Olympiad it would be easy to cheat: have one contact who is in the crowd somewhere and he phones his friend at home on Rybka to get the move, and the player walks by his friend and is told the move, then wanders back to the board and plays it. Simples. It's a shame it is so easy but fortunatly most people are not @#$%*@!s enough to want to cheat. |
|
| Jan-27-11 | | splatty: Putting a time delay of 15+ minutes is ok to stop most assistance from a 3rd party viewing the game from the internet, but even then the 2nd party, (your friend at the tournament), could check the position, phone and tell the 3rd party the last move, and therefore overcome the 15 minute time delay. Maybe the only solution in the future will be to only allow Olympiad players into the playing venue and for matches to be played in a number of small rooms each with their own toilets and with several staff to monitor each room, (e.g. 2 matches per room in a large hotel). Players would be prohibited from entering any other playing rooms and would only be allowed to walk around within a restricted part of the hotel, with CCTV and staff around. Whatever solution you try to think of, it is always horrible and Orwellian, and it's the fault of dirty cheaters that we have to even brainstorm ways of preventing cheating, when 99% of players are true sportsmen/women. |
|
| Jan-27-11 | | rapidcitychess: He's not your average Feller. |
|
| Jan-27-11 | | SetNoEscapeOn: <splatty: None of his team mates defended him and they all praise the French Federation for taking action, so this implies none of them trust Feller either. > Overall the letter is not in Feller's favor. However, they did express their "utter amazement" at the charges, which means they didn't suspect him before this. More importantly, it means his teammates aren't the source of the evidence. |
|
| Jan-28-11 | | splatty: He got 8/9 with a 2859 in the Paris championship last summer, so this must be in question as well big time. No doubt there was decent prize money for first place in that. |
|
| Jan-29-11 | | laskersteinitz: I really don't understand the motivation. Unless Feller has been cheating his entire life, which is not likely, if he was able to get to the GM level at his young age, he probably could have reached his "cheating" level of play in say, 3 years of hard work. To me it just seems like it's not worth the risk at all. Plus he must have great respect for the game and sport of chess, or at least must have had for most of his life. How do you reconcile that with blatant cheating, not only disrespecting all your opponents, but also disrespecting yourself? I just don't get it. |
|
Jan-29-11
| | alexmagnus: The Biel organizers apparently said they will give a statement tomorrow regarding that anonymous eye witness reports around the Hauchard-Pelletier game. Let's see what they say :) |
|
| Jan-29-11 | | crazybird: Someone on the French team must have been the original source of these accusations. FFE does not have a crystal ball. I doubt olympiad organizers have any evidence either. This seems like loose talk finding it's way to FFE. |
|
| Feb-01-11 | | splatty: Chess base: <In September 2010 anonymous witness testimony was brought to the attention of the Organisation Committee of the Biel Chess Festival accusing the same three players of having done the same in Biel.> To me that is irrefutable if it is proven on records that the accusations were taken and archived to do with the same trio of players. <laskersteinitz>: I hear where you're coming from, and this is why most people do not cheat at professional sports, because they have to have some love and passion of the sport to get to a high enough level to make it possible. But some people ARE capable of cheating, and maybe these three players saw an opportunity to make a lot of money and thought it would be easy to get away with it, and did it anyway. Naiditzsch openly admitted cheating on an online blitz tournament with prize money, so I see no reason why a 19 year old GM who does not stand out much on an international level, (with the likes of Carlsen etc around), would not decide to cash in on cheating because he would never earn much in his lifetime in the game as a world number 100 or 200. Some people are capable of cheating and if people have reported the same three players at more than one event then the professional bodies of the sport need to do something about it and make an example. |
|
| Feb-01-11 | | Jim Bartle: Cheating occurs in a lot of sports, but it's often called "gamesmanship" or "taking advantage of the rules." Watch NBA stars going back past Michael Jordan and see often they travel, palm the ball, grab the opponents shorts on defense, etc. Of course pitchers cheating in baseball is part of the culture. How often do outfielders hold up a ball to the umpire claiming a catch when they know perfectly well they didn't catch it? In tennis there are accusations that players have lost intentionally, being paid for it by gamblers. Usually this is in smaller tournaments in matches involving lesser-known players, but there was a scandal a couple of years ago when Nicolas Davydenko was accused of losing a match intentionally. Nothing was ever proved. |
|
| Feb-02-11 | | Maatalkko: The whole story is quite strange due to the involvement of Hauchard and Marzolo. Neither played in the Olympiad. Hauchard is a mid-2500's GM whose results have been stable at that level for years (though his rating graph has steadily increased since late-2008, he has been at 2550 before). He is the trainer of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who is one of the world's premier (undoubtedly legitimate) talents. Why would he risk his standing and reputation to help Feller, the Olympiad Board 5? And, as the latest allegation hints, if this has been going on for some time?, how do we know who has been involved or what results are in question? This is all very interesting to speculate about, but because it is now going to be a legal matter we won't have any answers for some time. |
|
| Feb-02-11 | | Maatalkko: The Paris Open is definitely questionable now: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail... |
|
| Feb-19-11 | | laskersteinitz: <How often do outfielders hold up a ball to the umpire claiming a catch when they know perfectly well they didn't catch it?> Uh...never? |
|
| Mar-12-11 | | splatty: The same guys were accused of cheating in previous tournaments, it's a no brainer. Hopefully the french federation will keep going and get the phone evidence etc. Whatever the outcome, I think Feller's reputation is now destroyed near the beginning of his chess career and I believe fans would object to tournaments in which he takes part, and no doubt he will be watched like a hawk by everyone in any tournaments he participates in. If it's found he did cheat he should get a life time ban from FIDE to play in graded tournaments or any events with prize money. |
|
| Mar-12-11 | | splatty: On another note that keeps coming to mind, look at the photo in that link for the Paris Open http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail... and at any other photos not long before, and it looks like he takes steroids. This would kind of fit in to the personality type of someone who cheats at chess as well. |
|
| Mar-20-11 | | BobCrisp: Cheat! |
|
Mar-21-11
| | alexmagnus: OK, so now the details of cheating are known. Marzolo analyzed games with a computer and sent an SMS message to Hauchard, as a code: first two digits always 06, then a two-digit number for the number of the move, then a two-digit number for the starting square, another two digits for the square the move goes to, and last two digits without any meaning. Hauchard gave the code to Feller by standing behind certain people which meant certain numbers. |
|
 |
|
|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 2 OF 6 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
Kibitzing
