Did you miss Borislav Ivanov?

[arjuntemurnikar]

Kingscrusher annotated one of his games here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecWqrgYwg2Y.

Another video annotation by FM Valeri Lilov (a country mate of his) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr0J8SPENjM#t=65

Also, if I may add, Valeri's video is very interesting as he provides (in the last 10 minutes of the video) a reasonable hypothesis of how Ivanov may have cheated, and he proves by showing that such cheating equipment can be easily purchased in Bulgaria for less than 50 euro, and not only that, but it's quite common in schools and universities in Bulgaria where students use it to get As and Bs.

[kgburcham]

Kingscrusher annotated one of his games here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecWqrgYwg2Y.

Another video annotation by FM Valeri Lilov (a country mate of his) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr0J8SPENjM#t=65

Also, if I may add, Valeri's video is very interesting as he provides (in the last 10 minutes of the video) a reasonable hypothesis of how Ivanov may have cheated, and he proves by showing that such cheating equipment can be easily purchased in Bulgaria for less than 50 euro, and not only that, but it's quite common in schools and universities in Bulgaria where students use it to get As and Bs.

everyone around the boris game table, and there are several, are watching everything like a hawk. They are watching him breathe.

there is no pack of gum on the table (dumb), there is no camera in the chair as suggested (dumb), there is no camera lying on the table. The guy narrating the video needs to stick with his chess not speculating on how Boris is cheating. Now the one suggestion of a receiver medically implanted in Boris ear is a possibility. I do not think he is allowed to wear a watch with a camera, jewelry with a camera, necklace with a camera, etc.
the people around Boris are very intelligent and looking for anything.
I think we will find out someday.
I suspect several people already know what he is doing.
kgburcham

[Milos]

but you Milos did not reply to the post, you just attempt to elevate yourself by lowering someone else's post. I am very interested in this thread and I wish you had kept it going instead of getting personal just reply and tell me where I am wrong. maybe you believe he is not cheating and is capable of beating these GMs,, I am perfectly ok with that, Boris has not been proven to cheat, the only thing we know about boris is he scans clean and he will not remove his shoes.
actually I would find it entertaining if Boris would play a tournament without shoes, and then win the tournament.
actually cheating in any sport and getting away with it reveals flaws that allow your opponents to cheat against you. my problem in competition is my opponents unwilling attitude to not cheat. In car racing you must try to get something passed the inspectors because the top 10 teams are also trying.

Milos don't be so rough with the low level guys,
kgburcham

Sorry for roughness, I didn't want to offend you, I just can't believe how can anyone have a slightest shred of a doubt that this guy is not cheating. For me that is ludicrous.
SF/Komodo/Robbolito based engine even on SGS3 on FIDE TC is a beast which is extremely hard to draw even by super GMs if setup properly.
And ofc he doesn't need to have a cellphone with him (or in his shoes as stupidly suggested in the article). Transceivers are so easy to hide anywhere in a body. Sending and receiving moves can be extremely easy and accurately encoded. He doesn't even need an accomplice, everything could be automated.
For example for sending moves it is enough to have 2 secret mini switches one to encode column A-H, another to encode raw 1-8. Simplest would be binary encoding, you need 3 presses for each symbol, for example long press is 1, short press is zero. So you do something like long-short-long at switch 1 and short-long-long at switch 2 and that is move f4. For receiving micro receiver deeply in ear impossible to detect unless checked by specialized doctor.
Possibilities are endless, if someone wants to cheat, it is so easy to do so and never get formally caught. But for anyone even with basic chess knowledge just following the game with strong engine immediately proves cheating.
To prevent it, you would need airport type of scanner for active electronic devices operating on players, and games being played in Faraday cage or at least active radio signal jamming (which is illegal in most countries since it interferes with public radio spectrum) to avoid transmitting and receiving. That is costly and impractical.

[kgburcham]

but you Milos did not reply to the post, you just attempt to elevate yourself by lowering someone else's post. I am very interested in this thread and I wish you had kept it going instead of getting personal just reply and tell me where I am wrong. maybe you believe he is not cheating and is capable of beating these GMs,, I am perfectly ok with that, Boris has not been proven to cheat, the only thing we know about boris is he scans clean and he will not remove his shoes.
actually I would find it entertaining if Boris would play a tournament without shoes, and then win the tournament.
actually cheating in any sport and getting away with it reveals flaws that allow your opponents to cheat against you. my problem in competition is my opponents unwilling attitude to not cheat. In car racing you must try to get something passed the inspectors because the top 10 teams are also trying.

Milos don't be so rough with the low level guys,
kgburcham

Sorry for roughness, I didn't want to offend you, I just can't believe how can anyone have a slightest shred of a doubt that this guy is not cheating. For me that is ludicrous.
SF/Komodo/Robbolito based engine even on SGS3 on FIDE TC is a beast which is extremely hard to draw even by super GMs if setup properly.
And ofc he doesn't need to have a cellphone with him (or in his shoes as stupidly suggested in the article). Transceivers are so easy to hide anywhere in a body. Sending and receiving moves can be extremely easy and accurately encoded. He doesn't even need an accomplice, everything could be automated.
For example for sending moves it is enough to have 2 secret mini switches one to encode column A-H, another to encode raw 1-8. Simplest would be binary encoding, you need 3 presses for each symbol, for example long press is 1, short press is zero. So you do something like long-short-long at switch 1 and short-long-long at switch 2 and that is move f4. For receiving micro receiver deeply in ear impossible to detect unless checked by specialized doctor.
Possibilities are endless, if someone wants to cheat, it is so easy to do so and never get formally caught. But for anyone even with basic chess knowledge just following the game with strong engine immediately proves cheating.
To prevent it, you would need airport type of scanner for active electronic devices operating on players, and games being played in Faraday cage or at least active radio signal jamming (which is illegal in most countries since it interferes with public radio spectrum) to avoid transmitting and receiving. That is costly and impractical.

I hope Boris doesn't get mad and throw his shoes at the tournament officials.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duLds-TZMGw

[arjuntemurnikar]

Sorry for roughness, I didn't want to offend you, I just can't believe how can anyone have a slightest shred of a doubt that this guy is not cheating. For me that is ludicrous.
SF/Komodo/Robbolito based engine even on SGS3 on FIDE TC is a beast which is extremely hard to draw even by super GMs if setup properly.
And ofc he doesn't need to have a cellphone with him (or in his shoes as stupidly suggested in the article). Transceivers are so easy to hide anywhere in a body. Sending and receiving moves can be extremely easy and accurately encoded. He doesn't even need an accomplice, everything could be automated.
For example for sending moves it is enough to have 2 secret mini switches one to encode column A-H, another to encode raw 1-8. Simplest would be binary encoding, you need 3 presses for each symbol, for example long press is 1, short press is zero. So you do something like long-short-long at switch 1 and short-long-long at switch 2 and that is move f4. For receiving micro receiver deeply in ear impossible to detect unless checked by specialized doctor.
Possibilities are endless, if someone wants to cheat, it is so easy to do so and never get formally caught. But for anyone even with basic chess knowledge just following the game with strong engine immediately proves cheating.
To prevent it, you would need airport type of scanner for active electronic devices operating on players, and games being played in Faraday cage or at least active radio signal jamming (which is illegal in most countries since it interferes with public radio spectrum) to avoid transmitting and receiving. That is costly and impractical.

Yes, precisely! 2 switches and 2 vibrator motors, one of each in each shoe is enough!!

All he needs to do is wiggle his toes to generate a binary code, that is automatically transmitted to his desktop computer as a signal, and then read by a program that converts it to a valid chess move input for the UCI engine (easy to do with a little scripting). Then, the engine replies with a move, and Ivanov's program then reconverts that to a binary code and transmits it back to the twin devices in both his shoes, each then vibrates to convey the move to make (for eg. long beep (1) + short beep (0) + long beep (1) in left shoe (101=E) and long beep (1) + short beep (0) + short beep (0) in right shoe (100=4) indicating the piece to move is on e4... and after a pause, a familiar *beeeeep*beep*beeeeep* and *beeeeep*beeeeep*beeeeep* (101=E;111=8) indicating the square to move to etc.)

There is no need for special eye contact lenses that captures images, or an android phone that sits inside the shoes, or a helper friend who sits at home to do the analysis, or any implant whatsoever. All he needs is a couple of electronic switches and vibrator motors which are easily accessible for less than 30-50 euros at the most, and a simple little script that converts the signals to and from binary to UCI interface at his home, or wherever that desktop machine sits.

Valeri mentions in his video a possible solution to use "jammers" in tournament halls where high-level games are played. It's illegal generally, but maybe with special permission, tournament halls can be fitted with them for just the occasion. But I guess, this would be quite a task to undertake to prevent cheating, both on a legislative/administrative level and on a financial level (to convince the sponsors).

Nevertheless, this shows that it is indeed quite trivial to cheat in chess.

[Henk]

I doubt that. If you are playing a lot against a chess machine your own playing may become to look like that of a chess machine. I play against chess engines and I noticed I start copying there tricks.

[arjuntemurnikar]

I doubt that. If you are playing a lot against a chess machine your own playing may become to look like that of a chess machine. I play against chess engines and I noticed I start copying there tricks.

Playing in the style of the engine is different from playing the exact same moves as the engine, repeatedly.

[Henk]

Playing 90% of the moves of a chess engine is quite easy and I'm just an amateur. Maybe if you practice a lot that percentage can be much higher.

I also see people playing duplicate (winning) games, against different opponents.

So I am not totally convinced. By the way I don't know much about his games.

[kbhearn]

Jammers are generally illegal except for law enforcement, but faraday cages do the job just fine at blocking external signals. on the other hand a phone computer in the shoe is still possible :)

[Ralph Stoesser]

Naked chess in a faraday cage? I don't believe this ever would be acceptable. Is chess as a human competition slowly dying since computers have overtaken the game? I think yes. It's like we would have tournaments for mental arithmetik but some participants have TI calculators in their stinking shoes. Cheating will kill all the human chess competition finally.