Did you miss Borislav Ivanov?

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

He's focusing on them because the results are bizarre. No human gets these results unless they're cheating.

And what is so bizarre about the results? That a 2300 elo player is beating 2600 elo players? You think that it is impossible for a player to perform 300 points above his rating? Many players do that, for example many 2700 players regularly have performance ratings of 3000, etc. He became the culprit, because the accusation of following the first choices of Houdini appeared, and the accusation was of course false.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

As Rob rightly noticed, the story is very bizarre, because the accusations are not true.

For me he is quilty regardless of the results of the search.

If the accusations are not true then how do you explain his strange results in tournaments(can you find for me a single example for a player with this type of strange results)

http://ratings.fide.com/individual_calc ... 2013-12-01

You can see that borislav ivanov lost against 2106 player and drew against 2 players with rating below 1900(this is very rare for a player who can score 2.5 out of 3 one month later against strong GM's).

It is not his only strange results

http://ratings.fide.com/individual_calc ... -06-01&t=0

draw against a weak girl with rating 1839 and later winning against significantly stronger players with rating above 2300.

one bad result can happen but look here

http://ratings.fide.com/individual_calc ... -03-01&t=0
His results against players with rating 1950-2100

losing against
Ioannidis, Evgenios with fide rating 1969
draw against Minas, Ioannis with fide rating 1985
draw against Todorov, Yavor with fide rating 2069
losing against Petrov, Vladimir Sergeev with fide rating 1983
losing against Veselinov, Dimcho with fide rating 2094

Of course there are also some wins against weaker players but it is impossible that a player who get this result get earlier 4 wins against GM's
with rating above 2550

see
19th International Tournament Zadar Open 2012 - Group A

http://ratings.fide.com/individual_calc ... -01-01&t=0

You cannot perform above 2550 in 9 games of one tournament in January and
score only 1 out of 5 in another tournament in march(when I ignore some wins against players with rating below 1950) of the same year when you play against players with rating 1950-2100 that means performance below 1900

If I go to 2012 I see again strange results
http://ratings.fide.com/individual_calc ... -12-01&t=0

draws against players with rating 1875 and 2005 and winning against players with rating near 2400

http://ratings.fide.com/individual_calc ... -09-01&t=0

score of 7 out of 8 when the only loss is against the weakest player

in 2011 I find the following strange result

http://ratings.fide.com/individual_calc ... -07-01&t=0

losing only against players that are weaker than 2000 when 2 of them are weaker than 1826
draw against a player with fide rating 2008 and winning against 3 players with fide rating above 2100

Note that I do not claim that everyone of the results is impossible by itself
(at least part of them can happen without cheating even if they are rare)
but the combination of them is clearly practically impossible without cheating and I do not care if the cheating is by computers or by losing part of the games on purpose.

Hi Uri.

Everyone does that, losing against weaker players and winning against stronger ones. If it had not been like that, the rating lists would have been eternal and not subject to change.

Look at your own games: only in the current year, against how many weaker players did you lose, and against how many did you win? I suppose against many in both categories. These things simply happen, but you tend to focus on Ivanov's result too much because he is already a suspect.

Do not you remember many of the top players scoring disastrous results in different tournaments? I do.

Good point with you 2011 games: what engine did he use to score well against 2100 players? Did he need an engine at all? But the trend is already there, because he lost against weaker players, while winning against stronger, but just 2100 players. So the trend is there, when there was nothing at stake. Maybe he just has shaky results. Maybe he is not motivated to win against weaker players, but motivated to win against stronger. Maybe he does not want to win against weaker girls out of chivalry. Nothing strange here, humans are not playing machines, they have their internal motivation. I do not think it is cheating when you decide to draw a game against a weaker opponent on purpose. You certainly have the right to do so, but it would be cheating if the 2 had agreed to draw the game because of some reason.

Overall, I do not see anything strange in his results, for me you just focus too much on them, because he is already a culprit.

I disagree that everyone does that and I do not talk about some surprises but about something that happen often

losing against a weaker player that I play against him can happen
losing only against the weakest player and beating all the other players almost never happens.
This can happen but maybe in 1 out of 100 tournaments and when even bigger surprises happen in a significant part of the tournament then it is clear for me that the player is cheating

Try to find some strange results in my results and I am going to explain you the difference to ivanov's results
http://ratings.fide.com/hist.phtml?event=2803968

Try to show me strange results of one of the top 100 players in the world and not in a single tournament.

I feel sure that you are not going to be able to find strange results and by strange results I do not mean a single game when you lose against weaker player(it happens) but about a system when you show me many tournament with big surprises when the player fail to win players that are 400 elo weaker or win against 4 players who are more than 300 elo stronger.

Hi Uri.
I am sorry, but I really do not have the time to look carefully at all your games and draw statistical conclusions. But I see that you have many games played in this year in the FIDE database, so maybe you, knowing better your results and being easier for you, can tell us against how many weaker players in 2013 did you lose, and against how many stronger won?

I think the elo range 2300-2500 is not that high after all and many surprising results are possible in it. You know pretty well that Kasparov started with a rating of 2550, so it should be theoretically possible, if you have prepared well and advanced sufficiently without playing OTB games for a period, to rapidly improve your rating. Of course, Ivanov has nothing of the talent of Kasparov, we are just talking of surprising results in the elo range 2300-2500.

What do you do when you are paired with a 10-year old girl with 1800? You beat the out of her? I would rather draw the game. You compete when competition is meaningful, and in this case it does not seem to be quite so. I think this is not cheating. You have the right to draw such a game, but if you and the girl had agreed to draw the game because this would have some implications for the ranking, then that would certainly be cheating.

[Milos]

Uri please stop feeding the trolls!

[Uri Blass]

He's focusing on them because the results are bizarre. No human gets these results unless they're cheating.

Milos suggested that I stop feedin
And what is so bizarre about the results? That a 2300 elo player is beating 2600 elo players? You think that it is impossible for a player to perform 300 points above his rating? Many players do that, for example many 2700 players regularly have performance ratings of 3000, etc. He became the culprit, because the accusation of following the first choices of Houdini appeared, and the accusation was of course false.

Milos suggested that I stop feeding the trolls but I am going to reply inspite of it.

2700 players can get performance of 3000 by beating other 2700 players and not by beating often players who are 300 elo higher.

I know no 2400 player who beat often players with rating of 2700
and I believe no 2000 player can beat often players with rating of more than 2300.
It can happen in one game but the probability that it happens in many games of the same tournament if we assume no cheating is extremely small.

In the case of ivanov he could beat in one of the tournaments 4 players who are more than 300 elo better than him in 9 games.

I have a stable rating near 2000 for years

My results against players with fide rating are the following:

2013:
1600-1700 1/1
1700-1800 1/1
1800-1900 2/2
1900-2000 5.5/10
2000-2100 2.5/11
2100-2200 5/11
2200-2300 0.5/4
2300-2400 0.5/2

2012:
1700-1800 3.5/4
1800-1900 3/5
1900-2000 6.5/9
2000-2100 3.5/14
2100-2200 2.5/6
2200-2300 1/5

2011:
1600-1700 0.5/1
1700-1800 1/1
1800-1900 4.5/7
1900-2000 1.5/4
2000-2100 2.5/6
2100-2200 0/3
2200-2300 0/1
2300-2400 0/1

total result in the last 3 years:
1600-1700 1.5/2
1700-1800 5.5/6
1800-1900 9.5/14
1900-2000 13.5/23
2000-2100 8.5/31
2100-2200 7.5/20
2200-2300 1.5/10
2300-2400 0.5/3

You can see that in most games against players who are more than 200 elo weaker I win and in most games against players who are more than 200 elo stronger I lose.

Of course a surprise can always happen in a single game but I do not believe that beating 4 players who are more than 300 elo higher in one tournament is going to practically happen.

It may have a probability near 1/100,000 to happen but the suspect against ivanov is not based on a single tournament.

[M ANSARI]

Well, mystery solved! He had something strapped on underneath his shirt and I doubt it was heroin or some other illegal drug. The fact that this was discovered and he only resisted further search after that is very telling. Hard to believe they let him off so lightly, he should have been arrested immediately for theft. He was basically stealing money from other participants. Would be interesting to read his side of the story ... maybe he was using a home made pace maker?

The fact that they 'found' something, and then did not check what it was, simply means they did not find anything. It is amazing how many people like propaganda instead of truth!

Simple facts of the story told by Navalmoral club:

- one player reported there was a lump on his back, and then suddenly there is not a lump, but a flat tape??

- a retired police officer checked him, obviously, he is not responsible for his actions, neither entitled to do such checks

- very funny Spanish names reported: Bermejo and Holgado, do they really exist

- the Navalmoral were unreachable immediately after the event for comments, but they issued a statement couple of days after that, obviously the time necessary to make up the story

Are there really so many people even on this forum liking propaganda instead of truth?

There is not a single move in Ivanov's games that would match the tactical level of play of any top engine. Some of his moves are maybe 2700 elo tactically, but not the 3500 elo tactical moves top engines play. Do you know how modern top engines play tactically?

Again, anyone, please answer: how on Earth did they establish that he has been using Houdini 3 (and that was the main accusation, after which, if accepted for an established fact, he simply becomes the culprit)? What was the hardware that Ivanov remotely used? What was the hardware Houdini 3 run on when they established a 95% (wow) move matching? If everyone knows that Houdini 3 on different cores, with different settings and different thinking times, provides distinct first choices, how did they know how many cores and what thinking time Ivanov was using on the remote computer?

Is not this an obvious hoax? What is the statistical probability (and maybe here Mr. Kenneth Reagan can help) that the remote machine and people establishing move matching used the exactly same number of cores and thinking time for Houdini so that there is a 95% move matching?

As Rob rightly noticed, the story is very bizarre, because the accusations are not true.

If you take this story alone then maybe you can hesitate before throwing accusations, but this story with Ivanov is not new and he has been doing this shit for quite a long time. He has a history of cheating and has obviously tried hard to improve his cheating technique. Maybe you should read up on his earlier exploits where choice of moves were almost 100% engine moves. This is a quote of one of his interviews:

I dont think there was anything special in my games at all. The Croatian GMs made some horrible mistakes during our games. Of course I practiced a lot with the computer, and after beating Rybka and Houdini by 10-0 each, I was absolutely sure that no-one was gonna stop me winning.

If that is the case then he certainly is the most underrated player on earth! I can see the look of Kramnik's or Carlsen's face when they hear that "fact". I mean come on ... a 10-0 thrashing of Rybka and Houdini !!! I think Carlsen would be thrilled if he managed an even score with either and Ivanov is no Carlsen! That is equivalent to saying that in practice you run the 100 meter in 5 seconds regularly when the world record is almost twice that!. It is not about "IF" Ivanov is cheating, it is about "HOW".

[Terry McCracken]

Well, mystery solved! He had something strapped on underneath his shirt and I doubt it was heroin or some other illegal drug. The fact that this was discovered and he only resisted further search after that is very telling. Hard to believe they let him off so lightly, he should have been arrested immediately for theft. He was basically stealing money from other participants. Would be interesting to read his side of the story ... maybe he was using a home made pace maker?

The fact that they 'found' something, and then did not check what it was, simply means they did not find anything. It is amazing how many people like propaganda instead of truth!

Simple facts of the story told by Navalmoral club:

- one player reported there was a lump on his back, and then suddenly there is not a lump, but a flat tape??

- a retired police officer checked him, obviously, he is not responsible for his actions, neither entitled to do such checks

- very funny Spanish names reported: Bermejo and Holgado, do they really exist

- the Navalmoral were unreachable immediately after the event for comments, but they issued a statement couple of days after that, obviously the time necessary to make up the story

Are there really so many people even on this forum liking propaganda instead of truth?

There is not a single move in Ivanov's games that would match the tactical level of play of any top engine. Some of his moves are maybe 2700 elo tactically, but not the 3500 elo tactical moves top engines play. Do you know how modern top engines play tactically?

Again, anyone, please answer: how on Earth did they establish that he has been using Houdini 3 (and that was the main accusation, after which, if accepted for an established fact, he simply becomes the culprit)? What was the hardware that Ivanov remotely used? What was the hardware Houdini 3 run on when they established a 95% (wow) move matching? If everyone knows that Houdini 3 on different cores, with different settings and different thinking times, provides distinct first choices, how did they know how many cores and what thinking time Ivanov was using on the remote computer?

Is not this an obvious hoax? What is the statistical probability (and maybe here Mr. Kenneth Reagan can help) that the remote machine and people establishing move matching used the exactly same number of cores and thinking time for Houdini so that there is a 95% move matching?

As Rob rightly noticed, the story is very bizarre, because the accusations are not true.

If you take this story alone then maybe you can hesitate before throwing accusations, but this story with Ivanov is not new and he has been doing this shit for quite a long time. He has a history of cheating and has obviously tried hard to improve his cheating technique. Maybe you should read up on his earlier exploits where choice of moves were almost 100% engine moves. This is a quote of one of his interviews:

I dont think there was anything special in my games at all. The Croatian GMs made some horrible mistakes during our games. Of course I practiced a lot with the computer, and after beating Rybka and Houdini by 10-0 each, I was absolutely sure that no-one was gonna stop me winning.

If that is the case then he certainly is the most underrated player on earth! I can see the look of Kramnik's or Carlsen's face when they hear that "fact". I mean come on ... a 10-0 thrashing of Rybka and Houdini !!! I think Carlsen would be thrilled if he managed an even score with either and Ivanov is no Carlsen! That is equivalent to saying that in practice you run the 100 meter in 5 seconds regularly when the world record is almost twice that!. It is not about "IF" Ivanov is cheating, it is about "HOW".

Too many Bishop Polishers with ill-informed opinions frequent the computer chess forums and isn't surprising that they look to support a really big Bishop, Ivanov.

[Henk]

I dont think there was anything special in my games at all. The Croatian GMs made some horrible mistakes during our games. Of course I practiced a lot with the computer, and after beating Rybka and Houdini by 10-0 each, I was absolutely sure that no-one was gonna stop me winning.

Were these games with open or closed positions ?
[ I you play strategic and keep the positions closed and look for long term strategies or long term sacrifices you probably can win from Chess computers if your ELO is much lower.]
Has Ivanov developed a good anti-computer chess system ?

[arjuntemurnikar]

Not sure if mentioned yet, but there is an official press release on the controversy here: http://www.chess.com/news/official-stat ... story-1152

TLDR: Ivanov agreed to a search in his shoes. Nothing was found. A second search later after a few more rounds was proposed. The second time, he agreed to a full search and frisking. When the officer reached his chest area near the armpits, Ivanov suddenly pulled back and refused to continue. Before Ivanov reacted though, the officer had felt an unusual lump around his chest and so he asked him what was it. Ivanov nervously said "Nothing", then declined to continue the search and promptly forfeited the tournament.

[Henk]

Not sure if mentioned yet, but there is an official press release on the controversy here: http://www.chess.com/news/official-stat ... story-1152

TLDR: Ivanov agreed to a search in his shoes. Nothing was found. A second search later after a few more rounds was proposed. The second time, he agreed to a full search and frisking. When the officer reached his chest area near the armpits, Ivanov suddenly pulled back and refused to continue. Before Ivanov reacted though, the officer had felt an unusual lump around his chest and so he asked him what was it. Ivanov nervously said "Nothing", then declined to continue the search and promptly forfeited the tournament.

Ok cheating is far most likely.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

Not sure if mentioned yet, but there is an official press release on the controversy here: http://www.chess.com/news/official-stat ... story-1152

TLDR: Ivanov agreed to a search in his shoes. Nothing was found. A second search later after a few more rounds was proposed. The second time, he agreed to a full search and frisking. When the officer reached his chest area near the armpits, Ivanov suddenly pulled back and refused to continue. Before Ivanov reacted though, the officer had felt an unusual lump around his chest and so he asked him what was it. Ivanov nervously said "Nothing", then declined to continue the search and promptly forfeited the tournament.

You better read indeed the whole thread before changing the name, as the topic has already been discussed. As said, the Navalmoral are lying, a simple fact is that you can not see a strap from side to side of the chest when a single shirt button is unfastened. Besides, Ivanov had stated beforehand that he would not strip naked.

What would you do, if at 10 different times someone asks you to take off your shoes, your coat, pass a metal detector test, then pass a lie detector test, and then strip naked? I wonder how he is able to put up with all the pressure at all.