Did you miss Borislav Ivanov?

[Taner Altinsoy]

Did you miss the part where he claims he beats both Houdini and Rybka ... 10 out of 10 times ... 100% against an entity that is playing over 3200 ELO !!! That alone should be enough to convince you or anyone on this board that this guy is full of crap!

That was obviously an emotional statement. When you get unusually good results, and they tell you, 'Hey, you are a weaky, how is it possible that you score that well?', you have to answer something in your defence, and, instead of saying, 'I am able to win the occasional game against Rybka and Houdini' , you suddenly say ' I am winning 10 out of 10', especially if someone is teasing you.

How do you judge it is "obviously" an emotional stament? It might as well be a genuine try to fool people which fits his current status...

How do you explain him improving 400-500 ( or even more) elo in a matter of months instead of years? IQ injections?

As we have even seen in world championship match in Chennai even the best players in the world are not immune to mistakes. What do you think about him not playing any blunder or forget blunder even a suboptimal move? We have seen statistical analysis of this from a statistician and a chess player and it was close to impossible.

He was not informed a few hours before the test Bulgarian Federation prepared for him he was informed much earlier and he stated he will attend it only to change his mind in the last minute and did not show up.

Here is the link to the mentioned Stats page.
http://en.chessbase.com/post/experts-we ... nce-060613
"Dr. Kenneth Regan: Also as my report says, I cannot imagine the statistical evidence in any case being stronger than for Zadar. As it comes to Ivanov’s performance at the “Old Capital” Open in Veliko Tarnovo, even when the games from the first two rounds are included, I get significant deviations in both the MM and AE tests, and an IPR of 3149 with 97.5% confidence above 2940."

How can you explain a performance rating of 2940 with % 97.4 confidence from a guy who is rating was only around 2000 before he suddenly reached the nirvana and solved chess?

Hi Taner.

I will not go into details, as it is meaningless. Just a few words:

- who told you his games do not have mistakes? when losing or drawing, he obviously makes mistakes, but even when winning, there are many mistakes in his games.
- you can certainly improve by couple of hundred elo, if you have been talented, did not have access permanently to computer to train with, then you bought one, then you have an excellent software, which shows you things you never saw before; you train a lot, and you quickly improve; people training without a coach improve usually slowly, people with a good coach much faster, and how fast do you improve when you are coached by Houdini or Stockfish, that surpass every human coach, be it Kasparov or Fischer themselves? Why most players training with advanced software do not improve that fast? Very simple, because they are studying all day long theory, and only play very few games with engines. If, instead of studying theory, you play against engines, you might improve astoundingly fast. People simply do not do that.
Kenneth Reagan's research is based on standard conditions, but having a coach that can teach you 10 times faster and more accurate to play chess is not a standard condition. This fact alone changes many variables.

- regarding the BCF lie detector case, I think this is ludicrous. Instead of Mr. Danailov playing some games against Ivanov after a thorough search to judge his level of play, they invented a test that would prove nothing even if a person fails it, as some people are naturally shy and would fail the test even if they say the truth. You just get disurbed by something subconscious, and you suddenly fail the test even if you say the truth. That is why this was the worst thing they could have thought of to handle the situation satisfactorily.

I should say that I do not know Ivanov personally and can not vouch for him, but I am inclined to believe his case.

I just did a quick search for you from the Fide site. It took Carslen, Giri, Caruana and Karjakin an average 3-4 years to improve from 2000-2100 to 2500-2600 range. I assume you do not think Ivanov is more talented than these guys... Now how do you think it is possible for anybody to achieve that improvement (or even more since he plays 2700+ chess against GM's) in a matter of a few months instead of a few years? Don't give me computers a best teachers crap. Everyone works with computers in the last 10 years. You would like us to believe a computer geek with no real chess background to suddenly rocket his rating from around 2000 to 2600 in a few months with so little ease. Do you really know chess? Even if you work like mad with the best computers or trainers in the world you need years and hundreds of games to apply that knowledge and technique to good practice.

Against playing sub 2000 people as previously stated he makes a lot of mistakes and draws, loses but against GM's he does not even make a suboptimal move. Did you go over his moves against GM's? His play is perfect. Event the best players in the world makes more mistakes than he does in those games. Sorry a 2000 player cannot have a performance rating of 2950, not possible. I would rather believe he is Jesus Christ...

[Stefan Schiffermueller]

But I guess it is human nature to believe in something no matter what the circumstances are.

There is also another reason for denying the obvious.

[Terry McCracken]

Did you miss the part where he claims he beats both Houdini and Rybka ... 10 out of 10 times ... 100% against an entity that is playing over 3200 ELO !!! That alone should be enough to convince you or anyone on this board that this guy is full of crap!

That was obviously an emotional statement. When you get unusually good results, and they tell you, 'Hey, you are a weaky, how is it possible that you score that well?', you have to answer something in your defence, and, instead of saying, 'I am able to win the occasional game against Rybka and Houdini' , you suddenly say ' I am winning 10 out of 10', especially if someone is teasing you.

How do you judge it is "obviously" an emotional stament? It might as well be a genuine try to fool people which fits his current status...

How do you explain him improving 400-500 ( or even more) elo in a matter of months instead of years? IQ injections?

As we have even seen in world championship match in Chennai even the best players in the world are not immune to mistakes. What do you think about him not playing any blunder or forget blunder even a suboptimal move? We have seen statistical analysis of this from a statistician and a chess player and it was close to impossible.

He was not informed a few hours before the test Bulgarian Federation prepared for him he was informed much earlier and he stated he will attend it only to change his mind in the last minute and did not show up.

Here is the link to the mentioned Stats page.
http://en.chessbase.com/post/experts-we ... nce-060613
"Dr. Kenneth Regan: Also as my report says, I cannot imagine the statistical evidence in any case being stronger than for Zadar. As it comes to Ivanov’s performance at the “Old Capital” Open in Veliko Tarnovo, even when the games from the first two rounds are included, I get significant deviations in both the MM and AE tests, and an IPR of 3149 with 97.5% confidence above 2940."

How can you explain a performance rating of 2940 with % 97.4 confidence from a guy who is rating was only around 2000 before he suddenly reached the nirvana and solved chess?

Hi Taner.

I will not go into details, as it is meaningless. Just a few words:

- who told you his games do not have mistakes? when losing or drawing, he obviously makes mistakes, but even when winning, there are many mistakes in his games.
- you can certainly improve by couple of hundred elo, if you have been talented, did not have access permanently to computer to train with, then you bought one, then you have an excellent software, which shows you things you never saw before; you train a lot, and you quickly improve; people training without a coach improve usually slowly, people with a good coach much faster, and how fast do you improve when you are coached by Houdini or Stockfish, that surpass every human coach, be it Kasparov or Fischer themselves? Why most players training with advanced software do not improve that fast? Very simple, because they are studying all day long theory, and only play very few games with engines. If, instead of studying theory, you play against engines, you might improve astoundingly fast. People simply do not do that.
Kenneth Reagan's research is based on standard conditions, but having a coach that can teach you 10 times faster and more accurate to play chess is not a standard condition. This fact alone changes many variables.

- regarding the BCF lie detector case, I think this is ludicrous. Instead of Mr. Danailov playing some games against Ivanov after a thorough search to judge his level of play, they invented a test that would prove nothing even if a person fails it, as some people are naturally shy and would fail the test even if they say the truth. You just get disurbed by something subconscious, and you suddenly fail the test even if you say the truth. That is why this was the worst thing they could have thought of to handle the situation satisfactorily.

I should say that I do not know Ivanov personally and can not vouch for him, but I am inclined to believe his case.

I just did a quick search for you from the Fide site. It took Carslen, Giri, Caruana and Karjakin an average 3-4 years to improve from 2000-2100 to 2500-2600 range. I assume you do not think Ivanov is more talented than these guys... Now how do you think it is possible for anybody to achieve that improvement (or even more since he plays 2700+ chess against GM's) in a matter of a few months instead of a few years? Don't give me computers a best teachers crap. Everyone works with computers in the last 10 years. You would like us to believe a computer geek with no real chess background to suddenly rocket his rating from around 2000 to 2600 in a few months with so little ease. Do you really know chess? Even if you work like mad with the best computers or trainers in the world you need years and hundreds of games to apply that knowledge and technique to good practice.

Against playing sub 2000 people as previously stated he makes a lot of mistakes and draws, loses but against GM's he does not even make a suboptimal move. Did you go over his moves against GM's? His play is perfect. Event the best players in the world makes more mistakes than he does in those games. Sorry a 2000 player cannot have a performance rating of 2950, not possible. I would rather believe he is Jesus Christ...

It's not worth trying to change the minds of a few or even many, Bishop Polishers with ill-informed opinions who look to support a really big Bishop, Ivanov.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

Did you miss the part where he claims he beats both Houdini and Rybka ... 10 out of 10 times ... 100% against an entity that is playing over 3200 ELO !!! That alone should be enough to convince you or anyone on this board that this guy is full of crap!

That was obviously an emotional statement. When you get unusually good results, and they tell you, 'Hey, you are a weaky, how is it possible that you score that well?', you have to answer something in your defence, and, instead of saying, 'I am able to win the occasional game against Rybka and Houdini' , you suddenly say ' I am winning 10 out of 10', especially if someone is teasing you.

How do you judge it is "obviously" an emotional stament? It might as well be a genuine try to fool people which fits his current status...

How do you explain him improving 400-500 ( or even more) elo in a matter of months instead of years? IQ injections?

As we have even seen in world championship match in Chennai even the best players in the world are not immune to mistakes. What do you think about him not playing any blunder or forget blunder even a suboptimal move? We have seen statistical analysis of this from a statistician and a chess player and it was close to impossible.

He was not informed a few hours before the test Bulgarian Federation prepared for him he was informed much earlier and he stated he will attend it only to change his mind in the last minute and did not show up.

Here is the link to the mentioned Stats page.
http://en.chessbase.com/post/experts-we ... nce-060613
"Dr. Kenneth Regan: Also as my report says, I cannot imagine the statistical evidence in any case being stronger than for Zadar. As it comes to Ivanov’s performance at the “Old Capital” Open in Veliko Tarnovo, even when the games from the first two rounds are included, I get significant deviations in both the MM and AE tests, and an IPR of 3149 with 97.5% confidence above 2940."

How can you explain a performance rating of 2940 with % 97.4 confidence from a guy who is rating was only around 2000 before he suddenly reached the nirvana and solved chess?

Hi Taner.

I will not go into details, as it is meaningless. Just a few words:

- who told you his games do not have mistakes? when losing or drawing, he obviously makes mistakes, but even when winning, there are many mistakes in his games.
- you can certainly improve by couple of hundred elo, if you have been talented, did not have access permanently to computer to train with, then you bought one, then you have an excellent software, which shows you things you never saw before; you train a lot, and you quickly improve; people training without a coach improve usually slowly, people with a good coach much faster, and how fast do you improve when you are coached by Houdini or Stockfish, that surpass every human coach, be it Kasparov or Fischer themselves? Why most players training with advanced software do not improve that fast? Very simple, because they are studying all day long theory, and only play very few games with engines. If, instead of studying theory, you play against engines, you might improve astoundingly fast. People simply do not do that.
Kenneth Reagan's research is based on standard conditions, but having a coach that can teach you 10 times faster and more accurate to play chess is not a standard condition. This fact alone changes many variables.

- regarding the BCF lie detector case, I think this is ludicrous. Instead of Mr. Danailov playing some games against Ivanov after a thorough search to judge his level of play, they invented a test that would prove nothing even if a person fails it, as some people are naturally shy and would fail the test even if they say the truth. You just get disurbed by something subconscious, and you suddenly fail the test even if you say the truth. That is why this was the worst thing they could have thought of to handle the situation satisfactorily.

I should say that I do not know Ivanov personally and can not vouch for him, but I am inclined to believe his case.

I just did a quick search for you from the Fide site. It took Carslen, Giri, Caruana and Karjakin an average 3-4 years to improve from 2000-2100 to 2500-2600 range. I assume you do not think Ivanov is more talented than these guys... Now how do you think it is possible for anybody to achieve that improvement (or even more since he plays 2700+ chess against GM's) in a matter of a few months instead of a few years? Don't give me computers a best teachers crap. Everyone works with computers in the last 10 years. You would like us to believe a computer geek with no real chess background to suddenly rocket his rating from around 2000 to 2600 in a few months with so little ease. Do you really know chess? Even if you work like mad with the best computers or trainers in the world you need years and hundreds of games to apply that knowledge and technique to good practice.

Against playing sub 2000 people as previously stated he makes a lot of mistakes and draws, loses but against GM's he does not even make a suboptimal move. Did you go over his moves against GM's? His play is perfect. Event the best players in the world makes more mistakes than he does in those games. Sorry a 2000 player cannot have a performance rating of 2950, not possible. I would rather believe he is Jesus Christ...

When Carlsen, Giri, Caruana, Kariakin improved from 2100 to 2500, the best training software was Fritz, or at best Rybka. Neither Stockfish, nor Houdini or Komodo were available.

His games against GMs are not perfect, very far from it. But even if he had used latest Houdini on tremendous hardware, still his games would have been far from perfect, as there still is not a perfect chess software.

[michiguel]

Did you miss the part where he claims he beats both Houdini and Rybka ... 10 out of 10 times ... 100% against an entity that is playing over 3200 ELO !!! That alone should be enough to convince you or anyone on this board that this guy is full of crap!

That was obviously an emotional statement. When you get unusually good results, and they tell you, 'Hey, you are a weaky, how is it possible that you score that well?', you have to answer something in your defence, and, instead of saying, 'I am able to win the occasional game against Rybka and Houdini' , you suddenly say ' I am winning 10 out of 10', especially if someone is teasing you.

How do you judge it is "obviously" an emotional stament? It might as well be a genuine try to fool people which fits his current status...

How do you explain him improving 400-500 ( or even more) elo in a matter of months instead of years? IQ injections?

As we have even seen in world championship match in Chennai even the best players in the world are not immune to mistakes. What do you think about him not playing any blunder or forget blunder even a suboptimal move? We have seen statistical analysis of this from a statistician and a chess player and it was close to impossible.

He was not informed a few hours before the test Bulgarian Federation prepared for him he was informed much earlier and he stated he will attend it only to change his mind in the last minute and did not show up.

Here is the link to the mentioned Stats page.
http://en.chessbase.com/post/experts-we ... nce-060613
"Dr. Kenneth Regan: Also as my report says, I cannot imagine the statistical evidence in any case being stronger than for Zadar. As it comes to Ivanov’s performance at the “Old Capital” Open in Veliko Tarnovo, even when the games from the first two rounds are included, I get significant deviations in both the MM and AE tests, and an IPR of 3149 with 97.5% confidence above 2940."

How can you explain a performance rating of 2940 with % 97.4 confidence from a guy who is rating was only around 2000 before he suddenly reached the nirvana and solved chess?

Hi Taner.

I will not go into details, as it is meaningless. Just a few words:

- who told you his games do not have mistakes? when losing or drawing, he obviously makes mistakes, but even when winning, there are many mistakes in his games.
- you can certainly improve by couple of hundred elo, if you have been talented, did not have access permanently to computer to train with, then you bought one, then you have an excellent software, which shows you things you never saw before; you train a lot, and you quickly improve; people training without a coach improve usually slowly, people with a good coach much faster, and how fast do you improve when you are coached by Houdini or Stockfish, that surpass every human coach, be it Kasparov or Fischer themselves? Why most players training with advanced software do not improve that fast? Very simple, because they are studying all day long theory, and only play very few games with engines. If, instead of studying theory, you play against engines, you might improve astoundingly fast. People simply do not do that.
Kenneth Reagan's research is based on standard conditions, but having a coach that can teach you 10 times faster and more accurate to play chess is not a standard condition. This fact alone changes many variables.

- regarding the BCF lie detector case, I think this is ludicrous. Instead of Mr. Danailov playing some games against Ivanov after a thorough search to judge his level of play, they invented a test that would prove nothing even if a person fails it, as some people are naturally shy and would fail the test even if they say the truth. You just get disurbed by something subconscious, and you suddenly fail the test even if you say the truth. That is why this was the worst thing they could have thought of to handle the situation satisfactorily.

I should say that I do not know Ivanov personally and can not vouch for him, but I am inclined to believe his case.

I just did a quick search for you from the Fide site. It took Carslen, Giri, Caruana and Karjakin an average 3-4 years to improve from 2000-2100 to 2500-2600 range. I assume you do not think Ivanov is more talented than these guys... Now how do you think it is possible for anybody to achieve that improvement (or even more since he plays 2700+ chess against GM's) in a matter of a few months instead of a few years? Don't give me computers a best teachers crap. Everyone works with computers in the last 10 years. You would like us to believe a computer geek with no real chess background to suddenly rocket his rating from around 2000 to 2600 in a few months with so little ease. Do you really know chess? Even if you work like mad with the best computers or trainers in the world you need years and hundreds of games to apply that knowledge and technique to good practice.

Against playing sub 2000 people as previously stated he makes a lot of mistakes and draws, loses but against GM's he does not even make a suboptimal move. Did you go over his moves against GM's? His play is perfect. Event the best players in the world makes more mistakes than he does in those games. Sorry a 2000 player cannot have a performance rating of 2950, not possible. I would rather believe he is Jesus Christ...

When Carlsen, Giri, Caruana, Kariakin improved from 2100 to 2500, the best training software was Fritz, or at best Rybka. Neither Stockfish, nor Houdini or Komodo were available.

His games against GMs are not perfect, very far from it. But even if he had used latest Houdini on tremendous hardware, still his games would have been far from perfect, as there still is not a perfect chess software.

Just for the record, it did not take Carlsen et al 4 years to improve from 2100 to 2500 etc. It took four years to REACH that rating, which is not the same.

We should not confuse performance rating with rating.

Miguel

[Uri Blass]

Did you miss the part where he claims he beats both Houdini and Rybka ... 10 out of 10 times ... 100% against an entity that is playing over 3200 ELO !!! That alone should be enough to convince you or anyone on this board that this guy is full of crap!

That was obviously an emotional statement. When you get unusually good results, and they tell you, 'Hey, you are a weaky, how is it possible that you score that well?', you have to answer something in your defence, and, instead of saying, 'I am able to win the occasional game against Rybka and Houdini' , you suddenly say ' I am winning 10 out of 10', especially if someone is teasing you.

How do you judge it is "obviously" an emotional stament? It might as well be a genuine try to fool people which fits his current status...

How do you explain him improving 400-500 ( or even more) elo in a matter of months instead of years? IQ injections?

As we have even seen in world championship match in Chennai even the best players in the world are not immune to mistakes. What do you think about him not playing any blunder or forget blunder even a suboptimal move? We have seen statistical analysis of this from a statistician and a chess player and it was close to impossible.

He was not informed a few hours before the test Bulgarian Federation prepared for him he was informed much earlier and he stated he will attend it only to change his mind in the last minute and did not show up.

Here is the link to the mentioned Stats page.
http://en.chessbase.com/post/experts-we ... nce-060613
"Dr. Kenneth Regan: Also as my report says, I cannot imagine the statistical evidence in any case being stronger than for Zadar. As it comes to Ivanov’s performance at the “Old Capital” Open in Veliko Tarnovo, even when the games from the first two rounds are included, I get significant deviations in both the MM and AE tests, and an IPR of 3149 with 97.5% confidence above 2940."

How can you explain a performance rating of 2940 with % 97.4 confidence from a guy who is rating was only around 2000 before he suddenly reached the nirvana and solved chess?

Hi Taner.

I will not go into details, as it is meaningless. Just a few words:

- who told you his games do not have mistakes? when losing or drawing, he obviously makes mistakes, but even when winning, there are many mistakes in his games.
- you can certainly improve by couple of hundred elo, if you have been talented, did not have access permanently to computer to train with, then you bought one, then you have an excellent software, which shows you things you never saw before; you train a lot, and you quickly improve; people training without a coach improve usually slowly, people with a good coach much faster, and how fast do you improve when you are coached by Houdini or Stockfish, that surpass every human coach, be it Kasparov or Fischer themselves? Why most players training with advanced software do not improve that fast? Very simple, because they are studying all day long theory, and only play very few games with engines. If, instead of studying theory, you play against engines, you might improve astoundingly fast. People simply do not do that.
Kenneth Reagan's research is based on standard conditions, but having a coach that can teach you 10 times faster and more accurate to play chess is not a standard condition. This fact alone changes many variables.

- regarding the BCF lie detector case, I think this is ludicrous. Instead of Mr. Danailov playing some games against Ivanov after a thorough search to judge his level of play, they invented a test that would prove nothing even if a person fails it, as some people are naturally shy and would fail the test even if they say the truth. You just get disurbed by something subconscious, and you suddenly fail the test even if you say the truth. That is why this was the worst thing they could have thought of to handle the situation satisfactorily.

I should say that I do not know Ivanov personally and can not vouch for him, but I am inclined to believe his case.

I just did a quick search for you from the Fide site. It took Carslen, Giri, Caruana and Karjakin an average 3-4 years to improve from 2000-2100 to 2500-2600 range. I assume you do not think Ivanov is more talented than these guys... Now how do you think it is possible for anybody to achieve that improvement (or even more since he plays 2700+ chess against GM's) in a matter of a few months instead of a few years? Don't give me computers a best teachers crap. Everyone works with computers in the last 10 years. You would like us to believe a computer geek with no real chess background to suddenly rocket his rating from around 2000 to 2600 in a few months with so little ease. Do you really know chess? Even if you work like mad with the best computers or trainers in the world you need years and hundreds of games to apply that knowledge and technique to good practice.

Against playing sub 2000 people as previously stated he makes a lot of mistakes and draws, loses but against GM's he does not even make a suboptimal move. Did you go over his moves against GM's? His play is perfect. Event the best players in the world makes more mistakes than he does in those games. Sorry a 2000 player cannot have a performance rating of 2950, not possible. I would rather believe he is Jesus Christ...

Improvement from level of 2000 to level of 2600 in one year is not the biggest reason to suspect ivanov because maybe it is going to be possible with some genius with the right training methods and also the people who defend ivanov deny that he is at the 2500-2600 range.

The main problem is that it is impossible to have performance near 2600 against strong players and performance near 2000 against weak players and I do not talk about a single game when every result is possible.

Summery of the results of ivanov for rating in december 2012-december 2013 including both decembers at standard time control.

notice the huge difference between his performance against 1800-1999 players( only 7/11) and his performance against 2300-2700 players(14.5/22):

Note that I did not include the last tournament when he scored 2.5/3 against GM's that could increase the last result to 17/25



3.5/4 against players with rating 1600-1699
1/1 against players with rating 1700-1799
4.5/6 against players with rating 1800-1899
2.5/5 against players with rating 1900-1999
5/8 against players with rating 2000-2099
5/7 against players with rating 2100-2199
7.5/10 against players with rating 2200-2299
4/5 against players with rating 2300-2399
5/7 against players with rating 2400-2499
2.5/5 against players with rating 2500-2599
3/5 against players with rating 2600-2699

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

Improvement from level of 2000 to level of 2600 in one year is not the biggest reason to suspect ivanov because maybe it is going to be possible with some genius with the right training methods and also the people who defend ivanov deny that he is at the 2500-2600 range.

The main problem is that it is impossible to have performance near 2600 against strong players and performance near 2000 against weak players and I do not talk about a single game when every result is possible.

Summery of the results of ivanov for rating in december 2012-december 2013 including both decembers at standard time control.

notice the huge difference between his performance against 1800-1999 players( only 7/11) and his performance against 2300-2700 players(14.5/22):

Note that I did not include the last tournament when he scored 2.5/3 against GM's that could increase the last result to 17/25



3.5/4 against players with rating 1600-1699
1/1 against players with rating 1700-1799
4.5/6 against players with rating 1800-1899
2.5/5 against players with rating 1900-1999
5/8 against players with rating 2000-2099
5/7 against players with rating 2100-2199
7.5/10 against players with rating 2200-2299
4/5 against players with rating 2300-2399
5/7 against players with rating 2400-2499
2.5/5 against players with rating 2500-2599
3/5 against players with rating 2600-2699

Thank you very much Uri, for providing ready-made statistics.

I see 90% performance within the range 1600-1900,
60% within the range 1900-2100 (but here is where the really strong players are )
80% within the range 2100-2500 (the really whopping result)
and 50% within the range 2500-2700

First conclusion is he gets his highest score in the lowest range, quite normal
Second conclusion is he gets his lowest score in the highest range, also quite normal
Third conclusion is that, taken together, his results in the 2 intermediate categories amount to 70% performance, which is just in between the score in the lowest and highest elo ranges, absolutely normal for me

And now the only aberration is that he scores much better against players rated 2100-2500 than against players rated 1900-2100. I do not know how to explain that. Well, maybe he plays best against players roughly equal to his own strength, that would be 2100-2500. He knows their strengths and weaknesses and he scores there best. Concerning the 1900-2100 category, here is where most the little girls, but also decrepited seniors play, and for some reason he would not like to win many games there.

Of course, the last explanation might be a bit comical, but also might be partly true.

[M ANSARI]

Improvement from level of 2000 to level of 2600 in one year is not the biggest reason to suspect ivanov because maybe it is going to be possible with some genius with the right training methods and also the people who defend ivanov deny that he is at the 2500-2600 range.

The main problem is that it is impossible to have performance near 2600 against strong players and performance near 2000 against weak players and I do not talk about a single game when every result is possible.

Summery of the results of ivanov for rating in december 2012-december 2013 including both decembers at standard time control.

notice the huge difference between his performance against 1800-1999 players( only 7/11) and his performance against 2300-2700 players(14.5/22):

Note that I did not include the last tournament when he scored 2.5/3 against GM's that could increase the last result to 17/25



3.5/4 against players with rating 1600-1699
1/1 against players with rating 1700-1799
4.5/6 against players with rating 1800-1899
2.5/5 against players with rating 1900-1999
5/8 against players with rating 2000-2099
5/7 against players with rating 2100-2199
7.5/10 against players with rating 2200-2299
4/5 against players with rating 2300-2399
5/7 against players with rating 2400-2499
2.5/5 against players with rating 2500-2599
3/5 against players with rating 2600-2699

Thank you very much Uri, for providing ready-made statistics.

I see 90% performance within the range 1600-1900,
60% within the range 1900-2100 (but here is where the really strong players are )
80% within the range 2100-2500 (the really whopping result)
and 50% within the range 2500-2700

First conclusion is he gets his highest score in the lowest range, quite normal
Second conclusion is he gets his lowest score in the highest range, also quite normal
Third conclusion is that, taken together, his results in the 2 intermediate categories amount to 70% performance, which is just in between the score in the lowest and highest elo ranges, absolutely normal for me

And now the only aberration is that he scores much better against players rated 2100-2500 than against players rated 1900-2100. I do not know how to explain that. Well, maybe he plays best against players roughly equal to his own strength, that would be 2100-2500. He knows their strengths and weaknesses and he scores there best. Concerning the 1900-2100 category, here is where most the little girls, but also decrepited seniors play, and for some reason he would not like to win many games there.

Of course, the last explanation might be a bit comical, but also might be partly true.

Comical is an understatement ... ridiculous is more like it. If you cannot comprehend that the guys is a fraud and is cheating and stealing from his honest opponents then good for you, but for God's sake stop trying to convince the rest of us to pull a hood over our heads.

[George Tsavdaris]

I will not go into details, as it is meaningless. Just a few words:

- who told you his games do not have mistakes? when losing or drawing, he obviously makes mistakes, but even when winning, there are many mistakes in his games.
- you can certainly improve by couple of hundred elo, if you have been talented, did not have access permanently to computer to train with, then you bought one, then you have an excellent software, which shows you things you never saw before; you train a lot, and you quickly improve; people training without a coach improve usually slowly, people with a good coach much faster, and how fast do you improve when you are coached by Houdini or Stockfish, that surpass every human coach, be it Kasparov or Fischer themselves? Why most players training with advanced software do not improve that fast? Very simple, because they are studying all day long theory, and only play very few games with engines. If, instead of studying theory, you play against engines, you might improve astoundingly fast. People simply do not do that.
Kenneth Reagan's research is based on standard conditions, but having a coach that can teach you 10 times faster and more accurate to play chess is not a standard condition. This fact alone changes many variables.

- regarding the BCF lie detector case, I think this is ludicrous. Instead of Mr. Danailov playing some games against Ivanov after a thorough search to judge his level of play, they invented a test that would prove nothing even if a person fails it, as some people are naturally shy and would fail the test even if they say the truth. You just get disurbed by something subconscious, and you suddenly fail the test even if you say the truth. That is why this was the worst thing they could have thought of to handle the situation satisfactorily.

I should say that I do not know Ivanov personally and can not vouch for him, but I am inclined to believe his case.

Sorry but what you are doing here?
You are trying to persuade us that Ivanov is not cheating?
We are not naive or morons.

So you can't!
Because he is cheating.
And don't try to persuade me with countless irrelevant stories as above.

Only 3 things are relevant here.
His moves have a super high correlation with some engines.
He beats 300+ higher rated players very frequently(incredibly frequently reaches abnormally high performance ratings), losing at the same time from lower rating players and playing like crap in many games.
He refused several times to be searched.

We are adults and even if we weren't we have IQ>0, even an IQ=0.1 would suffice in stopping any conversation about whether he cheats or not.
He cheats by using engine(s) to play.

[George Tsavdaris]

When Carlsen, Giri, Caruana, Kariakin improved from 2100 to 2500, the best training software was Fritz, or at best Rybka. Neither Stockfish, nor Houdini or Komodo were available.

WOW. That has to be the worst argument ever!
If i was a moderator i would ban you for trying to befool us, finding the most ridiculous excuses possible and treating us(our brains) like we are 1.5 years old.