Cheating suspicion at the Zadar Open in Croatia

[Hood]

do you have such a data for other player

[noctiferus]

No, I only did such a check due to the result he got on the board, 5/6 (one of which was a 15 move draw), and because of the comments (before and after the game) by Rombaldoni.

Anyway, you can do it yourself. The games are linked in a previous post of mine
http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=47933

and the official site, together with the strange tournament rules, is here:
http://old-capital-2013.chessmix.com/

[Hood]

Living in a world of multiple proven cheating cases every exceptional tournament performance immediately is highlighted as suspect.

Regarding the above I like to add one more thought.

Collect cases of exceptional tournament performances (like the Ivanov case) before the days cheating with chess programs made sense. Back then they were accepted without criticism and if only one shows a similar behavior as in the Ivanov case then the accusation is baseless.

show me one similiar case of exceptional tournament performance(like the ivanov case) before 1990 when it did not happen in a single tournament but in many tournaments when the same player also did bad in other tournament

I know only about one case and it was a single tournament and not many tournaments like ivanov

Sofia polgar Rome

http://www.sofiapolgar.com/Rome.aspx?As ... eSupport=1

Of course I do not think that she was cheating but it was only a single event and Ivanov has some events when he score not logical result for his rating.

More Exceptional results:

RJ Fischer M.Taimanow 6:0; RJ Fischer B. Larsen 6:0
RJ Fischer 11:0 in US Ch.
That was sth! If there were chessprograms would have been he accused of using Houdini or Stockfish? . for sure.

Rgds Hood

[Don]

Living in a world of multiple proven cheating cases every exceptional tournament performance immediately is highlighted as suspect.

Regarding the above I like to add one more thought.

Collect cases of exceptional tournament performances (like the Ivanov case) before the days cheating with chess programs made sense. Back then they were accepted without criticism and if only one shows a similar behavior as in the Ivanov case then the accusation is baseless.

show me one similiar case of exceptional tournament performance(like the ivanov case) before 1990 when it did not happen in a single tournament but in many tournaments when the same player also did bad in other tournament

I know only about one case and it was a single tournament and not many tournaments like ivanov

Sofia polgar Rome

http://www.sofiapolgar.com/Rome.aspx?As ... eSupport=1

Of course I do not think that she was cheating but it was only a single event and Ivanov has some events when he score not logical result for his rating.

More Exceptional results:

RJ Fischer M.Taimanow 6:0; RJ Fischer B. Larsen 6:0
RJ Fischer 11:0 in US Ch.
That was sth! If there were chessprograms would have been he accused of using Houdini or Stockfish? . for sure.

Rgds Hood

The Taimanov win was not exceptional, even though cosmetically it's extremely impressive.

The result would definitely raise suspicions today if someone a few hundred ELO weaker than Taimanov got 6:0 against him.

I did a little research and according to Jeff Sonas Fischer was rated almost 200 ELO higher than Taimonov at the time. Taimanov was only number 13 in the world.

Do you see how easily facts are twisted when you don't give them due consideration? Winning 6 games in a row is a good result, but it's not an unbelievable result against a player 200 ELO weaker.

[Rebel]

Did not Kamsky earn 300 elo points in one year?

[kinderchocolate]

We should ask ourself if he used Houdini for his games, why wouldn't his rating jump to 2800? His current FIDE 2300+ is reasonable for his FM title.

[Uri Blass]

We should ask ourself if he used Houdini for his games, why wouldn't his rating jump to 2800? His current FIDE 2300+ is reasonable for his FM title.

simply because he could not use houdini in every game and it seems that he also did not use houdini against some weak players and have significant number of draws or losses against players with fide rating below 2000.

[Don]

We should ask ourself if he used Houdini for his games, why wouldn't his rating jump to 2800? His current FIDE 2300+ is reasonable for his FM title.

Your rating does not go from 2300 to 2800 just because you had one or two good tournaments. Assuming he plays a lot of chess and that he also is using Houdini (and does so in every game) it will still take some time for his rating to increase substantially.

If Ivanov is cheating and continues to cheat he will work his way up to the very top ranks of chess. On his journey he is going to face enormous scrutiny and it's going to get hot for him in the kitchen. My guess is that this will keep his average performance at a modest level. If he is a cheater and has any sense he will be forced to sprinkle some losses and believable performances in there. But a reasonable person wouldn't cheat and usually cannot resist the greed that is driving them. Greed drives mistakes so he would be in this for either recognition and glory, tournament winnings or something else greed driven.

I would like to say that I have personally known some cheaters. I did not consider them my friends, but I knew them. It was not computer cheating but it was sandbagging. A group of us recognized that this player was having a number of exceptional tournaments and winning class prize money. We looked up his name in the rating book the USCF used to publish and saw 3 entries that were slight variations of his name with various ratings. We suspected that it was the same player but couldn't prove it and so did one of the tournament directors. We also saw that he would dump his rating between tournaments with local rated games in his club. He also spoke openly about how such cheating could be accomplished and walked a very thin line just short of admitting it and bragging about it. And he was fascinated with the concept and talked about it the entire tournament.

It also turned out that he was unethical because he started trying to coach me. After having beat me he came to believe he was my mentor or something and tried to help me win games by attempting to advise me during the game. It's difficult for me to be brutal but I had to be in this case and I told him that I want no part of this and that he needed to leave me alone.

It was a puzzle to me what would motivate someone to do such a thing. He wasn't that strong, so it wasn't like he had it easy or that it was a sure thing. I found that even when playing 400 ELO down I still had to work hard for the win. And a typical weekend Swiss always left me exhausted, playing chess is very hard work and I worked very hard over the board when I played. The entry fees were high too not to mention hotel expenses and eating out. So he was basically working his butt off to cheat for very little amortized or expected financial gain.

But this is often true of many criminals too. They actually work harder than most honest people do to become thieves along with accepting enormous personal risk and logistical hassles. I've often wondered why the most talented cloners don't just write their own chess programs instead, is it really worth the hassle when they could probably get there with their personal dignity and conscience intact?

[Don]

We should ask ourself if he used Houdini for his games, why wouldn't his rating jump to 2800? His current FIDE 2300+ is reasonable for his FM title.

simply because he could not use houdini in every game and it seems that he also did not use houdini against some weak players and have significant number of draws or losses against players with fide rating below 2000.

If he is cheating, I'm wondering if there is some logistical issue here that makes his method impossible or difficult in some scenarios? For example does he require help? I would expect that the "safest" way to cheat would be to have a team-member involved giving you signals. That would require the team member being available when you are and to always be in plain view which may be more difficult in some venues. The team member would also have a difficult time not being conspicuous and would still have to operate a device but it would insulate the player.

Are there any example of him playing a totally ridiculous move? It is difficult not making errors even when everything is legitimate, such as in a computer chess face to face tournaments.

[noctiferus]

As you said, Fide rules make climbing a bit slow:
according to points 8.1b and 2 of

http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html? ... ew=article

if one plays a perfect 10 games tournament againtst players 100 ELO higher, you get, more or less, 65 Elos.
In order to climb 5 or 600 ELOs, one would need about 9 or 10 perfect tournaments.
Of course, if not perfect (that would be a bit suspect), more...