Quote:
Experts weigh in on Ivanov's performance
5.6.2013 - Two days ago we reported on the crushing victories of a Bulgarian FM against top grandmasters and the suspicion that he was secretly using computer assistance to achieve his success. Extensive analysis of the games by Valeri Lilov made this seem quite plausible. In part two of our series we present the opinions of international experts and one of the GM victims, plus initial reader feeback.
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Source:
http://chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211/PostId/4010032/experts-weigh-in-on-ivanovs-p...

Just another article that wouldn't help at all.. 

ErictheRed wrote on 06/04/13 at 20:36:32:


At least one problem is that if a chess federation doesn't follow due process, it is liable to end up in a court of law. The ban on the German player caught in the rest rooms with a phone was overturned because it wasn't in an event directly run by the German Federation.

At the same time as FIDE have announced an anti-cheating commission, they have also announced an on-line service complete with Elo ratings and titles. I thought it well established that on-line chess in the absence of physical arbiters isn't suitable for serious play as you can have no confidence your opponent isn't at the very least looking up openings on another device, blunder checking or looking for engine suggestions.

Statistical methods could point you at those always using an engine in substitution for their own moves, but it's not going to detect consulting or taking advice from third parties with any reliability.

ErictheRed wrote on 06/04/13 at 03:20:50:


Do you think they need due process?  The right to present evidence and confront one's accusers?  Impartial judges?

@Vass:  Dear chessfriend, it should be possible for someone to stand in the public square and say vile things about chessplayers, and still be permitted to play chess.  Doing so is rude and stupid, but so long as it isn't done in a way that disrupts a tournament, it has nothing to do with the regulation of chess.  Fischer, during his playing days, said some quite negative things about Soviet ("Russian", as he called them) players in general.

I do not defend Ivanov and indeed, I am fairly certain that he IS cheating.  Irritatingly, he is also thumbing his nose at the chess community.  But I just can't agree with banning someone based on suspicion.  I do not say "irrefutable" evidence is needed, but something is needed beyond, "Well, we all think you're cheating."

ErictheRed wrote on 06/04/13 at 17:44:00:


Eric, suppose you're a tournament organizer - what would you do? 
Call the FBI or what?
Believe me, it's not a trivial case of cheating. The French case is nothing comparing to this.. The German case is an amateur's comparing to this one.
Not a games broadcasting (except in Zadar), not a help from the public, cell phones, metal sets - all this is for "the kids" in the cheating. Understand?
In Veliko Tarnovo there were some cameras that were situated in the front of his face, so what? All the same.
Bring doctors to pull out all the things out of his ears? What exactly are you suggesting?
In other words, no "reasonable anti-cheating measures" were taken! The chessmen are not policemen, you know..
The only reasonable thought is that this super-hero is not alone. This extremely clever way of cheating is invented from other people and they use this boy in order to announce that there is a new cheating technology. ...Available for sale!
And as soon as a buyer comes in, this boy will be soon forgotten, banned, suspended or whatever.. 

Well obviously there's more to this story than I've been following, and frankly I haven't been following it lately.  I have two questions, though:

1) What reasonable anti-cheating measures have been taken in tournaments where he's played?  For instance, have they banned spectators in the playing hall, stopped any transmission of moves, etc?

2) Has anyone suggested a plausible technical method by which he has been receiving help?  When it's all said and done, I'd wager that the cheating method has nothing to do with science fiction-like devices planted deep inside his ear (or mircroscopic lenses in his eye), but a conspirator (or two) that is somehow relaying him moves.   

I'm pretty tired of the whole story, actually, and just want to know how it all plays out.  It's like we've been shuffling pieces for 46 moves, pretty soon someone has to push a pawn or capture something, but what then?  Another 49 moves of shuffling until we figure out what's happening?

banned for 4 months for bad language? Doesn't sound too fair to me. Sounds like this lad may have a case.

Markovich wrote on 06/04/13 at 02:18:37:


Well, there are legal principles such as probable cause and reasonable doubt that can be analogously applied.  I don't know that a reliable statistical method for comparing human moves to those of an engine has been developed, and I haven't followed all the details in Mr. Ivanov's case, but in principle I don't think that FIDE (or whomever) needs absolute, irrefutable evidence to ban him from future events.  Or to only allow him to play under certain conditions, such as setting up his board in a small enclosed room with no spectators allowed and no transmission of moves.  As you say, playing in a chess tournament is not a fundamental right. 

Even running one of those hand-held metal detectors over a player might be justified after a certain amount of suspicious games.  The tournament organizers couldn't legally search someone against their will, but they may stipulate at the beginning of the event that if the metal detector finds something on the person of a player, it's the player's responsibility to show that whatever set it off is not capable of running chess software or sending/receiving transmissions.  Extreme perhaps, but the accused cheater could go a long way to clearing his name if a metal detector found nothing on him after emptying his pockets of his keys.

I agree that banning Ivanov smells terrible, but there's enough probable cause for some kind of action or extra precautions, in my opinion.  It's not like he would be singled out on the basis of race, religion, nationality, etc--he would be singled out on the basis that his moves in many, many games have a 95%+ correlation with those of a chess engine, and I presume that anyone else whose moves also had an extremely high correlation would be treated in the same way.