Note: I wrote this paper while taking the "Social Media and the Law" class at the University of Dayton School of Law during the summer of 2015. This paper has never been published, but the issues raised in this paper are, if anything, even more relevant today than they were in 2015, so I decided to post the complete paper here exactly as I originally wrote it.
INTRODUCTION: THE GAME OF KINGS, PLAYED BY KINGS
Chess cheating has become a major issue in
the past decade or so due to a combination of three factors: increased chess
computing power, miniaturization of chess computing devices/cell phones, and
increased prizes at chess tournaments. Chess cheaters now have the means to
easily conceal devices that can give them a huge, unfair competitive advantage,
and they have the financial motive to use those devices.1 This paper
will examine how chess computers and social media are employed by chess
cheaters, and the legal remedies that can be employed to prevent, detect and
punish chess cheaters.
First, though, it is important to take a
brief look at how the game of chess has evolved and how chess tournaments
function. This will make it easier to understand the challenges associated with
preventing, detecting, and punishing chess cheaters.
Historian Richard Eales notes that chess
was most likely invented in northern India in the sixth century CE.2 The
first European references to chess predate 1000 CE.3 After chess
reached Europe, the game evolved as a result of a series of rules changes
primarily designed to “speed up the game.”4 By 1550, the new,
modernized form of chess prevailed throughout most of Europe.5
Chess is a difficult game to master but it
is an easy game to learn. The basic instructions about how to play, summarized
in this paragraph and the following paragraph, can be grasped quickly by even a
very young child and take up fewer than five pages in the U.S. Chess Federation
(USCF) rule book.6 Chess is played on a 64 square board of
alternating light and dark squares, with the board positioned so that a light
colored square is always placed by each player’s right hand (a distinction that
is often disregarded in mainstream media depictions of a chess board). The goal
is to checkmate the opposing King, which means placing that King under an
attack from which the King cannot escape. The King is the most important piece
but also the most vulnerable. The Queen is the most powerful piece, as she can
move any number of unoccupied squares up, down, to the right, to the left or on
a diagonal (but only in one direction on a given turn). The Rook moves like the
Queen except that it cannot operate on diagonals. A Bishop operates only on
diagonals that are the same color as its original home square.
The quirky Knight is the only piece that moves in two directions on a single turn and the only piece that can hop over
another piece in its path; its move encompasses an “L”-shape, covering two
squares vertically and one square horizontally or two squares horizontally and
one square vertically. The lowly Pawn marches straight ahead one square at a
time, except on its very first move of the game when it has an option of
marching forward one square or two squares. However, the Pawn is the only unit
that captures differently than it normally moves; it cannot capture an enemy
unit in its normal path but it can capture an enemy unit one diagonal in front
to the right or left. A Pawn that moves two squares on its first move to pass
an enemy pawn and avoid being captured can be captured “en passant” (in
passing) by that enemy pawn but only if the opposing player avails himself of
that option on his very next move. A Pawn that reaches the eighth rank can and
must be promoted to any piece except a King.
In Europe, this game of battling kings was
often played by kings and members of the aristocracy.7 King Philip
II of Spain and King Sebastian of Portugal are just two of the many medieval
rulers who played and sponsored chess.8 “The tradition of the
itinerant chessmaster, touring with his chessmen from court to court like some
medieval minstrel, continued well into the seventeenth century,” explains
author and International Master William Hartston.9
THE DEVELOPMENT OF TOURNAMENT CHESS
Chess was originally played
without any kind of timing device or clock. In a game without a clock, the
player with the losing position could stall.10 An 1843 game between
Howard Staunton and Pierre St. Amant lasted over 14 hours. According to chess
historian Bill Wall, “These kinds of purposeless prolongations and deliberate
attempts to fatigue and wear out the opponent were commonplace at the time, and
an average game lasted nine hours.”11 The development and use of the
chess clock in the mid-1800s made it feasible to hold international tournaments
pitting the strongest players in the world against each other.
Sometimes it was necessary to “adjourn” a
timed game. When this happened, the player on move wrote down his intended
move, stopped his clock and “sealed” his written move in an envelope that the
tournament director kept until the game could be resumed. When the game was
resumed, the tournament director opened the envelope in the presence of both
players and the sealing player was required to play the move that he had
written down. In theory, the players were not allowed to analyze the paused
game prior to resumption but in practice this restriction was difficult to
enforce and it became standard practice for each player to analyze the game with
other players.12 The success of the former Soviet Union’s chess
players in international competition stemmed in part from their teamwork in
such situations.13
Since a tournament chess player is not
allowed to consult with other parties or with any written material during a
game, the adjournment process seems like it permits or even encourages players
to violate the rules. USCF Life Master Mike Petersen describes why this was
acceptable in a bygone era even in FIDE (an acronym for Federation
Internationale des Echecs, which means World Chess Federation) events:
The net effect was that the player who sealed the move knew his next move, but not what his
opponent will play against it. The player who did not seal the move has
to wait until the next day to find out his opponent’s next move. Both
players were therefore in the same situation. It was a fair as you could
get. There was only one problem. How did they prevent someone from
analyzing the game during the adjournment period? Well, they
didn’t. All Grandmasters at FIDE tournaments had at least one other
ranked player with them whose job it was to analyze the adjourned positions and
go over them with the player. But that’s cheating, you might say.
Yes, today it would be considered that, but not back then. There were no
reliable chess engines to analyze the game to death, so a GM’s “second” was a
very valuable commodity. Today we look upon this practice as weird, but
it was necessary back then.14
As Petersen indicated, the development of
powerful chess computers made it necessary for all tournament games to end in
one playing session without adjournment, because otherwise the players could enter
the adjourned position into a computer and possibly obtain a definitive answer
about how to proceed.
THE SILICON MONSTER CHANGES THE GAME
In retrospect, the creation of computers
that play chess at a Grandmaster level may seem inevitable but as recently as
40 years ago many experts in the field thought that chess is so complex that no
computer could ever be programmed to beat the best human chess players. The
number of possible legal chess positions is 1040 and the number of
possible chess games is 10120, which is 10 followed by 120 zeroes.15
Such numbers are literally astronomical: the number of possible chess games
exceeds the number of atoms in the universe.16
In 1968, reigning
Scottish chess champion David Levy bet 500 British pounds (half of his annual
income at the time) that no chess computer would be able to beat him in a match
by August 1978.17 By 1971,
Levy had become an International Master (the highest title in chess other than
Grandmaster), the best chess computers had hardly improved at all and Levy
increased his wager to 1250 British pounds.18 Until 1977, no
computer program was strong enough to even mount a worthy challenge to Levy but
that year Levy faced two different programs and won matches against both of
them without suffering a single draw or loss.19 In 1978, Levy defeated
a third computer before facing his fourth and final challenge, a six game match
against a program called CHESS 4.720 CHESS 4.7 held Levy to a draw
in the first game, marking the first time that a computer drew with an
International Master under tournament conditions. Levy won the next two games
and, needing only a draw win the bet, he decided to have some fun with an
experimental opening. CHESS 4.7 won that game and then Levy returned to a safe
and solid strategy, winning game five and his bet.21 Levy then made
another bet, this time for $1000, that no computer would beat him by the end of
1983, and the editors of Omni
magazine put up an additional $4000 on Levy’s behalf.22 Levy won
that bet as well and he then renewed that bet, eventually losing in 1989.23
By that time, computers could beat
Grandmasters but still could not quite take the measure of World Chess Champion
Garry Kasparov. In 1989, Kasparov scored 2-0 in a match against Deep Thought, a
computer that could process 750,000 chess positions per second. Deep Thought
was programmed to not concede until its opponent had a huge advantage and after
the match Kasparov commented, "I think the computer needs to be taught
something – how to resign!"24
In 1996, Kasparov played Deep Blue—the
successor program to Deep Thought—and won 4-2, but in the 1997 rematch a new,
more powerful Deep Blue beat Kasparov 3.5-2.5.25 Kasparov insisted
that Deep Blue’s programmers cheated by providing some in-game assistance to
Deep Blue.26 Whether or not Kasparov’s allegation was true, the
point is that as recently as 1997 it still seemed incredible that a chess
computer could play in an apparently creative style (as opposed to relying on
brute calculation) and beat the reigning World Champion. Now, the paradigm has
shifted and no one would think that a computer would need a human’s help during
a chess game but there is a growing concern about humans covertly using
computers to cheat at tournament chess.
In 2005, Michael Adams, the seventh ranked
Grandmaster in the world at the time, lost 5.5-0.5 to a computer program called
Hydra.27 The most powerful chess computers are challenging for even
the strongest human players to face not only because of their raw calculation
speed but also because a computer plays at the same level all of the time and
is not affected by fatigue, stress, hunger and other factors that cause
variability in a human’s performance. There is little interest in sponsoring human
versus computer chess matches now because, in order for even the strongest
human chess players to have a chance, the match would have to be short in
duration and allow sufficient rest between each game or else the computers
would have to give substantial odds in material and/or time on the clock.28
IS THAT A GRANDMASTER IN YOUR POCKET?
You could not sneak a desktop with Deep
Blue into a chess tournament undetected but within the past decade or so chess
computing software has been miniaturized to the extent that it can be used on a
cell phone. In 2005, the program HIARCS Palm Chess Pro 13.1 defeated a
Grandmaster in a match.29 Now, a person with the right equipment
could show up at a chess tournament and receive undetected Grandmaster level
advice at any point during a game.
One of the earliest instances of alleged
chess cheating using chess computers and a cell phone happened at the 2005 HB
Global Chess Challenge in Minneapolis, a tournament that featured a
record-setting $500,000 prize fund.30 The tournament was divided
into various sections, with prizes distributed to the highest scoring players
in different rating classes, and in the last round a player who was competing
for one of the rating class prizes was kicked out of the tournament after being
caught speaking on his cell phone during his game.31 The tournament
organizers suspected that this player was receiving moves from an accomplice in
the building who was entering the game into a computer but they did not have to
prove this to disqualify the player because the tournament’s rules explicitly
prohibited any cell phone use for any reason during a game.32 The
player’s games were not rated and a formal ethics complaint was filed against
him with the USCF—but then this player showed up a few weeks later at the 2005
World Open, which offers the biggest annual prize fund in U.S. chess, and he
tied for first place in his rating class, winning $5,833.33 World
Open tournament director Bill Goichberg did not know that this player had been
kicked out of the HB Global Chess Challenge for violating the anti-cheating
rules but when Goichberg found out during the middle of the World Open he
sought to disqualify the player.34 However, Goichberg could not
prove that the player was cheating during the World Open and when the player
threatened to take legal action if he was kicked out Goichberg backed down and
let him stay in the tournament.35
These two different outcomes with the same
player show the importance of tournament directors enacting strict anti-cheating
rules prior to the start of an event and to the importance of tournament
directors communicating with each other to keep track of cheaters and alleged
cheaters; if Goichberg had known that this player had been kicked out of an
event for cheating then Goichberg would likely have denied him entry into the
World Open but once Goichberg accepted the player’s entry fee he could not kick
the player out without proving that the player had cheated in the World Open
specifically. As we will see, it can be difficult to prove that a player is
cheating, which is why a rule prohibiting any cell phone use during a
tournament is good, because such a rule automatically disqualifies a player who
uses a cell phone without forcing the director to investigate the nature of the
phone call; such an investigation could open up a host of legal issues,
including right to privacy and right to avoid illegal search and seizure. It is
much better for an organizer to set up anti-cheating rules in advance and make
sure that the players know about and agree to abide by those rules than to
permit players to enter an event and then try to determine on an ad hoc basis
during the tournament who may be cheating.
Two separate instances of alleged cheating
happened at the 2006 World Open. After that tournament, Goichberg, whose
Continental Chess Association runs the World Open and many other large U.S.
chess tournaments, spoke about how much technology had changed the chess
tournament scene: “Before, a player might have discussed the position with
someone who is a Grandmaster. That sounds terrible, but if the Grandmaster
hasn’t seen your position, I don’t know if that is going to be much help. What
is happening now is that the cheaters are concealing the fact that the moves
are being transmitted to a computer.”36
Goichberg added that even though the new methods of electronic cheating
are harder to detect than just observing a player speaking with a Grandmaster
while his game is still in progress, there are some signs that indicate when a
player is cheating, such as a player making sequences of moves that differ from
typical human play, a player going through an entire game without making any
mistakes and a player quickly showing significant improvement in his results,
which is very unusual among adult players.37
Goichberg suspected that a player named Eugene Varshavsky was cheating at the 2006 World
Open because Varshavsky fit the above profile.38 Varshavsky, who was
rated slightly below Master level, beat three strong Masters and held another
to a draw in the first four rounds of the event. He then lost to a Grandmaster
but bounced back to beat Ilya Smirin, the Grandmaster with the highest USCF rating
at that time.39 Goichberg asked Varshavsky to speak with him before
the next round of the tournament but Varshavsky ducked into a bathroom and
stayed there for 10 minutes. Goichberg waited for him to emerge and then
received permission from Varshavsky to search him. No device or transmitter was
found on Varshavsky, who during his games never removed a hat that fit tightly
on his head.40 During the next round, Goichberg attempted to search
the bathroom stall that Varshavsky had used but it remained occupied for 45
minutes by none other than Varshavsky. After Varshavsky finally left the stall,
no incriminating evidence was discovered.41 Varshavsky lost his
final two games of the event and did not qualify for a prize. The USCF did not
rate Varshavsky’s suspicious games and eventually banned him from competing in
USCF sanctioned events.42 Three years later, Varshavsky finished
third in the National Sudoku Championship before being disqualified for
cheating.43
The Varshavsky incident at the 2006 World Open raises several questions about
preventing, detecting, and punishing chess cheating. In 2006, most chess
tournaments did not have formal policies about computer-assisted cheating and
tournament directors had to respond on the fly to suspicious situations, much
like judges have to figure out how to apply old laws to new legal questions
that arise as a result of the proliferation of social media networks. Goichberg
never proved that Varshavsky was cheating and Varshavsky never admitted to
cheating, but Varshavsky did not object to being searched at the tournament site
and has not sought to be reinstated by the USCF—but what if Varshavsky had
refused to be searched or had sued the USCF for banning him? How can a
tournament director prove that a player is cheating if the tournament director
does not catch the player in the act and how can the USCF ban a player without
proof that the player cheated? Varshavsky did not openly use a cell phone or
any other prohibited device, so he could not have been disqualified on those
grounds even if the tournament had rules against such conduct.
Dr. Ken Regan, a Computer Science Professor at the University of Buffalo and an
International Master, subsequently examined Varshavsky’s game versus Smirin and
concluded that the results of his investigation “indicate a consistent
narrative of cheating during the entire game.”44 Dr. Regan
criticized the tendency of some people in “the chess world” to analyze the
games of alleged chess cheaters “with no provision of data, methodology, logs,
reports, anything to permit reproducibility of tests by others...These
scientific fundamentals are overlooked amid need for due process with persons
directly named and reputations involved.”45 Dr. Regan declared that
his research was an effort “to remedy these lacks---you can dispute my methods
but at least they're reviewable!”46 Dr. Regan concluded, “ [1] If
someone cheats with more than one program, these methods can still detect
cheating; and [2] Results alleging cheating with a specific program can be told
apart from other programs (and possibly from versions of the same program). And
both determinations can be made to accepted court standards of evidentiary
statistics.”47
The latter point is critically important, because it provides a resource for
tournament directors to use to both justify kicking a player out of a
tournament and also to support such a decision if the expelled player decides
to file a lawsuit in response to being disqualified. It is not at all
farfetched to imagine a scenario in which a tournament director disqualifies a
player for cheating based on the kind of analysis that Dr. Regan performs,
whereupon that player sues (perhaps on a legal theory of recovering damages
based on the prize that he could have won had he not been disqualified) and the
court admits into evidence the kind of analysis that Dr. Regan performs because
that analysis is valid expert testimony.
Nevertheless, Dr. Regan does not believe that his methods alone are enough to justify banning
a player without some “physical or eyewitness evidence,” because Littlewood’s Law
suggests that if a person plays 100 games “chances are at least one of them
will match a given engine in a way that in isolation would be deemed to have a
less than 1-in-a-thousand chance of happening without collusion. Hence other
factors that in court cases go under the headings of ‘motive’ and ‘probable
cause’ must be brought into play.”48
The second alleged chess cheating incident at the 2006 World Open involved a player
named Steve Rosenberg who, unlike Varshavsky, was not playing in the tournament’s
top section. Rosenberg was leading his section heading into the last round and
one more win would have netted him a prize of about $18,000. Shortly after
Rosenberg began playing his final game, several players reported hearing
“whirring” noises emanating from a bathroom stall occupied by Rosenberg.49
Assistant tournament director Michael Atkins investigated these
complaints, did not find any evidence of wrongdoing and instructed Rosenberg to
not leave the playing area without being accompanied by a tournament director. Atkins also asked about a device in Rosenberg’s ear and Rosenberg said that it was a hearing aid.50
Oddly, Rosenberg was wearing large headphones over the alleged hearing aid but
when Rosenberg’s opponent complained about the headphones Rosenberg complied
with Atkins’ request to not wear the headphones (the tournament rules
stipulated that a player could only wear headphones during a game if his
opponent did not object).51
After several hours passed and after the lodging of several more complaints about
Rosenberg, Atkins asked Rosenberg to remove the alleged hearing aid from his
ear. Rosenberg put it in his pocket but Atkins insisted on examining the
device.52 Atkins wrote down the device’s name and the name of a
website that sold it. Subsequent investigation demonstrated that the device was
not a hearing aid but that it was a “Phonito,” a wireless miniature
communication receiver typically used with a signal booster worn around the
neck.53 Atkins brought Rosenberg to the tournament director’s
office, whereupon Rosenberg insisted that the device was a hearing aid but
offered no explanation why he would seek to amplify sound with a hearing aid
and then muffle sound with headphones.54 Rosenberg also refused to
remove a bulky sweater that he had worn throughout the tournament and that
could have been hiding a signal booster. Atkins then forfeited Rosenberg for
cheating and Goichberg upheld that ruling. Rosenberg did not argue against the
decision and merely asked to have the “Phonito” device returned to him.55
Rosenberg never contested his
disqualification from the tournament or the USCF’s subsequent ban against him
participating in their events. Atkins notes that Rosenberg went 18-0 in his
three previous tournaments, an improbable score for a player at that rating
level playing against other similarly rated players.56 If Rosenberg
had contested the actions taken by Goichberg and/or the USCF, a strong
evidentiary case could have been made against Rosenberg based on Rosenberg
being caught with the “Phonito” device in his ear during the final round game,
based on Dr. Regan-style computer analysis showing that Rosenberg’s games
during the event matched up with computer moves to an unlikely degree and based
on Rosenberg’s statistically improbable run of success prior to the World Open.
The existence of that evidence, in addition to the available testimony of
witnesses from the tournament about Rosenberg’s suspicious actions (including
always wearing a heavy sweater indoors and consistently playing better right
after making trips to the bathroom), probably explains why Rosenberg accepted
his punishments without complaint.
As prizes are getting bigger, computers are getting stronger, and methods of communication are easier to conceal than ever before, it is becoming apparent
that chess cheating is not limited to strong amateurs trying to make a quick
financial score at one big tournament. Even Grandmasters have been caught
cheating and the problem is so rampant that Grandmaster Nigel Short—the
challenger for the 1993 World Chess Championship and still a top level
performer—fears that smartphones will ruin chess as a competitive sport. Short says,
“The basic problem is that it’s incredibly easy to cheat with a phone. You
can have some application running on your phone, and it’s quite easy to
conceal…My dog could win a major tournament using one of these devices. Or
my grandmother. Anybody could do this.”57
One of the cases that particularly outraged Short happened in 2010 at the Chess
Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk when Grandmaster Sebastian Feller, a member of the
French team, cheated his way to a 5000 Euro prize during the sport’s most
prestigious team event.58 The elaborate scheme involved Feller, Grandmaster
Arnaud Hauchard (the captain of the French team) and International Master Cyril
Marzolo, and it took place not just during the Chess Olympiad but also during
the 2010 Paris Open and the 2010 Bienne Open.59 During each of those
tournaments, Marzolo followed Feller’s games live on the internet, entered the
moves into a computer engine and then sent coded SMS messages containing the
computer’s recommended moves to Hauchard, who was present in the playing area
and used prearranged signals to communicate the recommended moves to
Grandmaster Feller.60 The French Chess Federation suspended Feller,
Hauchard and Marzolo, but the Court of Appeals of Versailles overturned those
suspensions, ruling that even though Marzolo was not the owner of the cell
phone used in the cheating operation he had been properly granted usage of it
and was therefore entitled to privacy, preventing the French Chess Federation
from using the SMS messages as evidence.61 The editors of Chessbase.com,
perhaps the leading chess news and information site, were not pleased that the
conspirators eluded justice based on a technicality:
We have the following proposal, which would clear up the entire cheating scandal quickly: the accused players,
Marzolo, Feller and Hauchard should waive their formal confidentiality rights
and simply publish the SMS messages sent during the Olympiad, and especially
during the games. They are stored by the mobile phone service provider for one
year (this is compulsory) and can be easily retrieved if permission is granted
by the user of the phone. If there are any clearly personal messages unrelated
to the affair these can be filtered out by a clerk or a trusted person.
If our proposal is rejected then the players must
tell us (and the chess public) why. It is as if a crime has been committed, a
person stands accused, there is video surveillance tape, but the accused
refuses to allow it to be used as evidence since it compromises his privacy
rights. The final clarification of a very damaging scandal that has been going
on for far too long takes precedence over abstract privacy concerns.62
Subsequently, FIDE excluded Hauchard from participation in FIDE events for three years,
Feller for two years, nine months and Marzolo for one year, six months (with the final nine months of the punishment suspended).63 The defendants argued that this was purely an
internal French matter and that since a French court had already overturned the
French Chess Federation’s sanctions FIDE had no standing to issue any
punishments, but FIDE rejected that theory of the case (in the quoted text, FF
refers to the French Chess Federation and EC refers to FIDE’s Ethics Committee,
the body that reviewed the case and handed down FIDE’s punishments):
The case concerns facts
allegedly committed by members of the French Team during the 2010 Olympiad (the
most important FIDE competition) in Khanty-Mansiysk (Russia): it seems
difficult to even imagine that this could be a “French internal affair,” a
question of exclusive competence of the FF, even more considering that any
decision of the FF would have no direct effect for what concerns FIDE and other
chess federations and that the same FF for these reasons addressed a complaint
to the EC.64
FIDE’s
belated punishment of Feller, Hauchard and Marzolo hardly seems to have
deterred other cheaters, and Short is disappointed that the French team’s
tainted result was not expunged from the official records of the 2010 Olympiad.65
In the 2015 Dubai Open, a tournament featuring 70 Grandmasters competing for a
top prize of $12,000, Grandmaster Gaioz Nigalidze--the 25 year old two-time
national champion of Georgia--was caught cheating and disqualified from the
event.66 Short declares, “The
benefits of this guy cheating are clear,” noting that prior to being caught
Nigalidze had just won $11,000 at a tournament in Abu Dhabi.67
Nigalidze was caught after he repeatedly went to the bathroom during his game
versus Armenian Grandmaster Tigran Petrosian, always visiting the same stall
even when the others were not occupied.68 Petrosian complained about
his opponent’s suspicious actions and the tournament officials inspected the
toilet stall, finding an iPhone wrapped in toilet paper and hidden behind the
toilet.69 Nigalidze initially denied that he owned the iPhone but
the officials determined that it was logged into a social networking site under
Nigalidze’s account and that the game’s current position was being analyzed in
a chess application.70
EASY TO ACCUSE, DIFFICULT TO PROVE
In both the Varshavsky and Rosenberg
cases, no one found a “smoking gun” (such as a cell phone with a relevant chess
position displayed, as in the Nigalidze case) to prove that cheating had
happened, but based on the overwhelming circumstantial evidence a reasonable person
could conclude that the tournament directors acted appropriately by
disqualifying those players. However, the fact that a player can be
disqualified based on circumstantial evidence without clear proof of how the
player cheated also means that in some ways the burden of proof in these
situations seems to rest with the accused and not the accuser(s). This raises
the possibility that a player could be falsely accused of cheating by a
well-meaning but overzealous person or, even more disturbingly, a player could
be falsely accused of cheating by a party who stands to gain by getting that
player disqualified.
In the 2015 European Women’s Chess
Championship, a Romanian player named Mihaela Sandu was only ranked 45th
out of 98 players but she won her first five games in the 11 round event.71
After seven rounds when Sandu was tied for first place with one other
player, 32 participants in the event drafted a letter to the organizers
stating, in part, that they have “grave concern regarding raising suspicion of
cheating in the tournament” and proposing that the organizers impose
a 15 minute delay in the live internet transmission of the tournament’s games.72
A second letter, signed by 15 players, singled out Sandu by name and requested
specifically that her final four games not be transmitted live but only be
published after completion.73 Tournament director Giorgia Giorgadze
responded with a written statement in which she agreed to delaying the
transmission of all games, denied that there is any reason to suspect cheating
during this particular tournament and encouraged the players who signed the
second letter “to show their respect to their colleague and to withdraw their
signatures.”74 Giorgadze reminded those 15 players that FIDE rules
state that a false accusation of cheating may be punishable by sanctions
ranging from just a warning up to and including disqualification from the
tournament.75 Computer analysis of Sandu’s games suggested that she
was not receiving any outside assistance.76
No one offered proof that Sandu cheated or
even an example of her acting suspiciously in any way. Sandu fired back at her
accusers in an open letter, declaring, “I am writing this letter to file a
complaint about their behaviour. What they did was a very dirty attack,
permanently damaging my name in the chess world. Also want to mention (Natalia)
Zhukova's paltry behaviour is standing out as she was the main benefactor of
the defamation campaign, making psychological attacks right before our game.”77
Sandu won the games that were broadcast live and lost the games during
which the transmission was delayed, which could be seen as evidence that she
had cheated earlier in the tournament—but it is at least as plausible to
suggest that the controversy affected her concentration and/or that after
legitimately scoring a few upsets her performance regressed to the mean.78
After defeating Sandu, Zhukova won the event with 9.5/11, while Sandu finished
with 6/11 and tied for 26th-44th place.79 In
his final report about the event, Albert Silver--a strong player and veteran
chess commentator--declared, “After taking exactly one game at random, the win over
Olga Girya in round four, it is quite clear the players signing the letter made
no effort whatsoever to examine the case before making the accusations.”80
Somewhere in between the Nigalidze case of
a cheater caught redhanded and the Sandu case of a player being accused without
any substantiating evidence is the curious Borislav Ivanov story. The Bulgarian
player Ivanov burst onto the scene in late 2012 and early 2013 with a series of
spectacular results far in excess of what would be expected based on his
rating.81 At one tournament, Ivanov was strip searched but the
search did not reveal any evidence of cheating.82 Ivanov produced
great results followed by mediocre results, leading one strong player to
speculate that part of Ivanov’s plan to avoid detection was to utilize at least
three different playing styles: one style using the computer program Houdini
set up to play for a win, one style using the computer program Houdini set up
to play for a draw and a third style involving Ivanov playing on his own with
no assistance.83 Dr. Regan
determined that based on how often Ivanov’s moves matched the top choice of the
computer engines during one of Ivanov’s successful tournaments the evidence
could not be any stronger than Ivanov was cheating.84 After several
Bulgarian players refused to play against Ivanov in April 2013 and Ivanov
responded by publicly insulting those players, the Bulgarian Chess Federation (BCF)
suspended Ivanov for four months—not for cheating but for making comments that
bring dishonor to the sport.85 The BCF won a lawsuit that Ivanov filed to
contest his suspension and the BCF also set up an anti-cheating test that
Ivanov agreed to attend on June 19, 2013.86 However, at the last
minute Ivanov decided to not show up, whereupon the BCF declared that when the
suspension ended he would be permitted to play in Bulgarian tournaments “but
the final decision on whether he can play will be made solely by the tournament
organizers.”87 After several more incidents at various
tournaments—including one occasion when Ivanov refused to take off his shoes
and another when he fled a tournament after some sort of concealed device was
discovered on his back—the Bulgarian Chess Federation banned Ivanov in December
2013.88 To this day, no one has conclusively proven that Ivanov
cheated and/or how he avoided being caught, but his suspicious behavior during
games (including making all of his moves in a very short period of time, regardless
of the complexity of the position) and the high percentage of his moves that
correlated with the top choices of computer engines make it seem likely that
Ivanov cheated.
The documented instances of chess cheating
demonstrate that this is a serious problem that must be addressed but the Sandu
situation shows that false—or, at the very least, unsubstantiated—accusations
also present a serious problem, one that in the long run can cause great damage
to the sport in addition to harming the reputation of innocent competitors.
CONCLUSION
The cliché “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” applies to the prevention, detection, and
punishment of chess cheating in the digital age. There is no perfect solution
to this problem but emphasis should be placed on trying to prevent cheating in
the first place. In the wake of the two incidents at the 2006 World Open, Bill
Goichberg instituted several anti-cheating rules, including banning headphones,
earphones, cell phones and hearing aids, plus a provision that all participants
agree that they can be disqualified if they refuse an official request to be
searched for electronic devices.89 Goichberg presciently stated that
the greatest threat was the combination of a chess engine and wireless
communication to an accomplice outside of the playing area but noted that it
would not be possible for organizers to use signal-jamming equipment due to a
Federal Communications Commission rule that bans such use in the United States.90
Another good preventative measure is to delay internet broadcasting of
moves to make it difficult for outsiders to analyze games in real time, an
approach that is being adopted with increasing regularity by big international
tournaments.
The second Millionaire Chess Open,
scheduled to take place in Las Vegas from October 8-12, 2015, forbids any
player from using or wearing electronic devices of any kind, including “phone,
blackberry, PDA, computer, ear-piece, headset, communications device,
microphone, speaker or the like while playing without the expressed written
permission of a Tournament Director (doctors on call included).” Every player
will be screened by security prior to entering the playing area and no player
is allowed to leave the playing area while his game is in progress.91
Regarding detection, games with a large
prize fund at stake should be subjected to computer analysis to determine if a
player’s moves improbably line up with the computer’s top choices. As Dr. Regan
notes, this is not dispositive evidence of cheating but--combined with
eyewitness testimony and physical evidence--it can be used to make a case
against a cheater.
Chess is an international game governed by
a variety of national and local laws and a variety of international, national
and local chess federations. Therefore, punishment of chess cheaters will not
be uniform--and governments may have much less interest in pursuing such cases
than chess federations do. The potential rewards of chess cheating are great in
terms of money and prestige (such as championships won and titles gained), so
the punishments must also be great. Grandmaster
Short notes, “It’s almost impossible to police. So I think when a person gets
caught in this way, there has to be really draconian punishment so that people
think twice…if I were to take drugs--some sort of steroids or whatever--I will
still never be able to win the 100 meters or the Tour de France, because I
simply don’t have the physique for this. But any club player could win an
international tournament if he’s using this sort of device.”92
In the wake of the Nigalidze incident, Short
does not think that it is enough for just FIDE to punish chess cheaters. “I would like to see criminal
charges for fraud, because this is what he did. If you use some sort of electronic device to break into an ATM and help yourself to cash, if you are
discovered you will be prosecuted. This guy is defrauding other professionals, the other participants in the tournament.”93
At the 2006 New York Conference about
Chess Cheating, Nelson Farber, a Manhattan-based attorney,
said that legal authority exists to prosecute cheaters under either common law
("larceny by trick" in the New York State penal code) or civil racketeering
(RICO) statutes.94 However, Farber noted that "prosecuting
chess cheating is not likely to be a priority of District Attorneys and U.S.
Attorneys” and he suggested that instead of seeking help from law enforcement
chess organizations focus on policing chess cheating on their own.95 It
is critically important for chess organizers to develop standardized
anti-cheating measures, because this makes it less probable that their rulings
would be second guessed by a court if a disqualified player files a lawsuit and
because this makes it more probable that accused players receive a fair
hearing.96 Farber’s specific suggestions included (1) gaining
consent from players that the anti-cheating procedures are binding, (2)
providing immunity for the tournament directors as decision makers in such
matters, (3) instituting methods to protect privacy if personal searches are
necessary and (4) the use of a “fair preponderance of the evidence” standard
(the general standard applied in civil cases) when determining whether or not a
player has cheated.97 Farber
added that it should be included in tournament rules that a director’s decision
about whether or not a player cheated is final and not subject to being
overturned subsequently, at least in terms of changing who won a prize.98 Farber
cited a 1991 New York case--Vaccaro v. Joyce, 154 Misc.2d 643 (N.Y. Misc. 1991)--
in which a horse-race bettor’s claim for damages due to a recording error was
rejected because “There must be one final and determinative call, no matter
what a subsequent review may show.”99 Farber noted that courts are
hesitant to overrule a decision maker unless it can be proven that the decision
was "arbitrary, capricious, or
fraudulent."100 Farber added that a player who is disqualified
from a tournament should have his case reviewed by the USCF Ethics Committee
and Executive Board for possible further discipline and that this subsequent
review should perhaps be conducted under the stricter clear and convincing
evidence standard even though it would not be legally required to use that
standard.101
If those procedures are followed and a
player is found guilty, then what? Grandmaster Alex Stripunsky proposed a
mandatory three year ban for a first offense and a lifetime ban for a second
offense.102 I would take
things even further. Someone who is caught in the act of cheating with physical
evidence proving the cheating should be banned from tournament play for at
least five years and should be forced to return any prizes won while cheating.
Someone who is disqualified for cheating based on a preponderance of
circumstantial evidence should be banned from tournament play for at least two
years and should be forced to return any prizes won while cheating. Repeat
offenders in either category should be banned for life. These rules should be
incorporated into the bylaws of national chess federations and FIDE and bans
issued by one such body should be enforced by all other such bodies.
Chess cheating is a serious problem that
threatens the very future of the sport and strong measures are necessary to
prevent, detect, and punish chess cheating so that the sport does not lose all
credibility in the eyes of participants, fans and the general public.
Notes
--------
INTRODUCTION:
THE GAME OF KINGS, PLAYED BY KINGS
1.
Dylan Loeb McClain, Cheating Accusations
in Mental Sports, Too, NEW YORK TIMES (August 8, 2006).
2.
Richard Eales, CHESS: THE HISTORY OF A GAME, p. 35 (Facts on File Publications,
1985).
3.
Id., p. 39.
4.
Id., p. 72.
5.
Id., p. 76.
6.
U.S. CHESS FEDERATION’S OFFICIAL RULES OF CHESS, pp. 7, 17-21 (6th
Edition, 2014).
7.
William Hartston, THE KINGS OF CHESS, p. 12 (Pavilion Books Limited, 1985).
8.
Id., p. 12.
9.
Id., p. 14.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF
MODERN CHESS
10.
Bill Wall, The Chess Clock—A History,
http://www.chessmaniac.com/the-chess-clock-a-history/ (June 11, 2012).
11.
Id.
12.
Adjournment, http://www.chess.com/chessopedia/view/adjournment (March 10, 2008)
13.
Olimpiu G. Urcan, Chess: A Singapore Scrapbook,
http://sgchess.net/2012/11/08/adjournment-nostalgia/ (November 8, 2012).
14.
Mike Petersen, Adjournments—An Outdated Practice,
http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-open-file---adjournments-an-outdated-practice (July 9, 2010).
THE SILICON
MONSTER CHANGES THE GAME
15.
Garry Kasparov, The Chess Master and the
Computer, THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS (February 11, 2010).
16.
Id.
17.
David Levy and Monty Newborn, HOW COMPUTERS PLAY CHESS, pp. 67-68 (W.H. Freeman
and Company, 1991).
18.
Id., p. 70.
19.
Id., p. 89.
20.
Id., pp. 92-93
21.
Id., pp. 96-101
22. Id., p. 102.
23.
Finlo Rohrer, The Unwinnable Game, BBC
NEWS MAGAZINE, http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25032298 (November 24,
2013).
24.
Ram Prasad, Man vs. Machine—the endless
fascination, http://en.chessbase.com/post/man-vs-machine-the-endle-fascination (November 9,
2003).
25.
Id.
26.
Rudy Chelminski, This Time It’s Personal,
http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/9.10/chess.html (October 2001).
27.
Adams vs. Hydra: Man 0.5-Machine 5.5,
http://en.chessbase.com/post/adams-vs-hydra-man-0-5-machine-5-5 (June 28, 2005).
28.
Dylan Loeb McClain, Man vs. Computer
Match Ends in Victory for…Man, but With a Catch, NEW YORK TIMES (October 1,
2008).
IS THAT A
GRANDMASTER IN YOUR POCKET?
29.
Palm Chess Hiarcs, http://www.hiarcs.com/palm_hiarcs.htm (page last
modified on February 19, 2014).
30.
Malcolm Pein, The $0.5 Million Chess
Challenge, THE TELEGRAPH (April 4, 2005).
31.
Blockade Chess Cheaters: USCF Petition,
https://archive.is/uVzrG (November, 2005).
32.
Id.
33.
Id.
34.
Id.
35.
Id.
36.
Dylan Loeb McClain, Cheating Accusations
in Mental Sports, Too, NEW YORK TIMES (August 8, 2006).
37.
Id.
38.
Id.
39.
Id.
40.
Id.
41.
Id.
42.
U.S. Chess Federation Membership
Suspensions,
http://archive.uschess.org/tds/suspension.html (updated August
19, 2008).
43.
All About Sudoku, http://about-sudokus.blogspot.com/2009/11/eugene-varshavsky-disqualified-based-on.html (November 23,
2009).
44.
Ken Regan, World Open Testing, http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/chess/fidelity/Varshavsky.html (May 24, 2007).
45.
Id.
46.
Id.
47.
Id.
48.
Id.
49.
Cheating at the World Open—More Details,
http://en.chessbase.com/post/cheating-at-the-world-open-more-details (August 17,
2006).
50.
Id.
51.
Id.
52.
Id.
53.
Id.
54.
Id.
55.
Id.
56.
Id.
57.
Michael E. Miller, Chess Grandmaster
Accused of Using iPhone to Cheat During International Tournament,
WASHINGTON POST (April 14, 2015).
58.
FIDE Confirms Sanctions in French Chess
Cheating Case,
http://en.chessbase.com/post/fide-confirms-sanctions-in-french-cheating-case (July 30, 2012).
59.
Id.
60.
Id.
61.
Judgment Rendered by the FIDE Ethics
Commission Case N. 2/2011, p. 7
(July 1, 2012).
62.
Feller’s Interview and a Solution to the
Cheating Scandal,
http://en.chessbase.com/post/feller-s-interview-and-a-solution-to-the-cheating-scandal (August 23,
2011).
63.
Judgment Rendered by the FIDE Ethics
Commission Case N. 2/2011, p. 24
(July 1, 2012).
64.
Id., p. 9.
65.
Michael E. Miller, Chess Grandmaster Accused
of Using iPhone to Cheat During International Tournament, WASHINGTON POST
(April 14, 2015).
66.
Id.
67.
Id.
68.
Id.
69.
Id.
70.
Id.
EASY TO ACCUSE,
DIFFICULT TO PROVE
71.
Frederic Friedel, Suspicion at the
European Women’s Championship,
http://en.chessbase.com/post/suspicion-at-the-european-women-s-championship (May 29, 2015).
72.
Id.
73.
Id.
74.
Id.
75.
Id.
76.
Id.
77.
Support for Mihaela Sandu,
http://en.chessbase.com/post/support-for-mihaela-sandu (May 30, 2015).
78.
Id.
79.
European Women CC Won by Zhukova,
http://en.chessbase.com/post/european-women-cc-is-won-by-natalia-zhukova (June 1, 2015).
80.
Id.
81.
Alex Karaivanov, A Game of Chicken:
Ivanov Rides Again,
http://en.chessbase.com/post/a-game-of-chicken-ivanov-rides-again-230313 (March 23, 2013).
82.
Id.
83.
Id.
84.
Alex Karaivanov, Experts Weigh in on
Ivanov’s Performance,
http://en.chessbase.com/post/experts-weigh-in-on-ivanovs-performance-060613 (June 5, 2013).
85.
Alex Karaivanov, The Show Goes on: Ivanov
in Kustendil,
http://en.chessbase.com/post/the-show-goes-on-ivanov-in-kustendil-160613 (June 3, 2013).
86.
Alex Karaivanov, Ivanov Misses BCF
Anti-Cheating Test,
http://en.chessbase.com/post/ivanov-mies-bcf-anti-cheating-test-120713 (July 11, 2013).
87.
Id.
88.
Peter Doggers, Ivanov Again Suspended by
Bulgarian Chess Federation,
http://www.chess.com/news/ivanov-again-suspended-by-bulgarian-chess-federation-2458 (December 22,
2013).
CONCLUSION
89.
Minutes of the Chess Cheating Conference
in New York,
http://en.chessbase.com/post/minutes-of-the-che-cheating-conference-in-new-york (January 11,
2007).
90.
Id.
91.
Millionaire Chess Tournament Policies,
https://millionairechess.com/tournament-policies.
92.
Michael E. Miller, Chess Grandmaster
Accused of Using iPhone to Cheat During International Tournament,
WASHINGTON POST (April 14, 2015).
93.
Id.
94.
Minutes of the Chess Cheating Conference
in New York,
http://en.chessbase.com/post/minutes-of-the-che-cheating-conference-in-new-york (January 11,
2007).
95.
Id.
96.
Id.
97.
Id.
98.
Id.
99.
Id.
100.
Id.
101.
Id.
102.
Id.
