Borislav Ivanov and Rapid Chess

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  • Re: Borislav Ivanov and Rapid Chess

    Ken Regan, a ChessTalk member, and the author of the statistical treatment designed to discover cheating in chess, gave an interview to Sergei Tiviakov yesterday, October 3.

    I transcribed the interview and put it in a thread in this Forum entitled Work of the FIDE Anti-Cheating Committee. It is full of valuable information and answers an interesting question: What if the program were used on all the games of Fischer, Larsen, Kramnik and Borislav Ivanov? What would you find?
    Last edited by Wayne Komer; Saturday, 5th October, 2013, 09:34 AM. Reason: changed verb form to the subjunctive

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    • Re: Borislav Ivanov and Rapid Chess

      From ChessBase:

      Ivanov ends his chess career

      5.10.2013 - On Thursday we reported that FM Borislav Ivanov had forfeited his round seven game after he refused to take off his shoes and allow the arbiter to check for hidden devices. His opponent in that round, GM Maxim Dlugy, provided all the details. Ivanov was permitted to continue in rounds eight and nine, but now has announced that he will retire from chess, as the Bulgarian new outlet Blitz reports.

      http://www.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/...er-051013.aspx

      http://chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211/...ad-031013.aspx

      The comments that follow are very interesting – both for and against.

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      • Re: Re : Borislav Ivanov and Rapid Chess

        Is there something suspicious in his .... shoes? Who knows?

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        • Re: Borislav Ivanov and Rapid Chess

          Originally posted by Wayne Komer View Post
          From ChessBase:

          Ivanov ends his chess career.
          Now he will start a shoes company LOL

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          • Re: Borislav Ivanov and Rapid Chess

            Originally posted by Dan Scoones View Post
            I'm sure I read somewhere that the live feed went down during one of his tournaments and his level of play took an immediate nosedive.
            Now that man seems to have left chess we can only wonder who will be next for the chess scientists to hound.

            I intend to destroy my thick copy of Nimzo Indian 4. ... c2 The Classical Variation by GM Max Dlugy. To tell the truth I'd wouldn't have known he was a GM without the cover of the book telling me.

            Chess is getting to be like Salem in the late 1600's, Europe in the 1930's and Quebec in the present day.
            Gary Ruben
            CC - IA and SIM

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            • Re: Borislav Ivanov and Rapid Chess

              Originally posted by Gary Ruben View Post
              Now that man seems to have left chess we can only wonder who will be next for the chess scientists to hound.

              I intend to destroy my thick copy of Nimzo Indian 4. ... c2 The Classical Variation by GM Max Dlugy. To tell the truth I'd wouldn't have known he was a GM without the cover of the book telling me.

              Chess is getting to be like Salem in the late 1600's, Europe in the 1930's and Quebec in the present day.

              I agree with Gary's opinion of Maxim Dlugy, but maybe for a different reason. Dlugy in his interview made it seem like he was very angry at what he thought Ivanov represented. Dlugy went out of his way to have Ivanov searched before their match. One gets the impression that Dlugy wanted to be the one to uncover the cheating of Ivanov. But when push came to shove, Dlugy did NOT do what he should have done given his puritanical sense of injustice being done to chess by Ivanov.

              In other words, Dlugy didn't take the bull by the horns and FORCIBLY remove Ivanov's shoes. If he had done this, we would now know yes or no, did Ivanov have a cheating device in his shoes? Dlugy should have realized the importance of the moment. What's the worst that could happen to Dlugy? Can one do jail time for forcibly removing someone else's shoes?

              Instead, Dlugy simply took his forfeiture point and backed away from the whole issue. Even when Ivanov was allowed to continue in the tournament, Dlugy did nothing.

              Thus Dlugy seems to have been totally self-serving, just making sure he got his point (literally) against Ivanov, and leaving the chess world to sort out the remaining mess.

              And that's what I think all the GM's who boycotted playing Ivanov also have done. Everyone including these GM's should realize that chess is in dire straits because of not being able to determine whether Ivanov has discovered some revolutionary way of cheating that escapes even RF jamming.

              For now into the forseeable future, it is possible that Ivanov's cheating technique, if there is one, can be spread throughout organized chess and used by players at all levels, probably in a more judicious fashion than Ivanov appears to have done, if he did it at all. This destroys any credibility that organized chess results might have had left.

              From now on, ALL chess tournament results are suspect.
              Only the rushing is heard...
              Onward flies the bird.

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              • Re: Borislav Ivanov and Rapid Chess

                (Apologies for your moderator being away. I had to take a break from things.)

                GM Artur Kogan made some recent remarks on a chess discussion board making reference to a (fictitious) Mayan legend in which Borislav Ivanov was finally defeated by the "dirty socks variation" and fled competitive chess forever.

                Who says chess players don't have a sense of humor? Let's see, we have the Fried Liver Attack, now the Dirty Socks Variation, maybe there are more, highly amusing and interesting lines yet to be named ...

                Originally posted by Artur Kogan
                "B.I like to surprise, but the old legend of the MAYA says that will come a day when somebody will play against him the 'Dirty socks variation' without making even one move and without shoes... and than he will run away forever from chess."
                Last edited by Nigel Hanrahan; Sunday, 6th October, 2013, 03:49 PM. Reason: interesting lines added ...
                Dogs will bark, but the caravan of chess moves on.

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                • Re: Borislav Ivanov and Rapid Chess

                  Originally posted by Nigel Hanrahan View Post
                  (Apologies for your moderator being away. I had to take a break from things.) ....
                  Too bad you couldn't be away longer.

                  The CFC website contains a record of the regular-rated tournaments you've played in going back to 1996. In the 2000 Albert Boxer Classic you achieved a tournament performance rating (2106) that was nearly 500 points higher than your pre-tournament established rating (1635). That was the only occasion, during the period 06/1996 to date, on which you achieved a CFC regular-rated tournament performance rating over 2000 and only the second occasion, during that same period, on which you achieved a TPR in excess of 1900. Also, that 2106 TPR is nearly 300 points higher than your highest CFC regular rating (1835). In my humble opinion, your performance during that tournament looks suspicious.

                  Nigel, did you cheat during the 2000 Albert Boxer Classic? More to the point, if your answer is no why should I, or anyone else, believe you? Statistics don't lie, right?
                  "We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
                  "Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
                  "If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey

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                  • Re: Borislav Ivanov and Rapid Chess

                    Originally posted by Peter McKillop View Post
                    Too bad you couldn't be away longer.
                    Personal attack, much?

                    In my humble opinion, your performance during that tournament looks suspicious.

                    Nigel, did you cheat during the 2000 Albert Boxer Classic? More to the point, if your answer is no why should I, or anyone else, believe you? Statistics don't lie, right?
                    lol. A shallow analysis on your part which is fundamentally flawed. I had some good results combined with a win by forfeit against a much higher rated opponent. And no dirty socks involved at all.

                    You have ... what? A lot of arm-waving and some baseless accusations.

                    As for Borislav ...

                    Click image for larger version

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                    Dogs will bark, but the caravan of chess moves on.

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                    • Re: Borislav Ivanov and Rapid Chess

                      I don't believe you're a cheater, Nigel. I just wanted to be the first to welcome you to chess's brave new world where people will be accused and convicted of cheating on the basis of statistics and without hard evidence. And where reputations will be damaged to a far greater extent on the basis of insinuation only. Welcome!
                      "We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
                      "Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
                      "If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey

                      Comment


                      • Re: Borislav Ivanov and Rapid Chess

                        Originally posted by Peter McKillop View Post
                        I don't believe you're a cheater, Nigel. I just wanted to be the first to welcome you to chess's brave new world where people will be accused and convicted of cheating on the basis of statistics and without hard evidence. And where reputations will be damaged to a far greater extent on the basis of insinuation only. Welcome!
                        lol. OK, good one. I see that at least one commentator has noted that the analysis used by Ken Regan depends upon the cheaters making use of the engine consistently. The question is, how easy will it be to detect occasional cheating?

                        As has been pointed out more than once, a player who is strong enough to cheat only at a few key points in a game will be very difficult to catch or even detect. One recent article I read noted from a super-GM that a winning game at the highest level could be reduced to making a single decision at the most critical moment.

                        This isn't an easy problem to solve. It's going to take some effort so it's good to see that both the current crop of FIDE officials as well as the Kasparovian opposition treat this as a very serious problem.
                        Dogs will bark, but the caravan of chess moves on.

                        Comment


                        • Re: Borislav Ivanov and Rapid Chess

                          Originally posted by Nigel Hanrahan View Post
                          This isn't an easy problem to solve. It's going to take some effort so it's good to see that both the current crop of FIDE officials as well as the Kasparovian opposition treat this as a very serious problem.
                          I can't see much future in FIDE supporting checking to see if a players brains are in his or her shoes.
                          Gary Ruben
                          CC - IA and SIM

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                          • Re: Borislav Ivanov and Rapid Chess

                            I'm hoping you won't recommend where to check for their brains next. ;)

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                            • Re: Borislav Ivanov and Rapid Chess

                              Originally posted by Paul Bonham View Post
                              Dlugy didn't take the bull by the horns and FORCIBLY remove Ivanov's shoes. If he had done this, we would now know yes or no, did Ivanov have a cheating device in his shoes?
                              I learned long ago that whenever someone says "you ought to have done X and not Y", all they're really saying is, "in your place, I would have done X instead of Y."

                              Beyond that I can only marvel at your suggestion that Dlugy ought to have perpetrated a physical assault upon Ivanov.

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                              • Re: Borislav Ivanov and Rapid Chess

                                Originally posted by Nigel Hanrahan View Post
                                As has been pointed out more than once, a player who is strong enough to cheat only at a few key points in a game will be very difficult to catch or even detect. One recent article I read noted from a super-GM that a winning game at the highest level could be reduced to making a single decision at the most critical moment.

                                This isn't an easy problem to solve. It's going to take some effort so it's good to see that both the current crop of FIDE officials as well as the Kasparovian opposition treat this as a very serious problem.

                                You are certainly changing your tune, Nigel. Not so long ago you were leading the charge to throw anyone with shifty eyes out of chess as a cheater, and that in your mind would solve the problem. Now you're starting to wake up to the potential enormity of the problem.

                                Ivanov may be merely the first cheater to be stupid enough to use "the technique" (whatever it might be) on every move of every game. For all we know, smartphones in shoes USED JUDICIOUSLY may go back several years, let's just say 2010 to be conservative. All the top level tournament results from 2010 on may be corrupt. Even some of the Ivanov boycotters could be cheaters themselves; boycotting Ivanov would certainly deflect any suspicion.

                                There's no way of knowing who's cheating and who isn't. Everyone is a suspect. The paranoia is such that top players are pointing accusing fingers at each other, saying things like "He doesn't calculate his moves!" or "He doesn't even look at the board!"

                                And the tragic truth could be that the only ones actually cheating are the ones that actually get caught. There could be no one in Master-level chess and above cheating right now. Zilch. Nada.

                                But it isn't just the *possible* cheating that stains the game of chess. If you really think about it, it's the philosophical implications of it all. The game of chess used to be thought of as an art, a science, a sport, some combination of all three... but no. We have now proven it is none of these at all. It is mere number-crunching. It is a mathematical calculation and nothing more.

                                Between the stain of cheating and the realization that chess is just math, there is really no future for standard chess as we know it. It has at most a decade left before the last hardy sponsors simply abandon it. The chess Titanic has hit its iceberg. The band continues to play, with Nigel waving the baton, brave in the face of the cold fate that awaits.
                                Only the rushing is heard...
                                Onward flies the bird.

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