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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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Nonsense. The damage of (potential) unpunished cheaters is far greater than the damage of the bruised reputation of suspected cheaters. ...
Please tell me this is your latent troll talking and not the real Nigel Hanrahan.
"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
In the meantime, if Borislav, or anyone else for that matter, is cheating, then let him ... until he is caught?
Then it would no longer be a sport. A fair contest or a level playing field is a precondition for a sporting event.
Consider the following. If a marathon runner crossed the finish line in 30 minutes, would he be awarded first prize? Hardly. The organizers would know he cheated even if they didn't catch him. The olympics actually has such examples in its history.
I don't think you guys are getting the main point. Or, perhaps, some notion of individual rights gone mad. Unpunished cheating discredits any sporting contest. Even the appearance of unpunished cheating is enough to discredit a sport.
The legal no-man's-land that is chess (See the ChessBase interview with the Russian lawyer recently) is going to have to come to an end. And perhaps there are some, even some here on ChessTalk, who prefer such chaos to a rule-governed, law-governed arrangement.
As the old Arab saying has it, "Let the dogs bark. The caravan will move on." Of that I have no doubt.
How can I carry on a discussion with someone who claims they believe that people should be punished for crimes before they are proven guilty? Nigel, you're either an insidious troll or a very strange person.
p.s. That marathon thingee has got to be one of the weakest straw men I've seen in a long time. Suggestion: next time you're thinking of using a straw man to support your argument....don't.
Last edited by Peter McKillop; Thursday, 8th August, 2013, 10:31 PM.
Reason: because I can
"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
Nonsense. The damage of (potential) unpunished cheaters is far greater than the damage of the bruised reputation of suspected cheaters.
In any case, chess players will, themselves, take action far more disruptive than the expulsion of a suspected cheat. For example, a number of Bulgarians have already refused to play Borislav Ivanov in tournament settings. This is a much bigger organizational nightmare than some would-be Lance Armstrong whining over his lost medals. It's a TD's pairing nightmare. And, I'm sure more creative means of objecting to the presence of a suspected cheater could be developed by disgruntled players.
hell will have no fury compared to what will happen when an innocent person is punished for suspicion of cheating. Any TD who punishes someone for cheating without solid evidence places himself in legal peril.
as for chess players taking action into their own hands... yeah lynch mobs have a long history of correctly meting out justice. not.
Look at what other activities do with suspicion of cheating. Action requires proof by the standards of a law court. You give Lance Armstrong as an example. Precisely - suspicions abounded, even non followers of bicycling like me knew about them. But nothing happened until sufficient evidence was amassed via US federal investigation.
hell will have no fury compared to what will happen when an innocent person is punished for suspicion of cheating. Any TD who punishes someone for cheating without solid evidence places himself in legal peril.
The courts will decide that issue. Given that gambling establishments can do what they do, maybe this is exactly what's needed to move things along for chess.
Let the dogs bark. The caravan of chess will move on.
Dogs will bark, but the caravan of chess moves on.
The courts will decide that issue. Given that gambling establishments can do what they do, maybe this is exactly what's needed to move things along for chess.
If some guy ends up in a Canadian court trying to defend his decision regarding suspected cheating, I'd like to go and listen. It simply has to be more fun than listening to people try to beat traffic tickets.
I can just see it. In a future tournament 'Chess player barred for counting pawns!' reads a post on ChessTalk.
When I play blackjack at a casino, I don't count cards. But I do evaluate the 'richness' of a deck(s). When I feel the remaining deck is rich in tens, I increase my bet. This seems to work well for me. I've been banned from casinos in Reno and in Monte Carlo. They never stop you from playing other games however, for example, in Monte Carlo they invited me to play Roulette or craps but said if I played blackjack I would be arrested! I declined the other games.
I was there two years later and discovered that the casino Loewes had been sold. So on a hunch, I went to the blackjack table and bought in for 200 Francs ($40) - played the smallest game and didn't get stopped - (worked my way to bigger and bigger games and finally cashed my chips for 50,000 Francs ($10,000) I spent the rest of the summer in St Tropez. Of course I had a lucky streak at the table, I don't pretend otherwise. :):D
How can I carry on a discussion with someone who claims they believe that people should be punished for crimes before they are proven guilty?
Cheating at chess isn't a crime. It's a matter having to do with the administration of a sporting event. As in, what constitutes fair play and what does not. Every sport requires rules about these sorts of things. Nice diversion. Sorta like a straw man. lol.
I've already provided the example from poker - an activity which a number of competitive chess players have chosen OVER chess - in which players who aren't even cheating are banned. There are no court cases, shouts of "violations of my rights!", or anything like that. The players who are banned are s.o.l. Unless they manage to sneak in, undetected, as another person has noted in this thread.
Nigel, you're either an insidious troll or a very strange person.
I've noticed that weak arguments are often accompanied by personal attacks. Keep it up and I will be happy to put my moderator hat on.
p.s. That marathon thingee has got to be one of the weakest straw men I've seen in a long time. Suggestion: next time you're thinking of using a straw man to support your argument....don't.
Cheating in early olympic marathons really happened. What part of the argument don't you understand?
Dogs will bark, but the caravan of chess moves on.
Cheating at chess isn't a crime. It's a matter having to do with the administration of a sporting event. As in, what constitutes fair play and what does not. Every sport requires rules about these sorts of things. Nice diversion. Sorta like a straw man. lol.
I think you could make an argument for fraud if someone is cheating in an event where there are money prizes so it probably is a crime.
Cheating at chess isn't a crime. It's a matter having to do with the administration of a sporting event. As in, what constitutes fair play and what does not. Every sport requires rules about these sorts of things. Nice diversion. Sorta like a straw man. lol.
Ok, I suppose I should have been more specific and referred to the type of cheating we're discussing as a crime against the laws of chess. I think what I meant would have been intuitively obvious to most people but, if it will make you feel more comfortable, Nigel, let's go with your wording and call it unfair play. What you're proposing to do is punish someone for unfair play before (or without?) proving them guilty of unfair play. You run tournaments from time to time don't you, Nigel? Put your proposal into action and let's see what happens.
I've already provided the example from poker - an activity which a number of competitive chess players have chosen OVER chess - in which players who aren't even cheating are banned. There are no court cases, shouts of "violations of my rights!", or anything like that. The players who are banned are s.o.l. Unless they manage to sneak in, undetected, as another person has noted in this thread.
I've already said, somewhere in this thread, why I don't think counting cards at a casino is a good analogy to cheating in chess. Apparently you think it is. I don't think either of us will change the other's mind on this one.
I've noticed that weak arguments are often accompanied by personal attacks. Keep it up and I will be happy to put my moderator hat on.
So what's stopping you from putting your moderator's hat on? Removing someone's access to the board would certainly be a handy way to win an argument. Doing something like that would be right up your alley, wouldn't it, Nigel? I mean, if you're the kind of person who believes in accusing someone of cheating and inflicting a punishment on that person merely on the basis of an unconfirmed suspicion, then aren't you also the type of moderator who would remove someone's access to the board arbitrarily? To my way of thinking, if it quacks like a troll then....
Cheating in early olympic marathons really happened. What part of the argument don't you understand?
What made your straw man particularly weak was the reference to someone running a marathon in 30 minutes. Do you really think such a thing is physically possible today? The world record is around 2 hours, 3 minutes, isn't it? (I'm too lazy to look it up) Wouldn't it be more reasonable to liken Ivanov to a marathoner with a previous personal best of around 2 hr, 45 min, who in a very short time span improved his best to, say, 2 hr, 25 min? Something that is possible, but highly unlikely, and thus the suspicion of cheating arises? You say cheating in early olympic marathons really happened - I don't doubt you, but how was it determined that there was cheating? Wouldn't it be because the cheaters were actually caught out? You know, the old means, motive and opportunity tests? You're proposing to punish someone without knowing the means, with only a guess at the motive (although in chess self-aggrandizement/ego would be a pretty good guess), and with opportunity being the only certainty. C'mon lad, you can do better than that, can't you?
Last edited by Peter McKillop; Saturday, 10th August, 2013, 11:07 PM.
"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
I think you could make an argument for fraud if someone is cheating in an event where there are money prizes so it probably is a crime.
Specifically, which CFC rule deals with "cheating"?
Your wording "if someone is cheating" appears to carry a burden of proof on the administrator. The accuser may simply be trying to annoy the opponent with the claim.
I think you could make an argument for fraud if someone is cheating in an event where there are money prizes so it probably is a crime.
For tourneys with large prizes you could be right. For smaller amounts, i can see such issues being handled under Small Claims Courts.
Danny Kopek, Andy Soltis and others signed a statement that included the following remark:
Yet in some instances, even the risk of being banned from future tournaments might not be enough of a deterrent. In those cases, criminal prosecution may be the only answer. Criminal fraud or grand larceny statutes would very likely apply when someone is caught trying to appropriate a $20,000 class prize by fraudulent means.
Cheating at chess isn't a crime. It's a matter having to do with the administration of a sporting event. As in, what constitutes fair play and what does not. Every sport requires rules about these sorts of things. Nice diversion. Sorta like a straw man. lol.
I've already provided the example from poker - an activity which a number of competitive chess players have chosen OVER chess - in which players who aren't even cheating are banned. There are no court cases, shouts of "violations of my rights!", or anything like that. The players who are banned are s.o.l. Unless they manage to sneak in, undetected, as another person has noted in this thread.
In the first paragraph above, you talk about "sport". In the second paragraph, you talk about "poker" but what you actually referenced earlier was blackjack. There is no "card counting" in poker. Blackjack is the game with card counting. And BLACKJACK IS NOT A SPORT under any stretch of the imagination. So your example is no example at all. Do you really think Blackjack is hosted with the idea of "fair play"??? ROFLMAO. There are no shouts of "violation of my rights" because you play Blackjack with the understanding that YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS.
Your arguments are so lame and beyond belief that you have to resort to threat of force ("moderator's hat") to try and stifle the opinions of others. You call out "personal attacks" when someone says your opinions make you either a troll or a very strange person. Then by your own logic, if you've ever edited or deleted someone's post because they were trolling, you yourself are guilty of a personal attack. And the phrase "strange person" only means that you hold opinions that the vast majority of your fellow citizens would disagree with. If you consider that a personal attack, you are too sensitive to hold the position of moderator at all.
Now I suppose you'll bring out the song and dance, that no one is paying you for this gig. Tough nuts! Volunteering doesn't give you the right to do a pathetic job.
And finally, regarding your earlier post in which you wrote:
"I don't think you guys are getting the main point. Or, perhaps, some notion of individual rights gone mad."
If you for one minute think innocent until proven guilty is some notion of individual rights gone mad, and that chess needs to circumvent that notion in order to advance, you are welcome to purchase a one-way ticket to Moscow and enjoy a life where chess is much further advanced and civil liberties are much more curtailed. It seems that is where you would like to be AND where you belong.
Only the rushing is heard...
Onward flies the bird.
...you are welcome to purchase a one-way ticket to Moscow and enjoy a life where chess is much further advanced and civil liberties are much more curtailed
lol. American dissident and whistleblower Edward Snowden would disagree with you. Perhaps you think his legitimate concern about being tortured (or worse) is without merit?
Anyway, you're welcome to noisily continue to defend cheaters. I'm sure it's a matter of principle, although which principle is unclear ...
Explicit cheating during chess games represents an emerging threat to the viability of mass-participation tournaments with large cash prizes. We believe it is imperative that the USCF, tournament organizers, and the chess world as a whole, start drawing up anti-cheating policies that will become widely accepted and can be put in place on a broad scale, before chess suffers its equivalent of baseball’s steroids scandal.
signed by Craig Gross (amateur competitor)
Jon Jacobs (amateur competitor)
Dr. Danny Kopec (chess educator, author, IM)
Peter Minear (amateur competitor)
Travis Patay (amateur competitor)
Andy Soltis (author, Chess Life columnist, GM)
Dogs will bark, but the caravan of chess moves on.
Nigel, where in the CFC handbook or rules is "cheating" defined or addressed?
I was looking at the FIDE site and they seem to be struggling with computer use. Committees and so forth and I didn't think they had drafted anything for the member nations to consider and approve or disapprove. It seems it would currently fall into the catch all ethics clause which is not likely sufficient.
Likely after a few players and/or TD's get the crap pounded out of them for calling a player a "cheat" without proof a different method will be found.
I don't know if you've ever stepped in between a couple of large adults arguing loudly over a speed chess game to defuse the situation. I have and I can assure you using the term "cheater" to one of them wouldn't have done anything to calm the situation.
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