Frisked at a couple of chess events

[AlanLlewellyn]

When in 2014 I went to the Isle of Man masters, I played in that top international tournament securing a lone point from a bye but otherwise getting soundly beat 8 times. Imagine my surprise when I went to leave the island and I was dually frisked with a machine and had my mobile phone and bag put through x-ray, and they did a little bit of a body search.

Maybe the point from the bye was got due to cheating-sarcasm

Fast forward a few years to this Easters 4NCL congress in Daventry, where after winning a game vs a top 8 yo, before the start of the next round, I was frisked again with a device spotter(which only found my debit card in my wallet, my old fashioned watch and my hotel door opening card). Routine was the protestations of the arbiter and yet my opponent didnt seem to have a wallet, hotel card or even watch despite being superficially frisked (maybe he was warned i am thinking). This event was under FIDE but was a minor u1700 section and i wasnt doing particularly well.

[Roger de Coverly]

Routine was the protestations of the arbiter

The theory is that they select boards at random.

The 4NCL had a precedent a few years back where they identified the runaway leader of the Minor as cheating and excluded him from the tournament before the last round. They never disclosed either the method of cheating or how they detected it. It was done very discretely as I was playing in a different section and knew nothing of it until after the tournament.

[AlanLlewellyn]

Routine was the protestations of the arbiter

The theory is that they select boards at random.

The 4NCL had a precedent a few years back where they identified the runaway leader of the Minor as cheating and excluded him from the tournament before the last round. They never disclosed either the method of cheating or how they detected it. It was done very discretely as I was playing in a different section and knew nothing of it until after the tournament.

maybe i was cheating by osmosis, i am good at osmosis, i read my chess books using the method. LOL

[AlanLlewellyn]

Roger it was beyond a joke-i think(though i may be paranoid) that they went in my hotel room and opened up my mobile phone to check inside it as it was split when i went down there one of the days there and it never was the same again-being unable to fford a replacement, and the phone company saying i have to pay for it-i am now without a smart phone relying instead on an oldfashioned nokia.

[Ian Thompson]

yet my opponent didnt seem to have a wallet, hotel card or even watch despite being superficially frisked (maybe he was warned i am thinking).

So what? None of these items are prohibited except watches, if they are smart watches. Even if a smart watch, mobile phone, or other prohibited item was found, no rules have yet been broken if the search took place before the game began. If it's an item that can legally be stored in a bag next to the board was found the player still has time to store it.

If you want to catch players intending to cheat you need to search after the game has started.

[AlanLlewellyn]

yet my opponent didnt seem to have a wallet, hotel card or even watch despite being superficially frisked (maybe he was warned i am thinking).

So what? None of these items are prohibited except watches, if they are smart watches. Even if a smart watch, mobile phone, or other prohibited item was found, no rules have yet been broken if the search took place before the game began. If it's an item that can legally be stored in a bag next to the board was found the player still has time to store it.

If you want to catch players intending to cheat you need to search after the game has started.

Maybe you could invent a new law system called guilty until proven innocent ian

[AlanLlewellyn]

the premise is i did something to make people think i was cheating, which as i was on 2.5/4 in the 4ncl event and 0/8 in the isle of man, i dont know why they should think i was cheating. Am i being accused of mysteriously and ineptly( in losing games) cheating??? it doesnt make any sense ?

[AlanLlewellyn]

I am not a law expert but the whole principal of innocent until proven guilty came about because it was recognised that in guilty until proven innocent it is always impossible to prove innocence so everyone subjected to such law is found guilty regardless of guilt. Show trials and kangaroo courts are the result with many mistrials.

[Joey Stewart]

Ok I think I figured out your problem, the particular tournament you played was managed by pokerstars so you were likely dealing with the paranoid mafia mentality of casino organisations rather then level headed chess arbiters - I've dealt professionally with pokerstars before and they are among the most shady companies you can ever have the misfortune to do business with, one of their particularly nasty tricks is to lock people out of online accounts and demand very intrusive amounts of personal data to let you back in (and yes you would be right in thinking is illegal but the UK gambling commission are generally worthless in policing this kind of behaviour, save dishing out the occasional fine to make themselves seem relevent)