Cheating in chess

[Reg Clucas]

How did chess survive for 150 years without increment clocks?

By using adjournments, which meant that players would receive a further tranche of time after each time control. Increments also, in effect, allow this, albeit with a smaller 'tranche' of time. Either system is preferable to the abomination that is QPF, though of course it is no longer practical to use adjournments.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Reg,

Yes that is great thing about these modern clocks, no adjournments. But I am talking about only using increments after the first time control (when adjournments kicked in.)
I shall re-phrase; How did chess survive for 150 years before the first time control and adjournments without digital clocks.
I simply think adding 30 secs on move one is a bit of a stretch.

[Roger de Coverly]

How did chess survive for 150 years before the first time control and adjournments without digital clocks.

Nornal practice was to continue the game until one flag fell if neither player was scoring. The players then moved to another board and reconstructed to prove how many moves had been played. If there was an arbiter watching, they aimed to record the moves as played. That can run out of arbiters when there are more scrambles than arbiters.

Deferred increments was an idea of Kasparov I think. His idea was 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in the next hour with the increment started at move 61. The earlier models of digital clock didn't support that move rate, so it didn't gain wide acceptance.

I can recall a dispute involving Karpov. There had been a repetition or two and the opponent claimed 39 moves had been played at flag fall and Karpov 41. I think the eventual ruling was in Karpov's favour.

Playing 40 moves in 150 minutes now seems like an infinite amount of time, but some players still took 145 minutes over their first 20 to 30.

[Graham Borrowdale]

I never see the difference between 40 moves in 120 mins, compared with 40 moves in 100 mins + 30 secs increment per move from move 1. If avoiding time trouble is the objective, it doesn’t work, I will get into it anyway. Why not be done with it and have 40 moves in 0 mins + 2 mins increment per move from move 1?

[NickFaulks]

I agree, the success of the tournament was due to the imaginative selection of the field which was a mixture of playing strengths.

Agreed about the invitation policy, but in fact the mixture of playing strengths was not crucial. The ten top participants were in the tight range 2725 - 2780, and their 45 games produced 20 results.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Roger,

In the pre-digital age incidents after the first time control were far greater than before the first TC. Going back to Karpov's playing days for an example bears this out.

Increments are a boon in this respect. 56 Electronic boards (another boon) were being used at the I.O.M.for 114 players, so any query about move number before the the first TC could be resolved in seconds. A 10 second increment from move one should be sufficient, knock it up to 30 after the first TC.

Hi Nick,

That is correct, but they appear to have done something right with the selection regarding positive results. There were 49 in this event, in the previous event it was 32. (both events had 30 second increment from move one. Huh!)

[Ian Paternoster]

Why do people cheat while playing chess, they are only cheating themselves.

[Geoff Chandler]

HI Ian,

Regarding online play and that is where 99% of the cheating is taking place, there is possibly a 'they are cheating so I will as well' mentality going on. If you are talking about beginners cheating then yes they will not be learning too much and chess.com are banning hundreds of those every week.

But an experienced player is not cheating themselves, they are taking money from those who play clean and ill gained rating points can boost a players profile to the extent they can start charging big fees for lessons.

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

The only time I can remember someone cheating against me was in a London League game some 35 years ago. At the end of the playing session my opponent sealed a move and after packing away the equipment myself and the rest of my team adjourned to the pub. At some stage I realised that I didn't have the sealed move envelope and was almost in tears when I explained to my captain that I must have forgotten to pick it up and I'd have to default the game.

However my captain informed me that the exact thing had happened to my opponent twice in the previous season - he's sealed a move and his opponents had neglected to pick up the envelope and so lost the game. After the second time there was a suspicion that the player in question had sealed his move and then put the envelope in his own pocket, either immediately or a few minutes later when no-one was paying attention.

The next day I rang up my opponent and explained that I couldn't find the envelope he'd sealed his move in. He confidently told me that in that case I'd have to default the game. When I informed him that I knew about the two similar cases the previous season he backtracked madly and said that he would, of course, be happy to continue the game in the normal way.

I put a great deal of effort into studying the position, which was a very interesting ending where I had a king, bishop and a few pawns and he had a king and more pawns (exactly three more than me!). My teammates helped me enormously, partly because my opponent was a good friend of Jon Speelman so we knew he would getting the best coaching available. When the game resumed the atmosphere was tense but I played the position perfectly and won after an hour or so.

I've often wondered over the years what the motivation was for my opponent to blatently cheat in this way and the only thing I've been able to come up with is that he considered it a vital part of the game. At a slightly higher level and in a different sport, it's the sort of mentality that Lance Armstrong had.

[Peter Ackley]

Is some guidance needed for people involved in investigating claims of cheating? What they can/cannot and should/should not do and how the rules should be interpreted?

I lift the following directly from one league's website:
"A Dispute was referred to the Committee in relation to a league match where it was claimed that a mobile phone had been switched on during the game. The Committee found that there was insufficient evidence to prove either that the phone was on, or that it was off. Accordingly the Committee felt it necessary to declare the game void with no score for either party."

There are many things about this both as a player and an arbiter I find concerning.

[Roger de Coverly]

I lift the following directly from one league's website:
"A Dispute was referred to the Committee in relation to a league match where it was claimed that a mobile phone had been switched on during the game. The Committee found that there was insufficient evidence to prove either that the phone was on, or that it was off. Accordingly the Committee felt it necessary to declare the game void with no score for either party."

I would have thought the dispute should have been whether the phone was deemed on the player's person or in their possession outside the playing area. It wouldn't then matter if it was on or off. Pragmatically if a phone is somewhere out of use and it behaves by keeping quiet even if not totally switched off, no one will be the wiser.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"The Committee found that there was insufficient evidence to prove either that the phone was on, or that it was off. Accordingly the Committee felt it necessary to declare the game void with no score for either party."

I assume the game was abandoned, where the player without phone refused to play on? The committee did not want to award that player the game as the state of the phone was not proven, and did not want to default the player that complained?

Many leagues do not apply the Laws of Chess so far as phones go.

e.g. "If a player's phone or electronic device makes any sound during his game, then on the first occurrence he shall receive a warning, and for a second offence by the same player in the same game, he shall lose the game."

"10.3 If a player’s mobile phone rings during play, the player will be asked to silence it or turn it off. If it happens again, the player will lose the game"

(Advice to players in the latter league - if your opponent's phone rings, very quickly say, "turn it off", then when it rings again before they have time to do so, claim the game for the second ring...)

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

I would have thought the dispute should have been whether the phone was deemed on the player's person or in their possession outside the playing area.

Whenever I hear about a problem involving mobile phones and chess games I remember a story that Sean Terry told about an Oxfordshire League match played in the 2006/2007 season:

Kelly [the late Kelly Riley] is up against Clive XXXX and playing quite well. He gets up from the table and is moving away. His phone goes off. He starts, and rushes out the door towards the toilet. The phone continues to ring. A moment passes. Our hero returns at the same speed to retrieve the phone from the coat pocket which is adorning his chair...
collapse of audience.

[J T Melsom]

Use of phones is a distraction. In one fixture this season, an opposition player used his phone to check his opponents grade, a second remained sat at the board inputting a finished game into phone and a third left a phone ringing in his bag. And in another match one player put his phone on silent and picked it up to read a message whilst sat at the board. Nobody was cheating, but all were distracting.

[Peter Ackley]

Two posters on this forum (I won't name them, in case they want to remain anonymous) were defaulted in the 4NCL when their phones rang.
(1) The player had had a very challenging journey to the venue, just arriving before default, and the ringing was their own captain leaving a voicemail seeing where they were. What pushed them over the edge was their opponent following them round the venue to get them to sign the scoresheet to confirm the result (from the days when it was not mandatory).
(2) A phone call from their wife to check they had remembered they were supposed to be playing chess at 11. They had, although the game ended at that point.

In the case I listed above it was a local league game where the rules allowed players to retain a phone, but that the phone must be switched off. The phone in question was alleged to have lit up (not made a noise). What actually happened I have no idea - I only have the notes on the website and an official follow-up to a complaint to the league from a member of the committee. As Kevin said, though, the committee felt (I paraphrase, since the correspondence contains confidential information):
(1) that the captains had not checked the phone after the incident, despite the player with the phone offering to
(2) the player with the phone stated that the phone was on silent and switched off (rather than switched off and on silent) - the sequence of the words in the sentence concerning people
(3) the impact on the player making the complaint needed to be considered

(1) is not the player's fault, (2) is linguistics - the sequence is irrelevant, the confirmation was provided and (3) is irrelevant [or do I have to ask people how they feel before I make a decision as an arbiter]. At the end of the day either there is, or is not, proof that the phone was switched on at the time and, as a result, either the player is, or is not, defaulted.