I pay money excepting to get X. I get Y. You argue that Y is more valuable than X. I say that is your value system not mine, do not try to impose it on me, I paid for X, and you fraudulently substituted Y.

X is a tournament of players rated about my level.
Y is a chance to play a much stronger player.

If I sign up to play in an U1800 section and Carlsen butts in to dust me off in 18 moves, am I supposed to "enjoy" it for some reason?

You still get a thumbs down.
1 4 3

"it will be restricted to players under 1700 NZCF rating" copied from http://hamiltonchess.net/events/rookies-shield/

Does the father and daughter have the NZCF rating? NO!!!

Their ratings are FIDE rating!

What were their NZCF ratings? Unrated!

What's wrong the unrated players played in a tournment for the players under 1700 NZCF rating?

Tell me!!! Please

I don't go on the Playchess server very often, but I did play Steve in a couple of 5 minute games, and his id was either sgiddins or stevegiddins. Either way, he wasn't trying to hide his id.

dont forget the Hamilton Chess Club Rapid this weekend on Saturday the 13th
with free entry and international publicity for Woman Grandmasters !

http://doubleroo.blogspot.com/2011/03/rookies-cup-raider.html

Who cares? She is good looking and that is all that matters. We need more ladies in revealing clothing sit at chess boards.

This Story could have ended MUCH worse !
The unsuspecting chess club players /.. victims - are lucky to be alive : )

Why taint your name forever for a lousy € 40? Incomprehisible.

Maybe he's on the run from the law?! Strange story.

Why does this article exist?

Even if the reason for doing this makes no sense, isn't there some rule against using a false identity to play in a chess tournament? Are there no penalties? Bizzare!

Not sure why you take such fraud lightly - I took a rather harder line in my blog entry http://stevegiddins.blogspot.com/2011/03/tournament-raider.html.
However little money they made, it is fraud. Why do we want such people involved in chess at all? Off with their heads!

Wow, What a wonderful story!
To think, sometimes a local, small club try to invite higher rated players with no-entry-fee and the players would take the prize for sure. All club members are happy for their coming.
The father and daughter created an interesting story for us. Why should we blame them?
If they come to the club i go to, I would say: welcome again!

she is rated 2350 and is only 19. so my question is, why is the world did she stop playing rated FIDE events 4 years ago? If she played against people at her own level she might be 2500 by now. If she just wanted to beat up on weaker players she could simply play online. I don't get it.

Cheating is cheating. They took other players' winnings by an act of fraud.

The silly thing is her rating is within a couple of points of the top two active players in NZ [1] . She probably could have emailed just about any club and offered to turn up and do a simil or enter a tournament and they would have waved her entry fees and possible given her a little bit of appearance money (at least as much as she won in hamilton).

I'm in a small tournament this weekend [2] and the father has shown up and said he (at least) is interested in entering. They may get shy though.

[1] Of the two higher, Chandler is semi-retired and Wang plays in the US.

[2] http://www.aucklandchesscentre.co.nz/acc-weekender

O, I hussle like that all the time. I travel the world and play all the local tournaments I come across. In fact, I am much worse a fraud: I not only pretend to be lower rated than I am, I in fact play rubbish in these tounaments, just so they will not suspect me being a world class grand master: I go for the consolation prize. No one has ever noticed my genius. How about that for a cunning scam?

Ohh no 55 Euro!! What will the U1700 players in New Zealand do without all that cash!??!?! Their entry fee covered their "free" lesson. =]

There is also the rumour that a twelve-year-old in Clermont-Ferrand violated the touch-move rule. Will chessvibes send a reporter?

What a shame!!
Unforgivable! (provided it's a true story)

Rumor has it they inquired to play at the Auckland Chess Centre on Saturday and Sunday. See http://closetgrandmaster.blogspot.com/2011/03/foreigners-scam-nz-tournam...

Maybe they have money troubles or they are just very greedy. Or maybe they just love chess so much they have to participate in every tournament lol. But anyway 40 euros is a good prize to see some titties.

A correction - their combined prize was more than $55 - $55 was their combined profit after entry fees, etc.

I don't know, maybe this is all just a publicity stunt to promote chess. It's a scandel and a mystery involving a beautiful young female chess player! I must admit I did not know who she was before this, but now i do. Maybe she is making a point about the size of the prize money. Playing chess at the top level or even near it is more of a burden for most players. If some incentive were given to intermediate players, if they had a chance to win some sort of real money, chess would become very popular, very fast. Being invited to "big money" tournaments for players at her level and above is sometimes a political matter, and sometimes random.

This is not the first time I have heard stories like this from organizers of open tournaments. (Rated players trying to play in the unrated section or in a lower section than they should.)

It illustrates imo how there will always be people who will cheat whenever or however they can, even if there is little or nothing at stake. Which should make you wonder what happens when there is a lot (of money) at stake.

Live and learn. Ask proper identification.

But even then; what do you do when somebody has a (high) national rating but no FIDE rating? National ratings are not always so easy to find.

Also: organizers of big open tournaments with rating categories should always check the rating of EVERY participant; I highly doubt they all do that.

much ado about nothing......... When does Linares start?

These idiots also showed up at the Melbourne Chess Club, and tried to play our allegro under false ratings. (The Grand Prize is usually 40-50 dollars, not that they'd have won it anyway)

After somebody found an old rating for the guy around 1900, he practically started a fight and was pushed out kicking and screaming like a lunatic!

its a stretch to call the event she played in a tournament.
http://hamiltonchess.weebly.com/round-1-results.html

Her and her dad were the only real chess players there and the event was fun unrated speed event for patzers.

The http://hamiltonchess.weebly.com/round-1-results.html

How much appearance fee would you paid to get a stunning Women's Grandmaster to turn up to your event ?
Note Hamilton Chess Club paid nothing for this

The organizer Scott Humphreys (1663 Fide) has decided to internationally vilified this poor young girl for a bit of self promotion

The DAD behaved so badly in Melbourne Chessclub at one of the saturday allegro tournaments that I supposed he was from Rostock... They left after only two rounds...

@ Z

It seems to be that we were there at the same time... You are completely right.

The girl should indeed be Lara Stock, the similarity is too great. But I can 100% verify that the father is for sure Mr Stock, whom I have met on a number of occasions and who hasn't changed at all since the last time I saw him, in 2007. Having had the dubious pleasure of experiencing his conduct in a couple of World Youth Chess Championships in the past (in my capacity of Deputy Chief Arbiter and member of the organizing team), I have to mention that he is the definition of "troublemaker". Oh well.

This long pause between top level tournaments is making itself felt, I suppose!

I don't know Mr. Stock personally, but I can tell you that he has a rather dubious reputation in Germany, to put it mildly. Around 10 years ago he started a huge argument (apparently just for argument's sake) with our federation and eventually broke up with them (that's why his daughter play under the Croation flag now). The reports I have read fully confirm middlewave's impression ("troublemaker").

You may also want to check Mr. Stock's rating chart and his games in the database. Pretty interesting. Somehow his rating suddenly jumped from 2225 to 2400; no tournament successes are known that justify this. Then he managed to maintain this rating despite some less than impressive results. And then, tragically, he completely "lost his form" and lost Elo by the bucket.

As far as Lara is concerned, she suddenly stopped playing chess at 15, being rated 2346 and just having achieved the WGM title. Strange, huh?

In my opinion it is Chessbase and Chessvibes that are the most shameful here!

I´m shocked that these two sites don´t show more caution. The prize these two players are paying by being hung high with this outrageous petty article witch includes photos (!), is not in any way proportional to their "crime" against the chess-world.

SHAME ON CHESSVIBES!

regards, paul

This more looks like a prank then a fraud.

She did not play for more the three years, and it's really nice to have her back,
as she is a great talent with a very enterprising style.

In fact they would not find high-level events suited for her, so they ppl. used her trip to play in low rated events instead, with invented names.

I guess they should hand the money back they won, and make a half-serious excuse, as the damage is quite limited, and there was no other way to skip the rating limit for that event, though it was not completly honest.

True, Mr. Stock has not the best relationship with the German chess federation, but that is another story and is true for so many players (like our Top-GM's) or parents of strong youth players (forgive me that I do not mention names, as I want to protect the children) in Germany...

Also true is that he has made another "prank" by playing in an obscure Hungartian even in 1992 that was ppl. much more a fraud then this one.
But this is now statue-barred, and Lara never was accused of anything similar or worse.

I just hope that the next organziers offer them a chance to play as "non-competitive" contestants, and maybe she could give a simultanoues event or some lessons as a kind of compensation for that "huge" demage ;-)

Anyway, it is very nice to see her coming back, and I hope she continies to play occasionally, maybe even aginst thougher opponents (though I am sure that even among the "amatuers" no-one lost on purpose and without a fight)

Steve Giddens' view might be a little easier to stomach if it didn't come from a man who has been happy to be a professional crawler for Ray Keene.

What these sites such as ChessVibes and Chessbase are failing to mention, is that this was an fide rated event or even a nationally rated event but 15 min unrated fun chess event for pazters(weak players) run by a chap rated only 1663 fide.

Its certainly odd to have a report about an unrated fun event on sites that cover world class event

check out the photos from the event

http://hamiltonchess.weebly.com/round-1-results.html

40 Euros???? OH MY GOD what a scandal, call the United Nations!!!!!

Steve Giddins has just launched another nasty attack on blog against this young girl

http://stevegiddins.blogspot.com

he states - "... a holder of the Woman Grandmaster title has travelled halfway across the world, to a continent where she was confident that she would not be recognised, and has then attempted to enter a series of amateur tournaments, aimed at novice players, using a false name, in order to clean up the prize money available."

what complete nonsense ! a series of events ??? what events ??? where the crosstables ??? one unrated pazter event , not series of tournaments. to clean up what money ???? her prize in this one event would not have covered her costs that day let alone traveling half way around the world to do so

this is total slander from the Steve Giddins

Albert Silver brings up another issue at TalkChess.
http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38293

This could be all totally wrong of course, but the suspicions are now there.

A non-rated patzer event? And because of that 'moral philosophy' (dixit Giddins) is discussed? And our Thomas is worried about the selfconfidence of NZ rabbits?

Hahaha! I hope they both enjoy their holiday, and enter all the cafe tournaments they can! Get drunk on the cost of those moral straight guys!

Those who think it merely a prank might be interested to see the reply from Scott Humphries, which was posted to my blog earlier today. He writes:
"I would like to comment on the chess vibes line "the organizer hasn’t taken the situation too seriously (and probably rightly so". I am that organiser, and I wrote the article not so much to make a joke of the incident, but to highlight the puzzling nature of their actions. The serious part of my article is this: "We all enjoyed the lessons learned – both on and off the chess board, of honesty and integrity or what happens when there is a lack of it". Perhaps I should have highlighted that sentence. The players were taught a chess lesson, and we all were taught how to be dishonest and how to have a lack of integrity. I am still waiting for a reply from Lara to my email about the meaning of their actions. "

This is so silly. I remember in the 1970's people who would enter class tournaments just so they could lose to lower their rating would drop one or two classes below their true strength.And people would come here (Atlanta) and enter as unrated no matter what level they played at when they were home. Some people grumbled and complained but this uproar is very much out of proportion.
I doubt chess in New Zeeland chess hasn't had such notice from the rest of the world from any other event. It wasn't nice or fair or correct but to over react seems much more wrong and petty than anything these chess players did.

@Steve Giddins - editor of the British Chess Magazine

here a direct quote from your blog

– “… a holder of the Woman Grandmaster title has travelled halfway across the world, to a continent where she was confident that she would not be recognised, and has then attempted to enter a series of amateur tournaments, aimed at novice players, using a false name, in order to clean up the prize money available.”

what series of events ??? please provide details such as links or crosstable to these other events you claim !!!

you claim she had the intention to ripped off amateur events on the other side of the world.

this is complete slander from you Mr Steve Giddins (editor of the British Chess Magazine ), and you have repeatly refused to back up your comments

no doubt what her and her father did was not correct but your over the top comments used to vilified this poor girl around the World over an unrated fun chess event seem much worst than than what they did and the height of nastiness.
I am completely appalled by your conduct

If a player becomes inactive then his/her rating is erased from the official rankings. You could think if the players rating isn't popping up anymore in the rankings then the rating doesn't exist anymore so the player must be considered again as unrated. It seems to me something for lawspecialists as I can't tell you if an inactive player can join a - 1700 session.

In general I find tournaments with ratingrestrictions and where pricemoney can be won always a cause of problems. In such tournaments you almost never have the guy with the best personal performance coming first but always players which are the most underrated.

I know personally some FM's whom every year make sure that they can join the - 2300 session of Benidorm where first price = 2500 euros. This means losing on purpose some games to achieve a rating below 2300.

I also know personally some guys whom play 15 years already in the lowest rating session of tournaments so they can collect the pricemoney (sometimes not more than 20 euros). Their strategy is to avoid playing any rated games.

In general I would recommend not to give prices if you want players to put in ratinggroups as otherwise you almost always attract people whom are playing in a group or even several groups below their own strength.

About the last FIDE ranking. Don't you think that Nakamura deserves better ranking?
for example: I have NOT seen topalov play in the lat big tournaments, however he keeps on holding his ranking of > 2700, while Naka (2773,9) who did play the last big ones is under him.I do not known if the ranking you get a year ago is for life (since when Topalov [2775] does not play?). If someone kwnows the rules on FIDE about this, please let me know

Looks like the pressure killed her joy for chess. Now she tried to find that joy again playing under cover in a non-serious setting. Plan failed.