What’s worse: cheating or false accusations?
9 January 2008 10:12 AM | Last modified: 21:19
Last year’s story about a Dutch chess player who was studying his position with PocketFritz during an official game, quickly became known all over the world. Cheating should be banned as much as possible - everone agrees on that. But what to do when an innocent girl is falsely accused of cheating? Isn’t that equally bad? It happened last week at the Vandoeuvre Open.
The Hungarian chess player Anna Rudolf (2273) started the open tournament in Nancy, France, with 4 out of 4, beating GM Christian Bauer and IM Cyril Marzolo along the way. Great, of course, until you start to notice that some participants don’t believe that you’re playing the tournament of your life. Rudolf was openly accused of cheating. Participant Marie Boyarchenko wrote:
“Right after the third round the Latvian chess player Oleg Krivonosov directly accused Anna Rudolf of using Fritz. He did not provide any logical explanation of his words, nor he brought any proof of his claims. However, the next day he came back with support - Oleg Lazarev and Ilmars Starostits - and all of them accused Anna Rudolf of using… Rybka. The three players claimed that Anna was going too much to the bathroom and that her bag had a secret internet connection. To be more precise, they said that “the secret internet connection was transmitting the best moves with the help of Anna’s lip balm.”
Inevitable memories of the Topalov-Kramnik match rise. The parallel with Danailov & Topalov’s accusations at the address of Kramnik is of course the lack of evidence, and in this case it’s better to keep quiet.
At first, Rudolf managed to deal with this nonsense quite well, as we look at her results:
Results Anna Rudolf at the Vandoeuvre Open
| RUDOLF Anna | (2273) | - | CHOBAUT Nicolas | (2001) | 1-0 |
| BAUER Christian | (2634) | - | RUDOLF Anna | (2273) | 0-1 |
| RUDOLF Anna | (2273) | - | MARZOLO Cyril | (2478) | 1-0 |
| RUDOLF Anna | (2273) | - | VITOUX Colomban | (2394) | 1-0 |
| HAUB Thorsten-Michael | (2469) | - | RUDOLF Anna | (2273) | 1-0 |
| NEBOLSINA Vera | (2349) | - | RUDOLF Anna | (2273) | 0-1 |
| RUDOLF Anna | (2273) | - | LAZAREV Vladimir | (2488) | 1/2 |
| KOZHUHAROV Spas | (2463) | - | RUDOLF Anna | (2273) | 1/2 |
| RUDOLF Anna | (2273) | - | STAROSTITS Ilmars | (2511) | 0-1 |
But before the last round, it was almost impossible for her to play a decent game because of her opponent’s behaviour. Boyarchenko continues:
“As Anna Rudolf had to play against the Latvian Starostits, he asked the arbiter to control her bag and to confiscate it. Plus she was no more allowed to use her lips balm, nor to go out of the playing hall without the permission of the arbiter. It is clear that Anna was morally destroyed, especially when Starostits refused to shake hands with her. And still she prooved during the whole game that she played solid and beautiful chess, even when she lost.”
Chessdom did some excellent journalism this week around this story. In an interview Rudolf said:
Yes, ridiculous indeed. I usually went away from the board when it wasn’t my turn to move: I like to go out to the fresh air and also to wash my face. Moreover, I played most of my games on the stage, broadcasted, so I didn’t have to sit at the board to see my position. And yes, the lip balm was always with me. Kids, beware, Rybka is in it!
Rudolf will surely survive all this, because she scored both a WGM and a IM norm at the tournament, but the story probably doesn’t end here. The Latvian players already announced they will continue to accuse Anna Rudolf at the coming open tournament in Cappelle la Grande. So Anna already cheated before the tournament has started…
Links:
Sigh. How silly again. Don’t people know that since it’s almost impossible to disprove anything, it just doesn’t make sense make such accusations without concrete evidence?
Wouldn’t it be nice if Starostits himself was banned from the tournament for disturbing his opponent? Without solid proof, nobody should be able to get away with such intimidation…
It must be hard to play under such circumstances, but keep on going and playing, Anna.
I agree with Arne: il seems that these Latvian players will come to the next tournament and look for trouble. They should get a choice: either they bring evidences against Anna or they stay home till they apologize for their behaviour.
If the chess authorities don’t react quickly against these facts, we will soon hear about at least one story of this kind every week somewhere in the world.
I think we, as fellow players, should unite and protect people that are intimidated in this way.
I agree with all of you. Rudolf Anna is a great talent. We can see that she, even under huge psichological pressure could play well. I think those Latvian players should be ashamed.
Oleg Krivonosov?
Anyone who is familiar with Internet Chess Club will recognise him by the handle ‘Olegas’.
‘Olegas’ is distinguished by having a complete lack of sporting ethics. While winning on time is part of blitz, few people take ‘flagging’ to the extremes that Olegas does.
Therefore, I’d be inclined to disregard allegations of cheating when they come from someone with such a poorly-developed sense of sportsmanship.
The last days I followed the case due to the fantastic coverage by chessdom and wrote something about it on my german blog. For me it´s cristal clear. The accusations are totally ridiculous. You just have to look at the games published by Chessdom. The accordance with computer moves is very low and the quality of the games is rather poor. Cheating? Never. These three players have to be punished for their behaviour, strictly and unforgettable.
Indeed ridiculous. The only thing I miss is a reaction from the Latvian players. This story is so ridiculous, that I am very eager to hear their reaction on it: is it really exactly like that or is there a little more nuance? If not, they should just be punished severely (Fide ethics commission can do some decent work here). I will play in Capelle and will follow what happens.
This is sickening. I think they should ban people with that behaviour from playing tournaments. Maybe a boycot from other players would help to get them excluded from our game? To stimulate the organizing committee in Capelle to exclude them from their tournament?
Using lip balm to cheat? What is the chess world coming to? Why can’t she used Yogurt, like the great players of the past?
I’m still hoping that the term “Lippygate” takes off. See http://closetgrandmaster.blogspot.com/2008/01/hungarian-wim-in-lippygate.html.
Though a quick Google search reveals that lippygate has already been used in Britain for an entirely different scandal.
- TCG
These Latvians have a problem that is typical for chessplayers. When they perform better than their rating indicates, they think it is normal. When someone else makes a good performance it must be cheating … One piece of advice for Mrs.Rudolf. A few years ago, all three Latvians had a lower rating than me. Now they outrate me, they improved so they must have cheated: I am willing to witness that. They “suddenly” started to win prizes as well ! So Anna, attack them first next time !
She seems to be very cute. No wonder those men couldn’t concentrate then, but if that’s cheating then they should also take Kosteniuk’s grandmaster title away ^^
On ICC Krivonosov (with handle Olegas) is the only titled player who has accused me of computer cheating (his only supporting “evidence” was that I won a couple of 5 minute games against him…). With this background knowledge I consider his accusations against the Hungarian player to have exactly zero credibility.
Well you don’t have to have proof to state suspicion. It is like that guy that played in a coat (German man I believe?). There was no proof that he cheats but when they made him take the coat I became obvious
But after notihng was found the girl should have been left alone.
@Marin, there’s a difference between evidence and proof, normal and strange behavior. The German cheater you referred to behaved very strange indeed (he claimed a ‘mate in 10′ in a very complex middle game position at some point), and besides, he was a lot weaker than ms. Rudolf (and his score was even more impressive). Ms. Rudolf just played a good tournament, this German fellow played a supernatural tournament.
Of course, one may always express suspicion, in all discretion and not in public - and also not without a cost, or without a grounded reason: if the suspicion then proves to be ungrounded, measures should be taken against the accuser to prevent any further kind of intimidation or whatever.
This is outrageous, indeed! Cheating is a serious topic and the measures and concepts against it should not become discredited by unsubstantial allegations that are put forward on merely subjective guesswork. Obviously the 2500-GMs involved had a rather hollow motive - travelling European Opens trying to make a living out of winning here and there some money they clearly can’t accept a lower-rated amateur to threaten their prize-money-share. Particularly Mr Starostits’ dull behaviour at the board should be noted by organzisers!
Let us not forget that what these Desperate-for-small-Open-money-GMs are doing here could be sued by Ms Rudolf easily and I’m pretty sure that the GMs mentioned would then really have a big problem.
One can only hope that organizers of tournaments do read the articel above and think twice before inviting the GMs mentioned to an attractive tournament. If the allegations against Ms Rudolf prove to be wrong the behaviour of the genlemen should not go unnoticed by FIDE, by teams and by sponsors - and there are measure that could be taken against these three guys!
It seems to me this discussion simply touches upon the very basis of our system of justice, one of its main principles begin: one is innocent until found guilty. And one can never rule out the possibility that an innocent is begin falsely judged and sentenced. No system of justice is infallible.
So, it seems to me, as a matter of trivial fact, that cheating is worse than ”falsely’ accusing someone. In the same way, I think we would all agree, it is worse to commit a crime than falsely accusing someone of having commited that crime - in most cases. Someone accusing someone else faces the burden of proving his hypotheses beyond reasonable doubt.
A special case is of course accusing someone falsely of having commited a crime, while knowing that one is falsely accusing the othe, with none other than the intent to publicly ruin someone’s reputation or worse. It is not for nothing that something of the like is considered a crime as well within our judicial system - however, having such an intention is difficult to prove as well - and stands in the same need of proof.
These idiots simply can’t take being beaten by a better prepared opponent. They shouldn’t have walked into her systems, I would like to see them banned from all tournaments for 6 months. Next offense, 5 years. Everyone needs to make fun of IM Olegas on ICC. Anytime you see him playing games, go heckle him.
Is it any wonder that so few women take up chess and stick with it when the reaction to a young woman playing better than before is for her to be bullied by a group of apparently jealous men? I am a decidedly weak player but have won a couple of local tournaments when I have played for a few days at a strength closer to that which I feel I should be able of. Luckily at the amateur level I have not found such pettiness. The accusers ought to put up or shut up! They must not be allowed to get away with this!
(But just in case, where can I get some of that lip balm? My need is greater by far… )
Didn’t read all; of course I agree. Make some ban to those latvians!
But in bigger picture: girls have (young and pretty ones) clear advantages. Good circumstances, most people like, even help them, etc.
Sorry; but I think, alltogether it’s maximum a little equalize for Anna. Life was easy for her; just don’t think: “I am the most important; a real women; pay me for even chess too..”.