Aiming to stop cheating

Chess bid to checkmate cheats
Date June 13, 2013 – 12:23AM

Chess has always been a tactical game, but beyond the two people at the board, another cat-and-mouse operation is going on – between players trying to cheat, and those trying to stop them.

And a Bulgarian amateur, Borislav Ivanov, has the chess world in a spin.The 25-year-old has been beating grand masters, with statistical analysis showing a high probability he’s using a computer program, but searches of his clothing, his pen, as well as close observation have failed to reveal any evidence.

Last month he subjected himself to CT scans and X-rays, which reportedly ruled out implants in his head or body, as he tries to overturn a ban from competition.

Cheating is not new to chess, but as communication devices become smaller and harder to detect, FIDE, the International Chess Federation, has been forced to set up an anti-cheating committee.

It’s the anti-doping committee of the chess world, and Canberra’s Shaun Press, a chess master and computer programmer with the Australian National University, is one of 10 on the global committee tasked with combating the growing threat to the game.

Since the 1990s, when computers became powerful enough to beat humans, people have been trying to cheat with the aid of technology.

From smuggling chess computers under jumpers, to earpieces to receive instructions, most attempts were easily detected; Mr Press describes them as “ham-fisted”.

“The reason people got caught under those circumstances was the communication method was risky, easy to catch, sometimes it didn’t work if the earpiece broke down or whatever and the players involved weren’t so good at chess that they could kind of bluff their way through it, it was really obvious,” he said.

With Ivanov, the Bulgarian Chess Federation has “danced around the issue” by banning him for four months for use of bad language after he responded to cheating accusations by calling the beaten grand masters “washed-up arseholes”.

“The tricky thing with the Ivanov case is there has been some circumstances where it’s almost at this stage hard to imagine how he could possibly cheat,” Mr Press said.

“That’s why people are theorising there may be special contact lenses, or some other magic method that he’s using.

“If he is cheating – and I deliberately say if, no one knows how he’s doing it, and essentially there is the possibility that he is not cheating – until you can find clear, definitive evidence that he has a computer, access to a computer or some other method for cheating, it’s a hard thing to say, yes, the guy is cheating.”

The challenge for Mr Press and the committee will be staying ahead as technology gets better and smaller, while not falsely accusing anyone.Source: http://www.theage.com.au