Good morning everyone!

   In a recent posting on Chessbase.com, the saga of the 3 French players accused of cheating during the Olympiad continues. They have all been suspended, although one is playing in the current European Championship event in France (doesn't suspended mean NOT playing?) and the other two players have demanded additional security.

   A petition was sent around to professional players demanding that more steps be taken to make sure players do not cheat during tourneys. The article is long but very well written and it is a serious matter causing a black cloud over this tournament. The full article can be found here.

   -Mark

As to the cheater playing in the European Championship, I heard 2 theories:

1) His sentence (ban) only starts 10 day after it's official, so he could still participate.

2) He appealed against the decision.

Worst of all: the French chess federation (who started the law suit) is paying for his hotel expenses during the tournament. Ironic, not?

ironic & moronic, if they are tough enough against these people this would not even get tried!

Fez, according to the French News, there was  some admission of guilt, then they recanted. In any event, they have been suspended by the FFE. I'll let you know when I found out more.

Well there's is ample evidence: "200 messages exchanged during the games, and only during the games". Those messages were coded moves - moves that were made on the board.

Losing against a 2300 at the Olympiad could be explained as Feller who trusted the signs of his team captain too much (or misinterpreting them).

Furthermore both Vachier-Lagrave and Edouard learned of this, not via the Federation, but through Arnaud Hauchard’s personal confession to them.

The fact that Feller's defence was based on technical stuff, like invoices that couldn't be used in court is not denying the facts.

I hope his good prestation at Aix is due to his qualities, but an elaborate cheating scheme like used during the Olympiad is very hard to spot. The cheating would never have been found when the man at home (International Master Cyril Marzolo) would have been more careful.

The only way to prevent this has already been proposed to FIDE: a 15 minute delay on live broadcasts. (like mentioned in Marks link)

I like the 15 min. delay, no one outside of the players themselves need to see the moves any faster than that

To provide a comparsion, here's what other current top players score using the same method of analysis.

{ Anand, Viswanathan (Games: 10) } Morelia 2007
{ Top 1 Match: 163/274 ( 59.5% ) 
{ Top 2 Match: 203/274 ( 74.1% ) 
{ Top 3 Match: 228/274 ( 83.2% ) 
{ Top 4 Match: 240/274 ( 87.6% ) 

{ Carlsen, Magnus (Games: 9) } Morelia 2007
{ Top 1 Match: 186/325 ( 57.2% ) 
{ Top 2 Match: 245/325 ( 75.4% ) 
{ Top 3 Match: 279/325 ( 85.9% ) 
{ Top 4 Match: 293/325 ( 90.2% ) 

{ Carlsen, Magnus (Games: 9) } Nanjing 2009
{ Top 1 Match: 200/335 ( 59.7% ) 
{ Top 2 Match: 256/335 ( 76.4% ) 
{ Top 3 Match: 283/335 ( 84.5% ) 
{ Top 4 Match: 298/335 ( 89.0% ) 

All these are small game batches. Take them and be entertained and have your curiosity piqued.

Small sample size notwithstanding, coupled with the evidence Orvall referenced it looks pretty damning to me.

I know this is a bit off topic but those statistics make GMs seem creepy.

Noticed I did fixed depth =20 ply, sweetie?

By the way, I haven't analysed any other games from Feller.  The small sample size of non-db moves from the 9 games I did do took between 9 & 10 hours, and that was with the relatively fast Houdini engine!

I'm not sure what you don't understand about the cumulative non-db figures.

Opponents played 27+45+30+34+48+18+29+20+10 = 261 non db moves from the 9 games

Feller played 27+45+31+35+48+19+29+20+10 = 264 non db moves

You ask how many moves were counted & I thought that this was pretty straightforward.  Both the Feller non-db moves 264 + all moves from his opponents 261 appear in the { All Players } stats = total 525

I'm not sure what about the data you would "bother to challenge"; it seems he made his methodology pretty clear to me. He identified the processor, the engine, and the analysis depth, so unless you replicated his experiment and got different results, I fail to see any problem with the data... and if you have, I'd like to see your data. Now you might wish to challenge his interpretation of the data, but when compounded with other evidence, I'd say that the cheating has been virtually proven.

The first point you make is about the small sample size, and Collyer does mention that shortcoming in the data. So yes, a larger sample size would be nice, but we don't have that.

To say that you need to see 90% top-one matches to be "inclined" to believe it, or that "there should be close to a 100% match" is incredibly naive. Feller is still a GM, after all, and computers don't always make the best move in a given situation. They don't make long-range plans, whereas Feller can and does. But what computers are really, really good at is avoiding tactical errors, and taking advantage of your opponent's tactical errors. So the potential cheater is fed a list of computer-generated stong tactical moves, and then selects whichever best fits into his medium- and long-range strategies, which is not always the computer's first-choice. The result is that Feller is playing what Kasparov calls "advanced chess," against opponents playing a traditional OTB game.

Finally, you mention that we do indeed have confessions. How much more evidence do you need?

Well, when it comes to evidence of cheating, Fezzik is a contrarian by nature, with the apparent desire to set the standard of proof so high as to be unattainable

:~} maybe they were coerced confessions?? did they use any enhanced methods of interrogations? 

Fezzik simply cannot read a single one of my posts without taking my words out of context and/or attempting to twist them for his own strange needs. 

With your track record, I should imagine any results you produce would need to be thoroughly scrutinised for evidence of manipulation.

On top of that, you can't seem to understand a simplistic results output log.  Or add up.

Maybe engine detection analysis isn't for you, Dan?

ok, as long as the Geneva convention was adhered to, then I am with you... now a military tribunal, ::GUILTY!!

Fezzik, I must confess that I have not seen the contents of these confessions. Do you have a link? I'd like to read about that.