Is Ivanov a cheater?

Am I right in thinking that those numbers are strong evidence of blatant cheating?

God yes. The guy and his accomplices got the exploding dye pack all over their hands and faces on this heist.

Maybe he was popping adderall or developing some sort of brain tumor that has given him amazing chess skills.

Perhaps, working late in the laboratory, he was bitten by a radioactive, chess-playing spider.

Would also make life more difficult for opponents with web all over the board.

I'm not denying that such things occur but it's still clutching at straws.

Or he underwent mentat training, so his playstyle resembles a computer.

..to see him compared to the highest rated players has me thinking something is fishy...I think someone in the viewing audience, who could monitor his games did relay him the moves....how isn't as important as the fact of it actually happening....I am stunned....I thought the guy they caught with the modified bluetooth would be the last time we'd hear of anyone so bold, stupid and disrespectful...

Still if you cant prove hes cheating..then all you can do is  to be skeptical.

I did try to imagine a player who wants to play Tal-like, so they try to memorize Houdini's crushing tactical lines. The problem I have is the sheer volume required to even begin to have a good chance in a tournament like that, that many times, against that many different lines. If it was a thematic tourney, I'd buy for a dollar that he really did his homework and it showed. The evidence is overwhelming, people are convicted of all of the time, without the smoking gun or blood on their hands.

It is like I said to someone else today, when you use an engine, it leaves a trail, even if you try to cover the trail, it is evident that your tried to hide it...

If the data provided above is accurate then clearly the guy has cheated...the only question is how? Like I said above...FIDE is not serious in dealing with cheating. Just the basic act of delaying live games will stop them in their tracks. Clearly, he had outside help who obtained the best engine moves and relayed them to him somehow. Basic hand signals was suggested...this is possible. 

This reminds me of that saying "a not guilty verdict, is not the same as "innocent"...it just means no evidence was presented"...

I feel proud of my nerd level when I got that reference without cheating.

Maybe they need to start video tapping these and watching audience more closely. I am sure they was some twitching, itchy looking person, that must have "forgot to take their meds" or "something". It would be relatively easy in my mind to come up with a system. I already thought of one. G-d forbid I post it here, someone will ridicule me giving would be other the board cheats, too specific of information.

Maybe if there were people trained to look for such odd behavior and if they made a rule, absolutely no cell phones, palm pilots or laptop computers any where within viewing distance of the players, something tells me, Ivanov's awesome play will suddenly become ordinary again.

Organisers do not care about cheating...just making money. With all the cheating news- cell phones are still allowed, players play without being searched/screened, games are still broadcast live, the general public is still close enough to signal, FIDE rules are unclear/not sufficient. All these things lead me to conclude that no one is serious about preventing cheating in chess.

Sometimes I think these events should be held in adjacent one person cubicles. In the cubicle, each player could have things like temperature and lighting control, silence, privacy, accept for a FIDE observer who watches the two players on camera. The game could be played through two laptop computers, just like we play each other here. They could communicate to each other by typing and even have their language translated.

One beauty of such a system is that, a cubicle, made of metal, would allow no outside cell phone calls. With no direct sight lines to an audience and each player being watched closely by camera, it would be much harder for them to cheat. I realize this idea is expensive and wouldn't be practical in mass, but certainly for the top 20 or so players at tournaments, I think it is feasible and practical. I think Fischer might have gone for this.

See post #47 by goldendog.

Such numbers would be pretty sufficient to ban him from online chess (where game DBs, books and analysis board can be used), in OTB event is is just out of question.

its very simple to see cheaters in chess..let them play blitz tournmants..where no time for cheat...to quick to cheat... no need for strip search just playing in fast mode

Welcome to the world of tech. Thousands are banned from chess.com where money or tittles are not part of the site . Did this man cheat? I have no idea and i don't much care. Where money is part of the picture the scammers are not far behind. A few G.M.s got beat , so ? I be more interested in the chess nut w/ the new opening(h4?) play IM pfren, or hearing carlsen went through 3000 or a young female w/ great chess talent is ready for the likes of Anand or carlsen...

Firstly, the question remains, if he did cheat then HOW. To use the old whodunnit analogy, "It's unlikely that she died of natural causes," is not the same as "you were the only other person in the house so you must have killed her." A good defense lawyer - or even a good cop - would ask: "If it was poison, where are the traces of it? If it was blunt trauma, where are the bruises?" Ditto for cheating at chess. Some have compared his play to Houdini (2 or 3), other to Stockfish. But how was the information relayed to him? He was searched after all and nothing was found.

Secondly, there is no such thing as statistical proof of cheating. There is only statistical proof of the improbability of an event. But that doesn't mean that there is a default alternative explanation. The chances of guessing a randomly picked card from a randomly shuffled deck are one in fifty two. But if some one gets it right does that mean: (a) they were lucky, (b) they used trickery, (c) they have supernatural powers, (d) the subject clumsily held the card in a way that it could be seen, or (e) the would-be magician had made numerous other unsuccessful attempts but this is the one that stood out because they got it right? Statistics flag up anomalies. They do not proffer specific explanations.

Thirdly, playing well in open positions and the mid-game, whilst playing badly in closed positions and in the endgame is also the characteristic of inspired but impatient players. It was certainly true of me when I was an enthusiastic young player. (I play very little chess these days.) I did learn some closed-position tricks from a Canadian master, but one of the things he told me is that certain types of player simply don't feel comfortable in closed positions and try to force the issue, ending up losing.

That said, this is all rather reminiscent of Percival Wilde's story Slippery Elm (reprinted in Chernev's The Chess Companion), where the moves were scratched onto tablets that the player was taking ostensibly to combat his opponent's cigar smoke, or David Kessler's Checkmate at the Beauty Pageant, when the hero plays against the villain's computer wearing special glasses that pick up the electromagnetic resonance (AKA "noise") from the computer and translate it into a voice telling him what moves the computer is considering for both players. Whether it happened in real life, is another matter. But this is the stuff of great stories.

Tbh, there is more than enough "evidence" against him that if this had happened on an online chess site he would have been paid a visit by the banhammer.  I expect it would have also came as a very rude shock.

To use an old saying, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it's a duck. Amusingly, in the tournament prior to the one currently in question he lost to an 1850, or so rated player. Then barely eeked out a draw against a 2050, or so, rated player. After that he became the invicible chess prodigy. Prior to this remarkable transformation, he struggled to even draw against 2200 level players and I don't think he even recorded a win against a single player with a rating of 2200 in over 3 years prior to this episode.

Then poof, he goes from a pretty mediocre 2200 to a player that is posting results a GM would envy? I think not. Something is very fishy here. Actually, it's more like every fish market in the world type of fishy. Sadly, I do not think the smoking gun evidence is ever going to be found, let alone him actually admitting what he did. He stands to lose to much.

Chess tournaments should have 1) metal detectors, 2) no electronic devices allowed, 3) no cell phone reception, 4) no spectators.