Borislav Ivanov strikes again!

Yes you should keep quiet. ..wait what!?

Good points.  I think people on a chess forum take it personally so it turns a bit nasty.  Ivanov really played it up at first.  Went on television and called his GM opponents old washed up idiots and how most chess players are unattractive while he gets ladies and silly things like this.  In fact his first ban, which lasted a few months, was because of these things he said on TV and articles.

So maybe on the whole the community is too quick to get their pound of flesh as you said, but knowing the whole story I can't imagine anyone liking this Ivanov character. 

I watched a video online by Lilov discussing Ivanov's cheating that I highly recommend, especially if you don't believe Ivanov was cheating.  The video is not especially judgmental (Lilov surely thinks he is a cheat however).  The cool thing about the video is that Lilov discusses some very fundamental differences between the ways that computers think and the way that very strong players think.  In this context many of Ivanov's move are pretty clear evidence of cheating.  In many situations, everyone will play Houdini's top move.  But then there are moves played by Ivanov that ignore chess principles but are nevertheless great moves.  People can't think 22 moves ahead so they base their decisions on heuristics like "Never voluntarily play in an area of the board where your opponent is stronger than you".  So when Ivanov breaks a principle like that for no apparent reason and the principle breaking move is Houdini's first choice that is pretty damning.

Anyway, I learned a ton watching that video and highly recommend it if you have an hour or so to spare.

What's especially aggravating is how obvious it was he was cheating, and how obvious it was he made no attempt to hide it.  It would have been very simple to hide it.  So in this way too he seemed to be willingly very antagonistic.  Non-players and newer players wouldn't know because to them a chess game is a chess game, no matter who plays it.  But to stronger players it was painfully obvious he was cheating just by looking at his games.  They were completely non-human.  Even before anyone saw the Houdini analysis.  The analysis was just the nail in the coffin.

That's what happens when you leave justice in the wrong hands. When the GMs lost they started calling him a cheat publicly and denouncing him. Calling someone a cheat is not a small matter, and they should have gotten a proper investigation. He could be forgiven to react the way he did when  got his chance to have a say. It was him vs the everybody else. 

I am not saying that what he did was right or the right way to handle things, but injustice often just breeds more injustice. Had the GMs had more sense and had gotten an impartial authoritative body (certainly they could have found somebody? A local Priest? Retired Judge? Anyone?) to tell Ivanov what the GMs concern were and what would happen next, what would be required for him to play in the next tournament etc things would have gone more smoothly.

Instead they began smearing him and treating him like an enemy and animal. OF course people will say he was guilty. That is why we never assume guilt, it makes people go crazy, it makes you irrational and lose you sense of calm and good judgement, the basis of being human.

They handled it poorly.

Oh and I get smelly feet sometimes because I'm fundamentally opposed to socks.  But Maxim Dlugy wants to sniff my feet, he's welcome to do that. 

On another thread, I heard a chess.com poster claim over and over that if GM's say that chess is a draw with perfect play we should listen to them and take it as truth.  I don't believe that.  But listening to GM's tell you that this guy is not playing like a GM but playing like Houdini, you should absolutely listen to that.  I'm certain that GM's can know with very high accuracy if an individual game is played by a person or Houdini.  Since Ivanov has 20 or more very suspicious games which every GM I have heard believe are cheats, I think it is ludicrous to question all these fine chessplayers.  Ivanov is definitely a cheat. 

But why did they do this?  These people are professionals who play and lose all the time.  Every year there are rising talents that beat GMs on their way up, this is nothing new to these people.  What was so different about the Ivanov case?

I wasn't there, so I don't know how people around him handled it.  By the time I heard about it, it was already obvious he was a cheater and didn't care who knew and didn't care about taking prize money away from hard working people.

But in retrospect I have to say Ivanov was very lucky in how they handled it.  Not once was he beaten up in the parking lot before a round for example.  Or forcibly searched.  Everyone was very professional as this slime ball took their money.  They simply boycotted his tournaments and waited for FIDE to get their act together (which historically means you're in for a long wait).

Exactly.  I'm surprised he was never harmed after all that time.

Of course this is kind of how they caught him... his opponent brought his "chief of security" aka his large muscular friend and told the TD that he was going to preform a personal search lol.

Although maybe that's just my ignorance and is as silly as someone saying they're surprised a cheater at an American tournament didn't result in a gun fight breaking out

If everyone starts thinking like that then the terrorists win.

fair enough

you make it sound like the GMs just were still sore about losing and randomly decided to gang up on him.

i have to agree with the other posters here - these guys are pros, and i'm sure that they have a good intuition regarding computer cheating and these public accusations didn't come out lightly.

the main downsides i see about the way they handled it is a) he got "warned" that people were on to him before "officials" could catch him (so he could potentially change/tweak his methods) and b) he didn't get what he deserved (in any sense) :P

I think it's unfortunate you've chosen a chess forum to campaign for Ivanov's human rights lol :)

As for some evidence you could start here I guess.
http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/chess/fidelity/ACPcover-and-report.pdf

"By Dr. Kenneth Regan, a renowned statistics professor and International Master from the University of Buffalo who have [sic] studied extensively the correlation between computer and human moves in tournament games." (ChessBase)

". . . as my report says, I cannot imagine the statistical evidence in any case being stronger than for Zadar." -Regan

Zadar being a tournament where Ivanov was accused of cheating.

b) he didn't get what he deserved (in any sense)

That's what happens when you take matters in your own hands: extremes. You either get a lynching or a clean getaway because the perpatrator is able play them all.

If they had gotten an independent body and taken the due time and care to work through it, they would have gotten the right result and he would have gotten the appropriate punishment. But they were all twitching for instant results.

The GMs may be good at chess, but that does not necessarily equate to equal apptitude in all other aspects of life.

If things had been done properly, they it would have set a precedent on how to handle these matters. 

As it stands now it is all higgledy-piggledy, nothing is resolved. What do you do when this happens again?? Ask FIDE?

"you make it sound like the GMs just were still sore about losing and randomly decided to gang up on him."

You make it sound like GMs and chess players or people don't get sore. Have you read the forums :)

Anyway, calling someone a cheat is I would suppose is like a police officer calling another officer a dirty cop. You may have your suspicion, but you take it to someone who is independent, impartial, and knows how to handle the matter. 

p.s. how do you split the quotes?

Ivanov will make a nice sum of money selling his methods

lol I thought this is where the most sane and reasonable people are :)

Anyway I don't think he is not cheating. He has raised enough suspicion. I am not supporting his human rights. Just freaking out at the carelessness in general.

FIDE formed a committee to investigate and IIRC got some cheating rules on the books so they could handle things like this in the future.

This is also around the time when I stopped following the story so I don't know what become of that committee, what they accomplished, or if they're still around.

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To split quotes I click quote and then I also open a 2nd tab in my browser with the same URL.  In the 2nd tab I edit the quote to the part I want, then copy and paste it into the main tab where I write my response.

If I want many different quotes I go back to 2nd tab and use the "undo" command to make the whole quote reappear, edit it again, etc.

I'd say the biggest myth about chess is its players are brainy... good players are only garunteed to be good at chess... nothing more

Most actual chessplayers (I hope anyway) will be the first to admit skill in chess only means skill in chess and nothing else.  Just like a skilled swimmer, tennis player, musician, artist, etc.  They spend many hours perfecting their craft, but outside of their craft they're just a person.

That's a lot of effort and care in giving a reply. I guess I should be thanking LoveYouSoMuch.

Thanks for the info WM.

He got a lot of prize money.  If the chess community is going to roll over and take it from people like this someone will consider it.  Way too many people are saying you need a smoking gun but you are not allowed to look for it.  If moves can match houdini 100% I am sure I could come up with a way to do it. 

It's still funny to read some of the outraged comments from Chessbase readers, also after the latest developments :-)

"Until someone can prove beyond reasonable doubt that he is indeed cheating, we need to refrain from publicly slandering him. His grandmaster detractors can either choose to play him or avoid him"

"Are you guys serious? This article is kind of irresponsible. You proved nothing and acted as if you caught the guy red-handed. It is interesting that he won't take his shoes off, and you are free to speculate. But please don't act like you busted him. Also the concept that he can control chess software with his feet is laughable"

"How awful if he is just some innocent kid sick of being harrassed by paranoid grandmasters"

"I want real evidence, no statistics or Houdini bs, please! If you think it's in his shoes then go for them"

"I could only sigh in disappointment at ChessBase after reading this article. This is irresponsible journalism!"

etc etc

yah, while i don't agree with everything i agree with the tone.

the main problem: there is no such good "independent impartial body" as of now, and FIDE is too incompetent! maybe with the "new rule changes" they'll be able to do better next time (just maybe) :p

indeed

he's right, and i have to criticize the forum software here. it's somewhat hard to edit quotes properly, and not only there is no multiquote feature, but the forum actively makes it harder to quote multiple posts...