Borislav Ivanov strikes again!

But the fact is he did get away with it. It has not been proven 100% that he cheated. If all you are interested in is the money then bad press, scorn, and ridicule is not something that will stop you from doing it.

Never said there wasn't. I am implying that you will always have cheaters and people will pay Ivanov for his methods

FWIW - Here's how I would do this.  I would build a bespoke device that ran Houdini.  This would probably start by just tearing the guts out of some phone and installing it in my shoe.  I'd design the shoe so that there was a rigid platform on top of the device so that I had no chance of crushing the device.  I'd communicate moves to the device by clicking my feet together.  A magnet in my shoe without the device would make this work fine.  I'd do that by clicking my toes makes a 0 and clicking my heel makes a 1.  Some really commonplace nervous foot moving transmits the moves to the machine.  My device would transmit moves back to me after 20 seconds or so by sending little electric shocks to my toes.  Maybe I would have a lead just attached to my big toe and do something like Morse code where each square has a code. For 64 squares I need 6 bits x2 for this for every move.  I bet in an hour of practicing I could figure iout what the machine was saying to me.  I'd make the computer repeat the move after 30 seconds and then again 30 seconds after that so I was sure I got the move.

I'm confident I could build such a cheating machine and protocol in a few days.  People who think this is difficult are simply not very competent at making stuff. 

@chiaroscuro62
The problem isn't so much how one would build the device... as GM Maxim said, the problem is how would you use it. Using Houdini's first choice every time may be a little silly for someone just rated 2000. But if you gradually use more and more of Houdini you could masquerade a meteorical rise up to 3000 rating.

I think that a fairly unsophisticated approach like choosing randomly among the moves that are within 0.7 pawns of best (and maybe put some distribution on that) would work. 

Really? Try it first.

This is that usual slippery internet "I'm really dumb but thought I would disagree anyway".  Do you have anything substantive to say on this? 

If you are rated 2000 then don't use Houdini instead use a less stronger engine so that you won't catch attention. Now when you have significantly improved your rating over time then you can use Houdini at this point you have created a slow but upward trend in your chess ability or shall we say engine ability.

That could possibly work. The problem that arises is ones rating being increased too fast. If someone as been at 2000 for an extended period of time it is unlikely that person will reach 2400 and so on. Look at your natural chess players, they increase rating quickly and then taper off. Plus, with everyone having access to chess programs it will be easy to say' "Hey, this players moves match "whichever" engine." 

The main problem for cheaters like Ivanov is that they just are too bad at chess. You can't pretend you're a good chess player when you're just a bad one, because you have to rely too much on the computer.

As Dlugy pointed out correctly, the real danger is when someone IM/GM strength uses an engine sporadically to enhance his abilities. But under this level, I think you'll always be caught one way or another...

I think it will be very difficult to use an engine "sporadically" without resorting to bathroom breaks to set up the position. The position on the board won't magically appear on your phone. 

I suppose at some point it will be possible to take a picture of the board and have an engine analyse the position from that picture, but even then, it should be relatively easy to catch such a cheat.

I realise that cheating is going to get more sophisticated, but the sky hasn't fallen just yet. 

@Smyslov_Fan - the concern is that strong players would keep the engine up to date but only get its output when they needed serious help.

I just can't imagine the negative impact on Chess if someone rated highly will be caught cheating. Nonetheless this is going to be a serious problem with  gadgets getting smaller and smaller and powerful at the same time. With peoples moral compass virtually obsolete Chess tournaments will be threatened not to mention that it will add to the difficulty of getting sponsors.

This can all be avoided by making searches mandatory to partcipate in a tournament. I mean that should stop electronic cheating

Do you believe in the smelly socks?

He got to FM after Zadar, so he is not even a real FM.

Exactly he may had used a less stronger engine to reach FM, then switched to Houdini to reach GM. It might explain why he has to follow Houdini's move  all the way, hence identical moves with Houdini, because he can't figure it out on his own. If that is the case then a simple interview after each victory wherein he will explain his moves will definitely expose him.

Multiple people have made that suggestion already

Went to a tourney one time where, for show, the TD was going to offer something like $10 to this IM if he could solve a tactic puzzle in less than a few minutes.  It was advertised that a few class A players had had taken 10-15 minutes to solve it.  When he'd gathered a small crowed he set it up on a board and in less than a minute the IM tapped the square that was the first move.  After another 10-20 seconds of calculation he made the moves and collected his money.

It was all for fun, and wouldn't be an ideal way to prove anything with people like Ivanov. But if it's true he was using a weaker program before, it would be a lot of fun to see him not be able to solve a simple puzzle after playing a "brilliant" tactical game against a 2600 opponent.

What!? "Abs" Max not cool?