Examples of Soviet cheating in FIDE competition: Petrosian-Korchnoi match, 1971

Most of the mass in the Solar System is located in the Sun!  Lesser masses orbit as planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, comets, moons, and artificial satellites.

How is that for an "astronomical" answer.

#353 - Sounds a bit overdosed on Opium...

LOLZ

The first instance of cheating that Bobby Fischer encountered would appear to have occurred within the U.S. Chess establishment.

This probably was influential in his later attitudes:

http://youtu.be/mLrGObRPA3k

Korchnoi was treated horribly by the Soviet state.

Coincidentally, Korchnoi was disliked by just about everyone he ever faced. Korchnoi berated almost everyone he played. His best games collections are full of insults! That doesn't excuse the Soviet Union, but it does help to explain why individual players didn't like him. 

"Korchnoi was disliked by just about everyone he ever faced. Korchnoi berated almost everyone he played. His best games collections are full of insults! That doesn't excuse the Soviet Union, but it does help to explain why individual players didn't like him"

Yes, Korchnoi really is one of a kind! :-) Numerous top players have been told by him that they never will be able to learn to play chess, Caruana being one of the more recent of them. Comments like "How talentless, how talentless!" and "You are the DUMBEST chess player I have ever seen!" said to opponents after games have been standard for a long time. When Tal wrote about what a sympathetic person Keres had been, he closed the subject with "not even Korchnoi had anything bad to say about him!"

Pa, the proof is in the references. Take a look at the books, interviews and documents that have been mentioned, then see whether you agree or disagree with the assertions that have been made here.

I do agree that an interview is not "proof". It's evidence. Arguments are built on evidence.

Personally I find that most of Jamie's claims are not fully supported by enough evidence. Quite a bit of the evidence is hearsay. But I recognize that Jamie does present evidence and some of the players did believe that cheating had occurred. In the specific case of the Korchnoi-Petrosian match, I don't see enough evidence.

I turned my tracking off in 3 places I hope that works. 

The purpose of the this topic, and related topics that I have posted, is to make available for discusssion and debate, information and allegations that have remained long hidden, often shrouded in secrecy and obscured by intentional disinformation and propaganda.

Chess was an extention of the Marxist-Communist state in the old USSR.  It was (and to some extent remains) a symbol of the superior Socialist paradigm.

There are enough ex-Soviets now who feel free to add their stories to the saga.

In fact none of this is, in the final analysis, about the individuals - Korchoi, Petrosian or any of those living under the Soviet regime at the time - cheating.  It is about those individuals being forced to do what they most likely wouldn't ordinarily do, by a corrupt and brutal authoritarian Communist regime.  Its really about the wholesale cheating of an entire country and people by an illegitimate government which had no qualms about depriving its citizens of livelihoods, home, family, freedom and even their lives if they did not submit to the dictates imposed upon them by the state.  Individual goals were subordinated to the goals of the state, and the self-serving oligarchs who ran it (and still do).

The promotion of, and teaching chess is not really the issue here. In this topic, and similar topics I have created, shows that Soviet authorities used chess for propaganda purposes, manipulated their strongest players, and arranged results to further Soviet chess through unethical means.