FM Borislav Ivanov Disqualified

I'm a statistician who has worked forensic projects, as well as a former TD, and it might be that I look at this differently. Did he have opportunity? How did he cheat while being observed by numerous interested parties? Explaining away patzer-like interludes is trivial. I'm fascinated by this whole thing. If I were TD'ing, I wouldn't dream of denying him entry ... but I'd have people watching him in and out of the hall non-stop.

the best way to settle this is to ask borislav ivanov to set up the starting position without looking at Rybka.

mom i lost my VIDEOGAME BUY ME A NEW ONE NOW!

BrianInErie and steve_bute,

You both don't get the point.

I'm not saying that we should accuse players of cheating when they play too well, I'm saying that we should accuse players of cheating when they play with illogical performances (1900-2600-1900-2600) during a short period of time. Either you are a 1900 player, or you are a 2600. You can't be both a Grandmaster and an Intermediate player at the same time.

And statistics are very accurate, because there have been lots of games analyzed. In other words, the "population" of the chess games of Borislav is huge enough to confidently call him a cheater. 

How is that telling?

Considering the fact that a master defending him could almost be considered a conflict of interest.

I'm not saying he isn't cheating, me(and most other players who "defend" him) are more concerned with the fact that thereis no 100% proof that he is cheating. 

He could have a split personality for all we know, one plays chess at 1900 level, the other is a super smart entity that is capable of copying houdinis play after a short training period. Is it likely? No. Is it possible? Maybe.

If he is cheating, then catching him in the act will give a 100% certainty that he was, basing the ban on statistics is not 100% safe.

based on the laws of probability one can say with confidence he is cheating.

Nope. That's all fantasy.

And he would not have mentioned it despite the artillery fire shooted at him.

And it would be the first documented case of such a split personnality displaying extremely different intellectual abilities (the difference cannot come from chess training, both "persons" underwent the same).

And one of the two personalities would coincidentally be the most computer-matching person in the history of chess.

You really want me to put a percentage of how probable I guess that to be ?

This is a large enough population:

Every move is a sample, so we should have more than 200 samples.

He would probably not be banned then. Most likely he would be taken to a scientific laboratory, where he would be thoroughly researched as an extraordinary specimen of our species.

 Well, the funny part, is (If I remember correctly) that he became a master after Zadar. 

Seems sound. Many moves are analyzed and compared to a large benchmark of games.

tiger: There is a first for everything.

I'm not saying its likely, I'm just saying that I don't like the fact that he got banned on the basis of a statistic that is only 99.9999999% conclusive when there is a way to determine it with 100% certainty(catching him).

Here in the United States in criminal cases, we have to find that a person is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  That is what you are saying; he is guilty beyond a resonable doubt.  However, we lock up innocent people contiuously; we even execute them.  That is what those doubting his guilt are saying.  He may be the rare innocent being judged guilty.

But it wouldn't be 100% There's always the possibility that space aliens used their technology to make it appear that he was using devices.

Why bother contemplating scenarios? Everything is possible so just give up on proving anyone guilty of anything.

EDIT : damn, goldendog wrote the same post just before me.

Well, there is a 10^-100 probability that my atoms dissolve into a blop under the laws of quantum physics at some point of my life too. That would be extremely unpleasant, I guess.

But I am not extremely worried.

Suppose there is a "probabilitymeter" that says when interrogated about Ivanov "there is a X% chance he is cheating". Assume furthermore that we are sure the machine is flawless, and this is the only indication we have (as catching him is impossible, they tried). At what number "X" do you accept that he should be banned ?

If I read you well, your answer is "not under X=100". Well, I do not agree. I am open to discussion about what "X" should be used, but it is certainly between 50 and 99.999999999.

Can't catch him. The Bulgarian law protects him. You need an official warrant to search him and he would certainly be aware of the existence of such a warrant, thus, he would hide whatever he is cheating with.

Anyway, I´m a bit dissapointed that he didn´t try to qualify to the world cup ... 

There would be good security measures and a lot of cameras, maybe we could discover the technique, so we can avoid it in the future.

The other 0.00000...001% chance you're talking about is so small, that the possibility of it happening again in the lifetime of the Earth is still unthinkably small.

You want 100% certainty? People have been sentenced for crimes that no-one is 100% sure they did, only 99.9999% or so. In comparison a 4 month ban on chess for something that is far less likely to be untrue seems reasonable.

A lot of you are trying to isolate one piece of evidece and attack that saying well maybe that 0.00000000001% probability came about in this case.  Fine, maybe.  But then you have to consider:

1) His play mysteriously deteriorates not only when his other personality takes over, but when the moves of his games are no longer being broadcast to spectators--especially when this changes mid-game.

2) His choices of strong moves are not consistent with a human trying to win games, they are consistent with a computer trying to maximize evaluation points.  As Lilov's videos point out, there are numerous times when obvious simplification would ensure a win with no risk, and he chooses a route that is complicated and if not calculated very precisely, would result in forfeiting the advantage.  This is totally contrary to human nature and very consistent with computer play.

(etc.)