Sad case of high school chess cheating

Little boy that made a mistake?

Pathetic.

A 16 year old knows exactly what he's doing when it comes to whether or not cheating is ok.

Cheating is repulsive.

Anyone who can hack a MonRoi has better and more profitable ways to use their talents than cheating in chess.  Moreover, even if you do hack an electronic scoresheet program successfully, you'll still have to interface with it far more than you would if you were just keeping score honestly, which is a dead giveaway.

Clark Smiley was suspended from participating in any USCF events for two years, through early September 2014.  I have serious doubts as to whether he'll play again, even after that ban expires.

Spoken like someone who has never been a TD/arbiter at a large tournament.  I've worked at quite a few of them, in multiple countries, including some of the largest Swisses ever.  I've dealt with a lot of potential cheating, a little of which proved out and most of which did not.  We're more observant than you seem to believe...which is how many overconfident cheaters get caught.  We also routinely share information about problematic or suspicious situations, and we pay extra attention to boards where top prizes are being contested in later rounds.

Electronic scoresheets are not the biggest problem - precisely because they are not the easiest way to cheat.  I worry much more about other devices, because it's harder to police them, and they're always getting smaller.  Some large events (like the World Open) have rules about players above a certain scoring percentage using headphones while they play or leaving the floor of the hotel where the tournament is taking place without permission.  

Players who need computer assistance aren't typically going to recognize those critical moments in a game when an engine will help them, and will resort to using the engine all the time - which will make them easier to catch, both during and after the game.  And players who don't need computer assistance for that purpose are strong enough that they don't need to cheat.

Oh...and there would most certainly be a need to interact with an engine more than an electronic scoresheet.  If you have to enter the moves to reach a given position, that's way more than the 2-3 taps required to record a move.  

And let's not forget the best way to catch cheats:  simple move-matching analysis.  This is how many computer cheats nowadays get caught.  No U1600 player (to use a recently raised example) is going to match Fritz's #1 move for an entire middlegame.  Move matching helped stamp both Varshavsky and Rosenberg as cheats at the 2006 World Open, and more players have been caught at large events since then.  

"Cheaters wont take the time to do that" is a silly dismissal.

And what are you talking about needing to interface more?  Just have it flash a to and from square of the top move at a certain time... for example immediately each time after you input a move.  Or have the top choice show up in the move list for a few seconds (without showing it on the board).  Things you'd have to look directly at to see.

And what's the point of having one anyway?  Skip this electronic score sheet crap and go directly to DGT boards that record automatically for those illiterate kids with rich parents who are too ADD to remember to write their moves... lol.

I find that it's easiest to write my move down before making it on the board. It helps me to visualize it.

Not okay!

Mustn't write your move before you have played it!!

Record it afterwards.

Wow! That was quite a lengthy piece on chess cheating on the Grantland website. 

I'm pretty sure it's perfectly acceptable to write your move first in the US.

FIDE should switch to our rules.

And encourage kids to cheat with electronic devices?

A rule could be made that you could only do it with score sheets.

The rule is different if you are using an electronic device.  If you are recording on paper, you can write your move before moving.  However, you must move before recording if you use a Monroi or other electronic recording device.  I played a kid with a Monroi, but didn't know the rule and allowed him to record before moving.  Someone told me later that I could have called the TD to get the kid disqualified.

There's so much idiocy in this that it isn't even worth responding to...but I've got time on my hands this evening, so why not?

There's a reason (to reference one of your other equally dumb posts) that casino security is different from chess tournament security.  Here's a hint:  there's a LOT more money involved.

Even in a class section of the World Open, you can win (at most) $10,000 or so - if you're first place clear.  And it's under $10K in the lower classes.  And once you win that class, you can't ever play it again, thanks to USCF money floors plus CCA minimum ratings.

So, after several years of progressively more difficult competition, assuming you can make it past move-matching detection every single year (and you'd be on the radar after winning one such section, let alone 2-3 in a row), you might someday make the cost of your implant surgery back, after the IRS gets its cut of your winnings.  

Maybe.  

If you get a back-alley doctor to perform the implant procedure.

You can predict what's coming to a main event all you like.  Since you don't know much about them, I suppose you're as valuable an expert on major chess tournaments as I am on casino security.

"Cheaters won't take the time to do that" is a silly strawman, since that isn't what I said.

If it's as easy to do as you claim, go ahead.  Crack open an electronic scoresheet device, reprogram it as you describe, then use it...to win a few hundred dollars here and there.  

Or, go make a high five or low six figures writing code for a living.

There's a complicated cost-benefit analysis.  

From firebrandx (quote feature not working);

"Like Waffle said, the progam can be coded to just analyze each move as you enter, then flash a coded signal like a series of dots that only the operator knows to look for and decipher in their head.

Also, did Ivanov have a better and more profitable way to use his talents than cheating in chess? Think about it."

Again, find someone who can do that for whom the time, effort and reward are worth it.  Just one person will do.

As for Ivanov, you need to catch up to the conversation on him.  He's long since been found out.  Also, you have to wonder just how many millions of Euros he cleared with his brilliant scheme (since he can barely even play anywhere, and gets searched in every event that will still accept him, even in his home country).  

BTW, note that a player of even Ivanov's strength (his 2200+ ELO appears legit based on his previous results and games) isn't strong enough to use a computer effectively at the top level.  He uses it too much, and it's easier to catch him that way.

Maxim Dlugy has commented extensively on this at ChessBase.  You and the rest of the paranoids here should read it. :-)  Basically, he says that the real danger to GMs in OTB events is a legit 2600 type using computer help - because he'd only need it a few times a game.   This has been the consensus for some time now.  A lot of people worry about lower-level cheating in large events.  It would be very difficult for someone under 2200 to use an engine for most of a nine-round event and not get caught, especially if he's under suspicion.  And nowadays, at large events, anyone with an 80% score after a few rounds is already well under suspicion.

Does all this mean that cheating can't happen?  Of course not.  What I'm saying is that (1) you can't stop someone from *trying* to cheat, (2) it's not really worth it in most cases to cheat at chess, and (3) in the events where it is worth it, TDs watch for it.  But, short of having off-duty police at the door to a major event, checking people for electronic devices, you can only do so much.  (The US Championships have, in fact, had St. Louis police officers checking spectators entering the playing hall and players for the last few years.  But that's only <40 players.)  

Electronic scoresheets just aren't the biggest cheating threat.  Players with hidden electronic devices are a far bigger risk (which is the category that Ivanov, Allwermann, etc. fall into).

Yeah

I beat him when he was like a 900

Wow.

So, in the end, did they ban this delinquent or is he still around cheating, maybe in states where nobody knows him?

Good question.