Chess Grandmaster Exposed As App-Using Cheat

from the there's-an-app-for-that dept

I love chess. As the original multi-player turn-based strategy game, chess serves as the backbone for many a modern era game, for which it has my respect. Despite this love I have for the game, I happen to be quite horrible at it, but that only makes me all the more reverent of those that master its wily machinations. Kasparov is a name I know solely because he was a grand champion, one of those faces of chess that spurred on so much intrigue as people wondered just how he was able to dominate his opponents so completely.

Gaioz Nigalidze was one of those folks, too, having attained the title of grandmaster, but now he isn't. He might actually be as good as advertised, but we can't trust that he is any longer because he was found to be using a iPhone to cheat his way through a match. The plot begins and ends, as all good plots do, in the toilet.

On Saturday, Nigalidze, the 25-year-old reigning Georgian champion, was competing in the 17th annual Dubai Open Chess Tournament when his opponent spotted something strange.

“Nigalidze would promptly reply to my moves and then literally run to the toilet,” Armenian grandmaster Tigran Petrosian said. “I noticed that he would always visit the same toilet partition, which was strange, since two other partitions weren’t occupied.”
Yes, the strange part was which toilet Nigalidze used, not the fact that his bladder decided to punctuate each move with a potty trip. As it turns out, Nigalidze had hidden an iPhone in one of the restrooms, wrapped in toilet paper because there ain't no stealth in chess, and had been running the game he was playing through an application that analyzed and suggested moves. In other words, he totally h4x0red that chess tournament, ya'll!

It turns out that being the Barry Bonds of chess isn't great for one's career and Nigalidze's past and future have both been placed in jeapordy.
Nigalidze was expelled from the tournament, which is still ongoing and features more than 70 grandmasters from 43 countries competing for a first-place prize of $12,000. The Georgian’s career is now under a microscope. His two national titles are under suspicion. And under recently tightened rules against cheating, he could be banned for up to 15 years.
This has reportedly sent the chess world into some kind of insane tailspin over concerns that, now that someone has proved that cheating in tournaments with a small device such as a phone is doable, who knows how many other of our revered grandmasters are big, steaming, salty cheat-burgers? The ancient game is now understood to be relatively easy to master with something as common as a smartphone, which means chess tournaments are about to get way more TSA-like with security, I guess.

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Filed Under: cheating, chess, gaioz nigalidze, grandmaster, phones, technology


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  1. identicon
    Michael, 16 Apr 2015 @ 9:51am

    chess tournaments are about to get way more TSA-like with security, I guess

    15 years for cheating, but you are free to sexually assault your partner?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    David, 16 Apr 2015 @ 9:59am

    Re:

    If you touch a piece, you have to move it.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    DannyB (profile), 16 Apr 2015 @ 10:14am

    Re:

    chess tournaments are about to get way more TSA-like with security, I guess

    There may be some difficulty in finding ex-TSA agents who want to grope chess masters?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Michael, 16 Apr 2015 @ 10:17am

    Re: Re:

    It is my understanding that two just submitted applications.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 16 Apr 2015 @ 10:21am

    BRB

    Off to develop an Apple Watch app.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Tim, 16 Apr 2015 @ 10:24am

    Petrosian?

    Wikipedia says Petrosian died in '84.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    DogBreath, 16 Apr 2015 @ 10:36am

    Re: Petrosian?

    I believe this is the Petrosian you are looking for.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Apr 2015 @ 10:39am

    From the Washington Post:

    Nigalidze’s expulsion is a nightmare scenario for chess: proof positive that technologically enabled cheating, rumored about for more than a decade, is now pervasive


    This one incident is proof positive that it is pervasive?

    "Pervasive" would be like steroids in baseball, where loads of top pros were taking them.

    Also, this isn't easy to get away with. If you're analyzing everything on your phone, you need to stop and enter all the moves into your phone after every move and see what it tells you to do. If you do what this guy did and run to the bathroom after every move, it's suspicious and getting caught is inevitable if you make this a pattern.

    If you only did this twice a game in critical positions, you'd have a much better chance of not getting caught, but that's going to result in a far smaller advantage.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Apr 2015 @ 10:42am

    So cant use a computer for chess yet its ok for a computer to trade...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Apr 2015 @ 10:46am

    Re:

    Its the difference between I have more skill than you and I have more money than you.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. icon
    Uriel-238 (profile), 16 Apr 2015 @ 10:51am

    Some day Deep Blue will be available as a phone app.

    But probably not this decade.

    That said, I can't see how a chess app of this decade would be particularly useful against high-ranking masters. Our home-computer chess guns are good but not that good.

    In the meantime, the current chess tournaments are about devising human error into the equation, hence rules like Once you pick up a piece, you have to move it. I think it'd be neat to see a game that allows for free-form consultations with all the software you want. Maybe even human lifelines. A different game, yes. But still one worthy of playing, just as open-dictionary Scrabble has its charm.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. icon
    t3rminus (profile), 16 Apr 2015 @ 10:54am

    What a boring way to cheat. He should have done it James bond style, (or Lock Stock style), with a little radio transmitter and piezo-electric device that can tap out patterns on your upper thigh, then have someone in the audience (or watching via binoculars, or via TV, or tiny camera), relaying a computer's move to you remotely.

    I could build a fully self-contained device that I could hide on my person for under $100, and have it connect via 3G. Cheaper than an iPhone, and you don't have to get up and go to the bathroom after every move.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. identicon
    AricTheRed, 16 Apr 2015 @ 11:04am

    Re:

    "I could build a fully self-contained device that I could hide on my person for under $100, and have it connect via 3G. Cheaper than an iPhone, and you don't have to get up and go to the bathroom after every move."

    ...and this is the diffeence between a Chess Gand Master and a Tech-Geek Grand Master.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. identicon
    Nick, 16 Apr 2015 @ 11:23am

    So how exactly did his opponant notice that "he would always visit the same toilet partition”?

    I mean, was he following him in the bathroom each time

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Apr 2015 @ 11:29am

    Re: Some day Deep Blue will be available as a phone app.

    Uhm... The best chess programs are virtually unbeatable by humans in chess. Even with severe handicaps on the computers ability, a grandmaster will have a hard time even drawing today.

    It has come so far that the best chess players use chess engines to guide their positional understanding in their training, but do not use them for actual play. Magnus Carlsen has said something in line with: "Playing against a computer is like playing against a retard. It constantly makes stupid moves, but always win.". Or in other words: Human players would never make some of the moves computers do, so training against a computer would not make you better in human tournaments generally. Computers simply play chess so much better than humans, that it isn't worth training against.

    As for free form cunsultation, it is a common way to play online in correspondence matches.

    No, chess is not solved yet for more than 7 pieces on the board, except for specific positions. But a chess engine playing on good hardware is getting closer to playing perfect.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  16. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Apr 2015 @ 11:29am

    Brings new meaning to stalling.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  17. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Apr 2015 @ 11:31am

    Re:

    In a tournament like situation, I would be suspicious after the second trip to the bathroom.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  18. identicon
    Ragnarredbeard, 16 Apr 2015 @ 11:47am

    Anyone else think the cheating part wasn't nearly as bad as

    “Nigalidze would promptly reply to my moves and then literally run to the toilet,” Armenian grandmaster Tigran Petrosian said. “I noticed that he would always visit the same toilet partition, which was strange, since two other partitions weren’t occupied.”

    Who makes note of which stall a guy uses in the can? Creeper . . .

    link to this | view in thread ]

  19. identicon
    Ven, 16 Apr 2015 @ 11:57am

    As the original multi-player turn-based strategy game, chess serves as the backbone for many a modern era game, for which it has my respect.


    This statement is a bit like saying that World of Warcarft is the original MMORPG. It ignores all the predecessors just because it's been the largest of its kind for so long that what came before feel like foot notes to its success.

    There are actually quite a few very interesting predecessors to chess that have some very interesting rules and strategies, but most lack the depth offered from chess due to a more limit set of pieces or moves.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  20. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Apr 2015 @ 12:17pm

    Re:

    Who makes note of which stall a guy uses in the can?


    A guy who notices that his opponent is running to the bathroom every move for the last several moves, possibly, especially when the opponent is moving instantly.

    And hey, it could be worse. He could have continued "... and whenever I peeked under the stall his pants were never down."

    link to this | view in thread ]

  21. icon
    LauraTee (profile), 16 Apr 2015 @ 12:48pm

    The guy should've stuck to chess; cheating is apparently not his forte.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  22. identicon
    Shmerl, 16 Apr 2015 @ 1:21pm

    Forget about phones. Soon they'll be conducting Voight-Kampff test on the participants ;)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  23. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Apr 2015 @ 3:38pm

    Re: Re:

    aside from 2 recently fired ones?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  24. icon
    MrTroy (profile), 16 Apr 2015 @ 6:54pm

    In other words, he totally h4x0red that chess tournament, ya'll!
    I can't believe you botched the yo to a ya'll!

    who knows how many other of our revered grandmasters are big, steaming, salty cheat-burgers?
    ... but at least you made it up with this.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  25. icon
    McCrea (profile), 16 Apr 2015 @ 8:03pm

    Old news / not news

    This isn't the first time, there was an incident similarly using bathroom phones what seems like over 2 years ago. IM, IM, and GM were allegedly involved during an international tournament from what I remember.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  26. icon
    Richard (profile), 17 Apr 2015 @ 4:18am

    Game

    link to this | view in thread ]

  27. icon
    Richard (profile), 17 Apr 2015 @ 4:19am

    Re: Game

    As the original multi-player turn-based strategy game,

    That would be Go not Chess.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  28. icon
    Uriel-238 (profile), 17 Apr 2015 @ 11:25am

    Western civilization was slow to warm up to Go.

    In fact, there's controversy in the east about Imperial Go players (as in the Empire of Japan) and post-imperial Go players. The former are more polite and find the latter inappropriately ruthless.

    Chess gets its big status from its use for good publicity during the Cold War, as a means for the US and USSR to try to humiliate each other outside of proxy wars.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  29. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Apr 2015 @ 6:08pm

    I like Chess but it sucks on the internet.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  30. identicon
    correction, 17 Apr 2015 @ 6:10pm

    Re:

    Any game played online sucks because of cheaters.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  31. icon
    John Fenderson (profile), 20 Apr 2015 @ 9:06am

    Re: Re:

    I don't mind the cheaters nearly as much as I mind the assholes.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  32. icon
    Uriel-238 (profile), 20 Apr 2015 @ 11:30am

    Was that a shot at Bobby Fischer?

    I suppose the Karpov v. Korchnoi in Baguio City, 1978 had more than its share of assholery... well, mischief.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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