Top French Chess Players Suspended For Cheating

cf18 writes "The French chess federation has suspended three top players for violating sporting ethics at a chess olympiad in Siberia last September. The allegation claims while the first member was playing, a second member would watch the game via internet, use software to find the best move, and send it to the third member via SMS. The third member would then sit himself at a particular table in the competition hall. Each table represented an agreed square on the chess board."

Comments

Hand gestures

[denshao2]

Would have been much easier and less obvious than changing seats for every move.

Re:Hand gestures

[IorDMUX]

Warning! Parent is worse than a Goatse Troll!

It's a Rebecca Black Troll!

Re:Hand gestures

[SmilingBoy]

They were even dumber. The Independent wrote:

The alleged manipulations came to light because Mr Marzolo did not have a mobile telephone of his own. As a result of financial problems he had been barred by all mobile companies. His telephone had been loaned to him by another senior player for whom he once worked, Joanna Pomian, the vice president of the federation.

During the championship, she accidentally discovered a message from Mr Hauchard in Russia which read: "Hurry up and send the moves." She checked the records of the line and found Mr Marzolo had sent 180 messages to the other accused men during the competition. Most consisted of telephone numbers.

Re:naughty naughty

[vux984]

You've obviously never played MMORPG. :)

People will PAY EXTRA to cheat depriving themselves of any glory in accomplishment... for the empty bragging rights that come with having something you didn't earn, and which has no inherent real world value.

But they still do it in droves.

Re:PATHETIC.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, parkour is just a fancy form of running away.

Top chess players are douchebags

[DNS-and-BIND]

I enjoy a good game of chess myself, on occasion. However, at the top level, chess is populated almost entirely by gigantic douchebags. I'm not surprised cheating went on. Look at some of Bobby Fischer's early matches. And hey, Kasparov isn't above cheating, either. His opponent didn't say anything because she knew he'd use his reputation to destroy her and anything she said.

"An interesting example of taking back moves at the highest level of OTB chess occurred recently at the elite 1994 Linares super tournament. It's claimed that there is video tape showing that PCA World Champion Garry Kasparov, while playing Judit Polgar, moved a knight to a square which would have cost him the exchange. Apparently, even though he had released the piece, he picked it up again and moved it to another square and went on to win the game." Link to more.

Bobby Fischer, the greatest American player ever, idolized Hitler and hated Jewish people, and cheered 9/11 on his radio show. Sample quote: "This is a wonderful day. Fuck the United States. Cry, you crybabies! Whine, you bastards! Now your time is coming." Don't think he was alone in the chess world, either, he had a lot of friends: as Gudmundur G. ThÃrarinsson, the man who arranged the famous "Cold War" match against Spassky in Iceland, said at Fischer's funeral, "In the fullness of time, history will judge the United States harshly for its treatment of Robert James Fischer."

I leave with this piece about chess, written in the 1500s.
"Chess is certainly a pleasing and ingenious amusement, but it seems to have one defect, which is that it is possible to have too much knowledge of it, so that whoever would excel in the game must give a great deal of time to it, as I believe, and as much study as if he would learn some noble science or perform well anything of importance; and yet in the end, for all his pains, he only knows how to play a game. Thus, I think a very unusual thing happens in this, namely that mediocrity is more to be praised than excellence."